The name “Andersonville” has an infamous meaning to most Americans. This prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Georgia, held 40,000 Union soldiers during the War for Southern Independence. About one-quarter of them died from starvation, exposure and disease.

            Television documentaries, articles, a Pulitzer Prize novel, and a Broadway play on the trial and execution of Andersonville’s commandant, Henry Wirz, have all contributed to the view that Southerners are barbarians.

            All this changed in the 1950s, when secret War Department documents were declassified. Northerners, who believed that they were morally superior to the “semi-civilized” Southerners, were stunned to learn of a POW camp at Elmira, New York, which was far more horrifying than Andersonville. It was more like a Nazi concentration camp. It contained Confederate soldiers and New York civilians, whose only crime was to oppose Lincoln’s unjust war. They died from exposure, starvation, disease, and deliberate executions.

            This is not mere speculation. Today, Elmira is a national cemetery. Most of the graves list the POWs’ names, regiments and states. But one in five of the tombstones simply reads “citizen.” These are the unidentified civilians.

            Official records show that twenty-five percent of the 12,000 inmates at Elmira died while incarcerated, but other official clues indicate the death toll may have been fifty percent. These extreme fatality statistics are directly attributed to Abraham Lincoln’s policy toward Elmira. There are also indications that Elmira was chosen as the site for this death camp as a result of New York governor Horatio Seymour’s vehement objections to Lincoln’s call for draftees to enter the Union army. Governor Seymour refused to comply, stating that conscription was unconstitutional.

            Lincoln’s response was a major invasion of the Empire State, which produced a brutal four-day battle with over 30,000 casualties, and the military occupation of New York City. Several months later, as an act of retribution, Elmira was selected as a death camp.

Elmira’s Earlier History
Elmira is located just north of the Pennsylvania border, in Chemung County. In 1860 it was a village of 8,800, an important hub in New York’s transportation grid. The Chemung Canal was Elmira’s connection to the Erie Canal, where goods were moved to all parts of the state. Later, railroads linked Elmira to New York City, Chicago, and the Midwest.

            With the surrender of Ft. Sumter, there was a resounding patriotic call to duty in Elmira. Partisan politics, at least for the moment, was pushed aside. Throngs of men converged on the recruiting offices. Church bells rang, bands played martial strains. Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. New York’s governor, Edwin Morgan, designated Albany and Elmira as military depots. Men from Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica responded in overwhelming numbers. Elmira became a garrison town, anticipating ten companies of troops. Forty companies filled the town. Finding places to quarter them proved a monumental problem. A barrel factory was converted into barracks. Churches, storehouses, public houses and private homes were designated as temporary military shelters. Then the army finally built official housing to hold 2,000 troops. It was named “Barracks No. 3.”

            After basic training, these troops were put into cattle cars for the journey to the South. Anticipating a quick victory, Governor Morgan ordered the closing of Barracks No. 3. Bull Run shattered that illusion. Lincoln saw the reality and called up an additional 500,000 men. New York’s quota was 25,000 soldiers. Immediately Governor Morgan reopened Barracks No. 3.

            Lincoln Nationalizes Elmira: Later a Prison
Barracks No. 3 served as a state military facility until July 1863. Then, with the war going badly for the North, and volunteers dwindling, Congress passed a highly controversial bill that empowered President Lincoln to put all state troops and officers under federal jurisdiction. Elmira was nationalized. This was unconstitutional.

            In early 1864, six months after the Battle of New York, Secretary of War Stanton ordered Colonel William Hoffman, commissary general of prisons, to find a prison camp for Confederate prisoners in New York. Hoffman informed Stanton that “there are quite a number of barracks at Elmira, which are not occupied, and are fit to hold rebel prisoners.” Elmira was about to become an integral part of the 19^th century’s version of Stalin’s gulag archipelago. This Lincolnian POW system, which dotted the North, was politically placed in those states that had defied him: the Gratist Street Prison in St. Louis, Camp Lookout in Maryland, Fort Delaware, Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio, Camp Douglas in Chicago, Camp Morton in Indianapolis, Camp Rock Island in Illinois, Alton, also in Illinois, and Johnson’s Island in Sandusky, Ohio. One historian said, “The tragic period of the Civil War concentration camps was inaugurated with Elmira Prison.”

            Elmira was officially named Camp Chemung, and opened in July 1864. Its first commandant was Lt. Colonel Seth Eastman, a West Pointer with thirty-five years of military experience, but who was now terminally ill from a lifetime of heavy drinking.

            In the early stages of the war, Eastman had been military governor of Cincinnati, and presided over the military tribunal that convicted Clement Vallandigham, the Ohio congressman who was arrested for condemning President Lincoln for using the war as an excuse for converting the United States into a military dictatorship.

            Camp Chemung had an absolute maximum capacity of 5,000 prisoners. Soon 13,000 POWs and New York civilian “traitors” crammed the facility. When Eastman arrived, two crises had already developed. No hospital had been provided for the sick and wounded prisoners, and a pond for drinking water, and another called Foster’s Pond, the camp latrine, had merged, polluting the fresh water. Within days many inmates were seriously ill or dying.

            It was almost a month after Camp Chemung opened before the War Department assigned a chief surgeon, Major Eugene F. Sanger. His placement at Elmira is of significance, indicating that New Yorkers were being targeted for revenge because they had risen up. Sanger had served as chief surgeon under the infamous Benjamin “Beast” Butler, when Butler was commander of the occupation of New Orleans. Butler had put civilians who committed “treason” on barren Ship Island. Many died of starvation, exposure and disease. Sanger was in charge of the “medical facilities” there.

