“All Slaves …Shall Be Free”

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News on December 31, 2012, as “Emancipation changed the war, and the nation.”)

One hundred and fifty years ago today President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect, stating that “all persons held as slaves [within rebel held territory] shall be free ….”

Unable to resolve their differences over slavery, our Founding Fathers avoided mention of the word “slave” in our Constitution. Essayist John J. Chapman called slavery the “sleeping serpent’ that lay coiled up under the table at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It was this serpent that awoke and envenomed our country in the 1850s, leading eventually to the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861.

By July of 1862, a number of key events had taken place which pushed President Abraham Lincoln toward emancipation. The Army of the Potomac had failed to capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Second, the Congress had passed legislation indicating a tougher war policy. This included the Second Confiscation Act which punished “traitors” by confiscating their property, including slaves who “shall be deemed captives of war and shall be forever free.” Third, both Great Britain and France appeared to be poised to recognize the Confederacy.

Lincoln’s own views had evolved, and by mid-July he felt prepared to proceed. “Things had gone from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of the rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing, that we…must change our tactics, or lose the game.” The war, he said, could no longer be fought “with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water.”

On July 22, Lincoln called a cabinet meeting at which he announced his intention to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. Most approved of the measure, including Secretary of State William Seward; however, he recommended postponing it “until you can give it to the country supported by military success.” Lincoln accepted the point and waited until after the Battle of Antietam, in mid-September. Though not a decisive victory, Lincoln believed it to be enough of a victory to enable him to make the pronouncement.

Five days later on September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on January 1. He drew his authority for it from his war powers as commander in chief to seize enemy resources. Though he had always believed in the immorality of slavery, he did not believe he had the constitutional authority to act against slavery in states and areas loyal to the Union. The Proclamation stated that “all persons held as slaves within any State … the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

In the one hundred days between the announcement and its effective date, the Proclamation evoked strong criticism. Democrats denounced it as reckless and unconstitutional. Democrat Clement Vallandigham of Ohio railed against it and called for an immediate armistice and negotiations with the rebels. He is given credit for the phrase: “The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was, and the niggers where they are.” The New York Herald predicted a social revolution. Even abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was not satisfied, stating that “it leaves slavery…still to exist in all the so-called loyal slave states.”

Despite all the counter-pressures, Lincoln persevered in his promise by signing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1. As he signed, his hand reacted in tremor, though not from nerves but from the three hours of handshaking at his New Year’s Day reception. The final document differed from the preliminary proclamation in three ways. First, the colonization of blacks outside of the United States was not mentioned. Second, it indicated that slaves “will be received into the armed service….” Historian James McPherson called the enlisting and arming of blacks to fight the South a “revolution in earnest.” Lastly, Lincoln modified his earlier controversial language by adding: “I hereby enjoin [former slaves] …to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense…”

Emancipation-proclamation-granger

 Soldier reading the Proclamation to slaves

(1864, Library of Congress)

            Coming 244 years after the first African slave arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, this giant step toward freedom for all blacks had been indeed what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “a slow fruit.” With the Proclamation, 3.1 million slaves in rebel territory were proclaimed free, the nature of the war was taken to a higher and much nobler plane, and a great stride was taken for social justice. Historian Louis Masur has stated the Proclamation “shifted the momentum of the war and, combined with Lincoln’s reelection in 1864 and the Confederate surrender the following spring, ensured the eventual destruction of slavery in America.”

Throughout the Union states, there was rejoicing and exultation in churches, meeting halls, theaters and newspapers. Frederick Douglass indicated that the date would be celebrated as the “day which brought liberty and manhood to the American slaves.” Lincoln stated: “If my name goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” With the Proclamation Lincoln launched the “new birth of freedom” for our country which he addressed so eloquently in his Gettysburg Address eleven months later.

Though the word Freedom appears on our buildings, banners, and postage stamps, and in the names of our businesses, housing developments, and military operations, Americans continue to disagree over the limits to and obligations of this ideal. Lincoln always believed that our country should be a beacon of freedom for the entire world; however, today we disagree whether America should inspire freedom principally as an exemplar like Lady Liberty in New York Harbor or as a crusader as in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the wake of the Newtown shooting, we begin our New Year in a debate about whether a mother should be free to instruct her son in and give him access to an assault weapon and whether more guns or fewer will make us freer.

 

 

 

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Elisha Hunt Rhodes, as Officer, Sees Action at Antietam and Fredericksburg

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News on December 17, 2012, as “Soldier’s Words Still Haunting.”

 The second half of 1862, 150 years ago, saw some momentous events in the life of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, a Civil War soldier from the village of Pawtuxet, Cranston, who entered military service for the Union in July 1861, as a private and left it four years later as a colonel.

Rhodes was delighted to obtain a commission as a second lieutenant, effective July 24, 1862. He was understandably proud of his achievement. On September 5 he noted in his diary that his brigade commander, Colonel Frank Wheaton, congratulated him on his promotion. “Well, I am proud, and I think I have a right to be, for 13 months ago I enlisted as a private and I am now an officer.”  Two days later he indicated: “I am very happy over my promotion, for I am one of the youngest officers, being only 20 years old and seven months.”

elisha_hunt_rhodes

   2nd Lieutenant Elisha H. Rhodes

             Rhodes was still finding army life agreeable, certainly more so as an officer. He and several other officers in his “mess” had three servants to carry their blankets, tents, and cooking utensils. During halts the servants cooked, erected the officers’ tents and found straw if possible. On the march they ate as their main diet salt pork toasted on a stick with hard bread and coffee. On September 30, they found a bee tree, containing a great quantity of honey. “What a treat it was to us. The bees charged the Regiment and accomplished what the Rebels have never done, put us to flight.”

