This Republic of Suffering (44 page)

16. Louis P. Towles, ed.,
A World Turned Upside Down: The Palmers of South Santee,
1818–1881 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 341, 348, 342, 359.

17. J. Michael Welton, ed.,
“My Heart Is So Rebellious”: The Caldwell Letters,
1861–1865 (Warrenton, Va.: Fauquier National Bank, 1991); Towles, ed.,
World Turned Upside Down,
p. 404.

18. Towles, ed.,
World Turned Upside Down,
p. 404; Mrs. H. [Anna Morris Ellis Holstein],
Three Years in Field Hospitals of the Army of the Potomac
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1867), p. 13.

19. Jean H. Baker,
Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), p. 216; Major General F. H. Smith, Superintendent, Virginia Military Institute, General Orders no. 30, May 13, 1863, VMIA, online at www.vmi.edu/archives/Jackson/cwjacksn.htm.

20. On mourning garb, see “Fashionable Mourning,”
Christian Recorder,
September 19, 1863; Katherine Basanese, “Victorian Period Mourning,”
The Courier: The Official Newsletter of the American Civil War Association
1 (May 1995): 5–7; “The Fashion of Mourning,”
Godey's Lady's Book
54 (March 1857): 286. See also Joan L. Severa,
Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion,
1840–1900 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1995).

21. Mary D. Robertson, ed.,
Lucy Breckinridge of Grove Hill: The Journal of a Virginia Girl,
1862–1864 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1979), pp. 80–81.
Daily South Carolinian,
February 26, 1864. Patricia Loughridge and Edward D. C. Campbell Jr.,
Women in Mourning
(Richmond, Va.: Museum of the Confederacy, 1985), p. 24.

22. Margaret Gwyn Diary, April 22 and 29, 1862, Special Collections, RBMSC; Nannie Haskins Diary, March 3, 1863, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

23. Welton,
“My Heart Is So Rebellious,”
p. 239.

24. Kate Corbin to Maggie Tucker, April 21, 1863, manuscripts in possession of David Eilenberger, Chapel Hill Rare Books, Chapel Hill, N.C. See also Lila to Willie Chunn, September 21, 1863, William Augustus Chunn Papers, Emory University, Atlanta;
Daily South Carolinian,
March 10, 1864.

25.
Philadelphia Inquirer,
July 3, 1863;
Richmond Enquirer,
April 25, 1861, p. 3;
New York Times,
May 31, 1863, p. 6.

26.
Godey's Lady's Book
71 (August 1865): 106; 64 ( June 1862): 617; 68 (May 1864): 498.

27. Mary D. Robertson, ed.,
Lucy Breckinridge of Grove Hill: The Journal of a Virginia Girl,
1862–1864 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1979), pp. 80–81;
Daily South Carolinian,
February 26, 1864; Patricia Loughridge and Edward D. C. Campbell Jr.,
Women in Mourning
(Richmond, Va.: Museum of the Confederacy, 1985), p. 24.

28. “The Massachusetts Dead Returned from Baltimore,”
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper,
May 11, 1861, p. 410;
Christian Recorder,
May 11, 1861; John Marszalek, ed.,
The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes,
1861–1866 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), pp. 69–70. In early months of the war funerals received attentive press coverage that soon disappeared as they became commonplace. See, for example, “The Funeral Ceremonies in Honor of Addison Whitney and Luther C. Ladd at Lowell, Mass. On Monday, May 6,”
New York Illustrated News,
May 25, 1861, p. 43; “Funeral of Colonel Vosburgh,”
New York Illustrated News,
June 8, 1861, p. 75; “The Late Captain Ward,”
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper,
July 13, 1861, p. 133.

29. George Skoch, “A Lavish Funeral for a Southern Hero: ‘Stonewall' Jackson's Last March,”
Civil War Times Illustrated,
May 1989, pp. 22–27; Samuel B. Hannah, May 17, 1863, Death of Stonewall Jackson, VMIA; online at www.vmi.edu/archives/jackson/tjjhanna.htm. See also
Lexington Gazette,
May 20, 1863, Funeral of Stonewall Jackson, VMIA, online at www.vmi.edu/archives/jackson/tjjobit.htm; Daniel Stowell, “Stonewall Jackson and the Providence of God,” in Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson,
Religion and the American Civil War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 187–207; Charles Royster,
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), pp. 193–231. See also “Funeral of Gen. Maxcy Gregg,” newspaper clipping, December 22, 1862, Maxcy Gregg Papers, SCL; “Funeral of General Winthrop,” clipping, 1864, Frederick Winthrop Papers, MAHS.