            Sanger was a good surgeon, but his personal characteristics affected his medical judgment. A “deluded martinet, self-righteous and vindictive,” he was responsible for the thousands of deaths at Camp Chemung. Sanger had been wounded at Port Hudson in Louisiana. His left leg was amputated below the knee. With his vindictive personality, he blamed and sought retribution on all Southern soldiers for his disability.

            Within two months of the opening of Elmira, hundreds of Confederate soldiers had died from the mixing of human waste with their drinking water. Attempts to get War Department authorization to construct another reservoir for drinking were delayed for months. This delay is now viewed as a deliberate tactic.

            Camp Chemung overflowed with inmates. More arrived every day. Not one inch of unused space existed inside the barracks. Tents were erected outside to accommodate the new “guests.”

            Prisoner Exchange

            On July 22, 1862, at Maxwell’s Landing on the James River in Virginia, Major General John Dix of the Union Army met with Major General Daniel Hill of the Confederacy. They signed what came to be known as the “cartel.” This agreement, to exchange prisoners of war, was worked out by the opposing armies, but not the antagonistic governments.

            This document specified that once prisoners were released, they could not rejoin the military. The Confederacy then proposed a formal pact between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln refused. To accede would mean official recognition that the South had created a legitimate, separate nation.

            In April 1863 Lincoln ended the prisoner exchange program. Publicly, Ulysses S. Grant said this was because the Confederacy allowed released prisoners to rejoin their units. Privately, he believed that holding CSA men would quickly exhaust the South’s manpower. The North, with a huge advantage in population, would never experience a shortage of troops. A war of attrition would work in the Union’s favor. In a letter to “Beast” Butler, Grant wrote, “Every man we hold, when released on parole, becomes an active soldier against us at once…We will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated…If we hold those caught, they will amount to no more than dead men.”

            Prisoner Exchange Failure Leads to Retaliation

            In December 1863, a House of Representatives committee released a 30-page “Report No. 67.” It stated that there was evidence that “rebels” planned to kill all Union prisoners. The same Colonel Hoffman who promoted Elmira as a location for a POW camp wrote to Secretary of War Stanton: “I respectfully suggest, as a means of compelling a less barbarous policy toward the Union prisoners in their hands, to allow only half rations for the rebels in ours.”

            Lincoln, the Army, and many Northerners thirsted for revenge. The New York Times editorialized for retaliation, convinced that Confederates were “plagued with moral infirmities.” Henry Raymond, the editor of the Times, said, “A chapter will be written by some future historian, on the horrors of Andersonville which will equal in fearful interest, the records of Bastille.” This editorial told of what it claimed to be the deliberate deprivation of food as a policy of torture, calling it “brutally, savagely cruel.” Henry Raymond concluded, “Retaliation is a terrible thing, but the slow wasting away of life of our brothers and friends in those horrible prisons, is a worse thing.”

            Retaliation based on the belief that the South deliberately starved Union prisoners is misleading. Unlike the North, where soldiers and civilians were well fed, the Confederacy had been subjected to a two-sided blockade. On the Atlantic coast, the U.S. Navy prevented food from reaching Southern ports. The Mississippi River was patrolled by gunboats. Food from the western side would not reach the east. Southern civilians and soldiers starved. Even “Beast” Butler acknowledged that fact: “If Union soldiers at Andersonville are starving,” he informed Stanton, “their Confederate guards are also on half or quarter rations.”

            Yet Stanton and his War Department enthusiastically endorsed retaliation. Then Colonel Eastman, Elmira’s commandant, notified Stanton that rations for the POWs could be substantially reduced. That same day Stanton submitted “Circular No. 4,” which was Eastman’s recommendation for endorsement by the top echelon of the War Department. They all agreed, with one exception: no food reduction for those prisoners who were officially listed as sick. Retaliation was now national policy. Rations at Elmira were restricted to bread and water, and watery soup.

            To exacerbate matters, Circular No. 4 proved to be lethal. In 1908, in recalling the restrictions on food, Confederate POW R.B. Ewan stated, “Many hundreds of boxes of provisions were brought into camp, but unless we were in the hospital, then ham, cheese, bread, and pie were put back in the wagon and hauled out to fill other stomachs.” Another prisoner, Anthony Keily, recorded in his diary that all these bans brought on “an epidemic of scurvy.”

            Chief surgeon Sanger began to have pangs of conscience. He went over camp commandant Eastman’s head and wrote an official memorandum to Brigadier General John Hodson. This document displayed both bluster and a sense of guilt over his zealous performance of his morbid duties.

            First, Sanger requested a transfer out of Elmira. That reflected his feelings of guilt. Then he boasted, “I have now been put in charge of 10,000 rebels, a very worthy occupation for a patriot, and I think I have done my duty, having relieved 386 of them of all earthly sorrows, in one month.”

            Sanger’s disturbing revelation is corroborated by prisoner Walter D. Addison, who wrote, years later, that while in the hospital, he observed that opium pills were dispensed to patients, “no matter what the nature of their disease. On one occasion three prisoners were sinking. Sanger directed Dr. Van Ness to administer opium to them. In a short time they breathed their last. No investigation ensued. No reprimand. Dr. Van Ness continued his position.”

            According to Addison, there was a desire on the part of the Union officers to kill the Confederate prisoners. “All in authority in Elmira, seemed to be of this opinion.” Anthony Keily agreed with this observation. After the war, he wrote: “In six weeks Sanger made more widows and orphans than the siege of Troy.”

            Keily also charged that Sanger refused to sign any report that stated the cause of death was related to malaria because, “In the medical department there were opportunities to plunder…vast quantities of quinine were prescribed, then stolen. The price, $8 an ounce [over $300 in modern-day terms], tempted the cupidity of the physicians beyond all resistance.”

