The Museum of the American Revolution had another stellar temporary exhibit, this time on James Forten and his descendants. This exhibit was called Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia. At first blush, it did not sound very interesting – I had never heard of this guy and wondered why MoAR’s exhibit was focused on this one man. But, in true MoAR fashion, the exhibit went above and beyond any expectations to give a thorough telling of not only the Forten family’s history, but also contextualized their times and paid homage to their descendants.
James Forten was born free in Philadelphia in 1766. His father was a sail maker in the city but died when James was young. By the time he was 14, Forten was a privateer under Captain Stephen Decatur during the American Revolution, but their ship the Royal Louis was captured. He was offered the opportunity to study in England but declined for patriotic reasons.
Instead he was sent to the prison ship New Jersey and held captive for seven months. Upon his release, he joined a merchant ship that went to London for over a year. When he returned to Philadelphia in 1790, he apprenticed to Robert Bridges, his father’s former employer, to learn the sail making trade. Eight years later, in 1798, Bridges retired and Forten bought the business, becoming one of the wealthiest businessmen, black or white, in Philadelphia.
After a refreshing sleep and the best continental breakfast a Holiday Inn can offer, it was time for Day 2 of Dedication Day events.
The ceremony would start at 10am in the cemetery, followed by a parade down the main street in town. Thus, I secured a parking spot by 9am at the Gettysburg Heritage Center, a much smaller museum/gift shop on Steinwehr Ave and my go-to parking spot in town. I had plenty of time to acquire America themed socks, visit the Masonic friendship statue, and observe everyone else – some were clearly first time tourists. Others were associated with one of the many organizations who could be (and probably were) present.
During this puttering time, I talked to a lovely woman in the gift shop. She and her husband were taking a long, leisurely drive home to Galveston, TX from Boston. They, like me, hadn’t realized this weekend’s events when choosing to stop in Gettysburg, but they were really enjoying it, despite the cold.
When it was time to find a seat, the seat I chose was – astonishingly – next to someone I actually knew. This friend was dressed as a Civil War reenactor (part of the Mifflin Guard reenacting unit) but is usually dressed as an 18th C continental at Fort Mifflin on the Delaware (entry on Fort Mifflin forthcoming).
I had wanted to visit Gettysburg at peak leaf peeping season but October was full of more deadlines than lead time. The earliest I could get to town was the weekend of November 19. Which actually really worked out – it was the 159th Dedication Day event, which I hadn’t realized until I couldn’t find a hotel room for under $200.
In all my visits to Gettysburg, I had not yet experienced anything surrounding the dedication of the cemetery. So it was nigh time to cross that off the list.
On a parallel note, if you read my post on The Frozen Hours, a novel of the Korean War, this was also the trip that set all of that into motion …
Three days of fighting at Gettysburg took a horrible toll on both armies: roughly 10,000 soldiers killed or mortally wounded, 30,000 injured, and 10,000 captured or missing. The dead were hastily buried in shallow graves on the battlefield, crudely identified by pencil writing on wooden boards. As weeks passed rain and wind eroded the impromptu graves. In response, Gettysburg’s citizens called for the creation of a soldiers’ cemetery for the proper burial of the Federal dead. The reburial process began on October 27, 1863.
…
A few weeks after the burial process started, a dedication ceremony was held at the unfinished Soldiers’ National Cemetery. The cemetery committee chose Massachusetts statesman and orator Edward Everett to deliver the main speech. The committee asked President Abraham Lincoln to deliver “a few appropriate remarks.” After Everett’s lengthy remarks, Lincoln rose and spoke for two minutes; his brief speech today is known as the “Gettysburg Address.” His speech honored the men who fought at Gettysburg and invoked their sacrifice as a cause to continue fighting for the preservation of the United States.
It’s that time of the year(?) again, folks. Here’s a collection of miscellany I’ve found on the internet, which is a strange and marvellous [sic] place. There’s no particular order to these, but there’s something for everyone. Enjoy!
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Robert Gould Shaw’s Missing Civil War Sword found – That Robert Gould Shaw of Glory fame. I saw this online and thought, “I understand that reference!” since I recently saw the movie and have a much better sense of all the Opinions on it. Also, I had no idea the sword was missing, but it’s kind of cool in a kind of niche area. Now I think I have to go watch Glory again just to check out the sword.
