*Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America* by Henry Wilson

I have stumbled into the multi-volume history of The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, by Henry Wilson, published in 1874 - 1875 (author's Introduction 1873).  The dates are important because the work was compiled and written during Reconstruction, and the author was a first-hand witness and participant to much of what he covers.

Contemporary scholarship does challenge some of what he writes of, such as his chapters on the Underground Railroad, particularly in terms of numbers of slaves making their way toward the North Star, and the stations. So it's unfortunate this work was written before Henry Adams, Theodore Roosevelt and others began teaching the methods of history as a discipline (which at least Henry Adams imbibed during his long stays in Europe from practioners there), so there are no sources cited, no footnotes.  But the Abolitionist passion breathes out of every sentence, nor is there any reason to doubt the accounts he provides of individual white people who did help escaping slaves in all the variety of ways open to them.  For one thing, as so much of this action took place across what was then still called the Northern Reserve -- western New York and northern Ohio -- there are many local archives that contain the newspapers, memoirs and other documentation for such events at Case University and other institutions.

Henry Wilson was elected Vice President of the U.S. on President Ulysses S. Grant's ticket.  He served as VP until he died, in harness.

Wilson is a fascinating figure, a life-long Abolitionist from Massachusetts, born in New Hampshire.  He was one of the Radical Abolitionists along with the more famous Thaddeus Stevens.  Like Stevens the winds of scandal blew about Wilson, though of different sorts of scandal than Stevens's.  Much information on Wilson can be found here.

It is good to remember the Aboltiionists, particularly when the Lost Causers who cling to the revisionism of the Civil War insist the war wasn't about slavery, and that the North, as racist as the South, didn't care about slavery.  My response to this supposedly killing argument is, "Remember the Abolitionists."  And nothing created Abolitionists out of northern racists faster than the Fugitive Slave Act.  Wilson documents this consequence in granular detail.

There is nothing like reading the actual words of the people who were participants and witnesses to the history they compile. And, in fact, not all northerners were racists, and nor were most of the Abolitionists. Wilson, for instance, during the war, wrote devastating articles about northern white racism, among other things detailing for publication his argument that members of the Union black regiments were treated as badly as prisoners of war, arguing for equal pay for equal rank for their military service. But then, like Stevens, he was dismissed as a Radical, an outlier, a danger to the Union and the Nation -- as was done in Speilberg's Lincoln with Stevens.

Fortunately, perhaps, Wilson died, before the Corrupt Bargain of 1876 that traded the end of Reconstruction for Hayes's election.

Presidents' Day

Last week the WaPo ran a poll for readers to send in their assessment of the most underrated POTUS.

By all accounts Grant was unassuming, decent and easy to get along with, in almost all situations and conditions, other than on the battlefield, when he did what had to be done, and that was that, no ifs, ands, buts or maybes. Most people liked him, he was someone they liked to spend time with. Lincoln was one of those who enjoyed his company. If their son hadn't been ill, the Grants would have been in that Ford Theater box with the Lincolns.
It would be an interesting project to dig into what began all the exaggerations and outright lies about Grant. It seems to have begun as soon as he came to Washington D.C. as POTUS,. It came as much from those who had been Unionists as much as from the Confederate side. Both Henry James and Gore Vidal, whose Americn Chronicles series took much direction from Adams's writing, particularly his novel of D.C., Democracy, had nothing but venom for Grant -- as someone who didn't belong there, out of his league as well as his depth, who didn't understand how things worked.

In Democracy, whose author was the consumate D.C. insider, already the romantic lead is a Virginian who had a brother die in his arms in the Battle of the Wilderness. So the hostility toward Grant, the determination to belittle him went in partnership with the revisionism of the history and causes of the Civil War, and it was immediate.

General Ulysses S. Grant: Forgotten Warrior -- And General Forrest

U.S. GRANT: American Hero, American Myth by Joan Waugh; Univ. of North Carolina

Why did his reputation fade so rapidly in the 1920s and '30s? Waugh thinks that the "post-World War I generation feared, rather than celebrated, the endless sacrifices of the Civil War," that the nationwide popularity of the "Lost Cause" movement elevated Robert E. Lee and diminished Grant, and that "in an era known for its racism and its rejection of the biracial democratic implications of both the war and Reconstruction, Grant was scorned by many." Add to that the hostility of many 20th-century historians to his record as president, and you have the ingredients for a free-fall tumble, not to mention an utter injustice. If you read the biographies mentioned above along with this fine study, you will understand just how much of an injustice it really is.

Birth of a Nation has much to answer for, as does Woodrow Wilson.

Madison Smartt Bell's novel of confederate general Bedford Forest, Devil's Dream, is just out -- he sent us a copy a couple of weeks ago.  The NY Times reviews it today.   Madison provides a timeline of Forrest's life that is fascinating -- it includes elements that Madison didn't include in the novel, such as Forrest as founding member of the KKK.  It's a brilliant novel, though the principal is a monster, and a charmless monster to boot.   Nevertheless, I recommend this one.