            In late 1864, both Sanger and Eastman requested to be relieved of their duties. Both said they were very ill and could not continue. In reality, Sanger was removed when he wrote his scathing report, which implicated Eastman and the newly appointed commander, Colonel Franklin Tracy.

            Colonel Tracy started out as a volunteer officer who gained high military rank through his political connections. He had been a Republican in the New York Assembly. As such, he was given command of the 109^th New York Regiment. At the Battle of the Wilderness, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor; he later served in the 127^th Colored Regiment. He was then assigned to Elmira because he was loyal to Stanton.

            Immediately upon his arrival at Elmira, Tracy had major conflicts with Sanger, which brought about the damning medical report and Sanger’s dismissal. Tracy blocked Sanger’s efforts to improve hospital conditions, and demanded an investigation of the administration of the medical facility.

            This provoked Sanger to send another report to Tracy, which stated that “the ratio of disease and death has been unprecedentedly large and requires an explanation from me to free the medical department from censure. There were 2,011 admissions to the prison hospital between August and September [1864] and…a death rate of 24%.”

            Throughout Eastman’s time as commander, and in the early stages of Tracy’s, Sanger submitted nine written communiqués to them, all unanswered, that “called attention to Foster’s Pond and its deadly poison [the human waste flowing into the drinking water pond] and the existence of scurvy at an alarming rate.”

            Alarmed by the implication of this information, if it reached his superiors, Tracy made a belated effort to address these problems, but without authorization from the War Department, he could not begin. He never received it. To circumvent that indifference, and prevent an army investigation, Tracy used prison labor instead of Army personnel to separate the two ponds.

            Sanger had another serious complaint, this time about the “great delay in filling my requisitions for the hospital,” and “the sickness and suffering occasioned thereby.” That was the last straw; Tracy placed Sanger under arrest, then replaced him.

            Stocker; New Chief Surgeon

            On December 22, 1864, Major Anthony Stocker became the new chief surgeon. Before the war he was a prominent Philadelphia physician. Prior to that, he had been a military surgeon in the Mexican War. In May 1861, Stocker received another commission as an Army surgeon, and was placed under General Meade’s command. Shortly thereafter, Meade had Stocker arrested, charging him with unsatisfactory performance of his duties “in relation to the care of the sick.” The charges were later dropped.

            In August 1863, Stocker was arrested again, in an incident related to the hospital under his direction. In a court-martial trial he again was cleared. At Elmira, if Stocker made any attempt to correct the horrific conditions there, he left no record of requests for improvement, despite the fact that over 1,200 POWs and civilians died during the first three months of his taking over the hospital.

            Attempts to Inspect Elmira

            In November 1864 the United States Sanitary Commission requested that it conduct an inspection at Elmira. This was rejected by Stanton. The Sanitary Commission, an independent philanthropy supported by private funds, was dedicated to “preserving and restoring the health and securing the general comfort and efficiency of troops, to the proper provisions of cooks, nurses and hospitals.”

            This included similar concerns in Union POW camps, but the Sanitary Commission required the cooperation of the War Department’s Medical Bureau. Instead, there were endless confrontations between these two entities that involved egos, jealousies and political intrigues.

            In December, a Dr. Turner of the Sanitary Commission arrived at Elmira without War Department clearance, in hopes of inspecting the prison camp. Colonel Tracy later said, “Deeming it important that the inspection should be made and the report published for the purpose of correcting the impression that the prisoners are cruelly treated, I concluded to admit him, with the understanding that no report be made until my action is approved by you.”
            Three days later, a General Wessells informed Tracy that an inspection by civilians was “highly improper, and the publication of a report cannot be permitted, unless under the direction of the Department of War.”

            Winter: Order No. 336

            In October 1864 it began to snow. Colonel Tracy issued his most controversial edict: Special Order No. 336. “Whereas, the fresh beef now being furnished at this point is unfit for issue to the prisoners and inferior in quality, to that required by contract. Therefore officers are hereby designated to reject such parts as appear to be unfit for issue.”

            Most of the meat was rejected and sold to local markets. This came on top of the previous ration reduction. Now, most prisoners were down to just bread and water. The most serious losers were the hospitalized sick, who, up to this point, ate better than the other POWs, with some meat in their diet.

            The winter cold increased in intensity. Thousands of the prisoners were quartered in open tents, since the barracks were filled to capacity. Colonel Tracy finally ordered the construction of additional barracks for those living in the elements, but these new buildings were not insulated and were poorly built, so they did not offer any greater protection than the tents.

            During this period, a Captain Munger, an inspector for the Army’s Medical Department, arrived at Elmira and reported, “During this past week there have been 112 deaths. 1,666 prisoners are entirely destitute of any blankets.”

            All Aid Rejected

            On January 6, 1865, a winter snow storm struck Elmira. All train service was suspended. Freezing winds ripped through Camp Chemung. Noah Walker, from Baltimore, sent clothing packages from the inmates’ relatives to Elmira. The War Department returned all the packages.

            Not to be denied, Walker tried to send the clothing to the camp through an independent relief agency, which was located as nearby Watkins Glen. This agency sent a letter to Stanton, who responded with a description of the inconceivably complex procedure that the bureaucratic maze required to get the clothing into Camp Chemung.

            The head of the aid agency gave up and wrote, “The brutal Stanton refused to listen to all my entreaties and turned a deaf ear to their suffering.”

            Then another effort was made at a much higher political level. Judge Robert Gould, who had been the Confederate agent during the prisoner exchange program, took up the cause of bringing about an agreement between the United States and the Confederate governments to supply food and clothing to prisoners on both sides.

