Q and A July 2022
The following are more questions and/or comments I have received from readers over the past year. Some are questions for which I had no ready answer, usually because I had not researched the specific person or event. Some comments challenged the historic accuracy of one of my posts or suggested my research for an article was incomplete. I answer every correspondence from readers, except a few uncivil ones. I am always glad to learn more myself and, occasionally, I try to correct a mis-conception by a reader. In any case, I am always pleased to hear from the followers of my articles or my books.
In this first comment and question, a reader (and friend) called me to task for a snide comment I made in the introduction to my April 2022 article about the Lincoln assassination. I had written that too many authors were overly dramatic and exaggerated certain events (making them non-historic) and that the book “Killing Lincoln” was an example. And in another, I am challenged to be more “fair” to Jefferson Davis by acknowledging that he adopted a Black child (not exactly true).
(Q) I appreciated your version of the assassination story, but couldn’t help but notice your dismissal of “Killing Lincoln.” Other than being overly dramatic and exaggerated, were there errors or misrepresentations in the book?
(A) My issues with the "Killing Lincoln" book had to do with the use of the hyperbolic phrases like "Lincoln had 48 hours to live" and that the authors missed numerous historical points that I thought they should have edited. After all, one was a noted historian. Although it has been over ten years since I read it, a few examples which I recall include: there was no "oval office" in Lincoln's Executive Mansion; it was not called the “White House” for another thirty years; and Booth fled over the Anacostia River, not the Potomac. While there was no clear evidence of Mary Surratt's involvement, the authors left the impression that she knew more than she admitted. I also thought they made Booth out to be a more successful, clever and philosophically dedicated person than I believe he was. Finally, I thought they were too ambiguous about involvement by any Confederate officials, which most historians disclaim. As a side note, in an interview the author left the false impression that there was a boxcar full of gold taken from Richmond, which over the last ten years has generated a lot of speculation and actual searches; although, as I wrote in an earlier article, there was no such fortune available to the Confederates. However, I must admit that I may be a bit jealous because they sold over 600,000 copies of their book and, although I was pleased with my sales, I only sold a fraction of that with my first Lincoln book. On the other hand, I should have left out the snide remark and I will edit it out of the archive and web-site copies. (That will cover up my mistake for posterity!) Thank you for writing and I am sorry for the epistle, I can get wound up.
(Q) I enjoyed your article about the assassination of Lincoln, but I thought you might include more of the side story about Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set Booth’s broken leg. You mentioned that he may not have been intentionally involved in the murder plot and that he was given a life sentence; however, the rest of his story deserves to be told. Would that be a future article?
(A) Perhaps at some point I will elaborate on the life of Doctor Mudd as I agree there was more to him than my brief summary. He did not serve out his full sentence and was pardoned in 1869 by President Andrew Johnson, primarily for his humanitarian and courageous role in caring for guards and other prisoners during an outbreak of Yellow Fever in 1867 at Fort Jefferson prison in Florida. Stirring testimony by the guards he saved contributed to President Johnson’s decision. After his release, he resumed his medical practice (and his tobacco farm) and otherwise led a quiet life. He did once try to explain his actions in an interview, which he later said he should not have granted because of mis-quotes and idle speculation by the reporter. He proclaimed his innocence until the day he died at age forty-nine in 1883.
(Q) Do you think any senior Confederate government official or Military officer, had any part in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
(A) No, I do not! I have never seen any scrap of evidence that gives rise to that speculation.
(Q) I recently read a beautiful Civil War story about the origination of the music “Taps” which is played often at military funerals. It seems a Union officer, whose son was a Confederate soldier, found the music on his son’s body which had been returned home. It was in a pocket of his son’s Confederate uniform, evidently composed by the boy, who was a musician. The father had a bugler play the Taps at his son’s funeral. The story brought me to tears. Have you written about it before?
(A) I have heard the story, but not written about it because it is not true. I like to think of these uplifting stories as parables, not lies, which someone invented and it then takes on a life of its own. If such stories aren’t true, in a perfect world, they would be. But the real story is also interesting. The underlying tune was a bugle call to “extinguish lights” and was used by French and American forces before the Civil War. In 1862, Union General Daniel Butterfield and his bugler revised (and simplified) the tune slightly, but still intended its use as a calming “lights out” signal. The new version was softer, and became known as Butterfield’s Lullaby. Later that same year, another Union officer ordered that the revised tune be played at a funeral, as an honor, for a young soldier whose rank did not qualify for a gun salute. The words we know today starting with “Day is done, gone the sun” were not added until after the war. It is a haunting piece of music that appropriately accompanies many military funerals.
