The Bonfire

by Marc Wortman

  30 Most men came from nearby towns: On the Georgia militia’s role in the war, see Gordon Burns Smith, History of the Georgia Militia, 1783-1861 (Milledgeville, GA: Boyd Publishing, 2000), 198, 213-15; Helen Eliza Terrill, History of Stewart County (Columbus, GA: Columbus Office Supply Co., 1958), 43-63; on the major events of the war, including several contemporary letters from participating officers, see Terrill, History, 55-63. See also William Warren Rogers, Ante-Bellum Thomas County 1825-1861 (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1963), 35-38, for discussion of a county that also saw heavy fighting.

  30 In addition, 4,300 Alabamans joined the effort: “Hon. Charles Murphey Candler’s Historical Address to the DeKalb County Centennial Celebration at Decatur, Georgia, on November 9, 1922.” For the Second Creek War’s troop levels, see Motte, Journey into Wilderness, 254n1.

  31 “It seemed as if every ragamuffin of Georgia”: Motte, Journey into Wilderness, 3.

  31 both Calhoun brothers’ companies mustered into the army in Columbus: See Smith, History of the Georgia Militia, on Georgia’s state militia tradition and on its role in the Creek War of 1836, particularly 195-215, and on Alford, see 207n48.

  31 The Fort McCreary blockhouse and stockade commanded a hilltop: On Fort McCreary and surroundings, see Terrill, History, 48, 50-51. The fort’s name is sometimes spelled “McCrary.”

  32 “nothing but a continued series of black heaps of ashes”: Motte, Journey into Wilderness, 11.

  33 He took the horse’s reins: “James M. Calhoun,” n.d., no source, Atlanta History Society Calhoun Papers.

  33 “The Indians must not escape”: “The War Not Yet Ended,” Columbus Sentinel, August 2, 1836.

  33 “With them their country was life”: Motte, Journey into Wilderness, 19-20, 69-70.

  34 Just 13,573 Creeks remained alive in Oklahoma: Kane and Keeton, Fort Benning , ch. 11, n.p.

  34 The next would not come for another thirty years: Dr. R. J. Massey, “Men Who Made Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, October 22, 1905, D2.

  CHAPTER 4: SHERMAN IN THE SWAMP

  36 “disgraceful . . . to the American character”: Quoted in Jacob R. Motte, Journey into Wilderness: An Army Surgeon’s Account of Life in Camp and Field during the Creek and Seminole Wars, 1836-1838, ed. James F. Sunderman (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1953), 312.

  36 With a force that numbered between 4,000 and 9,000: For troop and Indian force numbers and deaths, see John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1967), 122, 225, 307, and 325.

  36 “In twenty months or so”: Quoted in Mahon, History, 303.

  37 the nineteen-year-old William Tecumseh Sherman: On the events of Sherman’s life in Florida, this chapter draws heavily on Mahon’s war history; William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Classics, 2001), 17-28; John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 33-47; Jane F. Lancaster, “William Tecumseh Sherman’s Introduction to War, 1840-1842: Lesson for Action,” Florida Historical Quarterly 72, no. 1 ( July 1993): 56-72.

  37 “as bright as the burning bush”: Quoted in Marszalek, Sherman, 38.

  38 “the abode of man or beast”: Sherman, Memoirs, 19, 27.

  38 “threading through the intricate mazes”: Quoted in Marszalek, Sherman, 38.

  38 “Good for nothing” and a “pack of rascals”: Quoted in Lancaster, “ William Tecumseh Sherman’s Introduction to War,” 65.

  39 While in Florida, he studied geography and geology: Sherman, Memoirs, 26.

  39 “the best officer is selected”: Quoted in Lancaster, “William Tecumseh Sherman’s Introduction to War,” 65.

  40 “Regardless of food or the climate”: Mahon, History, 295-97.

  41 Even the most intransigent among them: Sherman, Memoirs, 23-36; Mahon, History, 298-302.

  41 The Second Seminole War was over: Sherman, Memoirs, 27.

  41 “had caught more Indians”: Quoted in Lancaster, “William Tecumseh Sherman’s Introduction to War,” 69.