            Gould wrote to Stanton, to U.S. Grant, to Lincoln, and then to Robert E. Lee. Lee agreed to the plan, and Grant apparently accepted it. Judge Gould’s idea was that the South should provide a large shipment of cotton to the North. It would be sold in New York, and the money realized would be used to purchase coats and blankets for the prisoners.

            The simplicity of the plan raised hopes for its success, but a series of delays, deliberately orchestrated by Stanton, eliminated any possibility of the clothing reaching the POWs before the end of the winter. Months passed before the cotton was finally sold. By then, the cotton market had declined sharply and only a fraction of the hoped-for amount of winter clothing could be purchased.

            To make matters worse, instead of the original intention of focusing on Elmira alone, the reduced aid was now dispersed to ten Northern POW camps, so that an infinitesimal amount reached each location. Only three boxes of clothes reached the freezing inmates at Elmira.

            Mass Burials for POWs and Citizens

            The way the dead of Camp Chemung were buried raises many questions about how many died there, which to this day remain largely unanswered.

            In mid-July 1864, when Camp Chemung first opened, the United States government purchased half an acre of Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery to bury those who died while incarcerated there. As retaliation tightened and the weather worsened, the death toll accelerated dramatically. Union officers asked those Southern captives with carpentry skills to build coffins. The incentive was better food and better treatment. Soon the demand for coffins outstripped their ability to make them.

            The burial of the dead was managed by John W. Jones, a runaway slave from Leesburg, Virginia. He was paid $2.50 per burial. One “burial” was nine coffins in one grave. Jones was aided by POWs who volunteered for the burial detail. They also received better food treatment.

            This burial section, between the Chemung River and Foster’s Pond, was sarcastically referred to as “The Trans-Mississippi District” by the prisoners. The name, regiment, and date of death were written on a piece of paper and placed in the dead man’s armpit.

            Years later, John Jones reflected on the mass-grave process: “Each body was put into a box, then I dug a trench, large enough to contain nine of them. A wooden headboard, marked in large letters, gave information about all nine men and was placed above ground.”
            Prisoner Martin Howard revealed, forty years later, why there is a discrepancy between the official death rate and the actual death rate: “We buried our men on what we called ‘free ground.’ The place was low and marshy, and the water often rose to a depth of three feet, where we buried our dead. We had to take a pick and make a hole in the coffin on each side near the shoulders, so it could fill with water and sink.”

            Filling the coffins with water made the dead men’s identity papers indecipherable. And the flood waters often washed away the above-ground markers. Those without identifications were not counted as having died.

            John Jones was a religious man. He believed that those he buried were Christians, as he was, and that the mass graves were degrading and sinful. On his own time, he re-buried those he could identify. He also devised a codex so that relatives could find the exact locations of their loved ones. Jones’ re-burials, the codex, and the creation of a national cemetery at Elmira are based on the known dead.

            End of Camp Chemung

            The war ended in April 1865. On the morning of July 11, the last 256 Southern prisoners assembled for the two-mile trek through the dusty streets of Elmira, to the railroad station, to be transported to Baltimore. From there, they were on their own.

            One of the last men out was James Huffman. He started the long, painful journey to his home in Virginia. He arrived there seven days later, “to find destruction, waste, and poverty. There was no money; the start must be made from the bottom. I went to work with a will.”

            Initially, Camp Chemung was scheduled to be torn down. Instead, it was converted into a military center devoted to mustering out Union soldiers. In February 1866 that process came to an end. The camp was then completely demolished.

            Final Death Toll

            Elmira’s official death toll was about 3,000, or 24.3% of the total military population. This number represents only those who could be identified and had tombstones. Adding the unknown and citizen groups would bring the percentage of deaths to about 35%. All other Union prison camps had a combined fatality percentage of 11.7%.

            On June 23, 1874, Congress established “Woodlawn National Cemetery at Elmira, New York.” In 1997 Elmira’s Southside High School students placed a marker at the cemetery, which reads, “Confederate soldiers were buried here with kindness and respect by John W. Jones, a runaway slave. They have remained in this hallowed ground by family choice because of the honorable way in which they were laid to rest by a caring man.”

Pvt. Duncan M. Campbell fought with Company G, 24th North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate States of America.  He survived the way and lived a long life, but ended up dying in Florida while on a trip visiting relatives. He was buried in a graveyard far away from his homeland of Georgia.  Overtime, the site of his burial got lost.

Campbell’s elderly granddaughter, who died in the 1990s, shared her the memory of the funeral before she passed.  Using that information, they were able to track the cemetery where he was buried.   The family and heritage community came together to ensure the Confederate soldier and father’s grave was marked.  Veterans’ Affairs assisted with the marker, that now gives honor to the man who has laid at rest nameless for over a century. 

To learn more, go to http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2012/01/10/centuries-later-kin-of-confederate-soldier-pay-last-respects.html.

Georgia
The Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center (GEHC) in Buford will hold its annual holiday traditions of Christmas during the Civil War. Union and Confederate troops will show the holidays on the front lines and on the home front during the fourth annual Civil War holiday program at McDaniel Farm Park on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

“This is a great family event for those who desire to learn and experience how the Civil War impacted Atlanta-area families – especially during the holiday season,” Catherine Long, GEHC history and culture program manager, told theweekly.com.

Guests will go back in time to December 1862 at McDaniel Farm, as E.W. and A.W. McDaniel are on furlough to spend Christmas with the family. Participants will meet local Gwinnett citizens who participated in the war, engage in a drill with Civil War soldiers and visit their camp sites. 

