Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #27: Lincoln (2012)

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln was one of his long-running projects. Earlier on, it was to be a more general biopic with Liam Neeson as the famed Abraham Lincoln. By the time it finally swung into proper production, however, Neeson dropped out and Daniel Day-Lewis took his place. Wisely, Spielberg also abandoned the idea of a film covering years, if not decades, of Lincoln’s life, a common mistake of biopics that results in unfocused, hole-ridden storylines. Instead he zeroed in on the president’s attempt to get the 13^th Amendment passed in the House of Representatives.

The 13^th Amendment was to end slavery once and for all in the United States. It was the culmination of years of policy development during the Civil War. Though he hated slavery, Lincoln knew he could not abolish it and instead had supported the Republican Party’s views of preventing its expansion into new territories. As the war progressed, however, the Union Army and Federal government could not ignore the fact that slave labor fueled the Confederacy, so runaway slaves were accepted as “contraband” enemy property. By 1865 many now believed that slavery had to be abolished, whether out of moral concerns or the pragmatic belief that it would result in more strife down the road.

The 13^th Amendment is opposed by various Democrats and some of the more conservative Republicans. A greater threat is a Confederate peace commission. If slavery’s continued existence in a restored Union ensures that a long, bloody war can finally end right now, many in the House will see the 13^th as a guaranteed war to keep the body count going. Many historians disputed the central conflict of Lincoln, arguing that there was no way slavery could remain intact after the Civil War, even if the amendment initially failed to pass.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #20: Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

 

Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest figures in American history, no matter what your opinion of him is. He was an instrumental player in one of America’s great transition points. Abe Lincoln in Illinois is an adaptation of the play of the same name, which in turn was heavily derived from Carl Sandburg’s Prairie Years volume of his Lincoln biography. Thus it charts Lincoln’s life from the 1830s up until the 1860 election. Running at a little under two hours, it commits one of the common sins of biopics, which is trying to cover too much of a person’s life. Thus I was surprised to not only enjoy the film, but be legitimately invested in much of it, especially towards the end.

Raymond Massey was famous for playing Lincoln in the stage version, and he reprises his role here for an Academy Award nomination. Massey was well into his forties, so the earlier scenes seem a bit off. For example, we first see him being sent off by his mother to make something of himself in the world. Massey’s aged face makes the scene somewhat comical. As the film progresses, though, I do get more comfortable with him in the role, and his age definitely fits in the last act.

Massey’s Lincoln is a good-natured, self-deprecating county boy who wins the hearts of almost everyone around him. He goes from taking odd frontier jobs to becoming a lawyer. He’s also consistently reluctant to get involved with politics, first being pressured into becoming a local politician, then a congressman, and finally running for the presidency despite his self-doubts. While this does humanize him much more than some rather hagiographic depictions, I’m going to have to call foul on its accuracy. Lincoln may have had humble origins, but he definitely had an ambitious streak and I don’t think he needed everyone to keep prodding him towards his destiny. Because of time’s sake, the movie also skips over his railroad lawyer career. The railroad industry in 19^th Century America was notoriously corrupt, so it’s possible Lincoln had to get dirty despite his “Honest Abe” appellation.

The Ironclad Assault on Charleston Part III (April 7-After, 1863)

The sinking of the Keokuk as illustrated in Harper's Weekly

Charleston Stands

It seemed to the Federals that the Confederates were unfazed. This was almost true, and the Charleston defenders had reason to be elated. Losses at Fort Moultrie were paltry. When he took a boat over there, General Ripley learned that the most considerable damage was done to the flagstaff. It had been cut by enemy shot, the top part falling down and crushing a Private Lusby. Lusby soon died from his injury. The Confederates defiantly set their regimental flag on the traverse to replace the one that had fallen. The other casualty at this spot was a gunner, Private Harrison, who accidentally lost a finger while helping push his gun into place.[1]

Indeed, Confederate losses were light, especially in terms of men. An ammunition chest exploded in Battery Wagner, killing 4 men and wounding 4 others. Fort Sumter, which was hit about 55 times, can be said to have had the worst of it. One Columbiad exploded and flew back into the parade grounds, and a rifled 42-pound piece was put out of action not by enemy fire, but by a defective gun carriage that was crushed by the recoil of the gun. Six men, one of them a slave or free black, were hit by debris from shattered brick and wood. Major Echols, one of the engineers, added, “Nearly all the window panes and some of the sashes in the fort were broken by concussion.”[2] Total Confederate losses in manpower mounted to 4 dead and 10 wounded.[3]

The Ironclad Assault on Charleston Part II (April 7, 1863)

 