During this time period Rhodes’ unit, the 2nd RI Volunteers, saw action at two of the War’s greatest battles—Antietam and Fredericksburg. At the Battle of Antietam in September, the 2nd RI arrived on the third day. “…we saw the Battle of Antietam fought almost at our feet.” The unit was placed into the front lines the next day. “I have never in my soldier life seen such a sight. The dead and wounded covered the ground.” His division continued to move to Sharpsburg and then Williamsport. He expressed his frustration at the lack of aggressiveness of the Union forces. “O, why did we not attack them and drive them into the river? I do not understand these things. But then I am only a boy.” The Union action at Antietam proved to be enough of a victory that President Abraham Lincoln felt confident in moving forward with announcing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862.

Rhodes’ unit also saw action at the Battle of Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, a battle that proved to be a disaster for the Union. Commanding all Union forces at the time was Rhode Island’s own General Ambrose E. Burnside who faced General Robert E. Lee, leading the Confederate forces. On December 13 the battle began early and “the shot and shell screeched and screamed over our heads” wrote Rhodes. Union troops were charging Rebel positions on the heights. “We could see the long lines of Union troops move up the hill and melt away before the Rebel fire.” As evening came, the firing ceased. Ambulances tried to pick up the wounded, but Rebels fired on them. So the “wounded we left to suffer.” Writing on the battlefield the next day, Rhodes stated that they crossed the Rappahannock River and “have been under fire ever since. The Rebels are strongly entrenched, and we have not made much headway.” By December 16 Rhodes could say: “The Army has met with a severe loss, and I fear little has been gained.” … “I am tired, O so tired, and can hardly keep awake.” It was at this battle where Robert E. Lee stated to his staff: “It is well that war is so terrible; otherwise, we might grow too fond of it.”

As the year of 1862 closed, Rhodes took stock and remained optimistic. “As I look back I am bewildered when I think of the hundreds of miles I have tramped, the thousands of dead and wounded that I have seen, and the many strange sights that I have witnessed.” … “The year has not amounted to much as far as the War is concerned, but we hope for the best and feel sure that in the end the Union will be restored.” (Note: This essay is based on the Civil War diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union.”)

See the next essay in the series: “Rhodes Remains: All for the Union.”

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Integrity

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This address was given to the Portsmouth Abbey School community at the Veteran’s Day commemoration, November 9, 2012.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor of addressing you in this Veteran’s Day Commemoration, probably my last one with you.

So it is fitting to talk to you today about something that I was introduced to when I was your age and which then was nurtured and enriched throughout the rest of my life, both in my military career and in my career here at Portsmouth Abbey. It is something that at once informs the way I think but also it is something close to my heart. And those 6th Formers who have had me in the War and Morality course remember what Clausewitz said about objective, concrete factors and subjective, emotional ones: the head is important but emotions—things of the heart—are also important.

I would like to talk to you about “integrity.”  Now, integrity is a very “big” word. There are lots of words out there; this is one of great import and significance.

The first recollection I have of him is watching him kick field goals on our high school athletic field, very long field goals. I was a freshman in high school, one of a hearty team of 13 players on our freshman football team.  During that season he taught me many good football techniques as we, though small in numbers, achieved a nearly undefeated season.

Mr. Mez or Coach Mez, as we called him, coached me my high school years in football and baseball and also taught me English. But he taught me more than how to drop back and pass the long one in football, more than how to pick and roll in basketball, and more than how to avoid dangling modifiers in English class.  He taught me also much about life.

During my last few years at the high school, he was no longer an English teacher but rather the Vice-Principal, the Mr. Chenoweth of Hasbrouck Heights High School. When I had time, I would drop by and visit him in his office, to “shoot the breeze” as he would say.

One day we walked through the halls talking about life. Passing Ms. Stahl’s Latin class, he turned to me and said in his Boston accent, “Hey, Freddie.  My philosophy of life is to bring a bit of integrity to any situation I’m in.”

Well, that sounded awfully nice, but I was not fully sure what he actually meant “to bring integrity to a situation.”   For the last 45 years I’ve been trying to clarify just what “living with integrity” means.

July 1, 1966, I entered the U. S. Military Academy to begin initial military training or “Beast Barracks.” This is eight weeks of tough and challenging physical and military training to convert a civilian into a military person.  Toward the end of these two months, we were told that it was time for us to decide on our class motto. We had a contest to determine this motto. The winner was: “Serve with Integrity.” This became our class motto. This is the motto engraved on the ring I wear.

Twelve years ago at my class’s 25th West Point reunion, our class dedicated a beautiful stone fountain at the Academy.  Engraved in a semi-circle of stone in large letters about 20 feet long is our motto: “Serve with Integrity.”  It is the only class motto so engraved at West Point.  We were told that one of the reasons the Academy allowed this is the strength and timelessness of the motto.  This is not a motto for just our class, but for all academy graduates.

