Categories
Culture and Value Uncategorized US History

Women Who Inspire:Ellen Ewing Sherman

Elizabeth Catlett 1990 Payne Gallery, Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA

March, the month that transitions from winter to spring in the northern hemisphere, is often associated with the proverbial saying, “March roars in like a lion rolls out like a lamb.” This observation can also be applied to the lives of individuals. As March is celebrated as “Women’s History Month,” I decided to delve into the life of my grandmother’s grandmother, Ellen Ewing Sherman.

Understanding the lives of historical figures often requires examining the women who supported them. W.T. Sherman remains an enigma to historians, but a closer examination of his relationship with his foster sister, best friend, and eventual wife, Ellen Ewing, provides valuable insights into his life and personality. Fortunately, numerous letters and other missives between Ellen and Sherman have been preserved, along with early biographies that recount the recollections and shared experiences of their relatives, friends, and colleagues. Anna McAllister’s book, Ellen Ewing: Wife of General Sherman, was published in 1936, four decades after Ellen’s passing. It’s full of recollections of Ellen’s family and friends as well as a contextual description of their times even if thinly referenced. I’ve shared some of my thoughts from reading this book in a previous post which you can read here.

Recently, I participated in a conversation about women of Lancaster, Ohio, our ancestors who not only shaped their families but also their communities. Their impact continues to resonate in Fairfield County and beyond. This shouldn’t surprise us, yet we rarely reflect on how and why this is so. These women placed great emphasis on creating a welcoming home and raising children in a manner that allowed them to chart their own course in life. My two-times grandmother and others cultivated connections among relatives and friends by providing care and support. In essence, they focused on what strengthens communities within their towns and organizations, ultimately making the world a better place.

In addition to raising her six surviving children, Ellen dedicated time to other pursuits. She championed causes she cared about and found ways to express her concerns through advocacy and action. She initiated fundraising campaigns in response to Ireland’s Great Hunger, also known as the Potato Famine (1845-1852). When wounded Union soldiers required nursing care, she opened the family home in Lancaster. She also provided foster care for other children in need.

Ellen firmly believed that education was essential for active participation in the democratic process. She advocated for comprehensive education that encompassed practical skills such as agriculture, crafts, and commerce. This education would empower children and adults to contribute positively to their communities, which, in turn, fostered the nation’s growth. Consequently, she supported early initiatives by both public schools and religious institutions that established schools for formerly enslaved and Native American children.

19th c Alphabet Blocks thehenryford.org
19th c Children’s Scrapbook histchild.org
19th-c-Slate with Numeral Frame americanhistory.si.edu

Ellen had numerous contacts with religious and clergy figures of the 19th century. McAllister highlights her friendship with the renowned Belgian missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet SJ. Their correspondence reveals Ellen’s deep concern for the Native Americans who had recently been forcibly relocated onto reservations due to US expansion. She frequently drew her husband’s attention to the mistreatment of the Indians by white settlers and diligently worked through her family networks to urge Washington authorities to take action. However, her efforts appear to have been unsuccessful. While her husband shared her observations and sentiments, even as the head of the ‘army of the West,’ he was unable to prevent the rapid influx of settlers into territories still rightfully held by the various Indigenous peoples of the Northern Plains. Corrupt Washington bureaucrats and unscrupulous Indian agents only exacerbated the chaotic and violent events that followed. Nevertheless, Ellen did everything she could do. McAllister concisely summarizes her observation:
“She served as Father DeSmet’s special advocate with General Sherman, ensuring that his requests received attention and that her husband’s promises on behalf of the Indians were not forgotten. Regrettably, Father DeSmet’s wise and patient work among the hostile tribes was not followed by equally prudent and equitable measures from our government. Had it been, many decades of unnecessary and cruel warfare would have been averted.”

Ellen also relied on her intelligence and social connections to secure funding for various projects, including a trade school for women and relief programs for the poor, hungry, and destitute throughout the nation’s capital. At the time, there were no government-funded welfare programs to address dire needs of impoverished populations. These social support initiatives were the result of the dedication and commitment of religious congregations, faith-based organizations and individuals who supported them.

In the mid-19th century, a wave of anti-Catholic prejudice swept across the country, including in San Francisco, where her husband was residing at the time. Despite not sharing her religious beliefs, Ellen persuaded Sherman, who was a prominent figure in the city, to take action against the abuse by running for local political office. He kindly but firmly declined her request. Nevertheless, he managed to convince some of his contemporaries in the newly established Golden State of the absurdity of such prejudices. For much of California’s infrastructure, including roads, agriculture, and towns that they now benefit from, had been established by individuals and institutions associated with the despised religion.

Years later, in 1870, Ellen, now the renowned wife of a decorated war hero, residing in Washington D.C., took an extraordinary step to protest the Republic of Italy’s appropriation of lands that had previously belonged to the Vatican. She placed a crepe on the Vatican flag and hung it on the street view of their stately home, expressing her deep concern about this injustice. The Pope himself was considered a ‘prisoner of the Vatican,’ barred from leaving his residence. Ellen’s actions were a clear expression of her unwavering opinion and a testament to her courage and conviction.

At the time, the ambassador of Italy was in Washington D.C., and he remarked to Sherman that it was unbecoming for a ranking official at the War Department, such as the General, to allow his home to display such ‘papist sentiment.’ Sherman responded that while he lived there and maintained the house, it was Mrs. Sherman’s home, and he would not interfere.

Ellen Ewing Sherman

Throughout her later years, Ellen continued to dedicate herself to her home, her children, and the communities she had helped establish or assist. In her childhood and youth, she possessed a lively and energetic disposition, despite her relatively weak physical constitution. However, by the time she and her husband had settled in New York, her energy began to decline rapidly. Within weeks, she succumbed to a cardiac arrest. Perhaps it could be said that Ellen, in the spirit of the month of March, arrived with great vigor and departed with gentle grace.

Woman with a Parasol in a Garden
Pierre-Auguste Renoir1875


Links to 19th c learning aids:
alphabet blocks:https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/197083/ child’s scrapbook: https://www.histchild.org/resources/a-timeline-child-art-in-the-historical-recor
arithmetic slate: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_694615

Three Women of America Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/elizabeth-catlett/m09hhlm?categoryid=artist

Categories
Culture and Value

Educating for Life

Winslow Homer Song of the Lark
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/mAXBQJELIMjf7g

There’s a story of a Vermont Yankee farmer and his son ploughing their field.  Their neighbor’s son was preparing to cut a large tree nearby  his family’s  barn. He had just arrived home from college for the summer and was studying a book to calculate the right angle to begin sawing.  After hours of work the tree finally fell but not in the direction that the student had calculated. The tree landed on the barn. As the  seasoned farmer looked on, he said in his laconic Vermont drawl- “Now son, that’s what I call book smart”. 