With Du Pont's attack force of 9 ironclad warships steaming towards the harbor, both sides were ready for the possibility of their success. Confederate war ships were waiting further back in the harbor. The most formidable were the Chicora and Palmetto State, both ironclads. For their part the Union had wooden ships waiting to join once the ironclads had done their part. Neither of these groups would act unless the ironclads made it past Fort Sumter.[1]

Storm in the Harbor

The Confederates knew the ironclads were coming, and they worked on ensuring that their batteries and works were ready for battle. At 2 PM the enemy fleet began to advance up the channel, and the South Carolinians waited expectantly for them to get into range. General Roswell S. Ripley, commanding the defense, had personally gone to Fort Sumter as it was sure to be the epicenter of the battle.[2] Frank Vizetelly, a British journalist, waited like the Confederate defenders, and reported on the appearance of the oncoming ironclads:

There they came, their turrets whirling in a waltz of death. Cautiously they worked their way up the ship channel, and, as I watched their approach through my glass, I could hear the thumping of my heart against my ribs…Every house is pouring out its inmates, eager to witness the engagement: ladies, in almost gala costume, are hastening to the battery promenade, from whence an unobstructed view of the harbor and forts, and of the enemy’s fleet, can be obtained. There is no terror expressed in any of these countenances – all are calm and collected; they are going to witness the bravery of their defenders.[3]

Frank Vizetelly was a traveling British journalist. At the start of the American Civil War he attended the Union Army, but then went South to report from the Confederate side. He grew so like the Confederates so much that he began to label the conflict the more secession-friendly "War Between the States." (https://emergingcivilwar.com/2012/04/04/drawing-the-war-part-3-frank-vizetelly/)

In Fort Sumter, as the defenders assembled for action and the flags were raised, the band struck up “Dixie,” though there’s no record that the Union seamen could hear it. However, they must have heard the 13-gun salute, either a humorous attempt to treat the battle like a gala occasion or a chivalric salute to the enemy.[4]

The Ironclad Assault on Charleston Part I (Leading up to April 7, 1863)

Charleston, South Carolina was the birthplace of the Confederacy. It was there that delegates from across the state successfully voted to secede on December 24, 1860. Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard found himself overseeing the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. This initiated the Civil War and gave the Northern states more reason to despise the city. Beauregard would go on to command at Bull Run and in Western Tennessee, but in September 1862 would return to the city that made him a nationwide name.

Beauregard’s engineering expertise arrived just in time. Surprisingly the Union Navy had made no firm attempt to take the rebellious city, instead seizing other ports. But as 1862 progressed it finally began to tighten its grip, and the Army mounted a failed expedition in July. Still absent was a major naval assault. It would finally come on April 7, 1863. Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, a lifelong sea man who had joined the Navy at age 12 in 1815, would try to force Charleston Harbor with the latest in naval machines, the Jon Ericsson-designed ironclad monitors. Du Pont would pay the price for the hubris and unrealistic expectations of his political superiors.

The Battle of Marianna (September 27, 1864)

 After the disastrous East Florida campaign of early 1864, which culminated in the bloodbath of Olustee, the Civil War in Florida went back to the status quo of raids and specifically for the Federals occupation duties. There was one raid in September, however, that managed to leave a mark on Floridian memory. This raid’s high point was the Battle of Marianna, occurring at a lightly populated yet important location for the Confederate war effort.

A Raiding War

Though spared the larger battles in most other theatres of the war, West Floridian defenders were not in good shape heading into what would be the last year of the war. One Major-General Sam Jones reported, “The health of the whole command in this department has been unusually bad this season. It is believed that it would have been much worse had it not been for the use of quinine as a prophylactic, for the sanitary condition of the troops improved materially after its issue.” While quinine alleviated the diseases endemic to hot and in many places swampy Florida, the men were still severely short of clothes, especially shoes. The requests of Jones and other officers for clothes and other valuable goods went unheeded.[1]

Making matters worse, they were almost at the complete mercy of the Union military, with only strategic disinterest keeping the rebel presence alive in the interior. Fanny Chapman, a resident of Marianna, later wrote that “No part of our coast from Pensacola to Apalachicola was protected, while every bay, bayou, and inlet was blockaded, and the Apalachicola River was open to Federal gunboats at any time.”[2] The commander of the Union Army in West Florida was about to exploit Confederate weakness.

Alexander S. Asboth

Alexander Sandor Asboth was born in Hungary in 1811. He became an engineer for the government, then took part in the 1848 Hungarian revolt against Austrian rule. Like the other revolutions of that year, it failed and Asboth joined thousands of other European liberals in moving to America. Also like the other “Dutch”, he was a fervent supporter of the Union cause and joined the army in 1861.

Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (Jonathan W. White)

 

In Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln, Jonathan White presents a more cynical but probably more realistic take on the Union Army in regards to the motivations of its soldiers. He challenges the popular historical consensus that the overwhelming army vote for Lincoln in the 1864 election reflected solidarity with Republican war aims of emancipation. While he directly addresses James McPherson’s works, which trumpeted the army as a force of emancipation, he also criticizes Chandra Manning’s What This Cruel War Was Over, and in doing so challenges her thesis as well. In her book Manning claimed that by looking at hundreds of Union and Confederate letters, the soldiers obviously fought for the issue of slavery. As regards the Federals, she believes they for the most part put Unionism I the background in favor of destroying slavery. White believes that she and other historians inferred too much from a considerable, yet still fractionally small pool of letters and diaries. I add that they also failed to take differing ethnic and regional backgrounds to account (for example, a soldier from southern Illinois would not be as inclined towards abolitionism as a Massachusetts man or radical German immigrant). Furthermore, he believes that soldiers’ views change back and forth in response to events. Historians can fall into the trap of taking a few diaries and letters and making them representative of the whole army. He avoids being representative himself, stating that he only wishes to flesh out those who did not vote against Lincoln and not make any monolithic claims.

He argues several general facts that challenge the popular narrative. Using voting statistics, he shows that 20% of soldiers eligible to vote chose not to do so, showing either disinterest or disgust with both parties. Many who voted for Lincoln did so because they did not approve of the Democrats’ anti-war platform and just wanted to win the war. Finally, in the age of public ballots, there was an atmosphere of intimidation that dissuaded Democrat votes. Some Republican officers rigged pro-emancipation regimental resolutions to appear unanimously in favor. Soldiers who wanted to vote for McClellan could be stopped out of fear of riling up their comrades and being accused of disloyalty. Officers could have their careers stalled or destroyed if they expressed too much criticism of abolitionism.

Through his work White concludes a common historiographical trend. Often there is a prevailing view of a historical event that stays entrenched for decades. Then a revisionist makes a stark counter-argument that becomes the predominant view, only later on for a third “neo-revisionist” work to argue a middle ground. For a long time the Union soldier was presented for fighting primarily for preservation of his republic. Then it became emancipation. White shows that “for many northern soldiers, restoring the Union was the only true goal of the war from beginning to end.” Though his lack of time on it may not reveal it, he argues that many soldiers indeed came to see emancipation as the higher cause, but perhaps just as many prioritized preserving the Union without any concern for blacks. He argues that the Union Army was an army of emancipation not from some popular “bottom-up” movement by the soldiers, but from a top-down implementation of policies by Lincoln, the War Department, and then the generals and other officers.

White’s book does a good job of providing a more nuanced view of the Union army and showing that there was not a strong pro-emancipation majority, but there are a couple flaws. White makes the same mistake as Manning in not differentiating the different types of ethnicities and regions making up the armies. In reading this book I noticed that the soldiers with the strongest anti-emancipation views came from such states as Illinois and Ohio. General Sherman’s 1864 army, which was made up of westerners, refused to accept any black soldiers. Westerners had stronger economic ties with the South, and may have shared more of their racial views as a result. My second issue is that some of the officers and soldiers that were dismissed for disloyalty were directing some very bold criticisms and insults towards Lincoln and abolition. White never suggests that they might have twisted the stories behind their comments when presenting them in court. A pillar of the United States is free speech but one wonders if such blatant attacks on war aims and the commander-in-chief would have been accepted or still are.

Regardless this is a great book from the recent Dark Turn in Civil War historiography. While not pleasant, it is essential for White and others to challenge some of the comforting narratives. White also better accounts for the fact that history is made up of individuals, not collectives. While group pressure can shape an individual, he, especially an American one, is likely to have some degree of difference in views. Federals soldiers’ views on emancipation varied widely from outright abolitionism to pragmatic emancipation to complete disinterest to even anti-emancipation.

The book can be bought here. It's price has gone down significantly since I had to get it for my Master's course.

Rating: Highly Recommend

Rating System

Must-Read: Definite read for history in general

Highly Recommend: Definite read within a certain subject

Recommend: Good for further information or info on a certain topic

Adequate: Useful if looking for further information certain topic

Pass: Awful, only useful for examining bad or ideologically-tainted history

McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (Ethan S. Rafuse)

McClellan's War is Ethan Rafuse's 2005 attempt to truly decipher what Union General George B. McClellan, the first commander of the Army of the Potomac, was doing in the early third of the Civil War. For most of Civil War historiography, McClellan has been blamed for the Union's lack of success in Virginia. He was too egotistical in dealing with the President and other political leaders. He was needlessly cautious, displaying a mental handicap that prevented him from dealing several critical blows against Lee's Confederate Army. It does not help that McClellan was often in opposition to the deified Abraham Lincoln, even to the point of running against him for president. Historians and documentarians thus have depicted him as something of an arch-nemesis. Rafuse is one of several historians that have found this view of McClellan to be flawed, perhaps even cartoonish. In his 400 page tome he focuses primarily on McClellan's political and strategic beliefs and how they influenced his conduct of the war from 1861-1862.