30. Rev. T. H. Stockton, “Hymn for the National Funeral” (Philadelphia: A. W. Auner, [1865]); Swain quoted in David B. Chesebrough,
“No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow”: Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln
(Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1994), p. 88.

31.
New York Herald,
April 20, 1865; Merrill D. Peterson,
Lincoln in American Memory
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 15–22.

32.
New York Herald,
April 26, 1865; Jacob Thomas quoted in Chesebrough,
“No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow,”
p. 187. See also
Christian Recorder,
April 22, 1865, May 6, 1865.

33. Walt Whitman, “Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day,” in
Walt Whitman: Civil War Poetry and Prose
(New York: Dover, 1995), pp. 34–35.

34. Helen Vendler, “Poetry and the Mediation of Value: Whitman on Lincoln,” Tanner Lecture on Human Values delivered at the University of Michigan, October 29 and 30, 1999, online at www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/Vendler_01.pdf, pp. 147–48. I am deeply indebted to Professor Vendler for sharing thoughts about Whitman with me.

35. Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain,” in
Civil War Poetry and Prose,
p. 34.

36. Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,” in
Civil War Poetry and Prose,
pp. 27–28.

37. Whitman, “Pensive on Her Dead Gazing,” in
Civil War Poetry and Prose,
p. 38; Vendler, “Poetry and the Mediation of Value,” pp. 155–56; Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,” pp. 27–28, 33.

38. Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,” p. 28; Whitman, “Ashes of Soldiers,” in
Civil War Poetry and Prose,
pp. 36, 37.

39. Tyler Resch,
Dorset: In the Shadow of the Marble Mountain
(Dorset, Vt.: Dorset Historical Society, 1989), pp. 141, 174;
Nantucket Weekly Mirror,
December 27, 1862, quoted in Richard F. Miller and Robert F. Mooney,
The Civil War: The Nantucket Experience
(Nantucket, Mass.: Wesco, 1994), p. 137.

40. Reverend Clark B. Stewart, Journal-Diary, 1859–1865, Works Progress Administration typescript, SCL.

41. L. H. Blanton,
“Well Done Thou Good and Faithful Servant,” Funeral Sermon on the Death of Rev. John W. Griffin, Chaplain of the
19
th Va. Regt., August
1, 1864 (Lynchburg, Va.: Power-Press Book & Job Office, 1865), p. 8.

42. On funeral sermons, see Robert V. Wells,
Facing the “King of Terrors”: Death and Society in an American Community,
1750–1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 54–56.

43. William J. Hoge,
Sketch of Dabney Carr Harrison, Minister of the Gospel and Captain in the Army of the Confederate States of America
(Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication of the Confederate States, 1862), pp. 50, 51–52, 53.

44. Alexander Twombly,
The Completed Christian Life: A Sermon Commemorative of Adjutant Richard M. Strong,
177
th N.Y.S.V.
(Albany, N.Y.: J. Mussell, 1863), p. 7; Philip Slaughter,
A Sketch of the Life of Randolph Fairfax, A Private in the Ranks of the Rockbridge Artillery
(Richmond, Va.: Tyler, Allegre and McDaniel, 1864), pp. 6, 8, 35, 39; R. L. Dabney,
A Memorial of Lieut. Colonel John T. Thornton of the Third Virginia Cavalry, C.S.A.
(Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication of the Confederate States), pp. 6, 8; Robert Lewis Dabney,
True Courage: A Discourse Commemorative of Lieutenant General Thomas J. Jackson
(Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication of the Confederate States, 1863), p. 4.

45. Charles Seymour Robinson,
A Memorial Discourse: Occasioned by the Death of Lieutenant James M. Green,
4
th N.Y.S.V.
(Troy, N.Y.: Daily Times Printing, 1864), pp. 14, 15.

46. Joseph Cross, “On Grief: A Funeral Service Oration for General Daniel Donelson,” in
Camp and Field: Papers from the Portfolio of an Army Chaplain
(Columbia, S.C.: Evans & Cogswell, 1864), pp. 68, 69, 71.

47. Henry I. Bowditch, “Memorial of Lt. Nathaniel Bowditch,” p. 1015, Nathaniel Bowditch Memorial Collection, MAHS.

48. Ibid., pp. 1015, 1048; Henry I. Bowditch to My Own Sweet Wife [Olivia Yardley Bowditch], March 19, 1863, “Manuscripts Relating to Lieutenant Nathaniel Bowditch,” vol. 2, p. 98, Nathaniel Bowditch Memorial Collection, MAHS.

