My Dear Henry…you fiendish rascal

I have always found Lucy Chase to be one of the most interesting women represented in our manuscript collection.  Lucy was born in 1822 to a successful Worcester family.  She spent time teaching in contraband camps and freedman schools in the South, and travelled across Europe with her sister for 5 years.  She was intelligent, well-educated, and a talented artist as well.  Her writings, included in the Chase Family Papers here at AAS, show her interest in women’s suffrage, religion, abolition and social reform.

What I appreciate most about Lucy is the way her intelligence comes through in her writing.  Always witty and not one to hide what she thinks, you never know what you’re going to find in Lucy’s diaries and letters.  Recently a reader came across this letter written by Lucy.  Oh, unrequited love. 

My Dear Henry,

I am grateful for the frankness manifested by your note of this morning, and will attempt to use the same candor and freedom in my reply.

You say that you once loved me from the bottom of your heart.  Would to heaven you would say that you love me so still!  Yet if your affection has waned, it is still pleasing to think that there was a time when you reciprocated the ardent love which I have always felt for you.  In delicate as it may appear, I cannot refrain from making the confession that my maiden heart has from the time when my eyes were first blessed by the sight of you, always loved you with deep and unparalleled devotion.  And I have hoped that you would return my love – especially as I thought that your brother the doctor would use his influence to promote a match between us.  It is for this, ungrateful being, that I have preserved my virgin heart unbroken – that I have kept it whole and entire until it should become one with yours.

It is for this, perfidious wretch, that when ten million lovers were sighing at my feet in the fair city of brotherly love, I rejected them all, in the hope that I should be united with you when I returned.  It is for this, you fiendish rascal, that I postponed an answer to the attached Edward Lewis, when he offered his noble heart a willing gift to mine – it is for this, O goose and gooney hopper, that, without definitely accepting or rejecting my Edward, I came here, with merely an understanding with him, thinking that, if you would offer yourself I would refuse his attentions!  And this is the return you make for my affection!  This is the reward of my devoted love!  But I will have sweet revenge – I will marry Edward Lewis out of spite!  And then see if you can be happy!  When you see me, like a sweet flower, pouring all my sweetness upon Edward, and pouring none on you, when I withdraw from you the sunlight of my smiles and the deep music of my voice – when I prove to you by my whole conduct that I care not a fiddlestick’s elbow for you – then, then will vengeance overtake you!  Then will you pine away in sorrow and remorse, – then will you find life unsupportable when not cheered by my presence, – and in sack cloth and in ashes in deep humiliation and unavailing grief will you drag out the miserable remnants of your days!  You do not, like my Edward, navigate in a splendid cast iron steamboat but yours, – thank Heaven that I see in it its true character!, – yours is a long, low piratical schooner and a black flag is floating from its masthead!  Oh, may the guileless Miss Whitney escape from your snares, – and may you sail, undecided and alone, over stormy, tempestuous seas!  As for me, my worn heart “like the dove of the deluge panteth for rest.”  I will fly to the arms of my Edward; – I will secure the best cabin in his cast iron steamboat, and in bliss and in peace will we glide over the waters of time.

I want to say ten thousand billion more things, but have not room.  I am

Edward Lewis’ till death,

Lucy Chase

Next Monday I’ll be sharing more information about this letter, and the story behind it, so stay tuned!  And in the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Lucy and the rest of the Chase family, check out the collection description here.

The Newspaper Front: The Civil War from the Southern Side

Disclaimers always add something titillating to a post, so here goes our very own… This post focuses on reporting in the South, but the war of words worked both ways during the Civil War. The northern press could be inaccurate, hypocritical, and disingenuous. We would love to read examples you have found in your own research of strongly sectional reporting, or perhaps someone would be willing to write a follow up post highlighting the slanted reporting of northern presses? In the meantime, here are some examples our volunteer found in one southern newspaper (including a cartoon of Lincoln as the devil!).

While the armies of the United States and the Confederacy fought on the battlefield, newspapers North and South waged a war of words. With skills honed during the contentious decades before the war, writers launched salvos back and forth from their well-stocked arsenals of rhetoric. In this post, I have chosen some of the most sharply pointed attacks penned by southern newspapermen in The Southern Illustrated News [AAS online catalog record] against the perceived “inborn malignity” of their Yankee foe.

