Civil War Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Radical Republicans, SCOTUS, and justice

Reconstruction

For Constitution Day, which is September 17, I want to discuss the Radical Republicans. No, not Gym Jordan, Elise Stefanik, and many in the current GOP, who are indeed radical but not for justice.

On August 15, Professor Stephen E. Gottlieb, professor emeritus at the Albany Law School, presented a talk, Should We Abolish the Supreme Court? He referenced his book Unfit for Democracy. and The Case Against the Supreme Court by Erwin Chemerinsky.

Professor Gottlieb noted that those in his party who put Abraham Lincoln’s feet to the fire were labeled Radical Republicans. Gottlieb remembers this designation was offered as pejorative when he attended public school. My recollection of my school days is the same.

“The American Battlefield Trust preserves America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educates the public about what happened there and why it matters.” The organization offered up this article.

“The Radical Republicans were a group of politicians who formed a faction within the Republican party that lasted from the Civil War into the era of Reconstruction. They were led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House of Representatives and Charles Sumner in the Senate. The Radicals were known for their opposition to slavery, their efforts to ensure emancipation and civil rights for Blacks and their strong opinions on post-war Reconstruction.”

After engaging in a bloody Civil War, incrementalism was not on the minds of many Republicans, whose party was only about a decade old. “While President Lincoln wanted to fight the war largely for the preservation of the Union, the Radical Republicans believed the primary reason for fighting was for the abolition of slavery.”

The Civil War amendments

It would have been impossible for the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to have passed without the Radical Republicans. “The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was an effort by the Radical Republicans to reinforce the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery and had been passed the year prior. With this Civil Rights Act, the radicals were also taking steps towards establishing citizenship for Blacks by defending their civil rights and granting them equal protection under the law. In 1867, they were successful in passing the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to Blacks…

“New Reconstruction Acts were passed and called for each rebel state to draft a new constitution as well as ratify the new Fourteenth Amendment… Congress, meaning primarily Radical Republicans, would then have to approve these new state constitutions before readmitting the rebel state back into the Union… Furthermore, they deployed military troops to the South to maintain order and to protect the rights of Black citizens. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, granting Blacks the right to vote.”

The legislation inhibiting Andrew Johnson’s ability to remove his own cabinet members, which led to the impeachment of the President in 1868, was an overreach. While the Radical Republicans dominated the late 1860s, their power dwindled in the early 1870s. Corruption seeped into the party, including fights over civil service reform. Beyond that, figures like Sumner “believed that the era of Reconstruction was successfully completed and no longer needed Radical supervision.”

Then the Tilden/Hayes election of 1876 killed Reconstruction, and Jim Crow ruled, not just in the South.

A century later

The justice that was supposed to have been codified in the 1860s and 1870s had been thwarted, in large part because of the Supreme Court’s decisions such as the “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

As a result, civil rights for Black people had to be relitigated, mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. It was addressed in legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But it was also manifest in decisions by the Warren Court (1953-1969), not only overtly about race (Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Loving v. Virginia), but cases of justice regardless of race. Professor Gottlieb suggested that this period was the highlight of the Supreme Court’s history.

“In 1961, Mapp v. Ohio strengthened the Fourth Amendment’s protections by banning prosecutors from using evidence seized in illegal searches in trials. In 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright held that the Sixth Amendment required that all indigent criminal defendants be assigned a free, publicly-funded defense attorney. Finally, the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona required that all persons being interrogated while in police custody be clearly informed of their rights—such as the right to an attorney—and acknowledge their understanding of those rights—the so-called ‘Miranda warning.'”

More recently

This reminded me of the SCOTUS decision by the Roberts Court in June 2013, which “struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act, weakening a tool the federal government has used for nearly five decades to block discriminatory voting laws.” It was as though the justices decided that “we have overcome.”

Many, including me, were then SHOCKED when SCOTUS provided a significant victory for voting rights in 2023. “It handed down a 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan that preserves longstanding safeguards against racism in US elections, strikes down a gerrymandered congressional map in Alabama, and all but assures that Democrats will gain at least one congressional seat in the next election from that state.”

The arc of the moral universe is undoubtedly long. Whether it bends towards justice, I’m less confident.

One of my Civil War ancestors

Freedom Has No Color

I’ve discovered I have at least TWO great-great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War, one each on each of my parents’ lines. In honor of the beginning and end of the war (April 12, 1861-spring 1865), I will revisit one of my Civil War ancestors, James Archer, with a greater understanding.