It is remarkable how this simple motto over these years has become etched not only into our rings but also into our hearts. Most of us when emailing each other sign off with it: “SWI.” It is clear to me that it is a very, very strong glue which binds us together.

A few years ago we visited our good friends, Ann & Steve,  in Northern Virginia.  We had first met over 35 years ago when our families were very young.  We both had three children about the same ages and sexes.  For two years while I was in graduate school, we shared many great experiences as we lived across the street from one another.  We played silly board games together; shared holidays and weekends.

Her children now all grown and out of the house, Ann had taken a job outside the home.  She was explaining some of the frustrations with her new job. But then she followed with, “But that’s OK Fred.  I know who I am. I have my integrity.”

A few months ago my friend Brad and I were at an informal social event with some friends. Brad was talking with a young man who had started his own business a few years ago. The young man complained about the tough decisions he had to make and how tough it was to make a living for himself and his wife and two children. Brad, in the construction business for many years, advised him always to be honorable and trustworthy. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone which he said he always carried with him. Etched into the stone was the word integrity.

I’m still not sure that I can give you a good definition of the word integrity. The dictionary definition of integrity: honest, sincere, open & upright in character and actions. I know that it is close to honor, certainly contains acting honorably as one of its components. I think it also suggests openness, being above board, nothing under the table, no smoke and mirrors, no speaking with forked tongue.  In one’s dealings with other people, acting in an open, honorable, and fair manner.  No hypocrisy.  Acting according to high ideals—doing the right thing.

My friend, Gus Lee, who teaches at West Point defines it as being able to discern the highest moral action in a given situation … but then also being able to act on it. He has a great metaphor to describe the difference between merely believing in or talking about integrity and actually acting with integrity. He says that we must be able to cross the “river of fear.”

No, it’s not easy to live and act with integrity, to cross that river of fear. Yes, in the easy times it is.  But as we get older we face increasingly difficult choices in life, professionally and personally.

A few years ago a student here at the Abbey broke a major school rule and covered it up. She was protecting herself but also another student who violated the rule and did not want to be exposed. After a few weeks when the truth came out, the student said. “This situation forced me to compromise my integrity.”  It was truly wonderful to hear these words from her mouth.  May I ask you: do you value your integrity as much as this girl did?

Enshrined in our mission statement are the three Rs: reverence, respect, and responsibility. Like Integrity these are also big words. Although the word Integrity is not specifically mentioned, I think we can agree it is closely related to them. Here is what I ask you to do: Reflect occasionally on our three Rs. Incorporate both them and the word INTEGRITY into your way of thinking, your mental habits, as Coach Mez would say, into your philosophy of life.

Young people of Portsmouth Abbey.  My hope and prayer for you on this Veteran’s Day is that you accept integrity as a guiding principle of your lives, to “live with integrity.”  That you engrave this onto your character.   Don’t ever put anything above your integrity.  I have found when I do, I may lose not only my integrity but also the thing I misguidely placed above it.

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Seeds of Chinese Liberalization, Made in America

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay abridged was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on October 30, 2012, as “Seeds of Chinese Liberalization, Made in America.”)

Right here in our cozy, conservative boarding school, we are unconsciously and with no malicious intent sowing the seeds of future revolution in China. Chinese students, coming to the United States for secondary and undergraduate education are learning through their formal education in American classrooms and through osmosis at corner coffee shops, liberal political ideas and critical thinking skills which will in the long run help to destabilize the Chinese political system. These students who will soon be part of the next generation of adults in China will prove in the long run a much more insidious force to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army than the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

The Chinese discovered our New England boarding school only recently. Five years ago we had three Chinese students; four years ago we had eleven; then nineteen; then 26. This year we have 32. Our experience reflects a national phenomenon.  According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, only 65 Chinese students attended U.S. private high schools in academic year 2005-2006. In 2010-2011 the number had grown to 6,725. Chinese attendance at U.S. colleges is also booming. In 2011, 157,588 Chinese students attended college here, a 23% from the prior year.

The Chinese students at our school are not only among our best students, they are also among our best citizens. They run and are elected to class office, they apply for the Model United Nations Club, and–thank heavens—they play musical instruments and sing. Our choir and orchestra would be seriously weakened without their presence. Sometimes they stun us with their knowledge of American culture, knowing things that our American students do not. One Chinese student was the only student in the class able to identify “The Duke” from Huckleberry Finn; another was the only student to know the final line in the movie “Gone with the Wind.”

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of the preeminent existential questions facing China has been: Can the Chinese accomplish what the Soviets could not—liberalize economically while maintaining an illiberal political system? The Chinese Communist Party reigns over 1.4 billion people with power concentrated in its 25-member Politburo.  There are no genuinely free elections, no legal parties beside the Communist Party, and few guarantees of political rights. Whereas soldiers in Western armies swear to defend such things as the nation and the country’s constitution, Chinese soldiers swear first to loyalty to the Communist Party. The flag of the People’s Republic of China bears a larger star with four smaller stars; the larger star represents the guiding light of the Communist Party.

My Chinese professor friend has told me that the Chinese people are used to following an emperor or strong man—till 1911 it was an emperor/empress, from1949-1976 it was Mao Tse-tung. But that was the old China. Because of the tremendous double-digit growth China has realized during the past two decades, China’s middle class has grown from under 100 million two decades ago to over 300 million today. It is a good bet that these masses will shift their focus from rudimentary physical and security needs to self-expression values such as freedom of speech and assembly, representative government, and free and fair elections, those values of the Western Enlightenment which destabilized so many Western countries which had been governed with power concentrated in a monarchy or aristocracy.