Unsurprisingly, the Southern writers were eager to demonstrate the inferior qualities they perceived in northern culture, people, and government compared with the Confederacy. Culturally, the “Yankee” was lambasted as “an imitative animal,” and “utterly devoid of original genius.” The writers even find fault with the way northerners speak and write. They accuse Yankees of torturing the English language “in a most inhuman fashion,” distorting it into “an unknown tongue, leaving scarcely any trace of its parentage.” Furthermore, the Union government is viewed with utter contempt. In the past, they allege, “great Southern Presidents” had made for the United States “all of its history which is not absolutely contemptible. Now, they claim, “The government there is a military despotism, as absolute as that of Russia.”

Although the whole north was vilified and derided, New England was singled out for the strongest venom in the southern press, because it had been the center of abolitionism before the war and because many southerners resented its cultural preeminence in mid 19th century America. One angry writer labeled it “that benighted corner of the globe.” Clearly, in this heated climate, facts were less important than rallying support for the cause and opposition to the enemy.

Cartoon of Lincoln as the devil from p. 8 of the January 8, 1862 issue of The Southern Illustrated News

Additionally, in many articles writers strove to create a distinct identity that stood on its own and was not based solely on opposition to the North. A common complaint is that southern creativity had been stifled before the war because the North had “supplied us with every article of daily use,” from farm implements to books, placing the south in “a state of colonial vassalage.” Continuing along these lines, the burning of the College of William and Mary by United States troops gave The Southern Illustrated News an opportunity to allege that the reason for the destruction was the Yankee determination to make themselves “the exclusive patron of learning and science on this American continent.” To make the hoped-for independence of the Confederacy complete, cultural as well as political independence must be achieved through the development of, among other things, “a vigorous, healthful literature” which will “speak for us and our society in the intellectual forum of the world.” The anger and resentment at so-called Yankee domination is clear in these statements, but there is also an undercurrent of uncertainty since, having rejected one culture, the South had not yet built another.

Despite the ferocity of these statements, the writers reserved their most bellicose condemnation for what they viewed as the dishonorable tactics used by the “murdering rascals in Washington.” After both Antietam and Gettysburg, they accuse the Federal armies of leaving the field of battle in the face of Lee’s army, only to return after the Confederates had retreated on their own accord in order to claim victory for the North. Though historically inaccurate, it did allow The Southern Illustrated News to declare that Union generals, although they cannot outfight their rebel counterparts, can out-lie them. Furthermore, the newspaper laments that the south is “beset on all sides by a rapacious, vindictive and powerful foe which respects neither age nor sex in the execution of its fiendish purposes.” Descriptions of the allegedly heinous acts committed by Union troops became so commonplace that, in November 1862, it was necessary only to say that during an invasion of the North Carolina coast the Yankees had perpetrated their “usual atrocities.” Readers could use their imagination to fill in the details.

In this way, The Southern Illustrated News presented a dual narrative of the war in which Southerners were brave and honorable soldiers defeating the Yankees through great feats of arms, while at the same time were the oppressed victims of a ferocious, marauding enemy. Confederate supporters could feel pride in Southern martial prowess and self-righteous indignation as victims all at the same time.

The Acquisitions Table: Lewis Bradford Letters

Bradford, Lewis. Letters, 1817 – 1829

Lewis Bradford, a descendant of Governor William Bradford, and son of Levi Bradford and Elizabeth Lewis Bradford, was born in Plympton, Massachusetts in 1768.  Lewis lived his entire life in the town of Plympton, working as the town clerk for forty years.  In addition to his work, Bradford was a member of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, and was an avid historical researcher.  Bradford never married, and died from a fall from a carriage in 1851 at the age of 83.  This collection of letters from Bradford are all addressed to his younger brother, Major Levi Bradford (1772 – ), while Levi was living in New York.  The letters speak mostly of the goings-on in Plympton, updating Levi as to births, deaths, marriages, new ministers, court cases, new buildings (“This is a world of changes – the new houses built in Plympton, and several new roads…”) as well as family gossip. Bradford’s pious and polite attitude comes through in these letters, especially when having to pass along unfortunate family news – “It is rather of an unpleasant task to write about unpleasant things which take place in families, but perhaps it is not amiss for different branches of the same family to know them.”

