Wednesday, March 03, 2010

"The Spirit of the Age"


The Sixty-second U.S. Colored Infantry is perhaps best known for its commitment to educate the mostly illiterate slaves who joined its ranks in late 1863 and early 1864. In reading various accounts of the regiment's history, I am impressed with the African American men and the strides they made to better themselves and the white officers who linked leadership to literacy and education to citizenship.

These officers were more than men of their time. They were visionaries who contributed to the immediacy of a brutal and bloody war with a long view to addressing the future needs of what most assuredly would be a dramatically changed society in peacetime. This brings to mind the engraving of the eagle pictured here, with arrows and an olive branch gripped in it talon. It was scanned from the enlistment paper of a slave who joined the army in 1864. It represents the extremes that these men faced.

Last week I read through the original regimental order book of the Sixty-second, part of the collection of the National Archives. Preserved in this volume are all the handwritten general and special orders issued by the staff officers. Page after page, I was struck by the commitment of these men to the betterment of freed slaves.

General Order No. 36, transcribed here, caught my attention, for it illustrates both the weakness of man and the strength of human character. I like the phrase "the spirit of the age," which acknowledges this unique moment in history that transformed a race and rebuilt the very foundation of our modern democracy.
Hd. Qrs. 62nd Regt. U.S. Cold. Inf.
Brazos Santiago, Texas
November 9th 1864
General Orders
No 36

The Lieut. Col. Comdg. has learned with regret that several officers of this command have been in the habit of abusing men under their command by striking them with their fists or swords, & by kicking them when guilty of very slight offenses. This is as unmanly and unofficer like as it is unnecessary. An officer is not fit to command who cannot control his temper sufficiently to avoid the habitual application of blows to enforce obedience. Men will not obey as promptly an order who adopts the customs of the slave driver to maintain authority as they will him who punishes by a system consistent with the character and enormity of offenses and the spirit of the age. The time for enforcing authority with the sword is in case of willful disobedience of orders, mutiny, or cowardice in action, which in the ordinary course of events, will rarely occur.

While censuring the officers referred to, their commander makes allowance for the fact that, generally, the men who have received such punishment have been of the meanest type of soldiers; lazy, dirty & inefficient and provoking to any high spirited officer. But he is satisfied never-the-less that such treatment will not produce reform in them, while it has an injurious effect on all good men, from its resemblance to their former treatment while slaves.

By order of
Lieut. Colonel David Branson
Comdg. Regt.
R.B. Foster
1st Lt. & actg. Adjt.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, January 07, 2010

What Will Be Gained by the Present War?

This is a question that Sgt. Charles W. Singer of the 107th U.S. Colored Infantry asked and then answered in a letter to the editor of the Christian Recorder (Philadelphia, Pa.). This is an excerpt of the complete letter published on Oct. 8, 1864.
The question has frequently been asked: What will be gained by the present war? I ask, in return: What will you not lose by a mongrel state of peace? We would lose the best opportunity that has ever been afforded us to show the whole world that we are willing to fight for our rights. Why should not the black slave of the South fight for his liberty as well as the white serf of Russia? A slave is but a slave, and a man is but a man. Age or color is nothing - blood will tell all. The so-called southern Confederacy is fighting for the establishment of a Government, which will have for its corner-stone the perpetuation of human slavery - the degradation of the many for the purpose of elevating the few; but never shall they succeed so long as I can raise my arm against them. Who ever learned in the school of base submission the lessons of freedom, courage and independence? When did submission to a wrong induce an adversary to cease his encroachments? Some say: "Show me what the colored man has to fight for, and then I will go." You cannot see it now; but wait until some future day, and it will unfold itself most gloriously to the whole country. We want the rights of freemen, and must have them; but we can never get them if the South gain its independence. If I were now a slave at the South, my motto would be: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" I hope that motto will ring throughout the entire length and breadth of the rebel States, and fire the hearts of the men. Shall we not console our aged mothers with the hope, that, when hereafter their souls, crowned with the garlands of martyrdom, look down from the home of the blessed, the united joys of the heavens shall thrill through their immortal spirits, seeing their dear people free from the bondage of slavery?

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, November 27, 2009

Do Unto Others

The Thanksgiving holiday brought to mind an excerpt of a speech given in 1871 by Lt. Col. David Branson (1840-1916) of the Sixty-second U.S. Colored Infantry. He spoke on occasion of the dedication of Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, Mo. He and his comrades contributed money and helped found the school known today as Lincoln University of Missouri.

