Snapshots from a turn-of-the-century vacation

The two photographs below are from a photo album likely compiled by Walter M. Smith, an engineer with family ties to Spartanburg. According to the title page of the album, Mr. Smith appears to have a taken a tour of the eastern seaboard in the winter of 1901-02, during which these photographs were taken.

Title page of the photo album.

Stopping in Glenn Springs in eastern Spartanburg County, Mr. Smith took several photographs of scenes and buildings, including the two below. Shown from two different angles is the house of Dr. William F. Smith, described by a contemporary* as “well educated and a finished gentleman.” In the details, we can glimpse Dr. Smith on the porch of his home holding a toddler.

Two photos of the Dr. William F. Smith home as they appear in Walter Smith's photo album.

The photo on the left enlarged and enhanced.

A detail of that image showing children in the yard and others near the porch.

Dr. Smith's house from a different angle.

Detailed view of image above showing Dr. Smith with a toddler on his knee.

The album, from the Walter M. and Marie Smith Papers in the Littlejohn Collection, contains several dozen silver gelatin snapshots taken in Glenn Springs, Spartanburg, Charleston, New York, and Boston.

*Dr. J.B.O. Landrum, in his History of Spartanburg County (1900).

Permelia

This item is a receipt for the sale of 21-year-old Permelia to A.M. Holland by John Susan[?] for $1100. 

The full text reads:

“Rec’d of A.M. Holland Eleven Hundred Dollars for a Negro Woman Named Permelia which Girl I warrant sound in body and mind and free from all incumberances [sic]

Jany 24/59 –

[signed] John Susan[?]

Said Girl is about Twenty one years of age”

It is difficult to know much for certain about the people concerned in this transaction. The illegibility of the seller’s signature, perhaps due to his semi-literacy, prevents us from knowing his name for certain.

However, research reveals that an Adolphus Milton (A.M.) Holland (b. Georgia) married a Mississippi woman in 1858 in Harrison County, Texas and was living with her in Rusk County by 1860.

Knowing this, from a social and economic standpoint the purchase of a slave woman for domestic duties makes some sense and lends weight to the assertion that this was the same A.M. Holland.

It seems that A.M. Holland served as a Confederate soldier through at least 1863, until he was presumably disabled.

The fate of 21-year-old Permelia, though, is lost to history — for now. If she survived the war period, Permelia would have been about 27 years old by 1865, and may turn up in the 1870 Federal Census.

Selection from a daguerreotype (circa 1850) of Delia, a slave on a plantation in Columbia, South Carolina. 

(This is a web essay reflecting an item from the Littlejohn Collection on display in the lobby of the Sandor Teszler Library until 22 April 2013.)

The Big News of March 1863: African-Americans fight for the Union

Harper’s Weekly was the most widely read magazine of the Civil War. It both shaped and reflected public opinion, as can be seen by the editorial “double-dealing” in the paper's treatment of African-American soldiers. Some entrenched racial stereotypes are indulged, such as the description of blacks as “docile” or their portrayal as animal-like (“Negroes as Soldiers” column), while simultaneously the same stereotypes are exposed as false: such as in the descriptions and illustrations of black soldiers’ conduct in combat (the cover and double-page image, and the “Negroes as Soldiers” column), or when the picture of a neat, dignified-looking African-American soldier (“Union Jim”/”Jim Williams”) is shown on the same page as a scraggly, duty-shirking, con-artist white soldier. (“A Straggler”).

The articles and illustrations shown here all appeared in issues of Harper’s Weekly from March 1863 (held in the Littlejohn Collection), when, after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863, the Union was just beginning to (legally) field and pay African-American combat units — though the American "Colored Troops" were paid three dollars less per month.

The cover of Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863 




 David Oyelowo portrays a Union corporal in Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012)

"Negroes as soldiers," Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863

Calvin Candie, a plantation owner portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), lectures his guests on phrenology, a pseudoscience disingenuously used by white supremacists of the time to “prove” the inferiority of sundry non-white peoples.