  42 “many a rich scene”: This and following quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are from Russell S. Bonds, “Sherman’s First March Through Georgia,” Civil War Times 46, no. 6 (August 2007): 20-27.

  43 “must necessarily unite”: Calhoun quote in Walter G. Cooper, Official History of Fulton County (Atlanta: History Commission, 1934), 55.

  43 Marthasville in 1844 didn’t amount to much: Early settlement description, from Cooper, Official History, 58-59.

  43 A move was afoot to rename it “Atlanta”: The story of how Atlanta got its name is disputed. For a common version, see Cooper, Official History, 59-60.

  43 “every bit of knowledge then acquired [was] returned tenfold”: Letter to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 5, 1865, Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865, ed. Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 792.

  CHAPTER 5: ANOTHER PASSAGE

  46 Once beneath the soaring rotunda: On the very different Capitol structure at the time, see William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 146.

  46 People who reviled him: Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997), 27.

  47 “freekently came up to the Senate Chamber to see Senator Webster”: Quoted in Thomas G. Dyer, “Half Slave, Half Free: Unionist Robert Webster in Confederate Atlanta,” in Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas, ed. Emory M. Thomas, Lesley Jill Gordon, and John C. Inscoe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 308. I rely extensively on Dyer’s exhaustive research on Robert Webster’s early life for this chapter.

  47 “Nature had not in our days”: Quoted in Remini, Daniel Webster, 29, 762.

  47 The “Demosthenes of America” swept away his audiences: Remini, Daniel Webster, 219.

  47 “out of rant and out of declamation to history and good sense”: Remini, Daniel Webster, 762.

  47 “made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people”: Daniel Webster, “Second Speech on Foot’s Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830,” The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1890), 3:321.

  47 “the grandest specimen of American oratory”: Quoted in Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 34.

  48 “our present day and nation the very greatest men”: James Henry Hammond, Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder, ed. Carol K. Bleser (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 173.

  48 “slightly heathenish in private life”: Remini, Daniel Webster, 308.

  49 Swisshelm lost her Tribune job for publishing the stories: Quoted in Remini, Daniel Webster, 307.

  49 But growing up, Bob always knew who his real father was: Dyer, “Half Slave, Half Free,” 308. Unlike Dyer, who insists that “not enough evidence exists to conclude even tentatively that Daniel Webster sired Robert Webster,” I find the large amount of circumstantial evidence Dyer and Remini mount, drawn from multiple contemporary sources, provides strong proof to accept Robert Webster’s assertions about his parentage. The Swisshelm quote is found in Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm, Half a Century: The Memoirs of the First Woman Journalist in the Civil Rights Struggle, ed. Paul Dennis Sporer (Chester, NY: Anza Publishing, 2005), 86; on Swisshelm’s experience following publication of her article about Webster, see 88-91.

  49 “a mulatto of rare beauty”: Quoted in Dyer, “Half Slave, Half Free,” 296.

  50 Gadsby’s seventeen house slaves likely trafficked back and forth: On the Decatur House’s rich history, see www.decaturhouse.org.

  50 He went from the National Hotel to the boardinghouse: William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin
Classics, 2001), 12.

  51 he likely lived on Rosemont Plantation: On the Cunningham’s Rosemont Plantation, see Eric H. Walther, William Lowndes Yancey and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 26.

  51 Ben’s first years of life: On Ben’s early life, see Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 36ff. See also “Benjamin C. Yancey,” in William Garrett, Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama: For Thirty Years, with an Appendix (Atlanta: Plantation Publishing Co.’s Press, 1872), 626-27.

  51 he went to Upstate New York for prep school and then Yale Law School: On Ben Yancey’s education, see Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 36-37.

  51 Each would come to the other’s aid: John Cunningham described Yancey in 1843 as “my friend” in a written challenge he delivered on Cunningham’s behalf to another man to a duel, resulting in both Cunningham and Yancey being found guilty of breaking South Carolina’s antidueling laws. See “State vs. Cunningham and Yancey” in R. H. Spears, Cases at Law, Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of South Carolina (Columbia, SC: A. S. Johnston, 1844), 2:246-56.