In his brief comments, Branson spoke to the value of education and religious freedom in the Reconstruction era, as Americans struggled to deal with a new political, economic and social order as a result of the Civil War and the end of slavery. He states:
The future peace of our country is threatened more by the unwise zeal of religious men than by anything else, unless it be ignorance itself; and ignorance is the tool of such unwise zealots. Inquisitions, burnings at the stake, and hanging of the best men and women of their time, have been their work in the past, and will be in the future, unless prevented by just such schools as this, managed by liberal-minded men like Prof. Foster here, who, while holding strong religious convictions of his own, fully recognizes the right under our glorious Constitution of the United States, of every man, be he Christian, Jew or Mahomedan, to his own creed, untrammeled by any law whatever. And right here I cannot refrain from denouncing those men who are trying to insert a religious amendment in the Constitution of the United States.

A well-known author and close observer of events has well said that "It is the point of a wedge whose butt end is an established Church;" and an established Church in England has produced great wars in the past, and I will venture to predict, will deluge the British Isles in blood during the next generation.

But some may ask. Are we to have no religion? no morality? I have this to answer, on the best authority ever given us, and it is the sum of all the commandments, based on justice, tempered with mercy, and adorned by love: "Whatsoever ye would that men do to you, even so do ye unto them."

When we are able to live up to that law, then it will be time to think of teaching creeds and theologies in our public schools; and then they will not be needed or thought of. The future of our own free government depends on us who have the advantages of education. Whether we wish it or not, we must educate the masses pouring in from Europe on the East and Asia on the West, or they will destroy our free government and render despotic government a necessity.

It is our destiny to lift up the races that are down, and we need not be dragged down in the work, but rather buoyed up to a still higher level. Let us then each and all do what lies in our power for the elevation and happiness both of ourselves and others; and so living we shall not, when called from this world to the great unknown, fear to meet the spirits gone before; but rather approach it as we do a new country, whither our friends have preceeded us to enjoy greater happiness than in the land of our birth.
I find Branson's message as appropriate today as they were almost 140 years ago. Read the full speech.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Transformation

Ulysses S. Grant's transformation between 1861 and 1869 from an alcoholic ex-soldier and failed farmer to lieutenant general and commander of all the Union armies and President of the United States is the classic rags to riches American success story. And one that captivated me in my youth and inspires me today.

Grant's whirlwind adventure ends on a positive note. Even after his post-presidency years were tarnished when a swindler bilked him out of his savings and terminal cancer consumed his life, he mustered his last remaining resources to write his memoirs, which, with the help of Mark Twain, became an international bestseller that provided his family with financial support after his death.

Now I am discovering other stories of transformation that rivaled Grant's for their rapid and steep ascent to glory. But these stories end tragically.

Take William Wright, an African American born a slave in Kentucky and the current subject of my research. During a three year period, from 1864 to 1870, his life forever changed when he became a Union soldier and free man, then a farmer living for the first time in control of his own affairs and having the ability to pursue his dreams.

There are few instances in history where hope radiated with such brightness and warmth over humanity than in America during this time. The collapse and fall of the Confederacy and the end of a bloody Civil War. The freedom of an enslaved race of people. Three amendments to the Constitution establishing equality for all. During this brief period along our nation's timeline, hope seemed eternal. The dawn of a new age lay before us.

And yet the hope that burned so brightly dimmed quickly as Reconstruction failed. Civil rights were trampled and within a short time African Americans found themselves in a new slavery fueled by racism. And it would last for more than a century, until a new civil rights movements in the 1960s would rekindle the almost extinguished flame of hope.

William Wright would never see the flame rekindled. Driven from his farm in 1871 by what he called "Night Riders," he and his family fled to Iowa, where he lived a modest life as a farmer in a quiet corner of the country. He died in 1901.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Slavery: Simple Words, Stark Reminder

"I owned Silas Brown."
— Dr. Cyrus N. Brown, Yazoo City, Miss.

"He was owned before & during the war by Dr. C.N. Brown’s wife, thereby getting the name of Brown."
— Tibby Johnson, wife of Silas Johnson, formerly Silas Brown.
These references to Silas Johnson's early life as a slave appear in his application for a Civil War pension. Both are still in my mind weeks after I read them. These simple declarations provoked an immediate emotional response: Surprise that these individuals acknowledged slavery in such a dispassionate way; sadness for a man deprived of freedom and education during his early life; repulsion and disappointment for a man who participated in the ownership of another human being; a sense of loss for the millions of men and women of color who endured centuries of racism.

All of this feeling charged through my body in an instant. Simple words. Stark reminder.

I was unprepared for the depth of my feeling. I know slavery is a moral wrong and that it is at the center of our greatest national crisis. I learned this from books. Silas Johnson and Dr. C.N. Brown lived it. Their simple, dispassionate acknowledgment of the fact, devoid of feeling, somehow makes it all that more personal for me.

It is experiences like this that drive me to tell the stories of men like Johnson.

Labels: , , , , ,