African-American troops depicted in combat, Harper's Weekly, 14 March 1863

Part of a page from Harper's Weekly 28 March 1863 in which "Union Jim" and "A Straggler" are portrayed

(This is a web exhibit reflecting historical materials from the Littlejohn Collection on display in the lobby of the Sandor Teszler Library until 29 March 2013.) 

The Other Adams Woman: Louisa Catherine Adams

Despite her husband’s inevitable protest, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams applied rouge to her cheeks in their Berlin apartment.  She rehearsed her defense as she admired herself in the mirror.  

“Do you want me to look a fright in the midst of Splendour?” she whispered, imagining John Quincy standing in front of her with a disapproving look.¹

This portrait of Louisa Adams was painted by Charles Robert Leslie in 1816 in London. 

The night before, when the Prussian Queen had offered her the rouge, John Quincy had insisted that she refuse.  At first, Louisa had dutifully done as he commanded.  She began to have second thoughts, though, when saw her reflection in a darkened window.  Her face was rather pale.   While John Quincy was occupied, she sought out the Queen and accepted her offer.  After some convincing, she knew her husband would understand.  She was, after all, the wife of the Ambassador to Prussia and the daughter-in-law of the President of the United States, and rouged cheeks were expected of her in Berlin’s court society.

Louisa stood up, checking herself one last time in the mirror.  No one could deny that her brightened face livened her dull homemade dress.  John Quincy walked into the room, and Louisa reached up to dim the light in an attempt to hide her face.  Just as she thought she had escaped his notice, John Quincy pulled her close to the light.  She saw the rage in his eyes as he demanded that she wash her face.  But instead of complying, Louisa “with some temper refused.”² In a surge of anger, John Quincy left for the party without her.  But Louisa didn’t let that discourage her.  With her face still decorated, she arrived at the party on her own and ended up making quite an impression on the king and queen of Prussia.  

If Louisa ever regretted defying her husband, she never let it show.  Based on her parents’ relationship, she believed “it was necessary for her own self-respect...to remind her husband from time to time that she was not the conventionally submissive helpmeet that middle-class Americans seemed to admire in their wives in the early nineteenth century.”³

Louisa’s childhood had been filled with encouragement and opportunity, which turned out to be both her blessing and her curse.  Born in London in 1775 to an American father and an English mother, Louisa attended school in France, where she became so fluent in French that she had to relearn English when she returned to London.  Since French was the language of diplomatic society at the time, Louisa was able to hold her own in the courts of Europe even though John Quincy would have preferred to control his wife’s tongue as much as possible.⁴  

Louisa and John Quincy met and married in London in 1797.  They were an unlikely pair from the start; everyone suspected that John Quincy would marry one of Louisa’s older sisters.  Louisa, who “foresaw women taking a vigorous role, one of equal importance to that of men”⁵ was not the most obvious choice for a man like John Quincy, who, with his short temper and severity, was determined to bow to no woman.  

Like many men during his time, John Quincy would tolerate only the most passive female, which would seem unlikely considering the relationship between his parents.  With a mother like Abigail Adams, it would only seem logical for John Quincy to marry a woman like Louisa.  But John and Abigail Adams had reservations about the Johnson-Adams marriage.  In fact, Abigail thoroughly disapproved of her son’s wife at first, mostly because she judged Louisa as a foreigner and “anti-american.”  With their son’s political career in mind, “they often fretted about [Louisa’s] ability...to measure up to the rigorous family standards.”⁶ Louisa eventually proved herself to her in-laws, and they welcomed her into their lives and hearts.