Watch Papers at the American Antiquarian Society

This summer, Graphic Arts intern Dominique Ledoux, a student at Wellesley College, created an inventory of the Society’s collection of 464 watch papers. Watch papers are round decorative papers placed between the inner and outer case of a pocket watch to protect its inner workings. They also served as advertisements for watchmakers as they often included names and addresses along with elaborate designs. Popular iconography included Father Time, Aurora in her chariot, cherubs, allegorical women, Masonic symbols, hourglasses, clocks and eagles. Most of the papers are engraved, although a few are letterpress printed. Famous engravers including Peter Maverick, Paul Revere, and Nathaniel Hurd are represented in the collection.

Currently, the collection is being digitized and by December 2011, the images will accompany Ledoux’s inventory in an electronic resource on the Society’s website.  If you just cannot wait until then, we have put a selection of watch papers on display in the AAS reading room for you to examine.

Log Book + Diary = Story of a Voyage

In 1849, the Cayuga Joint Stock Company of Auburn, NY set sail for California.  The company of men had their sights set on California’s gold, and established their joint stock company “to engage in mining, trading and such other business in the territory of California” according to the company by-laws.  For a nominal fee of $500, anyone (of good reputation, of course) could become a member and receive his fair share.

In 1883, W.A. Ogden presented a paper to the Cayuga County Historical Society.  Ogden was a member of the Cayuga Joint Stock Company and a passenger on the barque Belvidere during its passage from New York to San Francisco.  In his paper he recalls their journey and their successes upon landing in California.  (Read other Past is Present posts about California.)

In 2011, here at AAS, we have a fabulous collection of log books, which shed light on over 150 years of American maritime history.  Included in this collection is the log book of the barque Belvidere, the Baltimore Clipper carrying the entirety of the Cayuga Joint Stock Company to California.  And we come full circle!

Comparing Ogden’s reminiscences of the voyage with the log book completes the experience of working with this primary resource.  Log books are excellent for researching maritime history, but on their own it’s difficult to reconstruct a complete voyage.  Pair the log book with a diary or reminiscences such as Ogden, and you’ll get a much more complete picture.

For  example, reading the log book will tell us the Belvidere dropped anchor in Peru, but thanks to Ogden’s writings, we also know the crew visited the Peruvian Library (which had over 20,000 volumes!) and that Ogden thought Peruvian women to be quite attractive.  Also, on April 16th, the log book can tell us the wind, the weather, and the course of the clipper.  But because of Ogden, we also know that on this day, although the ocean seemed calm, the passengers were not:

The 16th of April we had what might be termed a family row on a large scale; Captain Barney, who was very sensitive and quick to take offence, had heard some criticism by member of the company in regard to his management.  He called the company “aft” on the quarter deck, and gave us a speech, threatening that unless apologies were made and he was sustained by the company, he would take the ship into Rio Janeiro and deliver her over to consul.

And what the log book can do for historical research that reminiscences cannot is provide us with an amazing tactile connection to history.  While our collections are important for the information they hold, this log book also has that awe factor of its physicality.  After learning about the voyage, and the history behind the men aboard, the book serves as a relic of the voyage, and connects us to the experience.  Perhaps Ogden recalled collecting flowers from Peru; however we can see the actual pressed flowers in the log book.  The log book serves as a common element between us and the men of the Cayuga Joint Stock Company from over 150 years ago, and provides an amazing historical experience!

Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and the Early Black Church

In April 1787, Rev. Richard Allen and Rev. Absalom Jones co-founded the Free African Society (FAS) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As two of the earliest African Americans to become ordained Christian priests, Allen and Jones sought to create a kind of community outreach organization with the FAS. It helped black Philadelphians satisfy some of their basic needs through education and employment opportunities. But after the turn of the nineteenth century, Allen and Jones parted ways over the religious direction of the FAS. Although both men had started their careers in the Methodist Church.  Jones became a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1804. Many FAS members followed Jones and joined an already established Episcopal church in the city, while Allen considered starting an independent Protestant denomination of his own.

Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Philadelphia in 1816. As the first independent African-American church in the United States, it appealed to Afro-Christian freemen and women who understood Allen’s theology as a force of liberation. In other words, Allen saw his socio-racial purpose in the pulpit as twofold. First, he advocated abolition in his weekly sermons, and second, he spoke against the vitriol that often defined antebellum race relations, especially in cities such as Philadelphia. Across town at the African Church of St. Thomas, Jones also condemned the evils of slavery in his sermons. In fact, Jones’ congregation even petitioned Congress about the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law, which kept free black communities living in fear.