49. Henry I. Bowditch to Darling [Olivia Yardley Bowditch], March 21, 1863, “Manuscripts Relating to Lieutenant Nathaniel Bowditch,” vol. 2, p. 98, Nathaniel Bowditch Memorial Collection, MAHS; Bowditch, “Memorial,” p. 1019. On the unmanliness of grief, see also H. L. Abbott to J. G. Abbott, in Robert Garth Scott, ed.,
Fallen Leaves: The Civil War Letters of Major Henry Livermore Abbott
(Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), p. 140; W. D. Rutherford to Sallie Fair Rutherford, June 12, 1862, William D. Rutherford Papers, SCL.

50. Henry I. Bowditch to My Darling, March 19, 1863, “Manuscripts,” vol. 2, pp. 98–100; Bowditch, “Memorial,” p. 1015.

51. Bowditch, “Memorial,” p. 1015; Memorials of Lieut. Nathaniel Bowditch A.A.A.G., 1st Cavalry Brigade, Second Division, Army of the Potomac, title page, Nathaniel Bowditch Memorial Collection, MAHS. “My Child” was originally published in
Monthly Miscellany
3 (October 1840): 193–94, with the title “He is Not There.” The poem was “addressed by the writer to a clerical friend, on the death of his only son.” See also Louis Harmon Peet,
Who's the Author?: A Guide to the Authorship of Novels, Stories, Speeches, Songs and General Writings of American Literature
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1901), p. 169, and Henry I. Bowditch, “The Celebration of John Pierpont's Centennial Birthday,”
Reminiscences
(Boston: n.p., 1885).

52. Bowditch to My Darling, March 19, 1863; Nat's Funeral, Rev. James Freeman Clarke's Remarks, both in “Manuscripts,” vol. 2, pp. 97, 160–64, Nathaniel Bowditch Memorial Collection, MAHS.

53. Bowditch, “Memorial,” p. 1015; Henry I. Bowditch,
A Brief Plea for an Ambulance System for the Army of the United States, as Drawn from the Extra Sufferings of the Late Lieutenant Bowditch and a Wounded Comrade
(Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863).

CHAPTER 6. BELIEVING AND DOUBTING

1. John D. Sweet,
The Speaking Dead. A Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Serg't Edward Amos Adams
(Boston: Commercial Printing House, 1864), pp. 6, 4, 5.

2. Carwardine quote and church statistics in Mark A. Noll,
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 12.

3. Charles Lyell,
Principles of Geology
(London: John Murray, 1830–33); Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
(London: John Murray, 1859). On biblical criticism, see Jerry Wayne Brown,
The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America,
1800–1870:
The New England Scholars
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1969); Hans W. Frei,
The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); James Turner,
Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985). Lyell published another devastating work in the midst of the Civil War itself. See
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation
(London: John Murray, 1863).

4. On the argument from design, the classic text was William Paley's
Natural Theology
(1802). For two efforts to reconcile the science of Darwin and Lyell with religious belief, published during the Civil War, see Reverend Edward F. Williams, “On the Origin of Species,”
Evangelical Quarterly Review
16 ( January 1865): 11–23, and Daniel R. Goodwin, “The Antiquity of Man,”
American Presbyterian and Theological Review
6 (April 1864): 233–59.

5. Louis Menand,
The Metaphysical Club
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001), p. 18. See also Robert C. Albrecht, “The Theological Response of the Transcendentalists to the Civil War,”
New England Quarterly
38 (March 1965): 21–34.

6. Sweet,
Speaking Dead,
p. 7; A. M. Poindexter,
Why Will Ye Die?
(Raleigh, N.C.: n.p., 186–); G. A. A. Riggs, Diary, August 14, 1864, CAH.

7. See Mark Schantz, “The American Civil War and the Culture(s) of Death,” unpublished paper; W. H. Christian,
The Importance of a Soldier Becoming a Christian
(Richmond, Va.: Soldiers' Track Association, [186–]), p. 3; Mrs. Hancock, in
North Carolina Presbyterian,
August 4, 1862 p. 149; Drew Gilpin Faust, “Christian Soldiers,” in Faust,
Southern Stories: Slaveholders in Peace and War
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), pp. 98–99.

8. Jestin Hampton to Thomas B. Hampton, July 7, 1864; Thomas B. Hampton to Jestin Hampton, August 9, 1863, July 17, 1863, May 27, 1863, all in Thomas B. Hampton Papers, CAH.