History gives us numerous examples of the inexorable spread of a powerful idea or art form. From meager beginnings, nothing could stop the spread of Christianity, beginning as a small insignificant religion and becoming four centuries later the official religion of the Roman Empire. Islam and Buddhism had similar relentless force. It was the idea of the “nation in arms” and the idea of equality during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic periods two hundred years ago which inspired other European peoples to rise up and conquer an expansionist France, the very country which spawned these ideas. No wall, censorship system, or totalitarian regime in the world could stop the spread of American jazz or rock ‘n roll.

I asked some of our Chinese students after graduation what they believe they had obtained at our boarding school that their friends in China had not. More practical knowledge, said one. “Here we have a lot of chances to apply the knowledge we have learned to see if we really understand them. Such as essays and labs. These are very good ways to develop independent thinking as well.” Another emphasized the confidence in herself that she developed. If she had not come to our school, she “wouldn’t have become this strong person.” These students have tasted freedom of thought and have been educated to think independently and critically. As adults they will not easily be made to kowtow to anyone or to any political system that suppresses their freedoms.

Not Mycenaean warriors hiding in a wooden horse but Han students speaking native Mandarin—and excellent English—will return to China after their sojourns in America, carrying not weapons but liberal political ideas and critical thinking skills. These students combined with the masses of the new middle class will prove to be a revolutionary cocktail for Chinese society, roiling the descendants of Maoist revolutionaries, who now hold power. Call it the Han Spring.

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Forever Free

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News on September 22, 2012.)

One hundred fifty years ago today, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in rebel held territory and changing the nature of the Civil War from one of restoring the Union as it was to one of destroying the South’s war-fighting capability and its way of life based on slavery.

            By mid-July, 1862, a number of events had transpired to push Lincoln toward Emancipation. First, the Union Army of the Potomac, led by Major General George McClellan, had failed to capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, in its Peninsular Campaign. After the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1, 1862) Lincoln ordered the evacuation of Union forces from the peninsular.

Second, the Congress had passed legislation that indicated a tougher war policy. The first empowered the president to enroll “persons of African descent” for “any war service for which they may be found competent.” Congress also passed the Second Confiscation Act which punished “traitors” by confiscating their property, including slaves who “shall be deemed captives of war and shall be forever free.”  Even moderate Republicans were now saying the war had to be fought with different principles: the time for “white kid-glove warfare” had past.

Third, there was a decreasing flow of volunteers to serve in the Union forces. Several governors told Lincoln that they could not meet their recruitment quotas unless he changed his policies on slavery.

Fourth, both Great Britain and France seemed poised to recognize the Confederacy, a move that could be deterred by emancipation.

More and more Union soldiers wrote home that the North had to take off the “kid gloves” with “traitors.”  One officer wrote that the “iron gauntlet must be used more that the silken glove to crush the serpent.”

Over the preceding several months Lincoln’s views had changed. By mid-July he felt ready to move. “Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of the rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing, that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game.” He was now convinced of the necessity for “forcible abolition of slavery,” and so he began to draft a proclamation of emancipation. The war he said could no longer be fought “with elder-stalk squirts, charged with rose water.”

On July 12 he called Congressmen of the border slave states of the North to the White House and told them to accept compensated emancipation or events might overtake them and they would have nothing for their slaves. After they rejected his offer, Lincoln no longer felt so constrained to conciliate the border states, although he did feel that the “blow must first fall on [the rebels].” He decided that emancipation was a “military necessity, absolutely essential to the preservation of the Union. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.”

On July 22, 1862, President Lincoln called a Cabinet meeting at which he announced his intention to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. Most approved of the measure. While supporting it, Secretary of State William Seward recommended postponement “until you can give it to the country supported by military success.” Otherwise the action might look like “the last measure of an exhausted government ….”

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, July, 1862

(Painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter)

            Lincoln looked for a sign from God. To a group of Chicago Christians, he stated: “It is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it!”

While not a decisive Union victory, the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg (September 15-17, Maryland) succeeded in destroying enough of the Army of Northern Virginia that it recoiled and retreated into Virginia. Lincoln felt he had what he needed.

Five days later on September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on January 1. He drew his authority for it from his war powers as commander in chief to seize enemy resources. Though he had always believed in the immorality of slavery, he did not believe he had the constitutional authority to act against slavery in states and areas loyal to the Union. The Proclamation stated that “all persons held as slaves within any State … the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” With this action, Lincoln elevated the war to a higher plane. “If my name ever goes down in history,” he said, “it will be for this act.”

Two days later Lincoln responded to serenaders who came to the White House: “I can only trust in God I have made no mistake. It is now for the country and the world to pass judgment on it.”

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The Sleeping Serpent of Slavery

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News on August 29, 2012.)

From our Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the start of the Civil War in 1861, slavery posed a fundamental contradiction to our American identity. How could the same country whose Declaration stated “all men are created equal” and which held itself on high as the exemplar of freedom allow slavery? Indeed, there were slave markets right in our nation’s capital.

