"Take These Pistols to My Father"

As the semster ends, my intro to U.S. history students are quickly approaching the Civil War. Last week we looked at two Mexican War-era lithographs depicting the death of Lt. Col. Henry Clay, jr. of the 2nd Kentucky Infantry at the battle of Buena Vista. I asked my students to think about these two images in light of 1) the potential political implications of each and 2) how warfare is depicted. They drew out some fantastic points, including:

- The most common reaction was to the American flag flying above the scene. It seems "extremely patriotic," one wrote.
- Continuing on this nationalist theme, some noticed that "American troops are in straight line & seem more organized, [with] more intricate uniforms." They linked these lines advancing under the flag to themes of the constant and "always advancing" progress of Manifest Destiny.
- Like many of the young men in uniform in Mexico, the students saw this image as a depiction of the heroism and glory of military service. "It shows the great leader dying an honorable death on the battlefield giving an inspiring quote to his officers, handing over his pistols." The inspiring quote, for those who can't make it out: "Leave me, save yourselves. Take these pistols to my father and tell him I have done all I can with them and now return them to him."
- Many linked Clay's drive to acquit himself well on the battlefield to the expectations of manhood and honor, some even to Clay jr's attempt to "fill the shoes" of Clay sr. by "dying fighting for" the family reputation.

Discussion of the second image focused on the "otherization" (my word, not theirs) of the Mexican enemies. The enemy is "hostilely [sic] killing the man with little emotion/remorse." It tries to depict "defeat not by a noble enemy but by [a] barbaric people." They concluded that this encouraged Americans to fight against Mexican "barbarity," justified by God's providential designs for the U.S. carrying its civilization to the entire continent. ...or so Jimmy Polk might say.
- Discussions about the depiction of war in the second image versus the first were insightful, too. In contrast to the first lithograph where "the battle continues in the background...while the figures in front look peaceful," and Clay's grapeshot wound in the thigh is "unreal" "sanitized violence," the second image shows "disarray," and "chaos." Most concluded that the second image was more "blunt," even more "realistic," and shows warfare with "very little honor" indeed. In our class discussion we talked about how movies today serve many of the same purposes as these images did in the 1840s.
- Looking toward exam time, I was quite pleased to see the students pick up on some irony in the very fact of Clay jr's death. One noted that the Col. died "because of a border dispute [of which] Henry Clay [sr] didn't want to be a part...he felt it was unnecessary." Another found it "ironic b/c [ah, the age of text-speak!] Clay is always being defeated (1844 by Polk) & his son is portrayed being defeated." (That one's for you, Chris!)

All in all, a useful little assignment that the students got into. I asked them to relate these themes -- both the political implications of the debate over the spread of free soil/slavery into the West and the impact of images of war on young men of military age -- in relation to why men would enlist to fight in the Civil War. And we'll be there in just a couple weeks!

The Emasculated Postwar South

April 1865, the end of the Civil War, must have been an unfathomable blow for many Confederates. I think we may underestimate the psychological impact of defeat on the Confederate soldier (particularly Jason Phillips' young "diehards"). Not only had they lost the war that they had been fighting and dying in for four years, but their society was in ruins. Sure, there was physical destruction, but their social worlds were turned upside down as well. Slavery, which had brought with it both economic success and social stability, was torn out from under the white South. White Southern soldiers had been whipped on the battlefield, their efforts to protect home and fireside had come to naught, and they had failed to defend their way of life. Bertram Wyatt-Brown notes the shame and dishonor that this failure brought down on the heads of Confederates. What's more, slavery's end meant that citizenship, and the manhood that came with it in the 19th c., was open to African Americans. As Confederate soldiers returned home, found themselves no longer in control of their local political (and racial) structures, unable to make a decent living for their families, and insulted by their former slaves' assertions of citizenship and the rights of men, 1865 was a psychological crisis for Southern males.

All of this came flooding back when I was in Nashville on a research trip earlier this week. In the War Memorial Plaza near the capital sits a 1926 monument to the women of the Confederacy. The monument depicts "Fame supporting the wounded and exhausted Confederate soldier with her left arm while with her right hand she is placing a wreath upon the head of the Southern Woman, whose every nerve is vibrating with love and sympathy for the soldier and his cause, as expressed by the palm she is trying to place upon his breast, thoroughly unconscious that as her reward a crown is being placed upon her own head."(1) Alright, but aside from the fama gloriaque patriae, I was most struck by the unusual tip of the flag being drug down by the defeated soldier. Good God, it's limp!