Guests can also make traditional holiday ornaments for the soldiers’ tree or their own, learn about the McDaniel family history and participate in the singing of carols. Admission is $5 per person and children ages three and under are free. Guests can pre-register by calling 770.814.4920 or pay at the admission gate the day of the event. Event parking is available on site. McDaniel Farm Park is located at 3251 McDaniel Road, Duluth, GA 30096. 

For more information about this event and the History and Culture Program of the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center, visit gwinnettEHC.org. 

Kansas
Some people just don’t get it. From the University of Kansas student newspaper, a story online at Kansan.com by Lou Schumaker bemoans the fact that, in her opinion, the Civil War being presented in contemporary cinema and on television is anti-Union.

In her article “Cinema glorifies Confederacy,” Schumaker writes that “Despite the fact that the Civil War ended almost 150 years ago, it is still being fought in movie theaters and TVs across the nation — and this time, the U.S. is losing. Though the Union won the war, the Confederates won the story.

“After the war ended in 1865, both sides went off to lick their wounds and the American public immediately began reshaping the war into a useable narrative. Normally, this would mean presenting the victors as saviors of godlike grace and goodness, but something strange happened with the Civil War. Former Confederates, distraught at the righteous whooping they received from the North, began constructing what’s known as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.”

At a Hudson Union Society event, Schumaker says, documentarian and Civil War expert Ken Burns told students that “history is written usually by the victors, and [the Civil War is] the first time where history was written by the losers.”

“Tired of being portrayed as slavery-loving traitors, they presented themselves as noble rebels whose only fault was loving their home and who only lost because of the U.S’s superior numbers and “dirty foreign politics and cowardly blockades,” Schumaker writes.

“This trend of Confederate protagonists continues even today with AMC’s new show ‘Hell on Wheels,’ which premiered Nov. 6. The show follows a former Confederate soldier searching for the Union soldiers who raped and killed his wife. As if that isn’t one-sided enough, the pilot opens with a Union soldier tearfully confessing that he participated in General Sherman’s March to the Sea and utters the celebrated general’s name with the same tone you might say ‘Satan’ or ‘Jerry Sandusky.’”

“As residents of Kansas, a state born amidst blood and fire as abolitionists like John Brown fought to create a free state, I urge you to look deeper when the Civil War is presented on TV and in film and reject the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, even when it has cowboys on an awesome revenge quest.”

Here’s the problem with Shumaker’s argument, besides the obviously ridiculous charge of Hollywood having some pro-Confederate bias: No one is stopping anyone from producing whatever projects they wish, so if you’re unhappy with what you see, put a pen to paper yourself and knock  yourself out.

Maryland
Want to see Robert E. Lee’s camp chair? The Maryland Historical Society has that and much more, including many Civil War-era pieces that reflect Maryland’s well-known Southern sympathies.

The MdHS, located in Baltimore, is featuring an exhibit called “Divided Voices” that features artifacts, videos and more focusing on the state’s unique identity crisis as a slave state that did not join the Confederacy. The collection is the state’s largest Civil War exhibit. From the MdHS website:

“The romantic war was the first year or so of the conflict, when both sides saw the war as an adventure and patriotic duty. The real war over the next three years of bloodshed left hundreds of thousands of young men dead. The long reunion focuses on the reuniting of the country, which some say is not complete to this day.

Maryland sent 60,000 men to serve in the Union Army. Over 20,000 more served in the Confederacy. The first bloodshed of the war took place in Baltimore.  The human stories of these men and women are told by bringing letters to life with today’s technology, as well as the display of hundreds of rare objects, many of which have not been shown publicly since the 19th century. Museum visitors see Robert E. Lee’s camp chair, John Brown’s carbine, Abraham Lincoln memorabilia as well as compelling and heartbreaking photographs of the period.”

Admission to the museum is $6 adults, $5 seniors, 3-18 $4 and under 3 free. Museum admission is free on first Thursday of each month. To learn more, visit mdhs.org.

The short answer? they’re all flawed.

    The Democratic candidate, of course, will be Barack Obama, who, among Southern conservatives, is the most unpopular incumbent president since, well, since ever.  And while he won everal Southern states like Florida and Virginia three years ago, he’s likely to lose them all in November of this year.

    On the Republican side, there are two Southerners (sort of).  Newt Gingrich was born in Pennsylvania but more or less raised and educated in the South, where he served for years as a Congressman from Georgia and famously as Speaker of the House who led the 1994 Republican “Contract with America” takeover of the Congress.

    On January 21, 2012, South Carolina Republicans gave the unpredictable Gingrich a big victory, based on his combative performances in two debates, which triggered visions of Newt the rhetorical honey badger stalking Obama all across America.  

    The 68-year old former Speaker left the Palmeto State with a big bump and briefly blasted ahead in the Florida polls.  Then, strangely, Gingrich tanked two debates in Florida, where he seemed tired, lackluster and almost sedated, a performance so slugghish it made Mitt Romney seem articulate by comparison.

    The second Southerner is Texas physician and Congressman Ron Paul, whose brand of libertarianism (to the extent it stresses states rights, deregulated monetary policy and empowerment of local communities) should have a strong appeal to Southerners, many of whom are non-plused by his quirky views on national defense.  But none of that matters.  As ABC analysist Brit Hume said recently, Ron Paul has about as much chance to be the GOP nominee as Rue Paul.

    Among the non-Southerners, the leading canididate is Mitt Romney, a scripted, robotic Yankee chameleon, son of George Romney, the Detroit auto czar who also ran unsuccessfully for President back in the day. The first half of Mitt’s life was dedicated to the accumulation of great wealth.  Now he’s focused the last couple decades (and a couple hundred million of his own bucks) in a quest for power.  He’s honed his candidate skills efficiently.  Problem is nobody knows what he really believes.  But by most accounts, if only by the process of elimination (and because he paid for it) Romney is generally regarded as the likley Republican nominee.

