Tag Archives: Civil War

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln

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Allan Pinkerton, President Abraham Lincoln, and Major General John A. McClernand. This photo was taken not long after the Civil War’s first battle on northern soil in Antietam, Maryland on October 3, 1862. In his role as head of Union Intelligence Services during the war, Pinkerton foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. His wartime work was critical in raising Pinkerton’s profile and helping to bolster the reputation of his Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which pioneered the American private detective industry.—from Wikipedia

To celebrate the 16th president's birthday the Libraries has many items in its collections.

Here are some highlights:

Anderson Galleries, Inc., A remarkable collection of autograph letters and Lincolniana from the library of a New York gentleman, including a "Lynch" signature and all the other signers except three, a full set of the presidents, remarkably fine letters by literary men, statesmen, and soldiers, and an extraordinary collection of Lincoln letters and books, to be sold November 13 and 14, 1916 … on public exhibition from Saturday, November 4th. New York [1916].

Angle, Paul M. (Paul McClelland), "Here I have lived"; a history of Lincoln's Springfield, 1821-1865, Springfield, Ill., The Abraham Lincoln Association, 1935.

Baber, Adin, A. Lincoln with compass and chain; surveying career as seen in his notes and maps, and with an account of the Hanks family cousins, makers of fine surveying and mathematical instruments. Kansas, Ill., Priv. print. by the author, 1968.

Bates, Finis Langdon. The escape and suicide of John Wilkes Booth; or, The first true account of Lincoln's assassination, containing a complete confession by Booth many years after the crime, giving in full detail the plans, plot and intrigue of the conspirators, and the treachery of Andrew Johnson, then vice-president of the United States; / written for the correction of history by Finis L. Bates. Naperville, Ill., Atlanta, Ga. [etc.] J.L. Nichols & Company [1907].

Abraham Lincoln: from his own words and contemporary accounts, edited by Roy Edgar Appleman. Washington : U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1942.

—Elizabeth Periale

Poor Kitty Popcorn, or The Soldier’s Pet

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Inspiration for writing Smithsonian Libraries blog posts can come from a very winding path. In my work as the Libraries' Special Collections Cataloger, it seems that almost every book I pick up offers fertile ground for blogging. But time and attention are limited, and it's just too easy most days to say to myself, "Wow, that's interesting," and move on to the next item. But this particular piece has stayed in the back of my mind for a while now—it has an almost irresistible combination of American historical context, insights into nineteenth century attitudes, and noteworthy biographical and bibliographical details. Throw in the cat-blogging aspect (on the heels, or rather paws, of my earlier Libraries blog entries on the Pallas Cat, the Cheshire Cat Challenge, and the feline-powered sewing machine), as well as the wintry setting, and the designation of January 19th as National Popcorn Day, and this entry just seemed to write itself. 

Kitty Popcorn Cover 

Did you ever hear the story of the loyal cat? Meyow!
Who was faithful to the flag, and ever follow'd that? Meyow!

Poor Kitty Popcorn, one of the many songs written by American composer Henry Clay Work (1832-1884), spins a grand tale of the loyal bond formed between a Union soldier and his pet cat, Popcorn, during the Civil War.

Oh she had a happy home beneath a southern sky,
But she pack'd her goods and left it when our troops came nigh,
And she fell into the column with a low glad cry, Meyow!

Round her neck she wore a ribbon—she was black as jet—Meyow!
And at once a gallant claim'd her for a soldier's pet—Meyow!
All the perils of the battle and the march she bore,
Climbing on her master's shoulder when her feet were sore,
Whisp'ring in his ear with wonder at the cannon's roar, Meyow!

In the song, the stalwart soldier who marched forth with this remarkable cat survived the rigors of the war, returning to his home on the northern prairies. But the story then takes a more pathetic turn.

Now the “cruel war is over” and the troops disband —Meyow!
Kitty follows as a pilgrim in the Northern land—Meyow!
Ah! But sorrow overtakes her, and her master dies,
While she sadly sits a gazing in his dim blue eyes,
Till by strangers driven rudely from the door, she cries, Meyow!

So she wanders on the prairie till she sees his form—Meyow!
Carried forth and buried roughly 'mid the driving storm—Meyow!
Oh! Her slender frame, it shivers in the northern blast,
As she seeks the sand mound on which the snow falls fast,
And alone amid the darkness there she breathes her last Meyow!

The dismal chorus of the song tugs at the heart strings:

Poor Kitty Popcorn!
Buried in a snow drift now.
Never more shall ring the music of your charming song, Meyow!
Never more shall ring the music of your charming song, Meyow!

The song Poor Kitty Popcorn, in spite of its overly dramatic rendering in song and in the vivid before and after scene engraved on the cover of the sheet music (shown above), might have some true elements to the story. The life of a soldier can be lonely, alternating tedium with terror, and the affection of a pet can offer much solace and amusement, creating a bond that can continue long after deployment is over (for instance, there have been recent stories in the news about some U.S. Marines who have adopted pet cats in Afghanistan, detailing their efforts to bring these beloved animals back home with them). The notion of a pet cat accustomed to riding along perched on a soldier's knapsack hardly seems so fanciful.