In 2018, I ordered the book African American Freedom Journey in New York and Related Sites, 1823-1870: Freedom Knows No Color by Harry Bradshaw Matthews, Associate Dean and Director, Office of Intercultural Affairs at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY. At some point before COVID, I spoke briefly with the professor on the telephone, who clarified a genealogical question for me.

The book has 143 pages of a narrative about the struggle for freedom, including that of his ancestor Isaac Killingsworth of Barnwell, SC. Then it contains over 200 pages of appendices that were particularly useful to my research.

When slavery was finally abolished in 1827 in New York State, there was a public celebration in Cooperstown on July 5 of that year. Frederick Douglass’ famous speech What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? was given on July 5, 1852.

There were many other efforts to end disenfranchisement, discrimination, and oppression in the Empire State. The black press, such as The Colored American, often fueled these endeavors.

Black people had no organized opportunity to fight when the Civil War broke out in 1861. By 1863, however, entities were able to recruit black soldiers. New York was one of the slower states to take action because of Governor Horatio Seymour’s resistance. Finally, by November 1863, “enlisting colored troops in New York” began, purportedly with black soldiers receiving the same bounties as white volunteers.

Changing attitudes

This occurred not long after the New York Draft Riots of July 1863, when black people were often the target of violence. This showed a remarkable turnaround in attitude.

Professor Matthews quotes from the Tribune of December 5, 1863. “New York City, so recently the theatre of mob violence, in which hatred of the Negro seemed to be the uppermost idea – this city, so long considered free from the intrusion of colored troops, and the only place in the loyal States where it was possible to raise a spirit of opposition to them, has exceeded its hospitality to the 2d Regiment of United States Colored Troops.” [NY 20th was the first, the NY 26th, the second.]

Great-great-grandad

At this point, my great-great-grandfather, James Archer, joined the NY 26th (Colored) Regiment. He enlisted on December 29, 1863, in Binghamton, NY, at the age of 29. The troops were first quartered at Riker’s Island. The 26th included soldiers from the West Indies.

The regiment fought several important battles in South Carolina in 1864, including at John’s Island, James Island, Honey Hill, and Beaufort.

But James was not the only member of his extended family in the NY 26th. His brother-in-law, William Bell, who was about 30, also signed up. James had two small children, Morgan and James Edward. I believe William also had a young son, Martin.

Because New York was so slow in accepting black recruits, some folks joined regiments in other states, such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Indeed, Henry Bell, William’s 22-year-old brother, joined the Massachusetts 54th in March 1863. This group was presented in the movie Glory; about 42% of that regiment was killed or wounded.

James was made a corporal in April 1864. He was sick in a hospital starting September 16 in Beaufort; I don’t know the cause, but I suspect it involved mosquitos. Indeed, more people died from disease than gunfire in the NY 26th.

Coming home

Still, James, William, and Henry all made it home safely. The 1865 New York State Census shows that their household in Binghamton usually consisted of the patriarch Edward Bell, whose wife Phillis Wagner had died that year; his sons William and Henry; his daughters Francelia, 19, and Harriet (Archer); Edward’s son-in-law James Archer, and the three grandchildren.

But James and probably William were still in South Carolina until they were mustered out in August 1865. This was likely true of Henry as well.

I don’t know the identities of the three men pictured, which was in possession of one of my sisters and my mom before that. I believe the guy on the left is James Archer, who had hazel eyes. Could the other guys be William on the right and Henry in the middle?

James and his wife Harriet, whom he married in 1856, had two more children, Lillian (b. 1866) and Frederick (b. 1869), after the war. He worked as a potter, a worker in a tin shop, and a general laborer.

An act in 1890 finally allowed black soldiers to receive the same benefits as their white counterparts. James Archer was listed as an “invalid ex-Union soldier,” though it did not specify his ailment.

James in the 1910 Census

In 1910, James Archie, a name variant that also shows up in other records, was a black male, 74 (though actually 76), living at 13 Maple Street, Binghamton, NY. This house was purchased in 1882 and owned free and clear, without a mortgage. He was married to Harriet Archie for 53 years at that point. James still could not read or write.

James Archer died in March 1912. He was buried at Binghamton’s Spring Forest Cemetery. His gravestone is about 250 meters from the house where he passed away. As noted previously, the only daughter of James Archer and Harriet Bell was Lillian Archer. She married Edward Yates (b. 1851) in 1893, and they had at least five children, four of whom survived to adulthood.

Edward Yates died in March 1911. Lillian (d. 1938) then married Maurice Holland (1856-1943) in July of that year. Lillian’s oldest surviving daughter, Gertrude Yates (1897-1982), married Clarence Williams (1886-1958) and had a daughter, also named Gertrude (1927-2011).

