Professor Walter's History Lessons

The only U.S. President who was not officially mourned upon his death

John Tyler, Jr. was the tenth president of the United States from March 29, 1790 to January 18, 1862.  While Tyler holds the distinction of being the first president to take office after the death of a president, he is also the only president to not be nationally mourned at the time of his death.  This is because of a stance he took during the American Civil War.

Tyler was a slave owner throughout his life and worked to prevent the war with the Virginia Peace Convention in February of 1861.  When war began he served as a Virginia delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress, and was elected to the Confederate States House of Representatives, but died on  before Congress had assembled.  Due to his loyalty to the Confederacy, based in his belief in states rights, Tyler was denied the traditional day of mourning in Washington D.C.  He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.

-Professor Walter

A landmark nearly forgotten

In 1833 the First Baptist Church of Washing was built 10th St., NW., between E and F Streets in Washington D.C.  In 1861 the congregation moved to a new structure and sold the building to John T. Ford who renovated it into a theater called Ford's Athenaeum.  A fire in 1862 destroyed the building, but Ford rebuilt it into a 2,400 seat theater that was called a "magnificent new thespian temple".  The new building opened in August of 1863.

On April 14th 1865, during a showing of Our American Cousin, the actor John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Lincoln in the theater.  Lincoln was taken to William Petersen's boarding house where he died the next morning.

Congress purchased the theater from Ford for $100,000 and issued an order preventing it from ever being a place of public amusement again.  The theater was gutted and re-purposed for use by the U.S. Military, Library of the Surgeon General, and as an Army Medial Museum.  In 1887 the building exclusively became a clerk's office for the war department.  In 1893 the front of the building collapsed killing 22 and injuring 68, leading many to believe the building was cursed.  The building was repaired and used as a government warehouse until 1928 when it was handed over to the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks.  In 1932 it was transferred to the National Park Service and opened as a Lincoln Museum.  At this time it was declared a national historic site. 

The theater was in poor condition until restoration was brought about by a two decade long lobbying effort by Democratic National Committeeman Melvin D. Hildreth, Jr. and Republican North Dakota Senator Milton D. Young. Hildreth started in 1945.  In 1955 Congress passed a bill to prepare a study to restore the building to return it to a Lincoln era appearance.  In 1964 Congress approved funds for the restoration which was completed in 1968.  On February 5th 1969 the first play since Lincoln's assassination was held in the newly renovated Ford's Theater.  To celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday, the theater was renovated and upgraded in 2009.

-Professor Walter

The Father of Photojournalism

On January 15th 1896 Mathew Brady died, penniless, in the charity ward of Presbyterian Hospital in New York City from complications from a streetcar accident.  On that day the world's first photojournalist, who would later be known as one of the greatest photographers of the 19th century, passed.

Born in 1822 Brady had a natural artistic talent and was allowed to study under famous daguerreotypist Samuel Morse.  By 1844 he had his own studio in New York and began exhibiting portraits of famous Americans in 1845.  In 1850 he produced The Gallery of Illustrious Americans which contained photos of contemporary figures including an aging Andrew Jackson.  His work brought a great deal of attention to him boosted his popularity despite the book not being a commercial success.  In 1856 he created the first modern advertisement where his ads had different typeface and fonts from the publication's text thereby differentiating if from the core content of the periodical.  His greatest impact on the world was about to start, and it would be his downfall.

As the Civil War broke out Brady felt compelled to document it in photographs.  Despite the huge physical and financial risks he pressed forward.  He is quoted as saying, "I had to go. A spirit in my feet said 'Go,' and I went."  In October of 1862 Brady had an exhibition of photos from the Battle of Antietam on his New York Gallery called "The Dead of Antietam".  For the first time the general public saw the actual horrors of the war, and not he stylized artist impressions that were so prevalent at the time. Instead of the strong leader guiding troops into battle, there were images of bodies, blood, and disarray. This was the birth of photojournalism.  Throughout the process of the war he would capture 10,000 plates at an estimated cost of $100,000 ($1,363,540.22 in today's dollars).  His images became the basis of the portrait of Lincoln on the five dollar bill and the penny.