Autumn begins September 22 in the northern hemisphere. But Labor Day, the first Monday in September marks the unofficial close of summer in the US.  Students have started classes  with more or less enthusiasm and excitement. For the most part people are returning from vacations and resuming their work routines. It’s  a start of a new year of sorts.  I think of this time as a new year of learning. Education, and work, both of which constitute a substantial amount of time over a life span of activity flow in varied rhythmic patterns. Work, the education and training one undergoes to work well is a broad topic.  There are countless ways to think and write about it and many have done throughout the centuries. Our attitudes about education and work often reflect our understanding and interpretations of meaning, purpose and human flourishing. 

One Room School House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-room_school

Sherman’s thoughts on education reflected in his correspondence lean towards the practical. He was prone to action, not giving too much thought to theories on how to do something. His education, and  early experiences  gave him a foundation by which he could confront the challenges that came his way throughout his life, There were waves of success and shoals of failures. But this is often true for most of us. It is the lot of the human condition.  How those are measured depends on one’s perspective and values. Athletes and entrepreneurs understand this intuitively. The rest of us learn by in ‘the school of hard knocks’.

Sherman’s early years of education included classes of the three R’s —reading writing and arithmetic. But there was more: He writes 

I continued at the Academy in Lancaster, …We studied all the common branches of knowledge, including Latin, Greek and French. 

WTS Memoirs Vol I

Once classes were out the rest of the day was devoted to typical youth activities; roaming the woods, playing games and completing household chores. Both Sherman’s birth family and his foster family were avid readers. Frequent mention of books being read, requests for more books and gifts of books appear in the letters between Sherman and his family. It seems like they were always reading something.  Maybe this explains why I’m a curious and constant reader. But I digress. 

At age 14 Sherman found work building the canals along the Hocking river in Fairfield County Ohio. He learned surveying and construction skills. He worked alongside  laborers of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, including freemen of color. Undoubtedly this would have  been an incredible learning experience, collaborating with teams of people to create  infrastructures of transport in  rapidly  developing communities. The experience launched his lifelong study of logistics. He continued working during the school year with a surveyor:

“We worked during that fall and most spring marking two experimental lines, and for one our work  we each received a silver half dollar for each day’s actual work , the first money any of us had ever earned. “

WTS Memoirs Vol I
By Dan Keck from Ohio – http://Hocking Valley Canal Lock 17 and Aqueduct Park, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69166165

Plenty of background knowledge, training and practice go into success in work or other projects of life’s endeavors.  Early instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic may be  insufficient for a complete well rounded education. But they are necessary tools that enable life long learning. 19th century initiatives to educate every child anywhere in America are too many to list. What is common to all of them were teachers and benefactors who were committed to establish schools with or without government support. They made countless sacrifices to teach children how to read, write and carry out the fundamentals of mathematics because they considered them important skills for shaping their future. Most families relied on older children to do chores to maintain a farm, family shop or household and this had to be factored in arranging school schedules and curricula.  Sherman recounts an early remembrance of taking his father’s horse, used for his travels as a circuit judge to the barn. Presumably Sherman would have learned something at a young age of how to care for horses as most of us learn how to keep our cars or bicycles  in working order today. 

Getting back to the story of the beginning of this article; maybe if the guy with the axe spent more time chopping wood in his younger years before he went off to college, he might have  avoided the disastrous fall of the large tree. Or maybe by looking at the tree and surroundings he would conclude it wasn’t  necessary to take it down in the first place.  

The end of the summer and start of an academic year gives us an opportunity to reflect on our attitudes and beliefs about education, work and the rhythms they create in our lives. Work is much more  than the actual ‘job’ for which we may or may not be remunerated. At the risk of a broadly construed definition I would posit that work expands to all  activity we engage in that contributes to a greater good; that which brings people,  families, communities, and nations together.  Sherman and his contemporaries probably didn’t think along those terms. But many of them Sherman included had a clear sense of responsibility of working to create a sustainable future for their families and fledging country. They were convinced that a school education should lead as the etymological root of the word implies—a young person to learn how to also do so. They considered it essential for a flourishing well lived life and even happy life.  Children need someone to care for them. Typically an adult is one who is capable of caring or providing for others. It is presumed that our learning institutions continue to cultivate values of work not as a means of self serving profit and prestige but first and foremost as a means of service for others and creating value in which many can grow and thrive. Similar to a sapling that takes root and grows into a large tree providing shade and sustenance.

By Winslow Homer – Bridgeman Art Library: Object 213713, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25057614

We can consider our own role  as educators and/or cheerleaders for students beginning the academic year. Our support gives strength to children and young people to explore their dreams for their future. If we inspire them, they too will be life-long learners and will know how to put that knowledge into practice for a greater good. 

Categories
Art of Living Culture and Value US History

Ellen Ewing Sherman

Who is Ellen Boyle Ewing Sherman?  

Ellen Ewing Sherman 1824-1888

Childhood playmate, foster sister, friend, confidante, advisor and wife of William Tecumseh Sherman. Like her husband she was intelligent, vivacious, opinionated and strong willed. Together they had 8 children, two died –one in infancy– both during the Civil War. Theirs were no ordinary friendship and marriage. It’s a wonder how their lifelong marriage flourished despite differences of opinion, preferences and tastes as well matters of deeply held beliefs. Biographers offer explanations; useful but insufficient. Most agree that Sherman, would not be the person he was without her. Few women would have so many roles as Ellen. That fact alone makes for an interesting story. The complexity of Ellen and Sherman’s interwoven lives created a dynamic force that shaped not only their family but also the destiny of our nation.

Possibly Young Ellen c.1850 (family archives)
Photograph of a Fern 1850 by H.F. Talbot (WikiMediaCommons)
Photography Mid-19th Century

Eleanor Boyle Ewing was born in Lancaster, Ohio in 1824. The daughter of  Thomas Ewing a prominent figure in Ohio-Washington politics and his wife Maria Boyle also from an influential family of Irish descent and unabashedly Roman Catholic in times when there was no small prejudice against the ‘papist’ religion.  The Ewings and Shermans were family friends and neighbors.  When Sherman’s father died suddenly, his mother unable to provide for her eleven growing children alone, gratefully sent her nine year old son ‘Cump’ (as he was called by his family and close friends) to be part of the Ewing household. The Ewings welcomed him warmly and provided for young Sherman in the same way they raised their own children. There were high expectations in education and work ethics but also an abundance of love and affection. Maria Ewing insisted that Cump not only received the same Catholic religious instruction as her children but also be baptized. Sherman later wrote that he was already Christened in infancy and given the name William by his own parents –in addition to name originally given to him by his father in honor of the locally famed Shawnee leader Tecumseh.  But Mrs. Ewing leaving nothing to chance arranged to have a traveling priest baptize nine-year-old Cump on the feast of St. William. 

Ellen, and her siblings and eventually her children also inherited Mrs. Ewing’s religious views. Interestingly it seems that while family members were relentless in their efforts to persuade Sherman to join their religious ranks he with the same stubbornness refused, preferring to adhere to his own belief compass. And yet their loyalty, and endearing affection for one another held fast. “All is fair in love and war” as the saying goes.