At the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), an original copy of Allen and Jones’ 1794 co-publication concerning Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic is held in the archives. Entitled A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793 [AAS online catalog record], it depicts the efforts of black Philadelphians at helping the city’s sick, regardless of race. Some whites wrongly believed that blacks were immune to the disease, but Allen and Jones refuted this idea, along with claims that they had somehow profited from the epidemic. Ultimately, AAS strives to preserve historical, literary, and graphic-arts materials prior to 1877 and Allen and Jones’ Narrative is certainly a unique aspect of AAS’ African-American collection in the antebellum period.

The Acquisitions Table: The Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations

The Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations. Fourth American edition. New York: Clark, Austin & Co., 1850.

Striped publisher’s cloth bindings are rare, and such a binding on a children’s book in good condition is even rarer. The charming gilt vignette of boys at play puts an added layer on an already delightful binding.

The Civil War comes to “Mary S. Peake, the Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe,” Part 1

What we have for you today is the story of a remarkable African American woman and her community.  The story was told by Rev. Lewis C. Lockwood, self-described as the “First Missionary to the Freedmen at Fortress Monroe, 1862,” in a book titled: Mary S. Peake, the Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe.  (The full text is available online through Project Gutenberg, or you can check out the AAS online catalog record describing our copy of the original.)

The small green book is only 16 cm high and 1 cm thick, but it is packed with vivid accounts of the free black community that grew up around Fortress Monroe after the nearby town of Hampton, VA was burned in the summer of 1861.  Though 150 years have passed, Mary’s story tells us much about the everyday heroism and hope for the future that was present in nineteenth-century free black communities, traits that didn’t begin or end with the Civil War.

The bare bones of the life story of “Mary S. Peake, the Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe” are easily told.

In 1823, Mary S. Kelsey was born in Virginia to a free colored woman and was educated in Alexandria until:

a law of Congress enacted that the law of Virginia in relation to free colored people should prevail in the District of Columbia. This was several years before Alexandria was retroceded to Virginia. This law closed all colored schools in the city. Mary was compelled to leave the school in consequence of being informed of as having come from Virginia.

In 1847, Mary’s mother was married to Thompson Walker, and they bought a house in Hampton, VA.

In 1851, Mary was married to Thomas Peake, formerly a slave, but afterward a free man, and soon had a daughter Daisy.  Of this time in her life, our narrator, Rev. Lockwood, writes:

Though sustaining herself by her needle, Mary found time for many labors of love. Among other things, she originated a benevolent society, called the “Daughters of Zion,” designed for ministration to the poor and the sick. It is still in existence.

Her house, like that of Mary and Martha of old, was a place of spiritual resort. There the pastor, deacons, and other leading members of the church found congenial society. She early began the exercise of her gifts as a teacher. At that time, fifteen years earlier, she had among her pupils Thompson Walker, her stepfather, William Thornton, and William Davis, all now able and eloquent exhorters. She was afterward of great service to others, who are now efficient exhorters and members of the church.

Up to the time of the burning of Hampton, she was engaged in instructing children and adults, through her shrewdness and the divine protection eluding the vigilance of conservators of the slave law, or, if temporarily interfered with, again commencing and prosecuting her labors of love with cautious fearlessness, and this in the midst of the infirmities attending a feeble constitution. (p. 14-15)

While her work may have been “temporarily interfered with” earlier, 1861 was the year everything changed for Mary Peake, for her family, and for the fellow African Americans she taught.  Their lives would never be the same.  Neither would their country.

Tune in next week for Part 2 of our saga exploring the effect of the Civil War on one woman and her community.

Congratulations, John!

Please join us in congratulating John B. Hench, retired vice president for collections and programs at AAS.  His recent book, Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II, was awarded the 2010 George A. and Jean S. DeLong Book History Book Prize from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP).

In awarding the prize, the committee described Books as Weapons as follows:

In a breathtaking history of wartime editions, this book presents a rich history of a relatively brief period in American publishing. . . . This is a book about war but it is also a book about the diplomacy of books. As an international and comparative history of wartime publishing, it presents deeply contextualized accounts, offering multiple contemporary perspectives, a true mark of scholarship that constructs the book trade as an international phenomenon. It will for sure make its mark in many fields, but it is deeply embedded in our own.


John B. Hench worked at AAS for 33 years beginning as editor of publications in 1973. In addition to writing Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II (2010), Hench also co-edited The Press and the American Revolution (1981) and Printing and Society in Early America (1983).  The Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship at AAS was named in honor of him upon his retirement from the Society.