After the war the public had no interest in revisiting the gory details of the war and Brady's popularity dropped drastically.  Brady had expected the US Government to purchase the plates after the war, however they refused and Brady was forced into bankruptcy.  Many of his negatives were handed over as partial payment of debt.  

The negatives passed from many hands and some were destroyed by fire or mishandling.  More were lost to the hands of time.  It was Edward Bailey Eaton who would discover and appreciate them for what they were.  In 1912 he published The Photographic History of the Civil War which cemented Brady's place in history as a photojournalist.

After Brady's death his nephew, Levin Corbin Handy, took over his photography business and expanded upon it with his own images of the construction of the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson building.  When Handy died in 1932 he left his collection, including Brady's to his daughters, Alice H. Cox and Mary H. Evans.  In 1954 the Library of Congress purchase about 10,000 of the negatives and has made a good portion of them available on the internet at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/222_bradyhandy.html. 

Brady's earlier work that was given as payment of debt was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1943 and may be viewed on-line here http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/cwphtml/cwpabt.html   At that site you will also be able to view the photographs Brady still had in his possession and sold Congress in 1875 for the sum of $25,000 ($505,881.11 in today's dollars) prior to declaring bankruptcy.

-Professor Walter

Barbera Fritchie's famous stand that never was

In 1864 John Greenleaf Whittier's wrote a famous poem about Barbara Fritchie's defiant stance against the soldiers of the Confederacy as they passed by her house in Frederick, Maryland.  She waved her flag and Andrew Jackson ordered that no harm come to her.  Whittier wrote the poem based on stories he had heard from multiple sources.  He wrote it in good faith believing it to be completely truthful.  However history tells a slightly different story.

The truth is that Fritchie was sick in bed the day the soldiers passed through, and they did not actually pass by her house.  That day she had ordered her valuables hidden so that they would not be stolen.  Her flag was waving outside and was shot multiple times by Confederate soldiers from a distance.  However Fritchie did have a flag that she waved toward  Union General Burnside's men, not Jackson's six days later.  Fritchie's adoptive daughter's daughter left this account of the occasion.

"Jackson and his men had been in Frederick and bad left a short time before. We were glad that the rebels had gone and that our troops came. My mother and I lived almost opposite aunt's place. She and my mothers cousin. Harriet Yoner, lived together. Mother said I should go and see aunt and tell her not to be frightened. You know that aunt was then almost ninety-six years old. When I reached aunt's place she knew as much as I did about matters, and cousin Harriet was with her. They were on the front porch. and aunt was leaning on the cane she always carried. When the troops marched along aunt waved her hand, and cheer after cheer went up from the men as they saw her. Some even ran into the yard. 'God bless you, old lady.' 'Let me take you by the hand,' 'May you live long, you dear old soul,' cried one after the other, as they rushed into the yard. Aunt being rather feeble, and in order to save her as much as we could, cousin Harriet Yoner said. 'Aunt ought to have a flag to wave.' The flag was hidden in the family Bible, and cousin Harriet got it and gave it to aunt. Then she waved the flag to the men and they cheered her as they went by. She was very patriotic and the troops all knew of her. The day before General Reno was killed he came to see aunt and had a talk with her."

The truth is that Mrs. Mary S. Quantrell, another Frederick woman, had flown the flag in defiance of Jackson's troops, but no on took notice.  It was Whittier's poem the solidified Fritchie's place in history, and provided inspiration for generations to follow, even though the story is not completely true.

-Professor Walter

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
 

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
 

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach trees fruited deep,
 

Fair as the garden of the Lord
to the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;
 

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
 

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
 

Flapped in the morning wind; the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
 

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
 

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
 

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
 

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
 

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
 

"Halt!" the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
"Fire!" out blazed the rifle-blast.
 

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
 

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
 

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
 

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
 

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word;
 

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.
 

