The Field of Blood
Page 53
41. Lowell Daily Citizen and News, January 25, 1865; New Orleans Times, February 3, 1865; Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1865; Christian Advocate and Journal, February 2, 1865.
42. Grinnell, Men and Events, 163; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 17, 1872; Daily Iowa State Register, September 28, 1867. Grinnell discusses the incident in his memoir to counteract the “hasty public judgment that I should have fought my assailant, and, without his apology, taken the life of a criminal.” On the new, more martial ideals of Northern manhood that emerged from the war, see also Arnold, “Virgin Soil of Kansas,” 246.
43. See esp. George C. Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007; orig. ed. 1984); Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture, 270–95.
44. Simpson, Good Southerner, 287–93. Wise’s two eldest surviving sons became Republican congressmen; his oldest son died under Wise’s command during the war. In 1870, Wise was attacked in the press for his role in the Cilley-Graves duel; he thought it was an attempt to strike at Grant, whom he supported. Wise to unknown correspondent, January 27, 1870, Henry A. Wise Papers, UNC.
45. French, diary entry, March 9, 1862, Witness, 390. The song—“The Patriotic Diggers” by Samuel Woodworth—was about digging trenches for protection against the British. Gerry Silverman, New York Sings: 400 Years of the Empire State in Song (New York: Excelsior Editions, 2009), 38–39. The reference to the Revolution was “Recollect our dads gave you once a basting.”
46. French, diary entry, July 17, 1863, Witness, 427; Wallner, Martyr, 350–51; Nichols, Pierce, 522–23.
47. French, diary entry, March 20, 1864, Witness, 447.
48. Ibid, September 25, 1864, and July 10, 1863, 457, 427.
49. Ibid., April 6, 1865, 469.
50. Ibid., April 17, 1865, 474.
51. Cresson, Journey into Fame, 108. Cresson, Daniel’s daughter, was a noted sculptor like her father.
52. French to George McLaughlin, December 5, 1863, in History of the Great Western Sanitary Fair (Cincinnati: C. F. Vent, 1864), 165–66. McLaughlin had asked French to write a poem for the fair; French declined but sent along the original draft of his Gettysburg hymn and described its composition.
53. French, diary entry, November 22, 1863, BBFFP; French, “Hymn Composed at Gettysburg for the Consecration, Nov. 19, 1863,” BBFFP.
54. French to Francis O. French, April 24, 1865, BBFFP; Affidavit of Robert Strong, March 20, 1876, in Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, ed. Dorothy Lamon Teillard (Washington: Published by editor, 1911), 272–73.
55. French, diary entry, June 17, 1869, Witness, 596.
56. Cresson, Journey into Fame, 19.
57. On the details, see Stahr, Seward, 435–38.
58. French, diary entries, April 15, 1865, and April 15, 1866, 469–71, Witness, 507. Sometime that day, French loaded his revolver; ibid., July 5, 1865, 482. See also his account of that day in “Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Statue of Abraham Lincoln, Erected in Front of the City Hall, Washington, D.C.” (Washington: McGill & Witherow, 1868), 12–15. In the speech, he says that he couldn’t “leave the inanimate form of him of whom I had seen so much, and whom I loved so well in life.” Ibid., 10.
59. French to Francis O. French, April 24, 1865, BBFFP.
60. Ibid.
61. French, diary entry, November 23, 1866, and February 6, 1867, Witness, 525, 528.
62. Ibid., February 6, 1867, 528.
63. Ibid., July 17, 1866, and May 26, 1867, 511, 539.
64. Ibid., February 21, 1866, Witness, 502–503; French to Andrew Johnson, February 8, 1866, The Papers of Andrew Johnson: February–July 1866, ed. Paul H. Bergeron, vol. 10 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992), 57–58.
65. Globe, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 23, 1867, 1523–26. French wrote the poem in April 1861. For the poem in broadside form, see repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:282409/, accessed June 4, 2015.
66. Act of March 2, 1867, Section 2 (14 Stats., p. 466).
67. French, diary entry, February 24, 1867, 531. See also ibid., February 6, March 3 and 11, 1867, 528, 533.
68. Ibid., May 12, 1867, 539. See also ibid., December 8, 1867, 549. On the elimination of the commissioner, see William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2001), 342–43.
69. French, diary entry, March 8, 1868, Witness, 560.
70. Emphasis in original; even now, however, French considered having the poem published in future. Ibid., January 31, 1868, 553. He wrote it in August 1867.
71. Ibid., April 2, July 10, and August 2, 1867, 535, 539, 543.
72. French had filled the position from 1847 to 1853. Ibid., November 10, 1867, 548.
73. Ibid., February 10, 1868, 556. See also ibid., June 6, 1869, 594–95.
74. Ibid., November 8, 1868, 584.
75. Ibid., August 15, 1868, 576–77.
76. Ibid., August 26, 1868, and October 10, 1869, 580, 604.
77. Ibid., November 13, 1869, 605–606.
78. Ibid., July 31, 1870, 622.
79. Frank O. French, diary entry, ca. August 14, 1870; F. O. French to Ellen French, August 12, 1870, BBFFP.
80. French, diary entry, August 8, 1870, Witness, 622–23. Emphasis in original.
81. Sarita Brady to Anne Ransford French, August 15, 1870, typescript, BBFFP.
82. Evening Star, August 12, 1870; National Intelligencer, August 15, 1870; Baltimore Sun, August 15, 1870; Daily National Intelligencer, March 28, 1851.