W.T. Sherman 1866
Ellen Ewing Sherman 1868
Portraits by G.P.A. Healy (Wikimedia-Public Domain)

Ellen’s and Cump’s different faith perspectives shaped their outlook and approaches to life. Perhaps their lives together were like navigating a canoe in different wind and water currents each paddling with the stronger stroke at different times; often steering in different directions but occasionally working in unison. Ironically adversity was the force that brought these two closer together. Prominent among these was the sudden death of their eldest son Willie who contracted yellow fever after Ellen had brought four of their young children to visit Sherman’s encampment in Mississippi in the summer of 1863 during a depressingly low point of Sherman and his army Vicksburg campaign.  She had hoped that the visit would revise her husband’s spirit. Indeed it did; nine year old Willie and his father enjoyed the time together riding horseback through the camp and inspecting the troops.  All seemed to have gone well until the return trip home via a river steamboat when sickness was spreading among the passengers. Young Willie was dead in two days. Neither of the parents fully recovered from the loss of their son and deep grief remained with them throughout their lives.

Ellen Ewing Sherman
“She has opened her hand to the needy and stretched out her hand to the poor.”

Ellen and her husband were often apart; first as he worked to establish a way of supporting his family and then due to his military career. Finally in retirement they moved to a townhouse in New York City but by then Ellen’s health rapidly declined in the weeks after the move. It seems that Sherman was in disbelief that his wife’s end of life was near. But when a doctor was consulted he accepted the prognosis of congestive heart failure. Then on the morning of November 28 of 1888 while he was in his study he heard the nurse beckon him; his lifelong companion was breathing her last. He ran up the stairs crying out “Wait for me Ellen-no one has ever loved you more”.

There’s still much to glean from their yin-yang fiery relationship. Maybe I’ll do so on further musings. Here I’ll let their youngest son– my great-grandmother’s brother have the last word:

“Between my father and mother there were, of course many differences; but never did their differences interfere with unwavering mutual respect, consideration and affection. With my mother’s faith and its transmissions to their children, my father was always content. And her judgment and advice were always respected by him and frequently deferred to with consequences that entitled her to much of the credit for his successful career.

P. Tecumseh Sherman 1935, Introduction to Ellen Ewing Sherman by Anna McAllister
“In thee O Lord have I hoped”
Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis Mo
“Her children rise up and call her blessed and her husband praiseth her”
Categories
Culture and Value

The Glory of Ukraine

War is Hell

W.T. Sherman Michigan Military Academy, June 1879

Sherman famously said in a semi prepared speech to a graduating class of young military cadets. Undoubtedly the audience was not expecting such a statement from a decorated war general. This may explain why there are varying recollections of the commencement address.  Early in his military career Sherman dreamed of victories and honors. But he soon realized that such ambition had no real meaning. Purpose to engage in battle came from someplace else when all other options fail. It’s the path of last resort; inevitable, necessary and tragic. Years before the Civil War erupted he warned that such a conflict would be neither brief nor easy. War with all its consequences -death, destruction and unthinkable atrocities are an unbearable weight for everyone except for those crazy for power, wealth or both. “War is cruel and you cannot refine it” he bluntly remarked more than once. But wars are inevitable as long as people will fight to defend what is most dear to them; their families, their homelands and cherished beliefs.

Was the world really taken by surprise by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Just four weeks ago the possibility of a war while conceptually probable, seemed remote, something that happens in failed states, not Europe, not in a fledging democracy in the 21st century. There’s no room for complacency now. More than two million people have fled, the largest exodus from a European country since World War II. Destruction of monuments, buildings, and infrastructure in several cities, a death toll that while difficult to corroborate is growing exponentially. All in less than two weeks.

Photo by Ilya Cher on Unsplash

“War is cruelty and you cannot refine it”

Letter to the City of Atlanta, 1864

In the security of our home and comfort of our couch we can find it remarkable that a people can be so determined to defend their freedom. Not only men of conscription age, but older ones picking up arms to fend of invaders. Perhaps some had parents who told them stories of struggle for independence against Soviet occupation and aggression. Perhaps some remember themselves. Like all history it’s complicated and I don’t claim to understand it much less explain it. Most Americans myself included, have always lived without the threat of a foreign invasion from a force that intends to assimilate whatever it doesn’t destroy. Ukraine on the other hand, is one of those countries that has been threatened by annihilation and absorption dozens of times in its 1,000 years of Slavic history  Once again the country is in the jaws of death by conquest and erasure of its cultural identity. Is it any wonder that they have the resolve to fight back in what seems to be a David and Goliath battle of epic proportions?

Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash

The humanitarian crisis continues to unfold. Last week maternity wards were moved to subway stations. Today a maternity ward was bombed and women soon to give birth injured.  Several cities have had power and water cut off. Reports of atrocities emerge. Civilian deaths, many children and elderly numbered in the thousands Such is the rampage of war.   No one wants to think about the consequences of nuclear power energy plants being repurposed. The shift from possible to probable is hard to read in times like these. That should give sufficient pause to pray.

Photo by Kedar Gadge on Unsplash

Amidst the chaos of the war in Ukraine there are women praying, caring for children and the aged and burying the dead. Women are fleeing with their children while instilling a sense of security however illusory. Russian mothers are begging for the return of their sons who as young as sixteen presumed they were being called up to participate in routine military practice. These women are doing what those before them have always done; remind men what it means to be human.

Their resilience and hope will be fruitful. It always is.  The colors of the flag of Ukraine are now ubiquitous, blue for the open sky and yellow for the plentiful wheat.  May the seeds of hope drenched in tears and sometimes blood, buried deep within the ground, nurtured by fervent prayer bear the fruit of peace and freedom. Such fruit will be the true glory of Ukraine and of all peoples.

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash
Categories
Culture and Value Uncategorized US History

Sherman and the Navajo

Signing of the Navajo Treaty, June 1, 1868

“I want peace and believe it can only be achieved through union.”

W.T. Sherman

This conviction permeated Sherman’s thought during and after the Civil War. It also influenced his thinking and tasks as U.S. Army Lieutenant General in the years that followed. Peace is a fragile reality when it exists at all and often comes at the cost of war. As the westward expansion exploded Sherman had to grapple with responsibility of protecting both the settlers moving westward and the people who were being forcibly moved off of their ancestral homelands to accommodate this expansion. It was anything but peaceful.

Officials in Washington hoped for a peaceful transition, even if was just little more than wishful thinking. Opinions varied to what degree they thought it possible. Nevertheless a “Peace Commission” was formed in 1867 comprised of military personal and civilians who had some knowledge of or sympathies with the Native Americans of the great plains. Ironically Sherman was made the head. The Commission’s task was to negotiate with peoples inhabiting the land between the states whose culture and histories were as different as the languages they spoke and the territories they claimed. Land mass west of the Mississippi through the Rockies was equal or greater than all existing states combined.