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
 

All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.
 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
 

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
shone over it with a warm good-night.
 

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
and the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
 

Honor to her! And let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
 

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
 

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;
 

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

The first time a United States President attended a synagogue service

In 1874 President Ulysses S. Grant and his full cabinet attended the dedication of the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C.  This was the first time an American President had attended such a service.  This was a political attempt by Grant to change his tarnished image that resulted twelve years earlier when he issued General Order 11 as Major-General Grant.

General Order 11 was an order that was issues on December 17, 1862 which ordered the expulsion of all Jews in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.  The order was prompted by Grant's belief that the Jews were the people primarily responsible for running the black market trade in southern cotton.

General Order No. 11 stated:

1. The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department [of the Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.
2. Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters.
3. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

In a letter of the same date sent to Christopher Parsons Wolcott, the assistant United States Secretary of War, Grant explained his reasoning:

Sir,

I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into Post Commanders, that the Specie regulations of the Treasury Dept. have been violated, and that mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied of this have I been at this that I instructed the Commdg Officer at Columbus [Kentucky] to refuse all permits to Jews to come south, and frequently have had them expelled from the Dept. [of the Tennessee]. But they come in with their Carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel any where. They will land at any wood yard or landing on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy Cotton themselves they will act as agents for someone else who will be at a Military post, with a Treasury permit to receive Cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold.

There is but one way that I know of to reach this case. That is for Government to buy all the Cotton at a fixed rate and send it to Cairo, St Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all traders, they are a curse to the Army, might be expelled.

A few weeks after its release President Abraham Lincoln revoked the order.  Grant later stated that it had been written by a subordinate, and he had signed it without reading it.  Lincoln, in reference to the order, stated "to condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad".  He went on to state that no American would be wronged because of religious affiliation and that he drew no distinction between Jew and Gentile.

-Professor Walter

Honor Restored After Being Taken Away 72 Years Earlier

In 1872 Buffalo Bill Cody received the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action while serving as a civilian scout for the 3rd Cavalry Regiment.  Shortly after Cody's death in 1917 the U.S. Congress revised the standards for the medal and revoked 911 medals that has been awarded to civilians or for actions that did not meet the new higher standards.  Among those who lost their medals was Mary Edwards Walker, a nurse during the battle of Bull Run.  In 1977 President Jimmy Carter posthumously reinstated her award.

That move led to the investigation of other awards that had been removed including Cody's.  On June 12th 1989 Cody's as well as four other civilian scout's awards were reinstated.  45 yeas after first being awarded the medal was revoked, 72 years after that is was reinstated.

-Professor Walter

The Articles of Surrender for the Army of Northen Virginia

On April 9th 1865 General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant sat down for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.  It was the moment that would mark the end of the Civil War.  During the war many tribes of Native Americans fought alongside the Confederates, hoping that the war would bring peace to them and secure their lands.  The irony was that Lieutenant Colonel Ely S. Parker, a Native American, would be the one to create the articles of surrender.

Born in 1828 in New York, Parker was a member of the Seneca Tribe.  He worked as an engineer, and at the onset of the war Parker attempted to raise a regiment of Iroquois volunteers to fight, but was rejected by Edwin D. Morgan, the governor of New York.  Then Parker attempted to join the Union Army but was told he could not because he was an Indian.  Finally Parker contacted his colleague and friend Ulysses S. Grant and Parker was commissioned a captain on May 1863.  Eventually he would rise in the ranks to become lieutenant colonel and Grant's military secretary.  It is in this role that he was instrumental in creating the document that would begin the end of the Confederacy.  The actual document is in Parker's handwriting.

At the signing Robert E. Lee remarked, "I am glad to see one real American here," to which Parker replied, "We are all Americans."

-Professor Walter

Citizenship Restored, Albeit Late...

When war broke out between the United States and the Confederate states in 1861, all those who served the Confederacy lost their citizenship with the United States, and were considered guilty of treason.  When the war was over, with the United States triumphant, Robert E. Lee, the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, worked to support reconstruction and reunification between the states, even testifying before congress.