83. Sarita Brady to Anne Ransford French, August 15, 1870, typescript, BBFFP.
84. National Republican, August 24, 1870 (based on typescript in BBFFP). On Lodges of Sorrow, see “Lodges of Sorrow,” Masonic Monthly 2 (November 1864): 379–80.
85. NYT, August 14, 1870.
86. Clipping from The Home Journal, November 23, 1861, BBFFP.
87. French, “Reminiscences of Washington: The Old Capitol,” Washington Sunday Herald and Weekly National Intelligencer, March 13, 1870, in Curtis Carroll Davis, “The ‘Old Capitol’ and Its Keeper: How William P. Wood Ran a Civil War Prison,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 52 (1989): 206–34, quote on 206.
88. National Freemason 1 (October 1863): 68–69. French’s opening paragraphs describe his intention to describe what he witnessed. He began his memoir of sorts on May 5, 1856; between 1863 and 1865, the National Freemason published it serially under the title “Congressional Reminiscences.” It doesn’t seem to extend past French’s first five years in Washington. Ibid., 1 (June 1863); 2 (July 1863); 4 (September 1863); 5 (October 1863); 6 (November 1863); 7 (December 1863); 1 (June 1864); 2 (July 1864); 5 (October 1864); 6 (November 1864); 8 (February 1865); 11 (April 1865).
89. French, “Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Statue of Abraham Lincoln, Erected in Front of the City Hall, Washington, D.C.” (Washington: McGill & Witherow, 1868), 14.
90. The recent burst of scholarship on the decline of congressional civility since the 1980s generally argues: Congress is us. Loomis, Esteemed Colleagues; Uslaner, Decline of Comity; Juliet Eilperin, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Ahuja, Congress Behaving Badly; Mann and Ornstein, The Broken Branch.
91. French, “A Vision,” June 13, 1869, BBFFP. The poem appeared in the Civil Service Journal under the datelin
e July 31, 1869.
APPENDIX B
1. John Fairfield to Ann Fairfield, January 29, 1836, John Fairfield Papers, LC.
2. Henry A. Wise to Henry A. Wise, December 10, 1856, Wise Family Papers, LC; T. C. Day to John Bigelow, November 25, 1856, John Bigelow Papers, NYPL. See also ibid., December 1, 1856, and a “Quite confidential” memo—allegedly from Jessie B. Fremont—detailing a conversation between F. P. Blair and her father, Thomas Hart Benton. John Bigelow Papers, NYPL.
3. On Potter’s attempt to refute newspaper stories about the kicking, see Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., February 26, 1858, 889–90; Chicago Daily Tribune, March 6 and 8, 1858; Sandusky Register, March 12, 1858.
4. For an invaluable discussion of these histories, see Woods, Emotional and Sectional Conflict, 4–7; Ayers, What Caused the Civil War?, 131–44.
5. See “Note on Method,” Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 289–93.
6. Particularly helpful in understanding the historical context of emotions is Strange, Cribb, and Forth, Honour, Violence and Emotions in History, 1–22. For a fascinating consideration of the role of strong emotions in politics, see Martha C. Nussbaum’s Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013); and Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Nussbaum emphasizes the importance of forgiveness and civility over anger; The Field of Blood is a story of anger leading to justice.
7. Ayers, The Thin Light of Freedom, xxi.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Please note that some of the links referenced throughout this work may no longer be active.
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
BOWDOIN COLLEGE
Jonathan Cilley Biographical File
William Pitt Fessenden Papers
DUKE UNIVERSITY
Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., Papers
Laurence Massillon Keitt Papers
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Nathaniel Banks Papers
John Bell Papers
Blair Family Papers
Breckenridge Family Papers
Anson Burlingame and Family Papers
Simon Cameron Papers
John Jordan Crittenden Papers
Edward Everett Papers
John Fairfield Papers
Benjamin Brown French Family Papers
James Henry Hammond Papers
Frederick W. Lander Papers
Lee-Palfrey Family Papers
Louise McLane Papers
Amasa Junius Parker Papers
Franklin Pierce Papers
Thomas Ritchie Papers
William Cabell Rives Papers
Samuel Lewis Southard Papers
Charles Sumner Collection
Charles Sumner Papers
Robert Augustus Toombs Papers
Nicholas Trist Papers
Lyman Trumbull Papers
Benjamin Franklin Wade Papers
Henry Wilson Papers
Wise Family Papers
MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
F.O.J. Smith Papers
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
William Schouler Papers
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
24th Cong., 2nd Sess. H. Rpt. No. 24A-D24.1, “R. M. Whitney.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Benjamin Brown French to Henry Flagg French Correspondence
John Parker Hale Papers
Isaac Hill Papers
Tristram Shaw Papers
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
James Gordon Bennett Papers
Bigelow Family Papers
John Bigelow Papers
James A. Hamilton Papers
George Jones Papers
Henry J. Raymond Papers
F.O.J. Smith Papers
OFFICE OF THE CURATOR OF THE U.S. SENATE
Isaac Bassett Papers
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Robert L. Caruthers Papers
Fisher Family Papers
Daniel R. Goodloe Papers
William Porcher Miles Papers
David Outlaw Papers
Robert Barnwell Rhett Papers
Nicholas P. Trist Papers
Henry A. Wise Papers
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Lawrence O’Bryan Branch Papers
Hunter-Garnett Family Papers
YALE UNIVERSITY
James Watson Webb Papers
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
Annals of Congress
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–Present (Washington, D.C.: GPO), bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp
Congressional Globe
Hinds’ Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1907).