The same could not be said for John Quincy.  As his parents grew more fond of Louisa, he grew more distant.  Time would prove that John Quincy “never saw in marriage the partnership arrangement advocated by his parents....At heart he seemed to fear the opposite sex, and eventually most of his anxiety took the form of disregarding and disobeying his wife.”⁷

But the couple’s dysfunctionality was not the only thing to plague their marriage.  Louisa had twelve pregnancies and seven miscarriages between her twenty-first and forty-second years, and as a result, “her health was wretched a great deal of the time....She once complained that ‘hanging and marriage were strongly assimilated.’”⁸

Despite everything, Louisa supported her husband’s political endeavors.  In 1824, John Quincy refused to campaign for the presidential nomination.  He expected to be nominated as “a reward for his many years of public service.”⁹  As a result, Louisa became his campaign manager.  Louisa “curried to the right congressional wives, always ‘Smilin’ for the Presidency,’ calling cards in purse.... In the election year, she hosted dinners for sixty-eight congressmen.  Every single Tuesday night between December and May, she held open house with fine wine, lavish food, and musical entertainment.”¹⁰  No doubt that John Quincy was fully aware of what his wife was doing for him, and we can only hope that he realized that without her he had little chance of being elected.¹¹

If Louisa could have seen the future, though, she might not have worked so hard to get her husband into office.  Her years as First Lady were the worst of her life.  She noted that “the exchange to a more elevated station must put me in prison.”  Furthermore, after he was elected president, John Quincy’s use for his wife ended. He became even more cold, demanding, and inconsiderate toward her, and once sniped, “There is something in the very nature of mental abilities which seems to be unbecoming in a female.”¹²

Louisa proved to be good at hiding her true feelings, though.  Harriet Upton, in an illustrated piece for the November 1888 issue of Wide Awake, described Louisa as “enjoying an existence of ‘wooings and weddings, baby life and christenings and many frolics, long old-fashioned visits from relatives, quiet hours when the President read aloud.” The article pictured a first lady who, like all right-minded women, served in a man’s world.”¹³  In truth, Louisa spent most of her time alone and ignored, and she called the White House “her prison” and a place “which depresses my spirits beyond expression.”¹⁴

Louisa spent most of her time in the White House alone in her room.  Over the years, she developed a deep depression and a breathing problem (her room was heated with burning anthracite coal, which caused choking and coughing).  Louisa wrote that her depression “passes for ill temper and suffering for unwillingness and I am decried an incumberance unless I am required for any special purpose for a show or some political maneuver and if I wish for a trifle of any kind, any favor is required at my hands, a deaf ear is turned to my request.  Arrangements are made and if I object I am informed it is too late and it is all a misunderstanding.”¹⁵

To combat her isolation and depression, Louisa ate chocolates obsessively and took to writing poems and satirical plays about the folly of society and the illnesses of females.  She also began her autobiography, which she called Adventures of a Nobody.¹⁶  In short, Louisa was angry.    She was angry about what she believed men were doing to humiliate women.¹⁷  A latent feminism emerged in her writing, which “was aroused in her bitterness over a world in which man controlled female, no matter how capable the female might be.”  Louisa resented “that sense of inferiority which by nature and by law we [women] are compelled to feel and to which we must submit is worn by us with as much satisfaction as the badge of slavery generally, and we love to be flattered out of our sense of degradation.”¹⁸

To Dr. Thomas.
___

at note last night addressed to you
was by my pen indited [sic]:
Professional alone ‘tis true
By anxious doubt incited:
Your presence eased the laboring? thought
The note aside was laid
Before, with kind expression fraught
my compliment was paid
In justice then Dear Doctor now
The pen I quick resume,
Esteem and friendship to avow,
To love I cann’t presence -
Love such as Mother to her Son
With bond affection proffer’d;
Sprung from a grateful heart alone
with pleasure may be offer’d -
of deep respect assurance kind
no proof what’ere requires
Tis the conviction of the mind
that merit aye inspires;
This silly scrawl you must excuse
A laugh its best reward
The Sentiment do not refuse;
The lines their just reward