How did Sherman accept this new assignment? Perhaps he considered it little more than his job, one that enabled him to feed his family. Or perhaps as in the years of the Civil War, he thought it was his duty to do his best in securing peace for the diversity of peoples in the U.S. and its claimed territories. In either case the Peace Commission’s preliminary meetings and final treaties were layered with complexities. Further, there has never been any agreement on whether or not they even succeeded.  Meetings involved several peoples inhabiting vastly disputed territories. This combined with inadequate resources, poor communication and bureaucratic corruption in Washington DC were just some of the obstacles that continuously worked against making any negotiations relevant or binding. Sherman foresaw these difficulties even before beginning his assignment. His skepticism was well grounded.  Nevertheless he accepted the challenge, hoping for the best. In less than three years after the close of the Civil War he gladly left Washington and  relocated his family to St. Louis. Soon afterwards he met with the Commission and began their travels west of the Missouri.

I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own.

Barboncito, Navajo Chief, 1868

After meeting with leaders of several tribes in the northern plains, Sherman and Samuel F. Tappan set out towards the end of May  traveling to Fort Sumner  to meet with the Navajo interned at Bosque Redondo. They had been held for close to four years as prisoners by the U.S. government in lands that were desolate and close to uninhabitable. Several bands totaling by some counts 9,000 persons had been forcibly removed from their homelands and marched 300 miles to the east. Known as the Long Walk hundreds died along the way or soon afterwards. The relocation was a financial disaster and was costing the U.S. government thousands of dollars a day. It was a national embarrassment and disgrace.

What Sherman saw when he arrived at the end of May 1868 must have shocked him and angered him. Hundreds of families lived in squalid conditions, ordered by his government to ranch and farm in an area that was suitable for neither. Many were starving. Some claim that Sherman was indifferent or even antithetical to peaceful resolutions of conflict and negotiations. However, a close read of the preliminary proceedings and negotiations as in those with the Navajo indicate otherwise.

Meetings began with Navajo leaders began on May 28th. Sherman asked them to select their representatives and a spokesperson. Three days of talks followed. He listened through two translators to Barboncito, Manuelito and others.  Sherman sought to resolve not only the main concern-where they wished to relocate but also additional grievances, which included the fact that Mexican and American settlers throughout the South West and Mexico held hundreds of Navajo women and children in bondage. Sherman just fought and won a war to secure the freedom of enslaved people.  Thus it was his sincere belief that the US government would indeed prosecute and punish anyone holding anyone in bondage. And he promised this to the Navajo. As a man who tried to keep true to his word. Sherman experienced repeated disappointments when his own government could not or would not follow through on what were necessary conditions of justice and peace.

When the Navajos were first created four mountains and four rivers were pointed out to us inside of which we should, live, that was to be our country and was given to us by [God]

Barboncito
https://www.discovernavajo.com/discover-the-navajo-nation/monuments/

Probably in his impatience to resolve a complicated matter or more aptly put, a government induced disaster, Sherman proposed that the Navajos move to designated ‘Indian Country’ that is, the territories south of the Arkansas River. These lands were then being used to relocate several tribes resisting assimilation.   He supposed it would be a favorable option because land was suitable for farming and ranching. It was also off limits to white settlers. But the Navajos rejected that proposition and their will prevailed.  Sherman soon agreed that it was to their advantage and the US government’s best interest  that the Navajo return to their ancestral homelands and for the reasons that the Navajos themselves had determined.

Pages from the Navajo Treaty https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2018/02/22/treaty-that-reversed-a-removal-navajo-treaty-1868-goes-on-view/

The talks and negotiations concluded with the signing of the treaty, early in the morning of June 1, 1868.  I was ratified by Congress on July 25th and signed by President Andrew Johnson on August 12th.  Shortly afterwards approximately 8,000 Navajo men, women, elders and children gathered their horses, mules, sheep and goats and together began their long walk home to their four sacred mountains.   In his formal greeting to Sherman when he arrived to Fort Sumner, Barboncito declared he had made three pairs of moccasins for the occasion. He had already worn two for the meetings. The third pair he undoubtedly was saving for the journey home with a dream and destiny for the people:

After we get back to our country, it will brighten up again and the Navajos will be as happy as the land, black clouds will rise and there will be plenty of rain. Corn will grow in abundance and everything will look happy.

Barboncito, June 1, 1868
Categories
Culture and Value History of the West US History

Round the Horn to California: Sherman’s first voyage, Part 3

USS Lexington

A few weeks ago, after a few days in Carmel I made my return trip by way of Highway One from Salinas to Half Moon Bay a drive of 100 miles and much of that on the proverbial ‘ribbon of highway’ with open fields on the east and the Pacific on the west. It was a beautiful spring day and some fields were speckled with California poppies now in bloom. In less than two hours  even despite the traffic congestion in Santa Cruz I arrived to my destination.  Having read Sherman’s memories of his days in Monterey, it was easy for me to imagine what it was like for him to travel along the coast in a small sailing vessel to San Francisco or Bolinas or by horseback on the inland route across Salinas valley to get to the neighboring mission towns of San Juan Bautista and further north San Jose and Santa Clara. While driving the coastal route past Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point, I eventually arrived to Half Moon Bay, a small farming, fishing and tourist town. In Sherman’s time the area, was known as Rancho San Benito and it was little more than a collection of farms and ranches on or near the former settlement sites of the Ohlone. The afternoon commute, enabled me to imagine the youthful enthusiasm of Sherman as he first landed on the western coast of the northern continent.

While still en-voyage to his destination, Sherman was delighted with his one-week stay in Rio de Janeiro as the ship Lexington collected supplies and new cargo to begin the last stretch of their voyage to Monterey, California. He enjoyed the cuisine, the topography and learning how water was delivered to the city from the surrounding majestic mountains:

Rio de Janeiro early 19c

“Mr. Wise enlarged on the fact that Rio was supplied from the “dews of heaven,” for in the dry season the water comes from the mists and fogs which hand around the Corcovado, drips from the leaves of the trees, and is conducted to the Madre fountain by miles of tile gutters.”

W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I

He arrived in Monterey the end of January after close to five months at sea. The last stretch of the voyage which resumed after a brief stay in Brazil and later Chile included passing through the waters of Cape Horn and then northward in the Pacific waters.

  • Rio de Janeiro early 19c
  • Cape Horn
  • Chile
  • By Tirpenne por E. Dumont - Copia de una litografía, ubicada en el Museo Histórico Nacional de Chile, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=256888
    Valparaiso, 1830
Rounding the Horn

The ship resumed its voyage around Cape Horn an island, which according to Sherman resembled an oven hence its name in Spanish Ornos/oven. “Rounding the Horn” was the expression to describe the difficult and often perilous task of navigating the ever swelling seas and converging currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific. It took them another sixty days to navigate the waters and make way for Valparaiso, a coastal town of Chile. While the name denotes “Valley of Paradise”, Sherman thought it unimpressive, “nothing more –he writes– than a few tiled cottages along a beach”. Located south of the equator, the season of spring was just beginning and while Sherman didn’t consider the landscape to be anything worth noting, he enjoyed the pleasant climate and the fresh strawberries then in season.