(Q) I know you are anti-Southern, but will you tell your readers about Jefferson Davis adopting a black child? In that one gesture, he wipes away your negative comments about him and his relationships with Black people.
(A) Where to start? First, I am not anti-Southern, to be so would be to deny my heritage. However, I am opposed to the idea of succession and I reject any rationalization for slavery; especially the notion that it was a benevolent labor system (I know it was legal until 1865, but it was never morally defensible). Now to your Jefferson Davis question. Varina Davis wrote later of a black child who she “adopted” in 1864, named Jim Lindor (AKA James Henry Brooks). There was no adoption law in either Virginia or Mississippi (Jefferson’s home state), but the term usually meant “taken in and looked after” which did occur. The story is that the boy was being mis-treated in another home and, if so, her actions were surely compassionate. There is no evidence that Mr. Davis was directly involved, but Mrs. Davis certainly would have needed his acquiescence. Mary Chesnut, a famous Southern diarist and friend of Varina’s, met Jim at the Confederate Executive Mansion and wrote about the circumstances. Mrs. Davis also mentioned the boy in her later auto-biographies, writing that after Jefferson Davis was captured, she entrusted Jim to a Union General who promised to take the boy north to safety at a Freedmen’s Aid Society school. We know that he was educated there until about age sixteen, but after that, he is lost in history. There is no evidence or commentary by Mrs. Davis that there was any further contact between she and Jim. I still believe Jefferson Davis was a mis-guided leader who was significant slave-owner in Mississippi and supported secession to perpetuate slavery. Whether he was kind to certain Black individuals does not mitigate those facts.
Q) I read recently that thousands of Black slaves fought for the Confederacy. Is that true and if so, why haven’t we heard more about that part of Southern history?
(A) This is just more falsehood promulgated by the neo-Confederate movement (a minority of Southerners) which is on a mission to sanitize the public’s view of secession, slavery, and the Civil War. There were Black slaves who assisted the Southern war effort, but in almost all cases, it was hardly by choice. Keep in mind that there were nearly four million slaves in the Southern states in 1860 and, while it is possible a few willingly served, the percentage is minuscule and cannot be used to white-wash (pun intended) the practice of human bondage by today’s neo-confederates. I call these folks “irrational rationalizers” and they are trying to perpetuate myths that, I believe, do not serve our country well. As I said, fortunately, they are a minority of folks in the South, just very loud. We know of at least one former slave who did petition for a state provided pension for Confederate service in the 1870’s and it was granted based on his sworn statement. I do not doubt that he served, however, there is no record of an actual enlistment by the man. A photo and sketch of him in the early 1900s shows him in a uniform, but it was not one in use at the time and is considered by historians to be an embellishment. I am certain there were other examples, but not very many. If you have documentation supporting wider service by slaves in the Confederate Army, please provide it and, if authentic, I will publish the information.
(Q) You glossed over the origins of Memorial Day in a recent article. The practice of placing flowers on the graves of soldiers was a tradition started by Southern women, carried out in hundreds of towns honoring Confederate dead. Northerners picked up the tradition later. As a proud Southerner, my family celebrates two Memorial Days, one for the veterans of the United States, even those Yankee invaders, and one for the veterans of the Confederate States of America.
(A) The article to which you refer was a focus on one individual’s story, not specifically about the origins of Memorial Day. No slight was intended. The fog of time has obscured the origins of the special day, but I agree that Southern women significantly contributed to the manner in which we honor fallen soldiers. Your choice to observe a second Memorial Day is understandable.
(Q) In your article about the battles in New Mexico and Arizona, I was left wondering what officials filled the vacuum when the Confederate forces withdrew from the territory. Who maintained safety for the settlers from Natives and who kept law and order among the settlers? Did Union soldiers stay?
(A) Great question. There were a few additional Union troops assigned to the territories. But in general, the settlers and Natives resumed their stand-offs and any law and order in the territories was sporadic and provided by a few U.S. Marshalls and, in larger towns, by local sheriffs. It was a wild and wooly time and not a place for the faint of heart. The area really began to populate with eastern and southern born families after the Civil War. Of course, the Native American populations were gradually pushed from their ancestral lands by the influx.