Louisa Catherine Adams

F. Street 25 Jan 1842


Above: Louisa Catherine Adams' poetry manuscript dated 1842, from the Littlejohn Collection at Wofford College.Following his term as president, John Quincy entered Congress and became involved in the anti-slavery movement, which resulted, finally, in the couple developing a sympathetic understanding for each other.¹⁹  Louisa spent her last years dedicated to the fight for freedom of slaves and women.²⁰ Their mutual pursuit for equality at the end of their lives was the closest thing to a happy ending the couple had.Years after her death, Louisa’s grandson, Henry Adams, remembered thinking there was something exotic about his grandmother.  He wrote that he liked “her gentle voice and manner; her vague effect of not belonging there [Boston], but to Washington or to Europe, like her furniture, and writing-desk with little glass doors above and little eighteenth-century volumes in old bindings labelled ‘Peregrine Pickle’ or ‘Tom Jones’ or ‘Hannah More.’  Try as she might the Madame could never be Bostonian, and it was her cross in life, but to the boy it was her charm.”  Henry Adams knew little about his grandmother’s interior life, which had been, like many women of the time, full of severe stress and little pure satisfaction.²¹

The F Street house near the White House was Louisa’s home during many of her years in Washington and the site of her death.  Earlier, it had been the residence of Dolley and James Madison.  The property remained in the Adams family until 1884.

-- Hannah Jarrett ‘12



1. Boller, Paul F. Jr., “Louisa Catherine Adams 1775-1852,” Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 55.
2. Nagel, Paul C., The Adams Women: Abigail & Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 170.
3. Boller 56.
4. Allgor, Catherine, “Louisa Catherine Adams Campaigns for the Presidency,” Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government, University Press of Virginia, 2000, pp. 161.
5. Nagel 161.
6. Allgor 161-162.
7. Nagel 164.
8. Boller 55.
9. Boller 57.
10. Anthony, Carl Sferrazza, First Ladies: The Saga of the President’s Wives and Their Power 1789-1961, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990, pp. 107.
11. Boller 58.
12. Anthony 108.
13. Nagel 3.
14. Boller 53.
15. Anthony 108.
16. Anthony 109.
17. Nagel 4.
18. Anthony 109-110.
19. Boller 54.
20. Anthony 111.

21 Boller 60-61.

President for a Day

Washington
Jan 24th / 45

To the President of the U.S.

Sir

Mr. Aristides Welch a citizen of the State of Missouri is an applicant for the office of Purser in the Navy; I have but a slight personal acquaintance with Mr Welch, but have been informed by gentlemen in whom I have every confidence that Mr Welch is in every way worthy and well qualified for the station he seeks, I would therefore recommend with the utmost respect a favourable consideration of his claims.

Very respectfully your
obt. servt.
D R. Atchison

In this letter, David Rice Atchison (1807-1886) writes President John Tyler, recommending Aristides Welch to the office of purser in the Navy.  Fortunately, Welch was appointed a purser in the Navy on June 27, 1846, but that is not the story I want to focus on here.

At the time of this letter, Atchison served as a Senator from Missouri -- in fact, he was the first senator from western Missouri and the youngest senator at the time.  He had been appointed to fill a vacancy left by the late Lewis F. Linn, and he was re-elected in 1849 and went on to serve in the Senate until 1855.  He was instrumental role in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, but his claim to fame in American history is his day-long presidency.

 

If someone had told Atchison on that January day in 1845 he was writing to one of his predecessors, the 37-year-old pro-slavery Democrat would have laughed.  But by the end of the year, Atchison’s fellow Democrats would take control of the Senate and would choose him to be President pro tempore (and this was only the first time -- the Senate elected him for this position 12 more times during his Senate career!).  As President pro tempore, Atchison presided over the Senate when the Vice President was absent and stood in second place in the presidential line of succession.