“All the necessary supplies being renewed in Valparaiso, the voyage was resumed. For nearly forty days we had uninterrupted favorable winds being in the “trades” and having settled down to sailor habits, time passed without notice. ”

W.T. Sherman Memoirs – Volume I

Along the way they encountered other ships and learned of news of their destination of California.  Mexico recently ceded their territories and the U.S. navy had already taken possession of the ports. John C. Fremont and his exploration party were scouting the area and General Kearney was en route by overland. The news coupled by avid reading of books stoking everyone’s imagination of what they would find in this new land, made Sherman and his colleagues ever more eager to press on to their military or peace keeping assignments (they didn’t know which) in Monterey.

Sherman reports that they arrived to the coast of California by the end of January. But while both the Spanish and English maps concurred on the currents alongside the coast they did not agree on the longitude. This coupled with a fierce storm, typical in January caused them to overshoot the Monterey port and they weren’t able to make a correction southward for several days.  Once the storm subsided Sherman writes;

“Slowly the land came out of the water, the high mountains about Santa Cruz, the low beach of the Salinas, and the strongly-marked ridge terminating in the sea in a point of dark pine trees, marking out the Monterey Bay.”

W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I
Monterey Bay -Albert Bierstadt

Categories
Culture and Value History of the West US History

Round the Horn to California, Sherman’s First Voyage, Part 2

Continuation of W.T. Sherman’s voyage to California in 1846 based on his letters home.

USS Lexington

This day is usually among sailors a species of April Fools Day when all sorts of practical jokes are enacted upon the persons of those who have never crossed the line….

Letter dated “At Sea” August 28 1846

Writes Sherman as the USS Lexington crossed the equator heading southward to Rio de Janeiro. He continues his description of the rite of initiation or hazing depending on your perspective or experience of the practices on board sailing vessels traversing the equator–the imaginary line dividing the northern and southern hemispheres of planet earth.

19th century etching of “crossing the line” initiation aboard the Medusse (public domain)

Old Neptune usually mounts the bow of the ship, dripping with his brine and accompanied by his beautiful wife. They then proceed to initiate the novices. Our ship is a war vessel and such irregularities are not permitted and it was forbidden to our men for the simple reason that those that have been south of the equator bear too small a proportion to the fresh men that Old Neptune’s decrees might not be enforced by his accepted children. The ship was pronounced on the equator at eight this forenoon…. I was summoned to the Captain’s cabin where a holy stone; [in reality] a piece of hard stone used for cleaning decks–was presented for me to rest my hand for an oath…”

At Sea, August 28, 1846

The solemn moment included a list of prohibitions unless of course one preferred them. The pledge ended  with: 

so help you salt water–a dash of which was sprinkled on my face and I was then duly initiated.

At Sea, August 28, 1846

In turn, Sherman ‘baptized’ his fellow officers, with salt water as he administered the oath. My guess is Sherman added this last detail to amuse or annoy  the more pious readers of his letters, his future wife included.

This is the only ceremony which distinguishes this day from any other, and now as we consult the charts and maps there appears a dark magic line separating us from our friends and homes.  This must again be crossed after weeks of sailing around Cape Horn

At Sea, August 28, 1846

He sent his letter with a small French sailing vessel calculating that his sister would receive it by mid September about the time he would arrive to the colorful tropical city of Rio de Janeiro a welcome reprieve from the monotony of water travel of the first several weeks. 

“Forty-six days have now passed since our departure and looking back upon them nothing is seen that will leave an impression save the monotonous flight of time.”

At Sea, August 28, 1846
The ship’s deck Edourd Manet (c. 1860)

The observant Sherman took note of his explorations of the cultural and natural beauty in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso while their ship restocked en-route to  California.  But by mid November the endless days and nights at sea and under its mercy and vengeance as the case may be exasperated him.  His frank reassessment of the voyage reveals his overall impression of sea travel. As the ship was about to head due north through the Pacific Sherman hints at his budding dream which would become his life long passion; safe and efficient transportation across the continent of the northern hemisphere.

If you hear of a subscription opening to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, you may put me down any amount for really I do not fancy a voyage of twenty-four thousand miles to accomplish a distance of less than two thousand.”

November, 1846
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Culture and Value US History

Round the Horn to California; Sherman’s first voyage, Part 1

Ordered to California by Sea round Cape Horn! Is not this enough to rouse the most placid?

June 30th 1846 Letter

Wrote a young Sherman who was summoned as an army officer to travel to California recently claimed by the United Sates following their war with Mexico. Even before the discovery of gold the value of the land and its strategic location on the Pacific was appreciated if not coveted. John Fremont and other 19th century fortune seekers had written copiously about its bounty. Sherman was assigned to assist in a ‘peaceful possession’ of of Monterey through the Sierras.  In one of his first letters he instructs his sister:

You have Fremont’s map on the parlor table. Look at the map and you will see Monterey and San Francisco with the back country. It is in that region I believe we will be for some time…

Letter to Elizabeth Sherman, 1846

At that time there were two ways to cross the landmass we now call the United States. One could travel overland by foot or beast which beyond the Mississippi was fraught with dangers, mainly from Indians protecting their homelands. Or by sea, which took much longer since it was necessary to travel around the tip of South America and present day Chile. The voyage included crossing the equator line twice, a stay in the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso and tumultuous passage around the tip of Cape Horn, where waters of the Atlantic and Pacific furiously intermingled. What Sherman understates succinctly almost laconically in his Memoirs, most likely an editor’s call, he humorously expounds in great detail in letters to his family.

New York Seaport late 19th century Print by George Schelgal, (Library of Congress)
USS Lexington, 1827

The seas of water known as oceans are the “high road that leads from Africa and Asia to the United States” wrote Sherman. On July 17 he along with close to 100 crew, army personnel and some passengers sailed from the port of New York on the USS Lexington, a sloop of war, converted into a cargo ship, which still carried six guns for defense on the spar/or upper deck. Sherman writes that it was well stocked with food, ammunition and other supplies that would be needed on their arrival to California. He appreciated that logistics for the voyage were well planned; “by foresight, the greatest of evils may be avoided”. But he also surmises that

“the certainty of the vast journey bids me be prepared”.  

Letter 1846

Copious and amusing descriptions of the ship and voyage abound:  The upper deck included a strong floor and was surrounded by bulwarks ‘about breast high’. “Our cargo is very heavy as we carry out so may guns for California service, and the magazine of the ship could not contain half our powder which amounts to about eight hundred barrels”.  A coop full of chickens and a few dozen pigs were also in transport perhaps some to be used for upcoming meals. The berth/lower deck included the sleeping quarters. He concludes: “We have many books of all kinds but our voyage will be so long that we will be forced to read even the tables in Bowditch”, a 19th century handbook of navigation by Nathanial Bowditch.