Henry Clay Work was a prolific writer of words and music, whose songs Grandfather's Clock and Marching Through Georgia (inspired by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's 1864 campaign) are still familiar today. An ardent abolitionist who nonetheless wrote a number of songs for blackface minstrel groups, Work used his talents to celebrate American patriotism and the achievements of the Union Army, in songs with titles like Sleeping for the Flag, Who Shall Rule This American Nation? and Washington and Lincoln. Sensitive to the sufferings of widows, orphans, and families blighted by alcoholism, Work also wrote songs supportive of the Temperance Movement, such as Lillie of the Snow-Storm, or, Please, Father, Let Us In!, in which a pitiful child pleads with her drunken father who has locked his family out of their home on a bitterly cold winter's night.

The Dibner Library copy of Poor Kitty Popcorn was reprinted circa 1920 in a volume of collected songs by Work. The imprint on the original sheet music was S. Brainard's Sons of Cleveland, with the copyright registered in 1866 to the noted music publishing firm of Root & Cady in Chicago, where Work had been employed as a printer of sheet music. The Dibner Library's copy was donated by Bertram Work, Jr., a descendant of the songwriter. Additional pages of the sheet music for Poor Kitty Popcorn can be seen on the Libraries' Flickr site (here, here, here, and here).

Songs of Henry Clay Work: poet and composer, born 1832, died 1884. Compiled by Bertram G. Work, Nephew of the Author. New York: Press of J.J. Little & Ives Co., [1920?].

Call number: qM1620 .W897S6X 1920 SCDIRB
Housed in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, located in the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.

—Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger

Veterans Day and Memorial Day—Two Federal Holidays Honoring those Who Serve With Honor

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Faces of Discord The Civil War Era at the National Portrait Gallery A Woman’s War - Southern Women, Civil, War and the Confederate Legacy The United States provides two federal holidays in observance of those citizens who served honorably in the military, Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Memorial Day honors any veteran who died either on the battlefield or as a consequence to injuries sustained during battle.

American women acted in different capacities, not only to make these holidays come about, but also, to aid in their national and international recognition. These women were: the southern women who started the practice of decorating the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers— Mary Logan, the wife of General John Alexander Logan who, upon observing this practice in Virginia, suggested it for all fallen soldiers— and Moina Belle Michael, who first started the movement of wearing poppies in remembrance of fallen soldiers of World War I.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868, when General John Alexander Logan National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, G.A.R. issued General Order No.11 designated May 30 the day

‘for the purpose of strewing flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of Comrades who died in defense of their country in the late rebellion.’

Born the son of a Scots/Irish immigrant medical doctor who farmed in the state of Illinois, John A. Logan (1826-1886) went on to fame in careers as a lawyer, military man and member of the Senate. An image of General Logan can be found in a monograph in the Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library named Faces of Discord the Civil War Era at the National Portrait Gallery. The image is taken from the painting, Grant and His Generals by Ole Peter Hansen Balling (1823-1906), oil on canvas, 1865. This painting is on permanent exhibit in the National Portrait Gallery Wing of the Smithsonian Reynolds Center. In the painting, General Logan appears in the center between the two flags and the generals Sherman and Grant. The Smithsonian American Art/ National Portrait Library (AA/PG) also houses the monograph, John A. Logan Stalwart Republican from Illinois, which states:

‘John A. Logan’s most enduring act as G.A.R. commander was his designation of May 30 as Memorial Day. The practice of placing flowers on soldiers’ graves began with southern women. Northern troops observed the practice, and by 1865 the graves of Union dead were being similarly decorated … In March 1868 when Mary Logan visited several Virginia battlefields she saw flags and faded flowers on Confederate graves. She described the practice to Logan and he shortly decided to make it G.A.R policy.’

The Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library’s Vertical File Collection contains a small catalog, A Woman's War Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy, A checklist for the exhibition produced by the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia on the occasion of its Centennial year opening November 22,1996, with a checklist of the exhibition held at the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, November 1896. It states:

‘Whether black or white, enslaved or free, rich or poor, few Southern women emerged from that time unchanged.’

Among the artifacts in the exhibition were: ‘an engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 25, 1863 of “Cemetery in New Orleans-Widow and Daughters in Full Mourning”, an 1877 photograph from the Library of Congress of Harriet Tubman, a slave whip and a slave collar.’

In order to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays, Congress declared the National Holiday Act of 1971, and the day was officially named Memorial Day which would be celebrated on the last Monday in May.