Unable to resolve differences over slavery, our Founding Fathers avoided mentioning the word in our Constitution. It essentially recognized slavery as lawful by counting each slave as three-fifths a person for purposes of taxes and representation in Congress; however, it refers to them as “other persons,” or a “person held to service or labor.” Historian Barbara Fields has stated that “if there was a single event that caused the war, it was the establishment of the United States … with slavery still a part of its heritage.”

When in 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, allowing the easy removal of cotton seeds, production of cotton and consequently the demand for slaves soared.

Slavery began in Rhode Island, as with the other American colonies, in the 17th century. In 1652, the colony passed the first abolition law in colonial America; however, the law was not really enforced. In the 18th century the colony’s economy became largely dependent on the trade triangle: rum produced in the colony would be exported to Africa for slaves, these slaves would be brought to the Caribbean for molasses and sugar, these commodities would come to the colony to produce the rum.

During the 18th century, Newport and Bristol became major slave markets in the American colonies. Between 1709 and 1807, Rhode Island merchants like John Brown and George DeWolf financed nearly 1000 slave voyages to Africa and carried over 100,000 slaves to the Western Hemisphere. By 1774, slaves made up 6.3% of the colony’s population, twice as high as any other New England colony. Anti-slavery laws were passed in 1774 and 1784; however, the transatlantic slave trade continued even after the United States banned it in 1807. By the mid-19th century, many Rhode Islanders were active in the abolitionist movement, particularly Quakers in Newport and in Providence such as Moses Brown.

Straining to maintain this so-called “peculiar institution,” so vital to their economy and way of life, southerners defended slavery vehemently, feeling themselves in mortal combat with their northern oppressors. By 1840 southerners maintained that slavery was “a great moral, social, and political blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master.” It civilized African savages and provided them social security for life in contrast with the sordid poverty of “free” labor in the North. Some southerners such as Edward Pollard and George Bickley of Virginia even envisioned the extension of the southern version of American liberty to the Caribbean and Central America. Slavery created a far superior society to the “vulgar, contemptible” Yankees. The famous South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun summed up the southern view by maintaining that slavery was a “positive good … the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”

A slave’s life was misery. One freed slave stated: “No day ever dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. For the slave, it is all night.” Children were sent to the fields at twelve. Slaves worked from sunrise to sunset, and on moonlight night’s they would work longer. On the auction block, slaves were naked so that buyers could see how little they had been whipped. Historian James McPherson noted that the breakup of slave families was the “largest chink in the armor” of defenders of slavery. It was this theme which author Harriet Beecher Stowe dramatized in her highly influential bestseller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852. Slave marriage was not recognized as legal, so preachers changed the vows to “until death or distance do you part.”

 (USslave.blogspot.com)

A former slave stated: “If I thought I’d ever be a slave again, I’d just take a gun and end it all right away, because you’re nothin’ but a dog.”

The greatest African-American of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass, freed man, abolitionist, writer, and orator, stated: “In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields …, but my rapture is soon checked when I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slave-holding and wrong…. I am filled with unutterable loathing.”

Essayist John J. Chapman called slavery the “sleeping serpent” that lay coiled up under the table at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. In the 1850s it awoke, and in 1861 it envenomed our country.

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Fifth Grade Separated by Two Generations

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(The essay was originally published in the South Coast Insider as: “Fifth Grade Classrooms Gap, Separated by Two Generations,” August, 2012.)

I do not remember having a poetry recital in Ms. Macaluso’s 5th grade class in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, to which my parents (and grandparents) were invited. Back in 1959 we certainly read poetry in English class—although I remember more clearly the long division arithmetic and, of course, my crush on the teacher—but the school never invited parents (let alone grandparents) to a planned event.

Not so in Portsmouth in June of last year. As our granddaughter, Mary Jane Milici, was completing 5th grade at Portsmouth Middle School, we attended what I thought would be a rather short “poetry recital.” Perhaps I was (again) not listening to my wife, Geri, closely enough, because what I experienced that day was much more than a recital. I had a classroom experience which in physical layout, in teaching format, and in technological sophistication, was dramatically different than what I experienced as a 5th grader, 52 years ago.

The first difference was that Mary Jane attended 5th grade not as member of a particular teacher’s class, but as part of Learning Center B4. I attended Euclid School and was in Ms. Macaluso’s class. She owned it. I do remember Mr. Tobin, the French teacher, instructing us once or twice per week. Aside from him, I remember all other instruction coming strictly from Ms. Macaluso.

Not so with Mary Jane and the other students. She was taught by a “team’ of teachers. Ms. Cindy Jilling served as her homeroom and science teacher. A native of Westerly, Cindy arrived in Portsmouth 36 years ago, started her teaching at Melville School, but has spent most of her 22-year teaching career at Portsmouth Middle School. In speaking to Cindy, I quickly realized there was no single principal teacher; there was a team of teachers teaching my granddaughter.

I made it a point to meet the other teachers. Lori Stone, the social studies teacher, is home grown, actually attended Portsmouth Middle School, and lives in Portsmouth. She has spent her entire 11-year career in Portsmouth, teaching Social Studies, English Language Arts, and Science.

A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Amy Guertin was Mary Jane’s English Language Arts (ELA) teacher. Now living in Bristol, Amy has been teaching for eleven years, her subjects including ELA, Social Studies, and Science. Amy is the teacher who assigned the Self-Portrait Assignment to write an “I am” poem. This led to the poetry recital part of this experience.