    Finally, we have Rick Santorum, the ex-U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, young, handsome, Roman Catholic, tough on national defense, very conservative on moral issues like abortion and gay rights but maybe not so conservative on economic issues like labor unions and tucking earmarks inside the federal budget.  Evangelicals voting in caucus gave Santorum a photo-finish win with Romney in Iowa; but New Hampshire and South Carolina snubbed him.  Unless the campaign takes a few more bizarre turns (which is possible) Santorum might as well have a big “L” stitched onto his sleeveless sweater.

    Sadly, there are no other viable options for Commander-in-Chief.  So, in 2012, here’s the big picture:  Four more years of Obama clearly would not be a good thing for the cause of freedom.  Whomever wins the Republican nomination is likley to win all the States of the Old South.  But will that be enough?  The outcome will be decided by the invisible hand that manipuates the economy. 

    If employment and prices improve over the next eight months, independents and ticket-splitters will flock to Obama. Under those conditions, the Republican candidate (whether Romney or Gingrich) is not likely to do well outside the GOP base.  But if the economic news is bad, this time next year, we will have a Republican president.

    Which outcome is the most likley?  Our Magic Eight Ball says “Advantage Obama.”  And that’s not a very happy message.

Note to Occupy Wall Streeters

” Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”

– BALZAC, La Duchesse de Langeais, 1834     

On Reform

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
— Edmund Burke

ON DETERMINATION
Be sure you are right then go ahead. 

– Rep. David Crockett (Whig-TN)

ON LEGISLATION
Statutory construction is practically one of the greatest executive powers…. Let anyone make the laws of the country, if I can construe them.

 —Chief Justice of the United States William Howard Taft

ON STATESMANSHIP
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
— Edmund Burke

Over 25 years ago, Southern Partisan was founded by a group of writers who were fed up with the anti-Southern bias in popular media and by the tendency in some circles to re-write history and to demonize the good people of the South.  The magazine arrived on the scene focused and fully loaded with no reluctance to unleash full firepower on scalawags, revisionists and assorted anti-South bigots.   We offered historical articles, political essays and reflections on modern culture. 

Some observers called us “Unreconstructed.”   We were also labeled “The New Voice of the Old South,” “A Southern Fried National Review,”and “a Breath of Fresh Air.”  Others were less charitable.

To be fair, because we were young and inexperienced, we were sometimes a little careless.  With a succession of part-time editors, all of whom did other things for a living, once in a while, articles and advertisements slipped in to print that had not been carefully vetted, with passages that later proved to be a bit embarrassing. 

To make matters worse, leftist journals and special interest groups pulled items out of context and twisted the meaning of passages from past issues in a transparent effort to discredit our journal.   Sadly, their attacks spread across the Internet, and were believed by some of those who were unfamiliar with our journal. 

Lesson learned.  From this date forward, we shall be no less courageous and outspoken, but more careful not to allow anything inappropriate to slip onto our pages.  And, when we are unfairly attacked, we shall be quicker to respond and set the record straight. 

But over the years, there have been remarkably few goofs or gaffs.  For the most part (if we can suspend false modesty for a moment) every issue contained gems and important insights not found anywhere else in modern journalism.  (Note: most past issues are still available for a modest price for those interested.) 

Hamel’s Legacy

Charles Hamel was an avid traveller and the Southern Partisan was his life-long commitment.

For many years, the publisher of this journal was Charles Scott Hamel, a gentle soul from Virginia who was deeply educated in the classics, spoke several languages, traveled all over the world, taught Latin, and dedicated his life to defending the founding principles of Western civilization, which, in many ways, were embodied by the old South.  Charles, more than anyone, was responsible for the existence of Southern Partisan.  The magazine never enjoyed subscription or advertiser revenues anywhere near sufficient to cover cost.  For decades, from issue to issue, Charles would make up the deficit with his own funds, which over time amounted to a great deal of money.

On March 1, 2010 Charles Hamel passed away from heart failure at the age of 72.   For a few years, his health had not been good, but none of us expected him to leave us so suddenly.   With his passing, the Partisan lost his dedicated efforts.  Charles rarely contributed as a writer (other than an occasional book review) but he devoted endless hours dreaming up article ideas, recruiting writers, proofing copy and providing his unique brand of moral support.

In one sense, however, Charles is still with us.  Even though he now enjoys the company of great men he long admired like Aristotle, Beethoven, St. Paul and Robert E.Lee, Charles remembered the Partisan in his will, where he expressed the hope that the magazine would publish into perpetuity.  And so shall we attempt to do. 

After our long hiatus, this edition of the Partisan is dedicated to Charles and is offered as a tribute to his life which, in so many ways, paralleled the life of this journal.   You will find a piece on Mr. Hamel’s contribution to American cultural and intellectual history as well as to the conservative movement in this issue.

What Next?
With this edition of the Partisan, we begin a new era.   We shall publish on-line monthly.  Also, annually, we plan to offer a special, year-end keep-sake print edition with special features, photographs and a collection of our best essays.  For new and old readers alike, we shall seek to entertain and to enlighten our and to provide a bold voice affirming Southern values for a new generation.   We hope you will join us on this journey.  And let us know what you think.

The Editors

Irons book is essential reading for any student of Virginia history or of slavery in America.

Beginning at the Beginning
The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia by Charles F. Irons, UNC Press. 

Review Summary:  The Origins of Proslavery Christianity is essential reading for any devoted student of American slavery, and recommended reading for those interested in Virginia history, religious history, or the history of American race relations.  