The first quarter of the book fleshes out McClellan's background. He grew up in a Whig family. Many within the Whig political party, such as Henry Clay, emphasized compromise and careful rational thinking to solve political problems. When the Whig Party met its demise, McClellan shifted his views over to the Douglas Democrats. Like the Whigs, Stephen Douglas of Illinois stressed compromise to smooth over partisan differences and oppose extremism. He viewed both Secessionists and Republicans, especially Radical Republicans, as extremely dangerous. Though he sided with the Union, he was deeply concerned by the growing influence of abolitionist politics on war policy. He believed that this would stiffen Confederate resistance because of fears of a race war.

The Florida Expedition Part II: Marching through Florida

 Camp Finegan

Once enough of his army had landed, Seymour led a force out of Jacksonville on February 8. Gus Henry’s Mounted Infantry, the only mounted force, would of course be the advance guard. Those in the 54^th Massachusetts, who had been happy to leave fatigue duties at Charleston, were disappointed to learn that they would be staying behind on garrison duty for the moment. They entertained themselves by making a lot of noise in an attempt to make their regiment look larger to any Confederate partisans in the area. They were also pleased to find the civilians getting much friendlier than they had been during the landing.[1]

Seymour’s first target was Camp Finegan, the largest concentration of Confederate forces at that moment. The Rebels had destroyed all the bridges, so the Federals forded the stream instead. The mounted men led the way, surprising and capturing six pickets. In 10 minutes they were nearly upon the camp. Colonel Henry used a local guide, Mr. Alsop, to bypass the camp and strike an artillery camp at Pickett’s Station.[2]

Colonel Guy Henry. His 40th
Massachusetts Infantry was
constantly at the forefront of
the Florida Expedition.

The Confederates in the artillery camp, under Captain Joseph Dunham, were unaware of the danger. Outside, Henry formed his men for an assault, nearly surrounding the target, then said, “If ever you yell in your lives, boys, yell now!” The horsemen shouted to the calls of bugles. It was past 11 PM and most of the Confederates were already sleeping. A sergeant awakened Dunham, shouting, “Save yourselves if you can; the enemy is right upon you!” The captain yelled at everybody to grab horses, mules, or carriages, and flee to Baldwin. The Union riders entered the camp firing “their carbines and slashing with their swords shouting surrender you Rebel sons of bitches.” A Major Stevens gunned for a telegraph operator. An train was expected to arrive soon and the telegraph operator was determined to warn it away. “Major Stevens walked into the room and seized the fellow by the throat as he was on the point of sending another message. In a few minutes his instrument was knocked to pieces and the wire cut.” The Massachusetts riders quickly captured many Confederates, along with a few pieces of artillery. Much of the camp’s men escaped through the one opening, a system of swamps.[3] Henry’s men advanced further to Baldwin, driving off more Rebels and capturing more goods.[4]

The Florida Expedition Part I: The Start of the Campaign for Florida

 

People sometimes ask me why there was little fighting in Florida during the Civil War. The state noticeably juts out into the Caribbean and looks highly invasion prone. Narrow from east to west, one successful offensive could slice off a large chunk of the Confederacy. The truth is that until well into the 20^th Century Florida was a largely undeveloped state full of swamps and other wild terrain. Most of the important population centers were in the north. There was thus little strategic incentive for the Union forces to invade, and a simple blockade of its few ports was far less cost-intensive. That changed at the onset of 1864, when a mix of military, economic, and political factors suddenly drew the attention of Abraham Lincoln’s administration as well as the military Department of the South. The sole major campaign in Florida would climax in the Battle of Olustee, a Confederate victory that is often emphasized more as a Federal blunder. Historians usually portray the Florida Expedition as a wasteful sideshow akin to the Red River Campaign just about to start on the other side of the Confederacy. A few historians have attempted to argue that a Union success could have actually shortened the war. This series will attempt to see which side holds more weight.

 

Florida Before 1864

The American Civil War almost began months earlier in Florida. In late 1860 exuberant Secessionists planned an assault on a weakened Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island, in Pensacola Harbor (the westernmost point of the state). However politicians intervened, believing this would paint the Confederates as the instigator of hostilities and drum up war support in the North. This fear was still fulfilled when South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.[1] Almost immediately the war hit Florida hard. Its inhabitants were heavily dependent on ships to export its produced goods and import what they did not make themselves. The absence of Northern trade vessels as well as the blockade led to the shutdown of businesses and shops alongside rising prices.[2]