Authors: Adam Goodheart
An essential source for the story of the Hampton Roads fugitives is Edward Lillie Pierce’s largely firsthand account, “The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe,” published anonymously in
The Atlantic Monthly
(November 1861). Pierce also sent regular dispatches (signed “P.”) to the
Boston Traveller
throughout his three-month stay at Monroe (April–July 1861); these frequently include material that did not make it into the
Atlantic
essay. Dozens of other newspaper and periodical correspondents converged upon Hampton Roads in the spring and summer of 1861, largely because people thought the first major battles of the war would be fought there—and when such battles failed to materialize, many of the reporters sent back copy about the contrabands. The archives of the American Missionary Association (housed at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, and also available on microfilm) include letters from the missionaries who began arriving at Fortress Monroe in the autumn of 1861, some of which recount various contrabands’ life stories—although these should be used with care, since some of the missionaries were clearly seeking dramatic or shocking testimonies rather than representative ones.
The two best modern biographies of Benjamin F. Butler are Hans L. Trefousse,
Ben Butler: The South Called Him Beast
(New York: Twayne Publishers, 1957), and Howard P. Nash,
Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818–1893
(Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1969). The general’s own memoir,
Butler’s Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Maj.-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler
(Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co., 1892) is a small masterpiece of self-aggrandizement, certainly not without its charms. The general’s letters are collected in
Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War
(Norwood, Massachusetts: The Plimpton Press, 1917). Butler’s papers in the Library of Congress include far more extensive material
from the war years, and provide virtually a day-by-day picture of his activities at Fortress Monroe.
For nineteenth-century Hampton, see Robert F. Engs,
Freedom’s First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861–1890
(Fordham University Press, 2004). Marion L. Starkey’s
The First Plantation: A History of Hampton and Elizabeth City County, Virginia, 1607–1887
(n.p., 1936) offers a surprisingly honest, nuanced, and sympathetic (for its place and time) account of black life there during slavery, along with the recollections of the last few surviving people who remembered the antebellum town.
Other works give a broader picture of society and race relations in antebellum Virginia. Frederick Law Olmsted’s
A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States
(New York: Dix & Edwards, 1861) is the best analysis of Virginia’s economy and society by a period observer. Melvin Patrick Ely’s
Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004) is a valuable community study. Steven Deyle’s
Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life
(Oxford University Press, 2005) situates often horrifying details within a larger context. Susan Dunn’s
Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia
(New York: Basic Books, 2007) provides a subtle analysis of evolving racial attitudes amid rapid changes in the economy and society of the Upper South. Scot French’s
The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004) disentangles truth and myth.
For the larger picture of racial dynamics during and after the war, Ira Berlin et al., eds.,
Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867
(Cambridge University Press, 1985–) provides a distillation of voluminous material uncovered by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project. David Brion Davis’s
Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
(Oxford University Press, 2006) offers an enlightening treatment of the contrabands within the larger story of slavery’s end in the Western hemisphere. James M. McPherson’s groundbreaking
The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction
(Princeton University Press, 1964) traces the battle over race and slavery throughout the course of the war; Benjamin Quarles’s
The Negro in the Civil War
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1953) remains a valuable resource. Steven Hahn’s
A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South, from Slavery to the Great Migration
(Harvard University Press, 2003) does much to correct mistaken impressions of black passivity. Interviews with ex-slaves conducted in the 1930s under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration are collected in George P. Rawick, ed.,
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography
(Westport, Conn., 1972–79).
Surprisingly, few studies specifically treat the contrabands in any depth. One of these, Armstead Robinson’s
Bitter Fruits of Bondage: The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861–1865
(University of Virginia Press, 2005), is a provocative and compelling book, persuasively arguing that Southern blacks played a major role in undermining the rebel war effort. An encouraging sign of
further interest in the subject is Kate Masur’s article “ ‘A Rare Phenomenon of Philological Vegetation’: The Word ‘Contraband’ and the Meanings of Emancipation in the United States,”
Journal of American History,
vol. 93, no. 4 (March 2007). See also Stephanie McCurry,
Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South
(Harvard University Press, 2010).