Faces of Discord The Civil War Era at the National Portrait Gallery, ed. James G. Barber, The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2004, E467N382006, ISBN-13-978-0-06-11358402

John A. Logan Stalwart Republican from Illinois, James Pickett Jones, Board of Regents of the State of Florida, 1982, CT275L837J7, ISBN 0-8130-0729-1

Veterans Day honors any veteran deceased or living who has served honorably in the military either in wartime or in peacetime.

The nation’s second federal holiday instituted to honor those serving in the armed forces is Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day. President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) proclaimed Armistice Day to be November 11, the date of the cessation of battles between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. In European countries this day has been known as Remembrance Day, Armistice Day or Poppy Day. The reference Poppy Day alludes to both the poem, In Flanders Fields, as well as, the popularity of selling poppies for the welfare of war veterans and their families.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) of the Canadian Army wrote one of the most quoted war poems, In Flanders Fields as a eulogy to war dead, especially his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer who died in battle May 2, 1915. As a medical surgeon McCrae had witnessed first-hand the suffering and death at the Battle of Ypres, Belgium. In response he wrote:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

In 1918, Moina Belle Michael (1889-1944) an American teacher from the state of Georgia was so moved after reading the poem that she dedicated the rest of her life to popularizing the red field poppy (papaver rhoeas) in making it a symbol of the sacrifice of veterans of World War I. The idea caught on in Europe, and to this day, red poppy lapels are sold in European countries for the benefit of veterans and their families.

October 3, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) issued the Veterans Day Proclamation which called for the proper and widespread observance of this day. He designated the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee to coordinate the planning of observance. Later, President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) signed a law returning the annual observance of Veterans Day’s back to its original date of November 11, starting in 1978.

—Alice Clarke

Related images can be viewed in the Smithsonian American Art / National Portrait Gallery Library set on flickr.

Picturing Words . . . and Monsters?

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A Repository for Bottled Monsters, a blog that features all things from the National Museum of Health and Medicine, recently featured the Libraries' exhibition, Picturing Words: the Power of Book Illustration, which is on display at the National Museum of American History through mid-April.

The items on display that caught this blog's eye are from The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–65 , United States Surgeon General's Office , Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1870–88, p. 830, Plate LIII.

The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–65 , United States Surgeon General's Office, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1870–88, p. 830, Plate LIII.

The U. S. Surgeon General’s multi-volume Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, printed between 1870 and 1888, used almost every graphic process available at the time. Pictorial technology was changing rapidly, and numerous techniques were used to produce the highest quality illustrations on time and under budget. In addition to traditional wood engravings, steel engravings, and lithographs, the book featured new photomechanical processes.

—Elizabeth Periale

Charles Caryl Coleman carte-de-visite – AA/PG Library

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Charles coleman rv sm

Recto: Charles Caryl Coleman  (born Buffalo, NY, 1840; died Capri, Italy, 1928)

Verso: Carte-de-visite photographer: Lorenzo Suscipj (1802-1885), Rome, Italy

A native of Buffalo New York and nephew of an auctioneer and gallery owner, Charles Caryl Coleman began his artistic training from William H. Beard, a local painter. However, in 1856 he traveled to Paris and after three years then went to Florence where for two years he studied at the Accadèmia Galli.  While in Florence he became close friends with Elihu Vedder, another American artist.  When the American Civil War broke out, he returned to the United States in September 1862 to serve in the 100th Regiment of the New York Volunteers. However, in 1863 he was shot in the jaw in South Carolina and was discharged honorably. He briefly set up a studio in New York City, but by 1866 he was back in France with his friend Vedder.  By December 1866 Coleman was in Rome where he established a studio for ten years during which he traveled widely in Italy and several times back to the United States.

In 1886 he moved to the island of Capri where he had bought the famous Villa Narcissus.  At Capri, Coleman joined a community of expatriates and later acted as a leader of a colony of American and British painters that were on the island (including Vedder). Coleman also transformed a part of his Villa Narcissus into a "palace of art" filled with antiquities of various ages and his own artwork.

Coleman worked in a realist style, but over time decorative elements progressively entered into his work. His surroundings also naturally influenced him and he incorporated many classical elements and motifs in both his paintings and his hand-crafted frames. Although he focused on portraiture initially, he later turned to still lifes and figural works. He is most known for architectural depictions infused with classical and Italian elements. Coleman was also known for his landscapes—especially of Italian vistas. One notable landscape series featured many views of Mt. Vesuvius and effects of smoke and light on the volcano and the Bay of Naples. He also painted a few murals including one for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

He lived in Capri throughout the rest of his life, but Coleman still kept strong ties to the United States, receiving several commissions from American patrons. Although lesser-known nowadays, his works are held in several museum collections and are prized for their "decorative elegance."—Doug Litts

Sources: Dearinger, David B., ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design.  New York: Hudson Hills, 2004.

Greer, Gina and Andrea Smith.  American Paintings 1860-1940.  New York: Vance Jordan Fine Art, 2000.

Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr. The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience 1760-1914.  New York: Abrams, 1992.