  51 W. L. in particular became an ardent states’ rights advocate: On W. L. Yancey’s political career, see Walther, William Lowndes Yancey.

  51 He drafted what was known as the Alabama Platform: Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 47-49.

  51 Both avoided criminal charges and congressional censure: On W. L. Yancey’s duel with Thomas Clingman, see Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 76-80.

  52 “is said to be a little more staid in temperament than I am”: Quoted in Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 156.

  52 “I would have trusted him with anything”: Testimony of Ben Yancey, Webster v. United States, case file 13502, Court of Claims, RG 123, folders 2 and 4, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  52 “I shipped him without a minute’s warning”: Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 153-54.

  CHAPTER 6: THE COMPROMISE

  53 The state assembly passed numerous reforms: On James Calhoun’s legislative record, see Dr. R. J. Massey, “Men Who Made Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, October 22, 1905, D2, and James M. Russell, “Calhoun, James Montgomery,” in Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr, Dictionary of Georgia Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), 148.

  54 an angry mob intent on lynching the prisoner: On the attempted lynching incident, see Wallace P. Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Atlanta: D. Mason & Co., 1889), 298.

  54 Calhoun seemed to be on course for a similar ascent: “He Sleeps,” Atlanta Constitution , October 5, 1875, 3.

  56 “ Women were dragged from their homes”: John G. Burnett, “The Cherokee Removal Through the Eyes of a Private Soldier,” Journal of Cherokee Studies 3, special issue (1978): 183.

  56 “the cruelest work I ever knew”: James Mooney, Historical Sketch of the Cherokee (1900, rpt. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1975), 124.

  57 “you may accomplish all you desire”: John C. Calhoun to James M. Calhoun, July 17, 1839, James M. Calhoun Papers, AHC, MSS 50, box 1, folder 2.

  58 Jacksonian Democrats outnumbered Whigs by nearly two to one: For a table giving a breakdown of Georgian party voting patterns including the up-country region, see Anthony Gene Carey, Parties, Slavery, and the Union in Antebellum Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 108.

  58 Those assets were not enough to overcome: There are numerous studies of the political crosscurrents whipsawing the antebellum nation. I found William W. Freehling’s monumental The Road to Disunion, Vol. 1, Secessionists at Bay, 1776- 1854 (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1990), most helpful; also see James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 6-46.

  59 Senator Calhoun sent James a copy: “Speech on the Abrogation of the Joint Occupancy of Oregon (Revised Report),” in the Senate, March 16, 1846, Papers of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 22, 1845-1846, ed. Clyde N. Wilson (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 704-29.

  59 He seemed to have set a course for himself: On John C. Calhoun’s decisive role in the Oregon question, see John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 295-97.

  60 “it has been a great misfortune to me”: James M. Calhoun to John C. Calhoun, Decatur, Georgia, May 7, 1846, Papers of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 23, 1846, ed. Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright Cook (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 80-81.

  61 “If we do not act now”: Quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 57.

  61 “Many avow themselves disunionists”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 69. On the impact of the Mexican cession on American politics, see Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 475-535, and McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 47-88.

  62 “to respect our rights, we will promptly dissolve”: Quoted in Eric H. Walther, William Lowndes Yancey and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 112.

  62 “secession . . . resistance, open unqualified resistance”: Quoted in Walther, William Lowndes Yancey, 126.

  62 Cone pled guilty to attempted murder: The two later reconciled with Stephens’s move into the Democratic column in the following decade. On their fight, see Lucian Lamar Knight, A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians (Chicago: Lewis, 1917), 3:1353-54, and Richard Harrison Shryock, Georgia and the Union in 1850 (Philadelphia: Duke University Press, 1926), 172-73.

  63 Together they came to be known as the Georgia Platform: On the Georgia state convention’s election, its debates, and the Georgia Platform, see Shryock, Georgia and the Union, 325-34.