The younger Gertrude, who would eventually go by Trudy, married Leslie H. Green (1926-2000) in March 1950. They had three children, of which I am the oldest.

Knowing the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have heard this story multiple times over many years. But I’ve never been able to verify it to my satisfaction. I’ve been told that knowing the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics beyond the first verse could get one killed.

This is, specifically, a World War II tale. When a presumed fellow American soldier came through the terrain, the guards wanted to know if they were truly Yanks as claimed. If they knew the latter verses of the national anthem, they would be summarily shot. The theory was that NO one knows those except a spy feigning to be from the USA.

Good thing I wasn’t there because I would be dead. In fact, in our elementary school, Daniel S. Dickinson, our music teacher had us singing a panoply of patriotic songs, such as Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean. Plus the standard fare: America, America The Beautiful, Yankee Doodle, and The Battle Hymn Of The Republic.

So I know the second and fourth verses. Yeah, that last one IS rather Manifest Destiny. “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto – ‘In God is our trust.'”

The hireling and slave?

But to the best of my recollection, our songbook did not include that third verse, so I didn’t know it, though I was aware of its existence:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What the heck does THAT all mean? A conversation in the Washington Post may enlighten.

Scorn

“These lyrics are a clear reference to the Colonial Marines, according to Jefferson Morley, author of ‘Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835.’ They are clearly meant to scorn and threaten the African Americans who took the British up on their offer, he wrote in a recent essay for The Washington Post. Key surely knew about the Colonial Marines, and it’s even possible he saw them among the contingent of British ships that sailed into Baltimore Harbor.

“But Mark Clague, a musicologist at the University of Michigan and an expert on the anthem, disagrees. In 2016, he told the New York Times: ‘The reference to slaves is about the use, and in some sense the manipulation, of Black Americans to fight for the British, with the promise of freedom.’ He also noted that Black people fought on the American side of the war as well.

“Whether manipulation or not, the British kept their word to Colonial Marines after the war, refusing the United States’ demand that they be returned and providing them land in Trinidad and Tobago to resettle with their families. Their descendants, called ‘Merikins,’ still live there today.”

FSK

As for the writer of the poem, “And even if these lyrics aren’t meant to be explicitly racist, Key clearly was. He descended from a wealthy plantation family and enslaved people. He spoke of Black people as ‘a distinct and inferior race’ and supported emancipating the enslaved only if they were immediately shipped to Africa, according to Morley.”

Oh, it gets worse. “During the Andrew Jackson administration, Key served as the district attorney for Washington, D.C., where he spent much of his time shoring up enslavers’ power. He strictly enforced slave laws and prosecuted abolitionists who passed out pamphlets mocking his jurisdiction as the ‘land of the free, home of the oppressed.’

“He also influenced Jackson to appoint his brother-in-law chief justice of the United States. You may have heard of him; Roger B. Taney is infamous for writing the Dred Scott decision [1857] that decreed Black people “had no rights which the White man was bound to respect.'”

Confederate victory

It’s interesting that Key’s “overt racism” prevented the famous song from becoming the national anthem during Key’s lifetime. There was no official anthem. People sang various other songs such as the ones I referenced earlier.

“Key’s anthem gained popularity over time, particularly among post-Reconstruction White Southerners and the military…
After the misery of World War I, the lyrics were again controversial for their violence. But groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy fought back, pushing for the song to be made the official national anthem. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover made it so.

“‘The elevation of the banner from popular song to official national anthem was a neo-Confederate political victory, and it was celebrated as such,’ Morley wrote. ‘When supporters threw a victory parade in Baltimore in June 1931, the march was led by a color guard hoisting the Confederate flag.'”

Civil War reply

A little-known, unofficial fifth verse was written a half-century later by poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, clearly a response to the American Civil War. It was new to me.

When our land is illum’d with Liberty’s smile,
If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory,
Down, down, with the traitor that dares to defile
The flag of her stars and the page of her story!
By the millions unchain’d who our birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained!
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

Ragnarok, more MCU, Phase 3 films

save Asgard!

Thor.Ragnarok I’ve now gotten to the part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe where the release dates and the chronology of the movies – or most of the films – diverge. And the various TV shows, none of which I ever saw save for a handful of SHIELD eps, fit in there as well. Fortunately, I’m going to mostly ignore those facts. The titles in italics I saw in July 2020.