House Journal
National Intelligencer
Register of Debates
Roster of Congressional Officeholders and Biographical Characteristics (ICPSR 7803)
Senate Executive Journal
Senate Journal
22nd Cong. 1st Sess., H. Doc. No. 269, “Abstract of the Returns of the Fifth Census” (Washington: Duff Green, 1832).
24th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 156, “Memorial of Reuben M. Whitney.”
24th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 24A-D24.1, “R. M. Whitney.”
25th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 825, April 21, 1838, “Death of Mr. Cilley—Duel.”
28th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Rpt. No. 470, May 6, 1844, “Rencounter Between Messrs. White and Rathbun.”
31st Cong., 1st Sess., S. Rpt. No. 170, July 30, 1850, “Thomas H. Benton of Missouri and Henry S. Foote of Mississippi.”
34th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 H. Rpt. No. 182, 1856, “Alleged Assault upon Charles Sumner.”
34th Cong., 3rd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 29, December 19, 1856, “John L. Wirt.”
36th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 104, March 2, 1861, “Kansas Claims.”
38th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 10, February 7, 1865, “Assault upon Hon. William D. Kelley.”
39th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Rpt. No. 90, July 2, 1866, “Breach of Privilege.”
40th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Rpt. No. 65, June 20, 1868, “Ventilation of the Hall of the House of Representatives.”
108th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Doc. No. 108-240, January 18, 2008, Glenn Brown’s History of the United States Capitol.
PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES
“The Campaigns of a ‘Conqueror’; or, ‘The Man ‘Who Bragged High for a Fight.’” [undated broadside].
“Circular from the Executive Committee of the Democratic Association of Washington City,” September 1844.
“Death of Cilley,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review 4 (November–December 1840): 196–200.
The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/how.
Festival of the Sons of New Hampshire … Celebrated in Boston, November 7, 1849. Boston: James French, 1850.
“Manhood Suffrage and the Ballot in America,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 101 (April 1867): 461–78.
Memoirs and Services of Three Generations. Rockland, Maine, reprint from Courier-Gazette, 1909.
“The National Metropolis,” De Bow’s Review 1 (April 1859).
“A Peep at Washington,” The Knickerbocker; or New York Monthly Magazine, June 1834.
Permanent Documents of the American Temperance Society, 2 vols. Boston: Seth Bliss, 1835.
“Proceedings of the Annual Town Meeting in Concord, March 12, 13, 14, 15, 1844.”
“Proceedings at the Banquet of the Jackson Democratic Association, Washington, Eighth of January, 1852.” Washington, D.C., 1852.
“Proceedings of the Congressional Total Abstinence Society.” New York: Office of the American Temperance Union, 1842.
Proceedings of the First Thre
e Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860, and 1864, Including Proceedings of the Antecedent National Convention Held at Pittsburg, in February, 1856, as Reported by Horace Greeley. Minneapolis: Charles W. Johnson, 1893.
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June Meeting, 1898. Boston, 1899.
Proceedings of the Regular Conclave of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar of the State of Michigan, Held at Detroit Michigan, June 4, A.D. 1861, A. O. 743. Detroit: H. Barns & Co., 1861.
“Scenic and Characteristic Outlines of Congress, I,” National Magazine and Republican Review 1 (January 1839).
“The Sumner Outrage. A Full Report of the Speeches at the Meeting of Citizens in Cambridge, June 2, 1856.” Cambridge: John Ford, Printer, 1856.
“Washington City Forty Years Ago.” In Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta Written by Her Friends. New York: J. Selwin Tait & Sons, 1893.
The Works of Charles Sumner, 12 vols. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870–83.
Zachariah Chandler: An Outline Sketch of His Life and Public Services. Detroit: Post and Tribune Co., 1880.
Adams, Charles Francis. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Compromising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, 12 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874–77.
Adams, John Quincy. “Address of John Quincy Adams to Constituents.” Boston: J. H. Eastburn, 1842.
Anderson, Eve, ed. A Breach of Privilege: Cilley Family Letters, 1820–1867. Spruce Head, Maine: Seven Coin Press, 2002.
Baber, George. “Personal Recollections of Senator H. S. Foote,” Overland Monthly 26 (July–December 1895), 162–71.