Until the 1930s, presidential and congressional terms began on March 4th at noon.  In 1849, March 4th happened to be a Sunday, and incoming president Zachary Taylor and vice president Millard Fillmore refused to be sworn in to office on a Sunday.  So from noon of March 4th to noon of March 5th Atchison (who had once again been elected President pro tempore two days before) was President of the United States.  Of course, Taylor could have taken the oath privately and begun to execute his presidential duties on the fourth, but Atchison’s supporters claimed that the expiration of James Polk’s term and the delay of Taylor’s inauguration made Atchison the President, fair and square.  Though Atchison was never exactly sure how to view those 24 hours (he slept most of the day), he enjoyed telling the story of his “presidency,” describing it as the "honestest administration this country ever had."

But it seems that even a 24-hour administration can’t escape controversy.  Some say that Atchison couldn’t have been president because Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states that the incoming chief executive must take an “Oath of Affirmation” before assuming duties, which Atchison admittedly never did.  Others believe that Atchison was president, but only for a few minutes rather than 24 hours.  According to this viewpoint, Atchison’s newest term as President pro tempore did not officially begin until he was sworn in on March 5th, which means his presidency ended a few minutes later when Millard Fillmore was sworn in as Vice President.

Regardless, the inscription on Atchison’s gravestone reads: “President of the United States for One Day.”

 

-Hannah Jarrett '12




Works Consulted:

Joseph H. Bloom.  “David Rice Atchison.” American History 37.6, Feb 2003.

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/President_For_A_Day.htm

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=a000322

150 Years Later: Battle at "The Place of Peace"

Camp near Mickey’s

April 4 1862

General:
The Cavalry & Infy of the enemy attacked Colo Clanton’s regiment which was posted as I before informed you about 500 or 600 yards in advance of my lines. Colo Clanton retired & the enemy’s cavalry followed until they came near our Infy & Arty when they were gallantly repulsed with slight loss.

Very Rsply,

W.J. Hardee

Maj Genl

Genl Braxton Bragg.
Chief of Staff



This letter, handwritten in pencil by Confederate Major General William Joseph Hardee to General Braxton Bragg only two days before the Battle of Shiloh commenced, summarizes a chaotic and enigmatic event which very nearly started Shiloh before either party was prepared.

(Map of Shiloh National Military Park. Courtesy of the National Park Service. Full size here.)

The Confederate advantage in the days before Shiloh lay in their knowledge of the Union position and the Union’s failure to anticipate an attack. Even though Confederate General Johnston’s initial plan was to march on April 4th, Union General Grant thought that a Confederate attack was unlikely; just hours before being attacked on the morning of April 6th, he sent a telegram to his superior General Halleck asserting that "I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack being made upon us.”³⁰ The Union commanders failed to realize that the skirmish referred to here, in this letter by Hardee, signaled a far worse attack to come.

In the first week of April, both Union and Confederate troops had set up camp in and around Hardin, Tennessee. After crossing the Tennessee River, Grant spread his troops out around Pittsburg Landing, covering several miles along the western shore of the river and creating several encampments around Shiloh Methodist Church (a Hebrew word ironically meaning “Place of Peace,” after which the battle is named). Meanwhile, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston stationed his Army of the Mississippi around Corinth, about twenty miles southwest of Grant’s position.

(At left, Major General William T. Sherman, commanding the 5th Division of the Army of West Tennessee. At right, Major General William Hardee, corps commander in the Army of the Mississippi.
For a clearer understanding of who was involved in this battle and on which side, click here or here.)

Yet in the days preceding battle, it was not unusual for units on the fringes of their encampments to edge relatively close to the enemy. The incident described in this letter by Major General William Hardee began when a group of Confederate soldiers were noticed in the fields within a quarter mile of a Union picket post on the morning of April 4th. A report was filed to Union General Sherman that there were armed rebels hunting for lunch within close range, but upon closer inspection Sherman decided that the rebels were “nothing more than a reconnoitering party,” and was not alarmed.²

