Tag Archives: preservation

Cullums Register

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The Internet is a wonderful place. I’ve wondered, on several occasions, which general finished in what ranking at West Point.  Turns out, General George Washington Cullum kept a list, and a hundred and some years later, Bill Thayer put it on the web.  With short biographies accompanying the name of each graduate, this is a terrific resource for anyone interested in West Point history.

Cullums Register is an index to all the graduates of the Military Academy at West Point, in sequential order, class by class, and within each class, in the final order of merit they achieved as cadets — or at least from 1818 to 1978, when the Register dropped the order of merit. Each entry consists of a complete summary of the graduates official military career, and any synopsis of his civilian achievements that the editors managed to assemble. The overall numerical order of the entry of a graduate has come to be called his “Cullum number”, and commonly serves as an identifier.

The Register was first conceived by Gen. George Washington Cullum Class of 1833, ranking 3d in his Class; Superintendent of the Academy in 1864‑1866; his own Cullum number is 709. He started with a sort of draft version in 1850, then published it in its final form in a third edition, in three volumes, in 1891.

via Cullums Register.

Then, Thenceforth and Forever Acid Free

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I’m proclaiming this week Emancipation Proclamation week here at the CWP.  It’s just too big an anniversary for all the mainstream news outlets to ignore, and they’re proffering some fantastic articles I want to share.

The video here lets you see what the Proclamation actually looks like. As the article says, it’s wonderfully, revealingly banal.  I love the ribbons and the affixed seal.  As a history fanatic with ridiculously sweaty hands, though, I was sent to new depths of stress-sweats watching the curator touching the paper with her bare hands.  All the while talking about methods to keep the acid out of the paper.

But what’s pretty amazing about the juxtaposition here — the document that bears the phrase “forever free,” folded and be-ribboned — is how eloquently it expresses technological frailty as a symptom of human frailty. The Proclamation wasn’t written double-sided because people couldn’t afford paper back then, or because they thought paper was more enduring than parchment, or because, indeed, they made any strategic decision at all to write the Proclamation the way they did; it was written that way because that’s just how things were done at that particular moment in our history. I asked Archives representatives about the double-sided nature of the Proclamation; they replied that “writing on both sides of the document was the convention of the time. It was written on a folded folio so that they could have four writing surfaces.” That’s it: Folio was the convention, so that’s what they did. (The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation — the document that announced the Emancipation would take effect on January 1, 1863 — is written in the same format.) Technology isn’t just about tools; it’s about the assumptions and conventions that inform our use of those tools. And in the America of 1863, matters of national business were conducted with folded paper and punches and ribbons. Not for reasons that were transcendent, but for reasons that were wonderfully, revealingly banal. 

via The Emancipation Proclamation Was Written Double-Sided – Megan Garber – The Atlantic.

Watch Night

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Came across this while researching yesterday’s podcast, but sadly, the writing got away from me and I had to cut the reference.  This is a really lovely callout to history – it wouldn’t fit on my podcast but I might just put it on my bucket list.

A tradition began Dec. 31, 1862, as many black churches held Watch Night services, awaiting word that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would take effect amid a bloody Civil War. Later, congregations listened as the president’s historic words were read aloud…

This year, the Watch Night tradition will follow the historic document to its home at the National Archives with a special midnight display planned with readings, songs and bell ringing among the nation’s founding documents…

“We will be calling back to an old tradition,” said U.S. Archivist David Ferriero, noting the proclamation’s legacy. “When you see thousands of people waiting in line in the dark and cold … we know that they’re not there just for words on paper.

via National Archives tribute, Watch Nights among events marking Emancipation Proclamation’s 150th – Washington Post.

History of Fredericksburg in 21 Objects

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I posted a while back about an archaeological dig in Fredericksburg. The New York Times has put together a wonderful digital gallery of the objects pulled from that dig, as well as some artifacts from around the city.  Well worth taking a digital stroll through them.

History of Fredericksburg in 21 Objects – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.

Walt Whitman’s Notebook

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Walt Whitman, through his voluminous memoirs and presence in Washington at the time, has become the poet laureate of the Civil War.  Here, the New York Times investigates one of his notebooks. The interpretation wasn’t terribly compelling, but I did find this fact very intriguing.

Whitman was weathering private storms of his own as he scribbled these lines, which seem to hint at his unfolding midlife crisis. The third edition of “Leaves of Grass” had appeared in the spring of 1860 and received scathing reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Another book – to be titled “The Banner at Day-Break” – was set to appear early in 1861. But sometime in the second week of December, a letter arrived informing Whitman that his publishers were going bankrupt.

“An alarming number of American publishers went out of business around the start of the Civil War,” Folsom says. “The market disappeared – people stopped reading books and started reading newspapers obsessively.” Whitman would publish no books, and just three short poems, until the end of the war.

Disunion: Inside Walt Whitman’s Notebook.

Naming the Dead

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Another wonderful account of civic philanthropy.  Three cheers for amateur historians like KellyAnn Grimaldi.