Many books, on the other hand, have examined the contested subject of Lincoln and slavery. Two of the best are Richard Striner’s
Father Abraham: Lincoln’s Relentless Struggle to End Slavery
(Oxford University Press, 2006) and Eric Foner’s
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2010).
Harry V. Jaffa’s
A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) includes an in-depth analysis of the history and political philosophy undergirding Lincoln’s July 4, 1861, message to Congress. Douglas Wilson, in
Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) meticulously reconstructs Lincoln’s composition of the document by examining its various drafts. Adam Gopnik’s stimulating
Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) speaks eloquently of Lincoln and the concept of the rule of law, while Richard Striner’s
Lincoln’s Way: How Six Great Presidents Created American Power
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) proposes Lincoln as a figure embodying both the progressive and conservative traditions in American politics.
For the Comet of 1861, see David A. Seargent’s
The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars
(New York: Springer Science, 2009).
I would especially like to thank two people: my friend and colleague Ted Widmer and my friend and student Jim Schelberg.
Ted has made so many good things happen: bringing me to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and to Washington College; introducing me to the joy of teaching; and, through countless conversations over the past nine years, opening my love of American history in new directions. (Not to mention some memorable nights in Chestertown with him and his family, dancing to 1970s rock in a 1730s house.) Ted’s work as a writer and public intellectual sets a high standard indeed. I am grateful to him as well for reading my entire manuscript and offering insights on subjects from beards to baseball, as few but he can.
Jim was present throughout the creation of this book. If not for his interest in the Civil War during his freshman year of college, we never would have come across those letters in the attic that rekindled my own curiosity about 1861. One year later, Jim deployed to Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine fighting in a twenty-first-century conflict; his experiences there gave me a new understanding of how—as he wrote to me in a letter from far-off Helmand Province—“strange and unpredictable things occur in politics and war.” After Jim’s return, he generously assisted with research, during which we had many conversations about both the present and the past. The book truly would not have been the same without him.
Abbie Kowalewski, gifted and passionate student of the past, constantly reminded me that history is a story of people, not abstractions. Our regular breakfasts before my research sessions at the Library of Congress sent me sailing into the nineteenth century with the wind at my back.
Birch Bayh, Kitty Bayh, Richard Ben Cramer, and Joan Smith—cherished friends all—helped me through a rough patch and extended many other kindnesses (and meals) throughout the course of this project. Birch embodies the kind of statesmanship our country sorely needed, and finally got, in 1861—not to mention the kind that it could use in 2011. Richard is one of the snazziest writers
I know. Kitty and Joan are two of the most thoughtful and civilized readers I know; moreover, Joan provided invaluable help with my illustrations and bibliography. For offering inspiration and encouragement (not least by example) when I needed it most, I also thank my friends Marc Pachter, Joshua Wolf Shenk, and especially Robert Wilson.
I am proud to be a member of Washington College’s extraordinary community of teachers and students. I feel especially fortunate to work with a superb group of colleagues at the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, each of whom brings to bear his or her own perspective on history, and who made my life both easier and happier throughout the course of this project: Jill Ogline Titus, Jenifer Emley, Michael Buckley, and Lois Kitz. My colleague in the History Department, Richard Striner—author of important scholarship on Lincoln and the Civil War era—read my manuscript and offered helpful suggestions. Mitchell Reiss, Baird Tipson, and Christopher Ames were all generous with their encouragement. For their support of my work at the Starr Center, I am also grateful to Jay Griswold, the Hodson Trust (especially the late Finn M. W. Caspersen), the late Margaret Nuttle, and Margaret Melcher. Toasts to Mary Wood, the late Howard Wood, James Wood, and Olivia Wood (as well as their thirteen generations of voluble and colorful ancestors) for the adventure at Poplar Grove that led me into 1861.