Samuel Cornish, John Russwurm, and the Early Black Press

In March 1827, Rev. Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm co-founded Freedom’s Journal in New York City. It served as the first African-American newspaper in the United States and commemorated the 50th anniversary-year of the first American anti-slavery statutes in the 1777 Vermont Constitution. One of their primary objectives in starting Freedom’s Journal was to combat the negative impressions of Africa and African-Americans in the New York press. Although the newspaper only lasted two years, Cornish and Russwurm were able to raise significant doubts in the minds of many whites about the perceived racial inferiority of black Americans.

As co-editors of the newspaper, Cornish and Russwurm were strong believers in the idea that ancient Egypt and Ethiopia constituted bastions of African high culture. In other words, ancient Egypt and Ethiopia were on par with ancient Greece and Rome in terms of their contributions to the growth of Western civilization, especially regarding art and architecture. In the 1820s, however, there was an emerging call for free African Americans to emigrate from the United States and recolonize Africa. Even though Cornish and Russwurm stood mostly opposed to this call, they welcomed pro-colonization opinions in their newspaper. The main problem they saw with colonization was that it appeared to be a panacea for Southern slaveholders who viewed free blacks as an existential threat to slavery.

At the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), original printings of Freedom’s Journal are held in two volumes. Each volume covers a designated period of months over the two-year span that the newspaper was printed. AAS also maintains portions of Freedom’s Journal on microfilm and has access to digitized versions of the newspaper. And although Cornish’s involvement with the newspaper ended after just six months of publication, he and Russwurm were careful enough to save many of its original printings for posterity, as it is one of the best preserved early black newspapers.

Other early African American serial publications in AAS collections can be found by searching the online catalog for the genre term “African American newspapers” or “African American periodicals.”

Ads during the Civil War Years

Civil War era newspapers were more than just sources of information regarding current events.  In the Boston Daily Advertiser, for example, nearly half of any given issue was devoted to advertising.   It was certainly not alone in this, though it was at least honest enough to include the word “advertiser” in its name.  Goods and services of many varieties, many of which sound somewhat strange today, can be found in the seemingly endless columns of ads.

According to items printed in the Daily Advertiser on November 9, 1864, Boston was well supplied for the celebrations which Lincoln supporters must have participated in on the day after his re-election.   Perhaps no post-election party would be complete without plenty of Holland Gin, with exotic varieties like palm tree, double pineapple and imperial crown.  Or, for those looking for somewhat less conventional refreshment, prime Turkish opium was available for sale by Nicholas Reggio & Co. at 31 Central Warf, though to be fair in 1864 this was more likely intended for medicinal uses. Fortunately for the opponents of the President, there were also many miracle remedies for sale throughout the city which could cure any illness caused by their disappointment.  People who were tempted to buy some of that Holland Gin for purposes other than celebration, for example, could turn instead to the new miracle product Speranza, “An Italian preparation to destroy the appetite for intoxicating liquors.”  Or, voters who felt positively faint at the prospect of another four years of Lincoln could purchase The Peruvian Syrup, which contained the “vital principle or life element, iron” and could cure “a low state of the system.”    These are just a few examples of the myriad of remedies that promised to lead consumers to perfect health, most of which seem dubious to people, like us, used to a professional and regulated medical industry.  It is possible that these products really were as great as they sound, but one suspects that the purveyors of these miracle medicines were fortunate that the FDA was still half a century in the future.

There is more that can be learned from reading advertisements, however, than what items were for sale.  Unlike today, when business owners with instant communication and information technology can fine tune to an exact science what and how much they should have on their shelves at any given time, mid nineteenth century business required a little more guesswork.  Therefore, we can see announcements for 8,500 goat skins, 100,000 dry pine boards and 6,000 pounds of whale oil soap.  These numbers suggest that many merchants would buy in bulk from whatever cargo a ship brought into port, and then hope to sell it off over time.  Also, such large amounts probably mean that unlike modern advertisements targeted to individual consumers, these types of ads were directed at other business owners who would buy in such large quantities to stock their stores.  This was one of the ways businesses communicated with each other before modern technology.