In 2007, Grimaldi decided to take on the unique task of identifying every Civil War soldier buried in the 114-acre St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands. Using a list of 248 names culled from a survey of vets in the area, the historian set out to restore and replace the cemetery’s decrepit tombstones.

Grimaldi has already identified 508 soldiers, and is certain there are more.

“The veterans are going to be forgotten and that’s just not acceptable,” Grimaldi said. “I want people to come to me if they know they have an ancestor that was a veteran that may not be marked at all. We want to be able to identify the location of the soldier’s grave and make sure it’s properly memorialized.”

via Present-day search honors past – Spotlightnews.com.

Fredericksburg Construction Site

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There was no expectation that the investigators would find anything. When the archaeologists initially checked city records, they were unable to find any indication that a building had been on the propery before 1886.

“We’re ecstatic about what we found,” said Robert K. Antozzi, the city’s coordinator for the courthouse project. “Now we have a major expansion of the story of Fredericksburg, and that’s really exciting.”

If you’re a history buff, and you’ve never worked on an archaeological dig, you’re missing out.  My own experiences are limited, but even in the case of the replica dig site I was on as a high school student, there’s a huge rush of adrenaline when you finally uncover something that’s lain hidden for hundreds of years.  I can only imagine how thrilled these diggers were when Fredericksburg offered up some of its history.

When Burnside’s forces charged on Dec. 13, Lee’s forces were perched on the heights above the city. They easily repelled the Union soldiers, inflicting terrible casualties. Afterward, Union soldiers likely sheltered anywhere they could, including in the basement Mr. Kiser’s crew discovered.

There, the soldiers would have opened tins of food and warmed themselves around the fireplace. They broke out whiskey bottles, and smoked tobacco pipes. As they entered the basement, they were probably told to empty their rifles to prevent accidental discharges, which resulted in a pile of ammunition on the floor.

The next day, the Union generals ordered their troops to fall back across the Rappahannock River, and Joseph Hooker, a major general, told officers to check houses for Union troops who had taken shelter. At some point, fire engulfed the building, which collapsed into the cellar, sealing in its contents.

Incidentally, there are worldwide working-holiday opportunities out there for anyone wishing to get involved in archaeological digs, though as dreary November approaches, I’ll understand if you forego them in favor of all-inclusives at Caribbean resorts.

via Construction Site Offers Fleeting Glimpse of the Civil War Past – NYTimes.com.

The Lincoln Letters

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Another week, another discovery of a trove of historical letters. This time, though, the collection is a doozy: The letters of Leonard Swett, one of Lincoln’s closest advisors.  Here’s an excerpt of the article, detailing some of the treasures within (and a great summary by one of the preservationists!)

Rose Burnham’s scrapbooks held several letters — one sent in September 1864 — on Executive Mansion letterhead from her grandfather. The name of the mansion located at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was changed in 1902 to the White House.

The collection also included a letter from Col. Custer dated June 21, 1875, a year and four days before the Battle of the Little Bighorn. While much of Custer’s handwriting is illegible to anyone who doesn’t know his penmanship, the signature is unmistakable…

Another keepsake is a menu of a state dinner Swett attended, which featured little neck clams, green turtle soup, boiled salmon, spring chicken, frogs fried in crumbs and broiled woodcock.

“Isn’t that cool? These guys were having a blast traveling all over the country, going here and going there,” said Ransick, as she looked through a magnifying glass at some of the documents. “It really shows you how distant our relationships are today with e-mail, cell phones and computers. These people exchanged handwritten letters and met often. We’re much less likely to shake hands and have frog legs together than people back then.   

via Lincoln letters.

Questionable Commemorations

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Arkansas is the scene of yet another questionable memorial undertaking, this time honoring a “martyred” teenaged spy. I’m all for marking historical spots, but sometimes the motives of these Confederate commemorators seem suspect. As the article notes, the spy, David O. Dodd, already has some plaques and his name on a local school. His story doesn’t contain any bold Nathan Hale-like last words, nor anything of drama about his life nor the information he had procured. It’s a story that was repeated no doubt hundreds of times during the conflict. Surely Arkansas isn’t so starved for state heroes that it needs to keep beating the Dodd drum.

A state commission’s decision, though, to grant approval for yet another tribute to Dodd has revived an age-old question: Should states still look for ways to commemorate historical figures who fought to defend unjust institutions?

"(Dodd) already has a school. I don’t know why anything else would have to be done to honor him," James Lucas Sr., a school bus driver, said near the state Capitol in downtown Little Rock.

Arkansas’ complicated history of race relations plays out on the Capitol grounds. A stone and metal monument that’s stood for over a century pays tribute to the Arkansas men and boys who fought for the Confederacy and the right to own slaves. Not far away, nine bronze statues honor the black children who, in 1957, needed an Army escort to enter what had been an all-white school.

via Plan to honor Confederate spy splits town – TODAY News – TODAY.com.