The Origins of Proslavery Christianity provides an important new account of the rise of interracial evangelicalism in colonial and antebellum Virginia. As the title suggests, this book travels some well-worn historical turf, but the original narrative and interpretive strategies employed along the way make this a worthy contribution to the established canon on the proslavery argument. Many estimable scholars, including Drew Gilpin Faust, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and most recently Lacy Ford, have explained how proslavery rhetoricians developed their arguments over time, consolidating social, political, and religious sentiments into an ideology that approached the level of sectional orthodoxy by the end of the antebellum period. Charles Irons traces the religious dimension of this development, but makes it clear from the outset that he intends to rework this narrative of transition through an emphasis on historical “process, and not outcome.” Even so, Irons’ book is very much a narrative of transitions. Each chapter adds a sequential layer to the development of interracial evangelicalism in Virginia, from the earliest Anglican considerations of the African soul to the symbolic ways in which black Christians inadvertently contributed to the spirit of Confederate nationalism.

The transitional moment at the center of Irons’ book is the maturation of evangelical attitudes towards race and slavery. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, white evangelicals harbored a wide variety of opinions on issues related to slavery, and afforded their black co-religionists a remarkable degree of autonomy and space in which to develop “ownership” of their faith. As Irons tells it, both proslavery and antislavery evangelicals grew to support the colonization movement, and many organized themselves into an interdenominational “united front” of benevolence, preparing Virginia blacks for freedom and sponsoring their emigration to Africa. In 1831, a Virginia slave and unlicensed preacher named Nat Turner launched a bloody insurrection that shocked the American south and rocked evangelical consciousness in Virginia. Turner’s rebellion unraveled the superficial truce between black and white, proslavery and antislavery Virginians, and compelled the state’s religious and secular leaders to reconsider and reconfigure the boundaries of “black spiritual initiative.” The policies that came out of this moment turned away from the prevailing ethos of African-American stewardship towards one of racial control. The evangelical united front abandoned colonization in favor of a domestic missionary movement that targeted Virginia slaves, a movement designed to attract and convert black members while at the same time undercutting the authority of black religious leaders.

As with the push for colonization, the mission movement required black participation. The prevalence of Christian slaves in Virginia demonstrated the success of missionary outreach, and also validated the fundamental assumption behind the movement – that slavery generated the best possible conditions in which to secure the salvation of black souls. Irons argues that the slave mission originated as a localized evangelical movement, but soon took on a “new political salience,” as “clumsier hands” crafted the slave missions into a rhetorical tool for use on a national stage increasingly preoccupied with sectional political conflict. In so doing, secular leaders transformed localized defenses of evangelical mission work into a general “defense of slavery per se.” As sectional conflicts became sectional crises by 1861, most white evangelicals clung to Unionism for two reasons: firstly, they believed that “disunion and disobedience to civil authorities were sinful;” secondly, earlier contemplations of antislavery in Virginia, resolved through open discourse, taught Virginians that the anxieties generated by Lincoln’s election could also be resolved within the bounds of the federal compact. It was not until Lincoln’s call for military mobilization that most white Virginians recognized the spiritual merit of secession. In spiritual terms, military coercion violated the federal compact and thus redeemed disunion of its sinfulness. If federal coercion threatened slavery, then “white Virginians needed to fight because they had a moral duty to protect the slaves.”

In order to retell the history of the proslavery argument in this way – with emphases on black influence, grassroots evangelicalism, and hidden processes of negotiation – Irons confronts a number of formidable practical challenges. In his effort to reconnect and reorient the available source materials to explain how black spiritual initiative shaped the development of proslavery Christianity, Irons accepts Erskine Clarke’s challenge to write the history of slavery as “two histories of one place and one time.” The careful and convincing manner in which Irons meets this challenge is the greatest accomplishment of his book. Irons describes the evangelical experience in antebellum Virginia from both white and black perspectives and meticulously weaves this duality through each chapter.

These histories are most remarkable where they intersect: in a mountain of evidence for African-American influence on white religious experience, ecclesiastical policies, and the development of proslavery ideology. Irons extrapolates on patterns of church membership to show how interracial fellowship became a trademark of evangelical identity and the interracial church became the place where white Christians learned from their black brethren of their obligations to the enslaved. To varying degrees, each of Virginia’s evangelical denominations conformed their structure to African-American demands. Irons uses denominational records and the personal writings of white religious leaders to document the formal and informal arrangements through which Baptists and Methodists recognized and accommodated black preference for black preachers. Irons also illustrates how white attention to black religion permeated the sermons, church records, and religious periodicals of the 1830s and 40s, as evangelical observers documented the growth of black church membership to demonstrate the merit of their mission movement. In the final chapter, Irons turns to a speech from John Randolph Tucker to demonstrate that Virginians viewed their part in the Civil War as a struggle to preserve the Christian work conducted via the master-slave relationship and validated by the willing engagement of Christian slaves.

Elegant argumentation enables Irons to work his way through the source difficulties that debilitate historical understanding of the slave experience, and goes a long way towards overcoming some of the other challenges involved in writing a book like this. In order to write a balanced history of religious activity that accounts for the different appeals and functions of religious practice, the challenge is to demonstrate how religion can become a mechanism for social control while also taking religious belief and believers seriously. Irons’ book successfully meets this challenge time and again. For example, Irons uses the postbellum testimony of a former slave, a scathing depiction of the monotonous sermonizing of the slave mission, to document the tendency of white evangelicals to reduce black religion to a gospel of obedience, but also encourages his readers to imagine the slave mission as “an earnest evangelistic endeavor.” It was not a singular gospel of social control that attracted tens of thousands of black Virginians to the evangelical church during the decades of the missionary program. Religious experience served a number of functions for black and white evangelicals, and social control was but one of these.