The fourth member of the teaching team was Jeanne Kane, a case manager and special education teacher. A native of Meriden, Connecticut, she now lives in Newport and has been teaching for 24 years. She has taught a range of subjects over her career at several Newport County schools, including Coggeshall, Kennedy, Elmhurst, and now Portsmouth Middle. Karen Heller, the Math teacher, was the final member of the team.

In good old Ms. Macaluso’s class, we sat in individual desks (that still had inkwells) aligned in columns facing forward. Not so now. In fact, this was my first impression last June when I sat down at Mary Jane’s circular table and gazed at the other students and parents of that table. (A table normally had five-six students.) This was profoundly different than sitting at individual desks with our heads always facing the teacher. As an educator myself, I had two reactions. First, such a layout shifts the focus from the teacher to the other students at the table. Second, this should promote cooperation among the students, allowing students to teach students, but it also might increase student distraction and chatter.

My final and lasting impression was the level of technological sophistication in the classroom. I vaguely remember my teacher back in 1959 using an overhead projector. The technology was primitive and owned exclusively by the school—chalk, blackboard, and overhead projector. Not only is today’s technology owned also by the students, the students may indeed have greater facility with it than the teachers. Cindy Jilling admitted that many of her students “know more than I do” about today’s classroom technology, a comment that probably applies to many teachers at the Middle School. The teaching team indicated to me that each teacher now has a laptop that can be connected to an Elmo Projector, allowing the projection of such things as assignments, student work, and internet sites. Teachers also post homework assignments on their classroom webpages for students and parents. Finally, teacher grade books are now online, allowing parent access.  Amy Guertin indicated “there are no surprises when the quarter ends.

As I sat at the round table with Mary Jane, my wife, my daughter Nicole, and my son-in-law Marc, playing a dice game of PIG, and watching a student at the next table projecting his Power Point on planet Jupiter to a white board, I had a sense of true wonderment about the changes in the 5th grade learning experience over these five decades.

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It Is “All for the Union”: The Diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News, July 26 & 27, 2012, as “R.I. Soldier Was Driven by Sense of Duty,” and “Faith in God, Union Kept Soldier Alive.”

Highlighted in Ken Burns’ acclaimed documentary, The Civil War, Elisha Hunt Rhodes is perhaps the most widely known Rhode Islander of the Civil War. Rhodes came to Burns’ attention through the publication of his Civil War diary, “All for the Union,” in 1985 by his great-grandson, Robert Hunt Rhodes. The first entry was written in May 1861, shortly after the war began, and the diary closes with an entry dated July 28, 1865.

            As a member of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteer Regiment, he fought in all the major battles waged by the Army of the Potomac, from First Bull Run in 1861 to Appomattox in 1865. Hailing from the village of Pawtuxet, Cranston, he entered military service as a private and left it four years later as a colonel. Written in plain, direct, and unvarnished style, his diary is a bounty of insights into Army life, his spirit of service, his battle experiences, and his religious faith and drive to see the war to its conclusion.

http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/biographies/rhodes.html

            Rhodes’ diary portrays the challenges and small pleasures of Army life away from the battlefield. In departing Rhode Island on June 19, 1861, he states: “My knapsack was heavy; in fact it was so heavy that I could hardly stagger under the load.” In July, he is short of food, so he and a friend catch a rooster and cook it. “As I had no salt I could only add hard bread….” They try to eat him, but “he was tough, and we had to give it up.” In camp in Washington, DC, he writes in August: “Camp life is dull, but I suppose that it is part of a soldier’s duty, and it will be lively enough before we reach home again.” In January, 1862, he complains: “Mud, mud. … Will the mud never dry up so that the Army can move? I hope so, for I am tired and weary of mud and routine work. I want to see service and have the war over so that I can go home.” On March 21 he reflects: “I have now been in service ten months and feel like a veteran. Sleeping on the ground is fun, and a bed of pine boughs better than one of feathers. At the end of that month he notes: “I am well and contented as usual. Camp life agrees with me.” A few weeks later he writes: “Cooking coffee and soup in the same tin cup is not my forte, but I have to do it or starve.”(15 April 62) While he had been initially somewhat bored at times, by April 23, 1862, he could say: “We never get lonesome now, for something exciting is going on all the time.”

Rhodes’ diary reveals a young man who sincerely wishes to perform his duty for his country. On guard duty early in his service, he accepts the tedious requirements of guard duty though Confederate forces are not near. “I do not complain of this for I want to know the whole duty of a soldier.” (11 July 61) With his regiment ready for action, his commander orders him to remain in camp, an order Rhodes cannot accept. “I objected to this plan and finally told my Captain that if he left me in camp I would run away and join the Regiment on the road as soon as it became dark.”  His commander relents and allows him to go. Rhodes experiences periods of homesickness, but seeing the war through is more important. “I want to see service and have the war over so that I can go home.” (31 Jan 62) Assigned to division headquarters for a period, Rhodes notes: “but I want to be with the boys in the next campaign and do my part as a soldier. I have no fear of the future. If I die upon the battlefield I hope to receive the reward of the righteous and feel resigned to God’s will.” (6 March 62) On June 26 he complains about some of the work given to him during a night of battle, but he then states: “I did not like the work, but it was duty, and I try to do my duty always.” On Independence Day, 1862, he writes: “Soldiering is not fun, but duty keeps us in the ranks. Well, the war must end some time, and the Union will be restored.”