Finally, there is a certain segment of the population who, every December, decries the fact that many people now opt to use the word holiday rather than Christmas.  Some go so far as to proclaim that a vaguely defined but still suspicious cabal has declared war on Christmas itself.  They insist that this is a recent phenomenon which is somehow symbolic of America’s moral decay.  What they most likely do not know, however, is that in the December 24, 1864 issue of the Boston Daily Advertiser, despite the fact that on that date it was full of ads for gifts intended for the December festivities, the word Christmas can be found only 3 times, always in small print.  The word “holiday,” in contrast, is printed numerous times, often in large type, directing readers’ attention to “Books for the Holidays” or “A Superb Holiday Gift.”  Perhaps those preparing to do battle in defense of Christmas should reflect on the fact that despite the word’s almost total absence in 1864, the United States has somehow managed to survive.

Hopefully at least some of these facts proved interesting, but maybe the most important thing to learn from reading advertisements in Civil War era newspapers is that, unfortunately for those longing for a simpler time, even if you go back 150 years, someone will still always be trying to sell you something.

The Acquisitions Table: The Columbiad

Barlow, Joel, 1754-1812. The Columbiad: a poem. Philadelphia: Fry and Kammerer for C. and A. Conrad …, 1807.

Rarely does one see “Papantonio-quality” early American bindings on the market any more, but we were fortunate to add this example to AAS’s celebrated Bindings Collection, which boasts the Michael Papantonio collection as its nucleus. John Bidwell has described the 1807 edition of Barlow’s Columbiad as “the first American-made deluxe book to be manufactured on a cost-is-no-object basis.” It was not a financial success, however, and a large portion of the 1,000 copies were remaindered in the mid-1810s. A surprising number of the remaindered copies were dressed before purchase in extra-gilt leather bindings, no doubt so that they could be marketed in bookshops as luxury objects. This example now joins the several already in the AAS Bindings Collection. Bound in full mottled calf, with marbled edges and lavender endleaves, the binding has extensive blind tooling not visible in the image. The volume’s bookbinder is unidentified, though it shares a gilt roll with another binding signed by J. Katez of Philadelphia. We first saw this volume—unfortunately, five minutes too late—at the secondary Boston “Garage” book fair last November. But its lucky purchaser (and stalwart AAS member) Joseph F. Felcone has now permitted us to acquire it on very favorable terms.

Memorandum of a Dream

While sorting through a recent donation, I came upon an interesting item.  “Memorandum of a Dream” as it’s titled, recounts a dream of a woman from Maryland in 1799.  What is so interesting about this piece is not only the dream itself, but the mystery behind it.

Manuscripts can prove to be difficult, but at the same time and often for the same reasons, very intriguing.  With published material, you can figure out most of the information you need within the volume.  As long as the title page is still intact, you usually know where and when it was published.  Granted the journey of the book from the publisher to our hands is not always known, but at least we can figure out its origination point.  With manuscripts, it’s not so easy.  Manuscripts can be a simple scrap of paper and nothing more.  Think of all the notes you write to yourself throughout the day.  And imagine someone 200 years down the road trying to figure out what those notes mean. (Change the oil?  Bread, milk and apples?  Call Sue!?)  And I’m sure nobody lists their name, address, and the date on scrap paper.

“Memorandum of a Dream” is one of these mystery items.  Written on a single sheet of paper, our unknown author retells the dream of a friend, in which she enters a large, solemn assembly.  At the head of the room is a “Native Indian of this Land…who was immediately Constrained by Divine Providence to deliver a message of warning to the Inhabitance [sic]”.  The author goes on to recount the message of a great surge “for the deliverance of that People, who had been so long under oppression, amongst the people of America.”  A very dramatic dream.  The woman wakes, sleeps again and supposedly dreams the same dream a second time.  The dream is closed with the following:

With which I had an impulse or intimation, to preserve or take care of what I had seen.  For that there were (perhaps) those now on the stage of action who may see more of these things than I shall.  If ever such a time of searching shall come to pass.

Was this a prophetic dream of things to come?  In my very hasty amateur historical research, I haven’t come across any Native American uprisings in Maryland in 1799, but I’m open to more professional opinions!

So what do we know about this item?  There is a date: 1799.  And we know the dream was dreamed by a “woman friend in Maryland,” but where it was written, and who wrote it down, we can’t say.  Even more of a mystery is why it was written.  It seems as though it was recorded and saved for a reason.  The page was folded multiple times (small enough to fit in a pocket), with “Memorandum of a Dream” written on what I’d presume would be a visible piece after the folding.  So it was at one point transported, but not sent through post.  But why?  Did the author read this aloud to a crowd?  The topic of the dream leads me to think it was more than simply a recording of a dream, but something that was shared with others for a purpose.  A warning?  A prophecy?  A lesson?  Or maybe I’m looking into it too much?