The challenge that Irons is least successful in overcoming is the one he created for himself. Irons distinguishes his book from much of the previous scholarship by emphasizing the processes through which white evangelicals learned about race and slavery through engagement with the actions of their black brethren, instead of the proslavery consensus that grew out of these processes. This is an important narrative strategy, one that strengthens the book when Irons is able to maintain it, but when Irons strays from this strategy, away from processes and towards outcomes, it leads him into flimsier arguments. For example, Irons seems to be emphasizing outcome when he suggests that the mission movement and the maturation of the religious argument for racial slavery emerged in response to the Turner rebellion. He writes that while the pre-Turner generations “assumed that slavery was a necessary precondition for colonization,” the post-Turner generation realized that slavery was “a necessary precondition for mission work.” In this assessment, Irons exaggerates both the “before” and “after” sides of contrast, and neglects some of the continuities and alternative explanations that are evident in other parts of the book. Through over-reliance upon the minority report of Virginia colonizationists, Irons disregards the tendencies towards proslavery prescriptions and racial restrictions that existed long before 1831. The mission movement became more self-conscious and organized during the 1830s, but the assumptions and objectives that motivated the movement, as well as the restrictive methods involved, were continuous with the evangelical doctrines and practices of the previous era.

The cumulative value of Irons’ book more than compensates for any of its isolated weaknesses. As the most socially and racially diverse units of antebellum culture, the interracial evangelical communities of the slave South are a gold mine for historical examination. Irons has unearthed a great deal of this historical gold. The Origins of Proslavery Christianity is essential reading for any devoted student of American slavery, and recommended reading for those interested in Virginia history, religious history, or the history of American race relations.  

                      What if actor Clint Eastwood gave an interview in which he explained why, in the 2008 presidential election,     he voted for John McCain: “I voted for McCain because he was white. ‘Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them. … That’s American politics, pure and simple.”

                No, Eastwood did not say that. But actor Samuel L. Jackson did, in explaining why he voted for President Barack Obama — “because he was black.” Jackson also said his vote had nothing to do with Obama’s agenda: “(Obama’s) message didn’t mean (bleep) to me.” If Eastwood had said stuff like this, a cry to boycott his films would come from everybody from the NAACP to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

                But the popular Jackson, who played in more films during the ’90s than any other actor, makes an incredibly racist statement and it’s … yawn.

                Jackson insists he just does what every voter does. If they did, Obama could not have been elected U.S. senator from Illinois (15 percent of the state is black, 72 percent white) or the president of the United States (13 percent black, 72 percent white).

                How does Jackson explain Obama’s election in a country where people vote their race? Simple, you see. Obama isn’t really a black man — at least as defined by Jackson: “When it comes down to it, they wouldn’t have elected a (n-word). … A (n-word) is scary. Obama ain’t scary at all. (N-words) don’t have beers at the White House. (N-words) don’t let some white dude, while you in the middle of a speech, call (him) a liar. A (n-word) would have stopped the meeting right there and said, ‘Who the (bleep) said that?’” White voters, according to Jackson, voted for Obama because they found him un-black or semi-black or quasi-black.

                Obama did, in fact, lose the white vote — as has every white Democrat presidential candidate since 1964. But Obama outperformed Democrat John Kerry, who ran in 2004, pulling in 43 percent of the white vote to Kerry’s 41 percent.

                How does the vote-my-race Jackson explain the 2010 elections of black House Republicans Tim Scott and Allen West, in South Carolina and Florida, respectively? Scott won in a district that is 75 percent white and 21 percent black. West won in a district that is 82 percent white and 4 percent black.

                Polls repeatedly show that only a small percentage of Americans refuse for vote for a black person. A 2006 Times/Bloomberg poll found that 3 percent of voters would not vote for an otherwise qualified black candidate. But 4 percent wouldn’t vote for a woman, and 14 percent ruled out voting for a Mormon.

                What if people chose movies the Jackson way? What if blacks only saw movies about or starring other blacks? What if sports fans only saw players or teams that consisted solely of athletes who looked like them?

                Back in 1980, an advertising magnate named Ted Stepien purchased the abysmal Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. Stepien thought he had a formula for success. White fans, he said, like to watch white players. Because the Cavaliers’ stadium was then located between Cleveland and Akron, a demographical area that is predominately white, Stepien felt fans would come if the players looked like them.

                Stepien employed the Samuel L. Jackson formula. He stacked the team with white players for the white fans. Stepien made a series of bad player trades that hurt the team’s competitiveness for years. The team played even worse than before. Embarrassingly, the league eventually instituted the “Stepien rule,” forbidding any team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years. The team also drew even fewer fans. White fans, Stepien learned, did not enjoy watching white players lose anymore than watching black ones lose.

                Confused? According to the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a black president is a problem — for black people: “A white president, frankly, could be pushed a great deal more than we would push President Obama because nobody would accuse him or her of having partiality toward African-Americans. So it’s a tough spot. It also means we still have a long way to go in terms of race relations in this country, and the President has, I think, moved through these troubled waters about as well as any African-American could, becoming the first black president.”

                Cleaver says black lawmakers make fewer demands of the Obama administration than they would have under a McCain presidency. To follow Cleaver’s logic, blacks should have voted for McCain because he would not be labeled as preferring blacks — unlike the way a black president would be so labeled.

                To sum up, Rep. Cleaver tell us that he expects a black president to do less for blacks than would a white president. And actor Jackson tells us that he votes for blacks just because they are black. This might explain why moviegoers stayed away Jackson’s recent movie, “Snakes on a Plane.” 

                Why, how could people decide whether to see the film — without knowing the race of the snakes?

                Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 LAURENCE A. ELDER