Indeed the first part of the voyage seems like a cruise on a luxury liner.  Soldiers and officers including young Sherman bound for California watched while sailors nimbly coiled ropes and rigged sails. Sherman notes however, that all of the men, himself included were assigned tasks and were required to assist in the event of storms.  There were four women, wives of the officers and finally two children: “ to whom the sailors are fast teaching them all the oaths in their calendars”. I take that to mean expanding their vocabulary in ways that their mothers blushed, lamented and reprimanded.  Or all three. After 57 mostly pleasant sunny days days, USS Lexington crossed the line (the equator) and made port at Rio de Janeiro for close to two weeks giving Sherman and his companions time to explore the colonial city and its surrounding mountainsides.

Rio de Janeiro in the 19th Century Capricio Views-
Mutual Art https://www.mutualart.com/
Categories
Culture and Value US History

Sherman in Savannah

The city of Savannah was an old place, and usually accounted a handsome one. W.T.S. Memoirs Vol II

“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty five thousand bales of cotton. “

Letter to President Lincoln December 22, 1864

Sherman wrote to President Lincoln shortly after bringing the Georgia campaign to a close by establishing the Union army following the city’s peaceful surrender.  An acquaintance “suggested that I might [send] a welcome Christmas gift to the President, Mr. Lincoln, who peculiarly enjoyed such pleasantry. I accordingly sat down and wrote on a slip of paper, to be left at the telegraph-office for transmission.– He continues; his message actually reached him on Christmas-eve and was extensively published in the newspapers and made many a household unusually happy on that festive day; and it was the answer to this dispatch that Mr. Lincoln wrote me the letter of December 28th, beginning with the words “many, many thanks.”

No doubt a gift of a city is preposterous even outrageous. But for Sherman it was Savannah and not Atlanta that marked a change in tides in the war of secession. The confiscation of Confederates’ ammunition and cotton–ironically being sold to northern merchants to pay for their war against the Union– meant that he had effectively cut off their supplies and financial resources. More important by seizing the rebels’ stronghold deep in their own territory Grant’s army could focus on battling the dwindling but fiercely resolved armies of Lee. The end of the long, bloody war was in sight.

Sherman’s recollections of these days are not without understated hubris. They’re also peppered with ironic humor underscoring his relief and profound gratitude that the campaign was over and on his view, with minimal loss of life as he was able to avoid major battles by outmaneuvering his opponents.

The rebel army wasn’t Sherman’s biggest enemy and hence targets of his wrath. He was annoyed and angered by disinformation and ‘fake news’ of the press. Northern newspapers continued to accuse him of insanity and southern newspapers claimed his army was pillaging their land and livestock with no regard for life. He undoubtedly felt the sweetness of revenge when the northern papers had to admit in print that his strategies worked by informing the public of his ‘gift’ to the President. He placed strict rules on southern newspapers forbidding them to publish what he considered harmed the Union.

“No more than two newspapers will be published in Savannah; their editors and proprietors will be held to the strictest accountability, and will be punished severely in person and property, for any libelous publication, mischievous matter, premature news, exaggerated statements, or any comments whatever upon the actions of the constituted authorities; they will be held accountable for such articles even though copied from other papers. “

Special Field Order No. 143. No. 4

An advocate of freedom of press as we know it today, Sherman was not. He was amused that Confederate generals were requesting special care for their families and properties even while they were waging war against him.

“Before I had reached Savannah and during our stay there the rebel officers and newspapers represented the conduct of the men of our army as simply infamous; that we respected neither age nor sex; that we burned everything we came across …and perpetrated all manner of outrages on the inhabitants. Therefore it struck me as strange Generals Hardee and Smith should commit their families to our custody and even bespeak our personal care and attention.”

Sherman Memoirs II
The Entrance Hall in 1864, when it was being used as General Sherman’s Headquarters. A sketch by William Waud in 1864.

 

Sherman remained in Savannah through mid January.  Perhaps he wished to stay longer if not for its beauty but also as a respite from military drudgery. But he was ordered to move his army closer to Grant’s so they could close in on the remaining rebel armies led by Lee and Johnson. Before departing Sherman invited all die hard Confederates and dissenters to leave the city providing safe passage to rejoin their friends and families in Charleston and Augusta. By his count two hundred people left the city ‘to join the fortunes of their husbands and fathers’.  He reestablished the authority of the mayor and city council to managed city’s affairs for the general interests of the people. He reports that: “The great bulk of the inhabitants chose to remain in Savannah, generally behaved with propriety, and good social relations at once arose between them and the army”. Churches reopened for worship. Stores and markets also “reopened, and provisions …were established, so that each family, regardless of race, color or opinion, could procure all the necessaries of life—if they had money.” For those who didn’t which were many, he made arrangement for food and other supplies to be acquired for “gratuitous distribution, which relieved the most pressing wants until the revival of trade and business enabled the people to provide for themselves.”

Amidst the demands of reestablishing public order for a besieged city of 20,000 and making preparations for the next segment of the campaign which he considered as more dangerous, Sherman found time to write a long letter to his wife and children.  Most likely the second half of his salutation is what gave them their most profound joy:

 “This is Christmas Day and I hope truly and really that you and the little ones may enjoy it, in the full knowledge that I am all safe after our long March.”  December 25, 1865 

Home Letters of General Sherman 1909
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Art of Living Culture and Value US History

Giving Thanks

Valley of the Yosemite Albert Bierstadt, 1864

“It’s a good world; it is the best we have now.”

Memoirs of W. T. Sherman, Volume II

Sherman gratefully addressed his friends as they gathered to celebrate his 70th birthday. Perhaps feeling a need to give words of wisdom to a younger audience, he offered advice gleaned from his own life’s experience: “I know that like all others you wish to make the world as good as yourselves… . But the first way to reform the community is to reform yourselves. But you have to take the world as it is”.

Realism and optimism. We need both. The first to keep us grounded, the second to reach for dreams. Realism presents conditions and circumstances around us and optimism inspires us to energetically respond to opportunities and challenges we encounter. Healing and hope. We long for both. Several months of a pandemic and a contentious election campaign have left us tired; realizing we need to come together but wondering how we’ll do so.

It’s not always easy but it’s attainable. It comes about when we consider how hope brings possibilities into clear focus and healing restores vision and strength to pursue the difficult good which in this case is to unite so as to confront the challenge of our communities, country and world together. Gratitude may not be the only way for hope and healing to come about, it quickens the process. Giving thanks for what we have and even what we lack is an antidote to bitterness in all its toxic effects.

Every day’s a good day to give thanks. But this month we have two holidays especially set aside; Veterans Day and Thanksgiving Day.

“Toward the close of the war, I have often heard the soldiers complain that the ‘stay-at-home’ men got better pay, bounties and food, than they who were exposed to the dangers and vicissitudes of the battles and marches at the front. The feeling of the solder should be that in every event, the sympathy and preference of his government is for him who fights.”

Memoirs of W. T. Sherman, Vol II
Sherman (front center) and veterans, Chicago 1884, Library of Congress

Sherman’s connection with his comrade in arms and his concern for them afterwards is legendary. During war he fought, ate and camped with them. “Officers should never seek for houses but share the condition of their men.” he instructs. Later he worked to establish pensions and methods of care. After his retirement he welcomed veterans who came to his door seeking help.