All speculation.  Feel free to share your thoughts on this dream!

This Week in the Civil War: Gettysburg, Hippos, and the French are in Mexico!

In the United States today July, 1863 is remembered primarily as the month of the Battle of Gettysburg.  For Americans at the time, however, there was plenty of other news to think about.  Readers of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, a weekly publication from New York, learned about the battle in the July 11th edition of the paper, and received a detailed account on the 18th.  Still, there were plenty of column inches to fill with news, ranging from the trivial to the momentous.

For example, after reading the riveting accounts of the great struggle in Pennsylvania, readers of Leslie’s Weekly could chuckle over the story relating how “The hippopotamus, which has lately been exhibiting at Boston, while on its way to Detroit, managed to get its liberty while on board the steamer S.D. Caldwell and plunged into Lake Eire.  Boats were immediately put out after him, and he was captured on swimming ashore.”  Just like in our own time, the bizarre and humorous had it place alongside more serious reports.  Or, those with an interest in literature could peruse the reviews of newly published novels including the mystery, Rockdale, by Mrs. Devereux Umsted , which was “written with great skill and purity of language” and thankfully was, to the reviewer’s obvious approval “highly moral in tone and plot.”  In 1863, anything less in woman’s literature would be simply improper.

More seriously for the industrial north, the paper reports that as a result of the invasion of Pennsylvania, the cost of coal has risen by a dollar a ton.  The writers at Leslie’s, however, view this less as a matter of necessity  and more as a result of “thrifty” Pennsylvania trying to “make the rebel raid a profitable investment.”  Even in the midst of war, patriotic fervor could be trumped by the almighty dollar.  Furthermore, this is not the only time that Pennsylvania is taken to task.  The paper is scathing in its assessment of Pennsylvania’s lackluster military preparations and insinuates that the Keystone state is full of pacifists and Copperheads.  To the statement of a Pennsylvania official which, in gratitude for the help of neighboring states, pledges that “If our sister states ever need our help we must be ready to give it,” Leslie’s replies simply that “Punch or The Budget of Fun (satirical magazines) never had anything half so funny.”  These comments are perhaps signs of the interstate tensions which persisted despite the struggle to hold the Union together, and a reflection of the stronger sense of state identity which Americans held in the nineteenth century.  Saving the Union was important, but this New York paper still felt it necessary to put Pennsylvania down.

Finally, in the July 18th issue, readers of Leslie’s weekly received additional information of the unfolding French invasion of Mexico from the previous month.  They learned that “The latest news from Mexico is that President Juarez has abandoned the city of Mexico to the French, who were to take possession of the halls of Montezumas on the 8th June.”  The truly remarkable thing about this news, however, is that in the paper it is printed in very small type in a list of other foreign news items which includes banalities such as the divorce of a prominent sea captain in London and a lawsuit between Parisian nobles.  At any other time, the news that a European power had invaded and occupied the capital of our southern neighbor would certainly have cause a national sensation, but in the midst of the Civil War, it is relegated to a small footnote which anyone simply skimming the paper could easily miss.  From this, it is easy to understand why Gettysburg so easily dominates our perception of July 1863.  Even at the time, the French conquest of Mexico couldn’t hope to compete with that famous battle.

The Acquisitions Table: The Life of George Washington the Soldier

Regnier, Auguste (after a painting by Junius Brutus Stearns). The life of George Washington the soldier. New York & Paris: Goupil & Co., 1854. Printed by Lemercier, Paris.

This print is one of four in a set depicting the life George Washington—the other prints include renditions of Washington as a citizen, a farmer, and a Christian. AAS has held the other three lithographs for several years (two were given by Jay Last in 2001), and this purchase completes the set. Because the prints have a transatlantic imprint and were sold in New York and Paris, they also serve to illustrate the continued work that Georgia Barnhill and I are doing (with support from the Florence Gould Foundation) on the relationship between French and American lithography. As an additional bonus, the print arrived in time for a recent fellow to use for his research on images of the first presidents. Purchased from the Old Print Shop, New York. Print Acquisitions Fund and Florence Gould Foundation Grant.