Why Are We No Longer Visiting Our Nation’s Historical Sites? – The author recently visited Philadelphia and did the tourist thing, but noticed that the majority of people waiting in lines to see things like the Liberty Bell were non-American visitors for whom English was not a first language. It’s a short article but thought provoking. Any ideas on how to remedy this?
Colonial Williamsburg
PLS major turns fascination with King Arthur into unique senior thesis — an original, illustrated book – At Notre Dame, the Program of Liberal Studies is basically a Great Books major, where students read great books, have great discussions, write great papers, and think Great Thoughts. (True story: I considered a PLS major but wanted to be an astronaut instead.) The student in this article is combining an impressive array of interests to create her own medieval manuscript. Am I jealous of her? Quite likely.
One of Becker’s illustrations for her book. (Copyright: Joan Becker, 2019)
Fact Sheet: The 48-Star Flag of D-Day Control Vessel LCC 60 – The National Museum of American History in DC recently acquired this flag, which flew from one of the flagships at D-Day. Kind of interesting provenance. Note the wear on the flag. Remember the words of my vexilologist friend, “Flags are physical objects!”
“Flags are physical objects.”
One Spot of Normalcy: Chiura Obata’s Art Schools – During WWII, America incarcerated many thousands of people of Japanese ancestry at different locations along the West Coast. Chiura Obata opened art schools at two of these camps, one at Tanforan Assembly Center (a converted horse racetrack) in California, and Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. For adults and children, the goal of the schools was “A. Morale, B. Fills creative need of a creative people, C. Determination to maintain one spot of normalcy.” And to give an outlet to the trauma of the incarcerations.
Photograph of New Moon by Chiaru Obata. 1943-ish. (A photo of a painting)
“I want you to prove yourselves. The eyes of thousands will look on what you do tonight.” Col. Robert Gould Shaw on the eve of battle
If you can believe it, I’d never seen the movie Glory until the 30th anniversary rerelease in theaters, aka July in the year of Our Lord 2019. I’m not sure why I’d never seen it, I just hadn’t gotten around to it?
Anyway, the film was being shown in certain theaters for the 30th anniversary of the original release. The lead actors of the film were barely recognizable from the passage of time – Denzel Washington early in his acting career, a downright juvenile Matthew Broderick, the face of God himself Morgan Freeman, and Cary Elwes in a dramatic, non-comedic role.
The movie is the story of how the 54th Massachusetts – one of the most renowned colored units of the Civil War – earned their reputation. They overcame racism, discrimination, and internal divisions to become a disciplined force that attempted a charge on the impregnable Fort Wagner in South Carolina on July 16, 1863.
Last week, the journalistic and historical worlds lost Tony Horwitz unexpectedly.
I make note of this because his book Confederates in the Attic gave me a context with which to approach Civil War reenactments. On his exploits through all aspects of the South, he would ask a number of questions that began conversations and dialogue about a topic that is very complicated and faceted. All of the questions, as expected of a good journalist, were aimed at getting to know the person better, why they ended up where they were (for example, leading the Cats of the Confederacy).
The book was recommended to me shortly before I started visiting Civil War reenactments (and long before I began reenacting myself), but once I started interacting with weirdos who dressed up to voluntarily relive the Great Unpleasantness, I began asking them all sorts of questions that made me feel like a worthy successor to the late Mr. Horwitz. I felt like I was continuing the discussion he had begun so long ago in the mid 90s, and hopefully I was doing it with the same authenticity. What made it even better, I thought, was that so many of the people I spoke with referred to a particular chapter of Confederates in the Attic as a pretty accurate representation of what reenacting is like. The chapter is called The Civil Wargasm, and he and the book’s cover model, Robert Lee Hodge, visit what seems like every battlefield between Appomattox and Gettysburg in the space of about a week. (Summary: reenactors are weird.)
I never had the opportunity to meet the man but that’s ok. He’d probably enjoy the fact that his book had such an unexpected but moderately profound impact on me and all the other people I’ve then met along my historical and reenacting journeys. Now he’s got the opportunity to interview all the historical figures in the spiritual flesh, and I hope he’s in nerd heaven (in both the literal and figurative sense…).
Dear Reader(s) – It’s been pretty quiet over here. There’s been a lot of Life happening, which has kept me from historical-themed exploits (unless you count another rewatching of Turn…). In the meantime, I’ve curated a small abundance of miscellaneous links for you to check out. Enjoy!