Indeed, cutting through all the neo-classicism here, there is indeed a powerful statement on how the white South saw the end of the war. As Anne Sarah Rubin points out, the white South was a poltically, economically, and socially shattered nation The Confederacy's fall was an irrecoverable blow to the honor, pride, and manhood of some who slid into alcoholism, fled to Brazil or Egypt, or sank into deep depressions for the rest of their lives. The language of Reconstruction and Redemption is couched in terms of manhood lost, manhood asserted, and manhood reclaimed. Former Confederates lost that claim to masculinity when they were shut out of the political process, blacks claimed a share of that manhood themselves when they first began serving in the Union Army during the war and began to vote after it. Whites lashed out against this assertion of masculinity, too. Kuklux night riders at times castrated lynching victims, and often used accusations of rape (a decidedly masculine crime) as pretext for racial violence. In my own work on post-Fifteenth Amendment racial violence in Kentucky, we see organized anti-black militia activity in the state began as blacks began to vote, amid exaggerated rumors of a "Negro Kuklux" that was to fight back against the white Klan's own excesses, essentially challenging white men's role of "defenders" of the community. In reasserting control of their own communities during the era of Redemption, southern white males successfully reclaimed their shattered -- even limp -- manhood as well.

The UCV, who approved the design, apparently remembered that stinging shame of emasculation well, even in the 20th century. Yet again, beneath the veneer of Lost Cause glorification lurks some nuggets of the raw reality of the war years.

Kurz & Allison and Memory of Combat

As I was recently browsing Wikipedia's Civil War articles I noticed that they had many of the old Kurz & Allison prints posted in fairly high resolution. Now, I myself don’t “collect” Civil War art per se (a graduate student has more important things to budget for, unfortunately), but I do enjoy seeing how combat has been depicted by various artists at various times (up to and including the present). Think of it as a twist on the memory studies that have come to be prominent in our scholarship. The memory of Civil War combat.

Now, K&A, as I’m sure most of our readers are more than familiar produced these prints in the 1890s. I was always fascinated with how clean, heroic, uniformed, and generally fake they looked. It always astounded me – even as a child – how little these paintings seemed have anything to do with the chaos of combat. I had coloring books that were more authentic!

Of course, looking back now in a post-David Blight world, I can understand why a company in the heyday of the Reconciliation era, of the UCV and GAR reunions, of the establishment of the first battlefield parks would want to paint this picture of the war. Ordered lines of men, well-uniformed, heroically doing battle with one another, dying with arms outstretched to comrades in arms (on both sides). A clean war was a war that moved beyond the four years of carnage. A heroic war ignored the deep divisions over slavery and other issues that sparked the conflict (and were arguably still as unresolved in 1890 as they had been in 1860). Order and heroism could focus on the shared sacrifice of combat and yet not dwell on the harsh memories that could arise if the brutal facts of war were brought back up. Sectional reconciliation is easier with clean and honorable deaths rather than the reality of 20-year-old comrades being ripped to shreds by lead and steel. K&A prints were not what the Civil War was, but what the 1890s needed the Civil War to be.

All that having been said, looking back at K&A’s Chickamauga print, I have found a handful of “neat” little inclusions that are normally not K&A’s standard fare.

For once, K&A’s depictions of ridiculously close engagement ranges are actually appropriate. Soldier after soldier mentioned the extremely limited visibility in those woods (which, it should be pointed out, are noticeably missing from the print…so much for accuracy, eh?). Though the lack of forest is disturbing, it doesn’t completely distract.

For example, look at all the instances of troops fighting out of ranks, not standing, and generally “disorderly.” I’m really pleased with this little group of Federal soldiers in the foreground. There they are, behind some improvised breastworks of rocks and brush, kneeling and firing as Confederates assault the position. If they were going for a XIV corps troops dug in around the Kelly Field area on the 20^th, then they’ve got the right idea. If you look to the man wounded in the head you can even see some bushes that are likely going to catch fire from the muzzle flashes above them. Also, neat to see US troops with blanket rolls. Were they giving a nod to that no-nonsense Western volunteer image (even if it comes complete with leggings)?

Compare that corner of the print to a photo of the 33rd Ohio’s monument at CCNMP (one of my favorites for getting an idea of how the battle looked), and you can see that K&A are actually not too far behind how the veterans themselves depicted the fighting.

We once more double shotted with canister and poured into them a murderous musketry fire… they threw themselves at full length on the ground, and, lying on their backs so as to expose themselves as little as possible they loaded their muskets, then turning over and resting on one knee they delivered their fire, then threw themselves on their backs to load as before. Our Infantry followed their example and for the next half hour an almost muzzle to muzzle (we were about fifty yards apart) musketry fire was maintained.
- Member of Battery I, 4^th US Artillery

...and sure enough, we get these fellows on their bellies.

The citizens of today will doubtless wonder how any man could escape such a rain of shot and shell, but by the old soldier it is readily understood. While ninety per cent of these shots were being fired the men were lying flat on their faces and were overshooting each other when suddenly one or the other would spring to his feet and with a bound and a yell rush at a double-quick upon their foe, giving him time to fire one or at most two rounds when his ranks would be broken and compelled to retire.
- Lt. Lot D. Young, 4^th KY (CS)

Maybe there’s more to good old Kurz & Allison than I ever gave them credit for. I know I’m certainly going to start looking deeper at what they got right before discounting them for what they “remembered” wrong. Buried under all the memory might just be a few nuggets of historical reality.