Women and men of the armed forces protect our country and freedom. “Home of the free because of the brave” should never escape our memory. In what ways are we showing gratitude not only on the one day set aside to honor veterans but every day? How are veterans being cared for in our families and communities? The elderly, sick and wounded in veterans’ facilities across our country keenly feel this time of social isolation. What can we do to shorten the time or distance for those who are separated from friends and family or more tragically entirely forgotten by them? In what ways are we grateful for the thousands of our military members deployed throughout the world?

Thanksgiving Day has its own winding history in our country. Significant in its establishment is that Lincoln had hoped that a day set aside for giving thanks to the Creator for all good gifts would also bring about the unity of a bitterly divided country in the midst of a civil war. Division still remains a threat. Looking beyond differences and being grateful together won’t resolve all problems but it will help us find solutions more swiftly. Attention and appreciation inspires generosity.

The president elect chose hope and healing as a theme to end the recent campaign and embark on a new chapter for America. He referenced a well-known hymn based on psalm 91. Here I recall a verse of another hymn; –which struck me years ago as a young chorister singing in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s St. Nicolas Cantata Op42:

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head

God Moves in A Mysterious Way, A. Cowper 1773, Melody London New

So, sure there are things in this world that need to change. Some dreams though are within reach when, as Sherman says we gratefully take the world as it is and inspired by hope we make it better by reforming ourselves and doing what we can to bring about even a greater good together.

Categories
Culture and Value US History

California Wild Fires

By Inklein - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org
CZU LIghtning Complex Fire August 19, 2020 By Inklein – https://commons.wikimedia.org

On the next day we crossed over the Santa Cruz Mountains from which we had sublime views of the scenery, first looking east toward the lower Bay of San Francisco, with the bright plains of Santa Clara and San Jose and then to the west upon the ocean, the town of Monterey being visible sixty miles off

Memoirs of W.T. Sherman

Sherman wrote in the late spring or early summer 1848 of his rides on mounted horseback from Monterey to San Jose and San Francisco.

Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains, 19th Century John Ross Key https://americangallery19th.wordpress.com/tag/john-ross-key/

The Santa Cruz mountains form part of the Pacific Coast Ranges along the ridge south of San Francisco and north of Monterey CA.   To avoid summer beach traffic when I’m returning from the coast side I’ve taken the back roads through the mountains. The roads snake through a dense magical redwood forest. At times coastal fog obscure where the road borders a significant vertical drop.  The vista of the plains Sherman speaks of is at the ridge’s crest.  Except now the vast horizon of fruited plains is replaced by the suburban sprawl of  Silicon Valley. These mountains are the site of the CZU Lightning Complex Fires that erupted in Northern California early in the morning August 16, 2020 after an extraordinary storm.  Four weeks later the CZU fires have been declared fully contained but not before destroying more than 300,00 mostly wooded acres. Big Basin Redwoods, California’s oldest state park (established in 1902) lost its historic headquarters and lodge. It’s yet to be confirmed to what extent old growth redwoods affected by the fires will remain intact.  On the other hand, Skyline ridge to the north remains unscathed as well as heavily populated communities of the valleys below. Until recently many of the state’s national forest parks including Yosemite and Sequoia National Forest were closed due to lingering smoke and unhealthy air quality. Still the world’s largest giant sequoia, the General Sherman Tree, stands tall—for now.

General Sherman Tree, Sequoia National Forest, CA USA

Seasonal wildfires are a regular pattern of summer and fall in California. With over 7,000 wildfires consuming more than 3 million acres, the fires of 2020 break all previous records. More than 19,000 firefighters are deployed in areas throughout California. Words can’t express our gratitude for heroic efforts of first responders in saving lives, homes and containing further spread of destruction.

Climate change contributes to the intensity and perhaps frequency of wildfires. But there are other factors to consider. Large land mass of forests, shrubs and grasslands all could benefit from managed burns to reduce the undergrowth of tinder fueling rapid spreads of fire and in some cases destruction and loss of life. Indigenous peoples of California practiced intentional fire burns to protect forests and grasslands. It’s generally agreed that controlled burns are effective in reducing brush and undergrowth which when coupled with hot dry wind cause erratic wild fires. Why managed fires are not implemented more often could be linked to logistical and political complications. Creating a strategy that satisfies all constituents as well as allocating the funds necessary to better manage forests seems like a utopian dream amidst the larger crisis wreaked by COVID-19. Yet maybe these two ongoing events shouldn’t be view as entirely isolated. Both crises require intelligent, innovative and persistent attention.

Sherman who was acutely interested in terrain and topography used his knowledge to shape logistical solutions applied to allocation of resources and movement of supplies. He had little tolerance if any for lack of due diligence or ineptitude due to government irresponsibility and political infighting.  I’d like to think that for the most part various government agencies work together to spend our tax dollars judiciously to develop solutions for the common good.  Often it proves to be otherwise.

W. T. Sherman, G. P. E. Healey, 1866

We can wait and even pray for rain, which hopefully will come by the end of October. We should continue to expect accountability and transparency on management of lands both public and privately held. The U.S. Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management restrictions provides accessible information concerning policies. Similarly Cal Fire https://www.fire.ca.gov posts daily updates.Would it be too much to hope for equitable, efficient and strategic collaboration between federal, and state government and stakeholders of privately owned lands to work together to implement solutions for at risk lands?

Smokey the Bear 1944 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Bear

In either case now would be California’s opportunity to implement and improve strategies for wildfire management. Local, state and federal government partnering with urban, neighborhood and rural communities, businesses and other stakeholders need to work together. For over seven decades Smokey the Bear has reminded us that care will prevent 9 out of 10 wildfires. Extreme weather patterns and climate changes still lie beyond our understanding and control. But the future of California’s forests,  coast,  desert and grasslands is entirely weighted and measured by care of each and everyone of us who is blessed to call this beautiful land our home.

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Culture and Value US History

Let Freedom Ring

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

And now that, in these notes, I have fairly reached the period of the civil war, which ravaged our country from 1861-1865—an event involving a conflict of passion, of prejudice and of arms, that has developed results which, for better or for worse, have left their mark on the world’s history—I feel that I tread on delicate ground.

Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman Volume I

So, Sherman begins his accounts of the war and military campaigns for which he is remembered; honored or damned depending on one’s point of view. Clearly it constituted a lifetime achievement since he dedicates more than half of his entire memoir to the war years. Or perhaps the was an editor’s call.

Sherman continues; “it is not his intent—he claims to write a history of the war, but rather group some of [his personal] reflections about historic persons and events of the day.”

In March of 1861 he bid farewell to the Louisiana Military Academy where he was happily setting up operations of the new school educating the elite of the south.  Secession was in motion and after declining to serve under the Confederacy, he resigned from his post. Sherman was aware that military conflict was rapidly approaching. He traveled to Washington where his brother an Ohio senator, introduced him to President Lincoln.