Captain America: Civil War (2016). When I used to read comic books, the creative teams often developed fights among the superheroes. Sometimes it’d be a brief misunderstanding. Occasionally, it’d be a more elaborate brawl. Too often, though, the motivation seemed sketchy. Not here.

The Hero Registration Act, designed to limit the actions of superheroes, was embraced by Tony Stark/Iron Man, but Steve Rogers/Captain America balks. I found this film surprisingly emotional, especially with the big reveal. Why it’s a Captain America movie, I don’t know, since most of the combatants were Avengers, but whatever.

Doctor Strange (2016 ) -it was an origin that took too long to get going. And it felt formulaic. But I did like the weird dimensional stuff, walking on the sides of buildings.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017). Apparently, this takes place before Avengers: Age of Ultron, not that it particularly matters. Odd that despite the massive amount of comic book violence, the story was much more interesting to me than the first Guardians. Part of that is Kurt Russell as Ego, whose presence makes the Star-Lord character feel less of a Han Solo wannabe. I also like Sly Stallone’s appearance and the curious character of Mantis. And Baby Groot is cuter.

Heck, even when the music was too much on the nose – Fathers and Sons by Cat Stevens, really? – I found it touching. Speaking of music, it also featured my favorite Fleetwood Mac song ever, The Chain.

Dorky high school kid

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) – There was a movie called The Birdman starring Michael Keaton as an actor pigeon-holed as someone who had played a superhero. I didn’t love it, though it reviewed well. Yet I projected that character onto his playing the Vulture in THIS movie, and it worked, especially his threat to Peter while the young man was on a date.

I’m starting to warm up to Tom Holland as this version of the web-slinger. His classmates are appealing, though incredibly patient with Peter. And while he’s hanging out with Tony Stark, he still feels like your friendly neighborhood dude.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – Despite the serious theme – save Asgard! – this turned out to be a very funny film, with great action to boot. Even Doctor Strange was fun in a cameo. Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) is as stubborn as the Thunder God. Hela (Cate Blanchette) appears invincible. The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) is very Goldblumesque. Did I mention the Hulk?

I take it that director Taika Waititi deserves some of the credit. Clearly, the best Thor film.

Black Panther (2018) – I saw it when it came out before I was aware of the events of Captain America: Civil War. This actually makes the accomplishments of this film more impressive. Because the real star of Black Panther is Wakanda itself.

Well, those last two Avengers films and a couple of others will have to wait until next time.

Civil War & great (X2) grandfather James Archer

“74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives.”

When my sister Leslie and I visited our hometown of Binghamton, NY in October 2017, we went up to Spring Forest Cemetery and visited the graves of my grandma Gertrude Williams, her siblings Edward Jr. and Adenia, and their mother, Lillian (nee Archer) Yates Holland, who had been widowed and remarried. It is very near where they all grew up.

What we had never seen before, maybe a couple of dozen meters away, was a headstone for Lillian’s parents, James Archer (1834-1912) and his wife Harriet (1838-1928). It was NOT the separate headstones I’d seen at FindAGrave.com – – James’ is shown here from c 2009 – but something more ornamental.

In January 2017, during that cold snap, my second cousin Lisa, whose grandfather was Gertrude’s brother Ernie – though she never met him, as he died in 1954 – was doing some genealogical research.

She discovered James Archer in the 1890 civil war veterans’ census, showing that he volunteered and served from 29 December 1863 to the day he was mustered out on 29 August 1865.

“The 26th U.S. Colored Troops served under the Department of the South (Union Army) in South Carolina and was very active on Johns and James Island, Honey Hill, Beaufort, and a number of other locations.” On this page, you see a picture of the 1000-plus man strong 26th USCT on parade and their regimental banner.

Totally separately, my sister Marcia was going through some old, and unfortunately unmarked, photos that our mother had gotten from her mother. And one of them was this:

Is James Archer one of these men? We have no idea, but we’d like to think so. Cousin Anne, Lisa’s sister, notes: “One clue from the census is he had hazel eyes. Can you tell from the original photo the color of their eyes?” Which guy has the lightest eyes?

Lisa noted: “74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives. I’m happy to say my great-great-grandfather was one of the survivors; he died in 1912, and I’m proud to be able to tell this piece of his story.”

One other detail worth noting: Lillian Yates Holland, James and Harriet’s daughter, wasn’t born until 1866. Had James died in battle, there would have been no Lillian, which meant she and Edward Yates Sr. wouldn’t have had Gertrude and Ernie, which would have meant no Trudy (my mom) and Fran (Lisa’s mom)…

Well, you get the picture.