  64 “Southerners . . . have a natural right to revolution”: Quoted in James L. Huston, “Southerners against Secession: The Arguments of the Constitutional Unionists in 1850-51,” Civil War History 46, no. 4 (2000): 297. See also John T. Hubbell, “Three Georgia Unionists and the Compromise of 1850,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 51 (1967): 307-23; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 87; Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 524.

  64 “She joined it in 1776 and she saved it in 1850”: Letter of February 20, 1851, quoted in Shryock, Georgia and the Union, 337.

  64 “You and others of your age will probably live to see it”: Quoted in Niven, John C. Calhoun, 1.

  CHAPTER 7: THE CORNERSTONE

  69 “The terminus of that railroad”: Calhoun’s antirailroad comment and Powell’s rejoinder came from the memory of Powell’s daughter seventy-five years after the supposed conversation took place. See Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1954), 1:168. On antebellum railroad politics in Georgia, see Anthony Gene Carey, Parties, Slavery, and the Union in Antebellum Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 134-38. In fact, it would not be until well into the 1850s that the Western & Atlantic Railroad operations turned a profit.

  69 Although Calhoun’s Decatur neighbors vowed: Pioneer Citizens’ Society of Atlanta, Pioneer Citizens’ History of Atlanta, 1833-1902 (Atlanta: Pioneer Citizens’ Society of Atlanta, 1902), 223-24.

  69 “It was said that no one was ever born in Atlanta”: Quoted in Robert S. Davis Jr., introduction to Sarah “Sallie” Conley Clayton, Requiem for a Lost City: A Memoir of Civil War Atlanta and the Old South, ed. Robert S. Davis Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999), 25.

  70 “very large rooms . . . handsomely finished and decorated”: Quotes from “Old Home Spared by Sherman’s Torch Is Soon to Give Way for Improvement,” Constitution, February 18, 1906, B8.

  71 “are social ties—nationalizing powers”: “Opportunities for Southern Travel,” New York Times, May 18, 1854, n.p.

  71 for $5 more a passenger could continue: “Railroad Guide,” Atlanta Daily Intelligencer , January 1, 1861, and following, 1, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  71 Soon it trailed only Sava
nnah and Augusta in size: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census of the United States (DeKalb County, Georgia, 1850), 3:305-11.

  72 “We had intimate relations with it ”: Kate Massey, “A Picture of Atlanta in the Late Sixties,” Atlanta Historical Bulletin 20 (January 1940): 32.

  72 The pedestrian unfamiliar with his surroundings: February 19, 1852, quoted in Walter G. Cooper, Official History of Fulton County (Atlanta: History Commission, 1934), 82.

  72 “the most unattractive place”: Carlton H. Rogers, Incidents of Travel in the Southern States and Cuba (New York: R. Craighead, 1862), 269.

  72 a census of white residents’ occupations: Fulton County Census, June 4 to August 15, 1860, Occupation, quoted in Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1954), 1:489-91.

  73 For the more family minded: See City Council Minutes, July 23, 1858; Julian Harris, “Primitive Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, August 12, 1894, 23; Elizabeth Hanleiter McCallie (Mrs. S. W.), “Atlanta in the 1850s,” Atlanta Historical Bulletin 8, no. 33 (October 1948): 91-106; Garrett, Atlanta and Environs, 1:304ff.

  73 “A rougher village I never saw”: Quoted in James Russell, Atlanta 1847-1890: City Building in the Old South and the New (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 72.

  74 the shanties and shacks that filled Snake Nation: Wallace P. Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Atlanta: D. Mason & Co., 1889), 48-50.

  74 The town also became the regional foodstuffs market: Cited in Russell, Atlanta 1847-1890, 41.

  74 “Passing along Whitehall Street”: Daily Intelligencer, August 13, 1859, 3.

  74 Southern-born natives comprised more than 90 percent of the city’s populace: Cited in Russell, Atlanta 1847-1890, 69-70.

  74 “thousands of fine, substantial and costly houses”: Quotes from Daily Intelligencer , September 25, 1860, 3; May 28, 1859, 3.