Rhodes sees his first combat action at the Battle of Bull Run/Manassas on July 21, 1861. He writes of the Confederates opening fire. “I remember that my first sensation was one of astonishment at the peculiar whir of the bullets, and that the Regiment immediately laid down without waiting for orders.” In the afternoon, it appears the Union forces have won but the enemy renews the fight. The “woods and roads were soon filled with fleeing men.” Eventually as the Union forces retreated, “a panic seemed to seize upon every one.” … “Of the horrors of that night, I can give you no adequate idea. I suffered untold horrors from thirst and fatigue but struggled on, clinging to my gun and cartridge box. Many times I sat down in the mud determined to go no further, and willing to die to end my misery.”  By a year later Rhodes had seen action with the 2nd RI Regiment in such major battles as Yorktown (April-May, 1862), Williamsburg (May & July, 1862), Seven Pines (May-June 1862),  and Malvern Hill (July, 1862). Of the Battle of Malvern Hill, he writes: “O the horrors of this day’s work, but at last we have stopped the Rebel advance, and instead of following us they are fleeing to Richmond.” (1 July 62) “Rest is what we want now, and I hope we shall get it. I could sleep for a week.” (4 July 62)

Through the war, Rhodes manages to keep his faith in God and in the Union cause. Early in his service on the first Sunday away from home, he notes that the day is not “much like a Sunday in Rhode Island, but yet we have tried to keep the day holy and recognize the fact that God is still our Lord.” (24 June 61) The next day in seeing President Lincoln for the first time, he writes: “He looks like a good honest man, and I trust that with God’s help he can bring our country safely out of its peril.” Months after his first combat, he notes “Army life is not so disagreeable as I imagined it would be, and I trust that I am prepared to do my whole duty unto death if it is required. I trust that I shall be able to live, or die if need be, like a Christian soldier.” (12 October 61) In March of the following year, he pens: “I have no fear of the future. If I die upon the battlefield I hope to receive the reward of the righteous and feel resigned to God’s will.” (6 March 62) On March 21, his twentieth birthday, he reflects: “The past year has been an eventful one to me, and I thank God for all his mercies to me. I trust my life in the future may be spent in his service.” With action soon coming at Yorktown the following month, he notes: “I am cheerful and in good spirits, trusting that God will bring us in safety to victory.” (6 April 62) After the Battle of Fair Oaks, he writes: “The old Second has again been in battle, and although many have been killed and wounded I, by the goodness of God, escaped unhurt.” (26 June 62)

http://www.librarything.com/author/rhodeselishahunt

            By July 1862, 150 years ago, Elisha Hunt Rhodes was a veteran of numerous engagements and battles. He had been recommended for promotion and was about to become a second lieutenant. His diary shows that through it all he had kept his faith in his god, his country, his regiment and himself. In his entry for June 4, 1862, as he was completing one year of service, he uses the phrase he will use many times in his diary: “We can see the Rebel guns, and the shells fly over our camp. They sound like a steam whistle. We have no tents, and our blankets are wet most of the time. But it is all for the Union.” (italics added)

See the next essay in the series: “Elisha Hunt Rhodes, as Officer, Sees Action at Antietam and Fredericksburg.”

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The Civil War’s Most Accomplished Newporter

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published on June 27, 2012, in the Newport Daily News as “Newport’s Gen. Stevens exemplified courage.”)

The most famous Newporter of the Civil War was of Newport but not from Newport. Isaac Ingalls Stevens was born and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. His close connection to Newport stemmed from his military assignment to Fort Adams, his marriage to Newporter Margaret Lyman Hazard, and his burial in Island Cemetery in Newport.

In 1839 Stevens graduated from West Point at the head of his class and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He was ordered to Newport to continue building Fort Adams, begun twenty years earlier and nearing completion. He reached the city in July 1839, and boarded at Ms. Castoff’s boarding house at Spring and Ann Streets.

While stationed here, he met Margaret Hazard, the daughter of Benjamin Hazard, a lawyer and member of the state legislature for 31 years.

Margaret Lyman Hazard Stevens

(www.findagrave.com)

       They were married September 8, 1841, and eventually had five children together. The first child, Hazard, was born in the Wanton Lyman Hazard House on June 9, 1842. During the Revolutionary War, it was the home of John G. Wanton, a wealthy merchant and son of the colonial governor, Gideon Wanton. Today it stands as Newport’s oldest surviving house. (To visit the house, see www.newporthistorytours.org, “Colonial Site Tour.”)

While slight of frame, Stevens’ remarkable intellect and leadership ability are shown by his record of military service and his numerous achievements outside of the Army. He rose to be the adjutant of the Corps of Engineers during the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848, where he saw action at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Mexico City, in the last battle sustaining a severe wound. From 1841-1849, he oversaw the fortifications of the New England Coast. From 1849-1852 he headed the coast survey office in Washington, D.C. In 1852 he resigned from the army and in 1853 became the governor and superintendent of Indian affairs of the new Washington Territory in the northwest. On the way to the Territory, he surveyed a railroad route across the northern part of the country. In both 1857 and 1858 he was elected as the Territory’s delegate to the U.S. Congress.