Seemingly secure, Union troops under General Ralph Buckland began to drill around the contested area that afternoon, until shots were heard and Buckland’s eight picket guards were discovered to be missing, “either lost in the woods or captured by marauding Southern cavalry.”³ Companies B and H of Buckland’s 72nd Ohio then went to find the missing soldiers, and the remainder of Buckland’s infantry retreated back to Shiloh Church. But when Companies B and H failed to return from their search mission, Buckland assembled a hundred men and returned to the picket line, beyond which they discovered that Major Leroy Crockett had been captured and Company H was engaged in combat with nearly 200 Confederate cavalry.⁴

Hearing sounds of battle, Sherman ordered reinforcements to ride in under Major Elbridge Ricker. Ricker’s 5th Ohio Cavalry forced the retreat of Colonel James Holt Clanton’s regiment over a hill, but when a few of Ricker’s cavalry “surged over the hill...[they] reined up in shock. Ahead of them was a long line of gray infantry with three field guns.”⁵ Chaos ensued. The Confederates fired their field guns, startling Ricker’s horses and causing a frenzy in which two Confederates and one Union soldier were killed before the Buckland’s swift retreat. The five remaining Ohio cavalrymen who had witnessed the line of Confederates reported, surprised, that it consisted of 2,000 men and multiple batteries.⁶

After the debacle had ended, it seemed as though “both sides had been bloodied and appeared content to break off the contest.” ⁷ Sherman, meanwhile, had assembled multiple regiments for reinforcement and, despite the capture of a handful of prisoners, was irate that Buckland’s advance “might have drawn the entire army into a fight before it was ready.” ⁸

Hardee’s mention of the “slight loss” sustained by the Union included the young Major Leroy Crockett, who was captured in his pursuance of Clanton’s unit. The loss of Crockett seemed to have been of no object to Sherman, and even Hardee fails to mention this ranked prisoner of war in his note to Braggs. It appears that Crockett has been buried in the massive heap of Civil War History, and very little remains on record regarding Crockett other than his promotion to Colonel in November of 1862 and his death little more than a year later. After his capture, Crockett was interrogated and (apparently voluntarily) relayed information that indicated to the Confederate Generals that the Union was still completely unprepared for an attack (as indicated in Grant’s telegram). Crockett confessed that “They don’t expect anything of this kind back yonder”⁹ and upon seeing the breadth of the Confederate encampment, exclaimed, “Why, you seem to have an army here; we know nothing of it.” ¹⁰

This brief incident failed to alarm Sherman; moreover, it is unknown whether Grant was ever notified about the near-battle or the capture of Crockett for informational purposes. It appears that, having lost very few, Sherman did not take the skirmish very seriously and was more annoyed by the inconvenience than concerned about what it might portend. The Confederates, on the other hand, were delighted to have learned that, despite delaying their attack, they had retained the element of surprise. Until the morning of the attack, Sherman remained adamant that the skirmish was a fluke, and ignored the advice of commanders who warned him of an impending strike. It was April 5, the day before Shiloh began, that Sherman replied to one of his subordinates who expressed concern that the Confederates were near: “Take your damned regiment back to Ohio. There is no enemy nearer than Corinth.”¹¹

(Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Despite the initial advantages of the Confederates, however, the second day of battle at Shiloh proved disastrous. Johnston had suffered a fatal wound and, with his death, the coordination of the Confederate line fell apart. Their retreat back toward Corinth on the night of April 7 was followed only a little way past Shiloh Church before the spent Union soldiers returned to their own camps, declaring an anticlimactic end to this devastating battle.

- Stephanie Walrath '12

1 Timothy T. Isbell, Shiloh and Corinth: Sentinels of Stone (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 30.

2 Larry J. Daniel, Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 133.

3 Daniel, 134.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Daniel, 135.

8 Ibid.

9 Stephen Berry, House of Abraham (New York: First Mariner Books, 2007), 109.

10 Daniel, 125.

11 David G. Martin, The Shiloh Campaign: March-April 1862 (Cambridge: De Capo Press, 2003), 90