Culpeper State Park – Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation are looking into creating a national park around the Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain Battlefields. The article is slightly dated now (Feb 2019) but goes into a lot of the different groups advocating for this, including the American Battlefields Trust (formerly the Civil War Preservation Trust). The site of the largest cavalry battle in the Western Hemisphere? Yeah, I think that should be a park. Also, there’s a nice little ice cream shop up the street from here….
Reenacting the Past – A lot of pictures of a lot of different types of reenactments, from World War II to the Crusades to Vietnam. The pictures are really good.
Revolutionary Women – In honor of Women’s Month, here’s a brief description of eleven different women featured at the Museum of the American Revolution. I’ve wanted to go through the MoAR focusing only on women, but it just hasn’t happened yet and I keep getting distracted by other things. This might be the best you get.
Women’s History Month Book Club – Again through the MoAR, this link has a bunch of different books by and about women. I haven’t read any of them so I can’t actually vouch for anything, but the people over at MoAR tend to know what they’re talking about.
Inside the Weird World of Historical Reenactors – A journalist type person sort of analyzes historical reenactors, some of the tension cause between them and academics (ie, who does “real” history?), why reenactors do what they do, etc. It’s kind of a lighter take on the Civil Wargasm chapter of Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horowitz.
History Lost? The Art of Civil War Reenactment is Slowly Fading Away – There are several factors at play here – younger recruits are fewer and far between, and there’s lately been a national discussion about all things Civil War that doesn’t help make Civil War reenacting look all that appealing.
His Excellency, George Washington
Historians Fight Back as TV raids their Research Treasures for its shows – If you hadn’t noticed, there’s an abundance of historical fiction shows on TV, from Turn to Outlander to Peaky Blinders, and the list goes on. A lot of academic research historians have been consulted by the production teams of these shows (either for costuming or culture or other time period ephemera, etc) but they don’t necessarily get credit by the show for all the work they had done and shared. This is actually something I’d wondered about. Shame on those production companies.
A Pioneering WWII Veteran Died Alone – An article about the life of Bertha Dupre, who joined the Women’s Army Corps and was part of the only battalion of all African-American women to be deployed in Europe. She had no known family when she died so her community came together to give her a hero’s sendoff.
Finally, a clip from a film about WASPs – Women Air Service Pilots, an elite group of women trained to free men for the front lines. I forgot if this was a crowd-funded type of film or if this had more cinematic power behind it, but it looks good and WASPs should not be forgotten.
Earlier this month I trekked into Center City, Philadelphia, for an event. En route, I passed by City Hall and stopped short at some recent additions to the grounds that were worth further exploration.
I speak of a new memorial and statue that were installed at the intersection of Broad Street and City Hall dedicated to one Octavius V. Catto. Behind the statue of the man himself were several granite … pedestals? monuments? … that briefly expanded on different aspects of Catto’s life. Each edifice was dedicated to a particular area where Catto had influence – on one side of each stone was a bronze plaque illustrating each aspect of his life.
Anyway, I had no idea who this man was or why he got a statue erected at one of the main centers of Philadelphia so I hit the googles and am now going to share with you, Dear Reader(s), the fruits of my research.
Once again, Dear Reader(s), here’s a collection of links that you might find of interest. I covered more ground this summer on the internet than in person so there are many tabs to share.
The first three are In Memoriams that crossed my path after the passing of Senator McCain, may he rest in peace.
The Creative Mind of J.R.R. Tolkien – currently on view at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, then coming to New York next year. I think I’m going to have to make a trip to New York to see this.
Ask A Reenactor Playing The Bad Guys – Worth the read. The author makes a good point that the victors write history so the bad guys need humanizing. The author also points out that reenactors are pretty good at self-policing, and there’s an unspoken code about how to judge/evaluate other reenactors doing controversial impressions (ie, the SS).
Ask A Reenactor: Ethnicity Reenacting – Such a complicated topic. So relevant. Speaking of which, I’ve crossed paths with this guy many times and am certain I asked him a lot of inappropriate questions about ethnicity and reenacting the first time I met him. And by that, I think I downright accosted him. Unrelated, I want to know how big his closet is for all of his gear.
And lastly …
Well this seems like an interesting fusion of a lot of things:
Domer/in/DC...in phil'Delphia 