For assistance, support, and camaraderie of many kinds during the writing of this book, I thank Jeffrey Akman, Julianna Andrews, Adam Arenson, Richard Beeman, Felicia Bell, Ira Berlin, Dianne Brace and Bob Lynch, Clayton and Masha Black, Bill Bodenschatz, Jack Bohrer, Jennifer Brathovde, Wanda Brogdon, Elizabeth Broun, Elizabeth Clay, J. Michael Cobb, Thomas and Virginia Collier, Jasper Colt, Christian D’Andrea, Steven Dick, Murray and Mary Drabkin, Robert and Louisa Duemling, Kaity Edwards, Lennart Erickson, Ralph Eubanks, Dennis Fiori, Charles Francis, Meredith Davies Hadaway, Eleanor Harvey, Richard Hatcher, Brian Hecht and Douglas Gaasterland, Barbara Heck, Lesley Herrmann, Harold Holzer, Tony Horwitz, Maria Hynson, Mary Jackson, the Jefferson Institute, Karl Kehm, Donald Kennon, Jamaica Kincaid, Bruce Kirby, Chip and Linda Knight, Michael Lai, Diane Landskroener, Charles King Mallory III, James Martin, Carla Massoni, Kitty Maynard, Donald and Ann McColl, Alex McDowell, Maurice Meslans and Margaret Holyfield, Michael Meyer and Suzanne Seggerman, Ken Miller, Marla Miller, Megan Nelson, Scott Reynolds Nelson, Sam Newell and Ilana Wind, Susan O’Donovan, Andrew Oros and Steven Clemons, Eric Paff, Edward Papenfuse, Atiba Pertilla, Leslie and Vince Raimond, Mary Rhinelander, Vincent Robinson, Ted Rose, Jeremy Rothwell, Richard Schmidt, Helen Schneeberg, Ivan Schwartz and Mary van de Wiel, John Sellers, Gregory Shelton, Scott Shumaker and Barry Halvorson, Janet Sorrentino, Ben Soskis, Jacob and Katherine Spencer, David O. Stewart, Scott Stossel, Ned Sublette, Martin Sullivan, Regina Thielke, Kathy Thornton, Phillip Todd, John Ulrich, Carol van Veen, Thomas Watson, Freddy Widmer, Felicia Wilson, Laura Wilson, Martha Wilson, Kate Wiltrout, Matt Winters, and Koethi Zan.
I am grateful to Natasha Leland, Sylvain Bellenger and Jean-Loup Champion, Gary Tinterow and Christopher Gardner, Robert Hicks, Justin Stelter, Kate Livie and Ben Ford, the Worth family, Trevor Potter and Dana Westring, and Max Blumberg and Eduardo Araujo for relieving my labors with idyllic interludes in their various corners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—as well as for their love and friendship. The late Ted Phillips and Janet Hopkins gave me a memorable introduction to Charleston and the South Carolina lowcountry. Allan Gurganus and I began a conversation about history in Hillsborough, North Carolina, that has continued among the named and nameless ghosts of Rapa Nui and Washington, D.C.
They say that writing is solitary work, and I suppose that’s true, but it helps to have friends who toil at lonely keyboards of their own. For comradeship-in-arms (or in aching wrists), I salute Ben Anastas, Louis Bayard, Casey Cep, Sewell Chan, Trey Graham, Emily Kaiser, Donna Lucey, Thomas Mallon, Stephen Metcalf, Jonathan Rauch, Hank Stuever, Eric Tipler, David Vine, and Henry Wiencek.
Tanti abbracci
to my peerless
compare
Robert Worth, to Alice Clapman, to Felix Worth—and especially to Zack Worth.
I have been lucky to write for, with, and learn from, some of the most gifted editors in journalism, many of them also friends: John Bethell, Robert Wilson, Stephen Smith, Nelson Aldrich, John Rosenberg, Glenn Oeland, Alex Star, Alida Becker, Nathan Lump, Katy Roberts, Mary Suh, Regan Solmo, Dennis Drabelle, Tom Frail, and Elizabeth Hightower. Sam Tanenhaus has pushed me hard, in the best way possible. David Shipley, George Kalogerakis, and Clay Risen turned me, surprisingly, into a blogger. Anne Fadiman continues to be my literary
beau ideal
, as well as a treasured friend and loyal mentor.