On December 25th, 1868 President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to those who directly or indirectly rebelled against the United States.  In order to regain citizenship an oath of amnesty had to be taken and submitted to the State Department.  Lee's oath was pigeon holed, likely by one who remembered the damage Lee inflicted on the Union, possibly by Secretary of State William H. Seward.  Without the oath, a pardon was never officially granted, and Lee did not regain citizenship.  Lee had no country, since the Confederacy no longer existed, and the United States had not taken him back.  In 1970 an archivist found Lee's oath in the National Archives.

A campaign started to posthumously restore Lee's full citizenship rights, and five years later, Senate Joint Resolution 23, A joint resolution to restore posthumously full rights of citizenship to General R. E. Lee, was introduced by Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr.

On August 5th 1975 President Gerald Ford signed the resolution returning Lee's citizenship at Arlington House, Arlington, VA. The house was formerly known as the Custis-Lee Mansion, and was the home of General Lee.  Before signing he had these words,

"I am very pleased to sign Senate Joint Resolution 23, restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee. This legislation corrects a 110-year oversight of American history. It is significant that it is signed at this place.

Lee's dedication to his native State of Virginia chartered his course for the bitter Civil War years, causing him to reluctantly resign from a distinguished career in the United States Army and to serve as General of the Army of Northern Virginia. He, thus, forfeited his rights to U.S. citizenship.

Once the war was over, he firmly felt the wounds of the North and South must be bound up. He sought to show by example that the citizens of the South must dedicate their efforts to rebuilding that region of the country as a strong and vital part of the American Union.

In 1865, Robert E. Lee wrote to a former Confederate soldier concerning his signing the Oath of Allegiance, and I quote: "This war, being at an end, the Southern States having laid down their arms, and the questions at issue between them and the Northern States having been decided, I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony. ...

As a soldier, General Lee left his mark on military strategy. As a man, he stood as the symbol of valor and of duty. As an educator, he appealed to reason and learning to achieve understanding and to build a stronger nation. The course he chose after the war became a symbol to all those who had marched with him in the bitter years towards Appomattox.

General Lee's character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride.

In approving this Joint Resolution, the Congress removed the legal obstacle to citizenship which resulted from General Lee's Civil War service. Although more than a century late, I am delighted to sign this resolution and to complete the full restoration of General Lee's citizenship."

Lee's legacy as a tactician, college president, general, and American was restored.  Lee had opposed the war, but found a need and desire to support his home of Virginia.  Afterwords he supported the efforts to heal the wounds and rebuild America.  Restoring his citizenship, as legally promised, was the least that we could do.

-Professor Walter

The Only Time A Candidate Died During The Electoral Process

In 1872 incumbent president Ulysses S. Grant, Radical Republican, was running against Horace Greeley, Liberal Republican.  The election proceeded and the votes were cast.  The popular count was complete with Grant in the lead by a solid amount, but the electoral votes had not been cast.  Before the electoral process was completed Greeley's wife passed away.  Greeley descended into madness and died shortly thereafter before the electoral votes were cast.  His votes were divided among his four candidates with three from Georgia being left blank to honor him.  This was the only time a candidate died during the electoral process. 

If Greeley had lived the final electoral vote would have been 286 Grant, 66 Greeley.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Missed it by that much...

The legislation to create The Secret Service was sitting on Abraham Lincoln's desk the day he was assassinated, awaiting his signature.  If he had signed it would his life have been saved? 

Actually no, at the time The Secret Service was being created to combat the rising counterfeiting when a recent report stated that 1/3 of all currency in the United States was fake.  The Secret Service was created as the only agency that had the jurisdiction to address the problem since no other agency existed at the time.  In 1901 president William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist, congress asked The Secret Service to assume the role that they are best known for, protecting the president.  Since assuming that job no president has been assassinated with one exception, John F. Kennedy.