There was no question of his sympathies once the Civil War threatened the Union. In his biography written by his son, Hazard wrote: “Governor Stevens was preeminently a national man in all his ideas and sympathies. His Revolutionary ancestry, his West Point training, his participation in large national interests … strengthened his love for and pride in the great Republic, and made sectionalism or disunion utterly abhorrent to him. Like Webster, he regarded the Union as the palladium of national liberty, life, and power, and its preservation the highest patriotic duty.”

In his letter to Secretary of War Simon Cameron dated May 22, 1861, Stevens stated: “Sir, – I have the honor to offer my services in the great contest now taking place for the maintenance of the Union in whatever military position the government may see fit to employ them.”

With Stevens’ strong roots in our state, Governor William Sprague offered him command of a Rhode Island regiment; however, just before Stevens received this offer, Secretary Cameron offered him command of the 79th New York Regiment known as the Highlanders, and he accepted the appointment.

On September 28, 1861, he became a brigadier general and led his troops during the Port Royal Expedition. Now a division commander, he saw action June 16, 1862, at the Battle of Secessionville/First Battle of James Island. The Union troops were defeated in this single attempt to capture by land the city of Charleston, South Carolina.

 

 General Stevens during the Civil War

(Library of Congress)

        Stevens and his division were transferred to Virginia and became part of the Union Army of Virginia under Major General John Pope. August 28-30, 1862, Stevens’ division fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run, in which Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeated General Pope.

        On the very next day, General Stevens engaged the forces of Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in the Battle of Chantilly/Ox Hill, as Jackson attempted to deny the line of retreat of the Union Army. Though outnumbered, Stevens’ forces attacked across an open field and achieved initial success. During the Confederate counterattack, Stevens attempted to rally the 79th Highlanders, his former regiment. Five color bearers had fallen. Stevens himself raised the regimental colors as a wounded bearer shouted, “For God’s sake, don’t take the colors, general. They’ll shoot you if you do.” Ignoring this plea, Stevens cried: “Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!” The regiment charged, and the Confederate counterattack was halted. Stevens lay dead, a bullet through his temple, the colors lying on his head and shoulders.

        In March 1863 General Stevens was awarded posthumously the rank of major general. He is buried in Island Cemetery, Newport.

Gravestone, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Island Cemetery, Newport

(Russ Dodge, http://www.findagrave.com)

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Rhode Island Joins March to War

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published in the Newport Daily News, May 26, 2012)

After the South’s bombardment of Fort Sumter, on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call to arms on April 15 and established Rhode Island’s quota at 780 men. Governor William Sprague called the General Assembly into special session on April 17, and both Houses quickly passed unanimously a resolution to meet the quota. Various state banks came forward and offered loans to meet the financial requirements. Finally, acts reviving the charters of the Providence Horse Guards, the Narragansett Guards, the City Guards of Providence, and the Wickford Pioneers were approved.

         During the period April 18-24, Rhode Island sent its first units off to war. On April 18, the Providence Marine Corps Artillery left Providence. Following this unit were two detachments composing the First Regiment, Rhode Island Detached Militia, commanded by Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside.  On April 20, the first contingent, 530 men, under the command of Burnside departed on the Steamer Empire State. These men came from the ten companies making up the regiment, six from Providence and one each from Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Westerly, and our own Newport. As the ship passed Newport Harbor, salutes were fired from the city and Fort Adams to honor the departure.  The second contingent of 510 men, under the command of Colonel Joseph T. Pitman, departed Providence by steamer on April 24. As they marched to the Fox Point pier, they sang their regimental song:

“The gallant young men of Rhode Island
Are marching in haste to the wars:
Full girded for strife, they are hazarding life
In defense of our banner and stars.”

   

Second Detachment of the First RI Regiment departing Providence, April 24, 1861

        Burnside eventually became the most renowned Rhode Island Civil War hero. Born in Indiana, he graduated West Point, served in the Mexican War (1846-48), married Mary Fisher from Providence, and invented and manufactured in Bristol a breech-loading rifle. Shortly after Fort Sumter, Governor Sprague asked him to lead the First Rhode Island Regiment. He gave his name to the style whiskers which he wore.

        Burnside reported to the governor that during the final marches to the nation’s  capital: “Nothing whatever occurred to detract from the good reputation of the State, whose patriotism had called into active service the fine body of men whom I esteem it an honor to lead.”

        On April 29, the First Detachment welcomed their fellow soldiers from the Second Detachment and escorted them to the Patent Office grounds where they had temporary quarters. That same day the entire regiment marched to the White House and was there welcomed by President Lincoln, Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, the Army Commander in Chief, Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of War Cameron.

            On May 2 the entire regiment was paraded with Governor Sprague, President Lincoln, and many spectators observing. It was then marched to the Capitol where the regiment was mustered into service for the United States for a period of three months. Each soldier recited the following oath of allegiance:

 “I ___________, do solemnly swear, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America and that I will serve honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and regulations for the government of the armies of the United States.”

Colonel Burnside reported that “eleven hundred voices rose in one volume upon the air.”

            In his first official report to Governor Sprague on May 23, Burnside closed by saying, “I cheerfully bear testimony to the general good conduct and character of the men composing this Regiment. It is with the greatest satisfaction, that I can commend them to the favor and generosity of the people of the State whose honor they are engaged in upholding, and whose good name they are determined to maintain.”

            It would be this good name that would be put to the test when the First Rhode Island Regiment took part in its first combat at the First Battle of Bull Run in July, 1861.

            For more information, please visit the state’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Commission website: www.rhodeislandcivilwar150.org.

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