Sherman was not impressed with his first meeting with Lincoln.  For when he shared his concern that northern states seemed oblivious to the fact the south was preparing for war the president replied  “Oh well—I  guess we’ll manage to keep house”.  Sherman angrily told his brother John “You [politicians] got things in a hell of a fix, and you may get them out as best you can.” He thought that the “country was sleeping on a volcano”. He left Washington DC and moved his growing family to St. Louis where he had found a new job to support them.

But by the beginning of April war talk and preparations were escalating and Missouri was an epicenter of mounting violence; the sleeping volcanic activity Sherman feared. He commiserated with a colleague “deploring the sad conditions of our country, and the seeming drift toward dissolution and anarchy”. Then there was the bombardment of Fort Sumter, April 12-14 that signaled the start of the war.

Memoirs of Gen. W.T. Sherman Vol. I Louisiana, Missouri, Bull Run

In rereading Sherman’s recollections I find it interesting that he was reluctant to accept two seemingly high positions in the US War Department. He claims he turned them down because he already made the decision to take care of his family with  his new job  in St. Louis. But it may also be the case that he was not going to take on a contract position for three months which is what most politicians in Washington thought would be the duration of the war. He knew it would be longer because he was well aware of the resolve of the Confederacy. After more civil unrest and violence broke in St. Louis, where Sherman and his young son were caught in a mob stampede amidst gunfire he quickly changed his mind and accepted an appointment as a colonel of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry. By mid May Sherman was returning to Washington to report for duty.

By Kurz & Allison – Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Sherman gives his eyewitness account and participation in the Battle of Bull Run/Manassas again, depending on one’s perspective–which happened July 21, 1861.  He sums up the weeks before of training young eager recruits. They were far from ready physically and mentally for war. The Confederates weren’t either but they were better organized, more in number and by July 4th were already outside of in Manassas just outside of Washington.  His summary of the battle—”one of the best planned and worse fought”.

Our men had been told so often at home that all they do to do was to make a bold appearance, and the rebels would run; and nearly all of us for the first time then heard the sound of cannon and muskets in anger, and saw the bloody scenes common to all battles, with which were soon to be familiar. We had good organization, good men but no cohesion, no real discipline, no respect for authority, no real knowledge of war.

Sherman doesn’t admit defeat. It’s now generally agreed that it was victory for the south. In either case, it was a sad and shameful day. It was also a public spectacle; people came from nearby areas, bringing children and picnics to watch the event as if it was a parade. Within moments they were shocked and traumatized with chaos, terror and the stench of death. Both armies were in disarray, and suffered casualties. After Bull Run, Sherman was assigned to training new regiments. He continues:

I organized a system of drills, embracing the evolutions of the line, all of which was new to me, and I had learned the tactics from the book; but I was convinced that we had a long hard war before us, and made up my mind to begin at the very beginning to prepare for it.

Conflict of passion, prejudice and of even of arms is still true today.  Added to that is the continued pandemic. The Battle of Bull Run/Manassas  confirmed that the conflict would not end anytime soon. It would be years.  Efforts to find a vaccine for Covid-19 look promising but are still months away from testing. In the meantime we each have to struggle with mitigating risks while working together to save lives and an economy that make social stability possible. Added to those battles and one which concern each and everyone of us, is the ongoing struggle for justice and liberty for all. And in case we tire of these battles or worse are tempted to be complacent and ignore them we have our ‘marching orders’ from John  Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressmen who desired his dying thoughts be shared on the day of his funeral:

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html
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Culture and Value US History

A More Perfect Union

Siege of Atlanta 1864

But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war,


By Thure de Thulstrup Seige of Atlanta – Thttps://commons.wikimedia.org

Sherman wrote in September 1864, as he laid siege of Atlanta in the attempts to end the war of secession; otherwise known as the American Civil War.

Who would have surmised that in the weeks following the day dedicated to honoring fallen soldiers with wreaths placed at monuments, the country would be swept with a wave of their destruction? It’s painful as it is necessary. Painful because a monument is a way of honoring good deeds of leaders  and the memory of dearly beloved relatives and friends. Necessary because for others rocks shaped into monuments can be the terrible reminder of atrocities suffered by beloved relatives and friends.

As the Union army captured Atlanta Sherman sent a letter to its civic leaders recommending they evacuate their citizens. He intended to destroy its infrastructure in the effort to end the long and bloody war. The line of logic concludes: “war is war and you cannot refine it”. The city was destroyed but its inhabitants spared.

Left: Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and his staff in the trenches outside of Atlanta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_campaign Right:https://commons. Right ShermanAtlanta.wikimedia

The American Civil War threatened the collapse of a young nation. Of greater interest today is that it ended slavery or at least delegitimized it. In the effort to reunite the nation monuments were made in many towns and cities across the country. It was as a way of grieving for lost sons, fathers and brothers –casualties that exceeded more than all other US wars combined. Building monuments became as it were a path towards reconciliation and forgiveness.

Recent events remind us we still have a long way to go by way of reconciliation and healing. Honest conversations about monuments are important.  Discussions are futile if not supported by real change eradicating  economic and social disparity due to systemic racism. Underlining both these questions is a deeper one: to what extent and in what ways do we as a people wish to preserve what we know as the United Sates of America?  

I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_James_M._Calhoun,_et_al.,_September_12,_1864

Sherman continued in his letter to the citizens of Atlanta. He tried to show through deeds his desire to works towards peace and unity. Do I know how to do that? Am I willing to make sacrifices to do so?

Mathew Brady (1823–1896) – The Photography Book, Phaidon Press, London 1997

Sherman was convinced : “You cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop.”  Creating a more perfect union by way of  thoughtful engagement, compromise and consensus is not easy. But it’s necessary if we wish to continue to strengthen unity through diversity under the longest enduring constitution the world has known.  Yes, our country is imperfect. Yes, it’s easier to destroy than to create, demolish than to build, tear than to mend and kill than to heal. But what would be left to bind us a country?

Achieving the more perfect union the framers of the constitution, our forefathers and mothers envisioned compels me like Sherman to want to work towards building, creating, mending and healing. A commitment to liberty and justice for all is a war of a different sort that provides conditions for peace to endure.  That’s a war of independence worth fighting.

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Art of Living Culture and Value

Memorial Day

At some point during its 150th year history Memorial Day, the holiday commemorating war dead evolved into the unofficial kickoff to summer.  In California the lines between summer and the rest of the year are blurred since are grills fired up and flip-flops worn all year round. In New England Memorial Day marks when you can begin wearing summer whites and eat lobster and hopefully get the grill going. Throughout the country parades, salutes and other commemorations still happen but are eclipsed by traffic jams, sporting events and Memorial Day sales.

The origin of the holiday is unclear but by the end of the Civil War the practice of decorating markers and remembering the fallen in battle was widespread in the North and the South. Undoubtedly many of our parents and grandparents participated in the victory parades after WWII. I remember one Memorial Day in a small New England town—I think I was 8 or 9. The day started at the local cemetery. There a brass quartet of the locals played taps and other musical tributes at the graves of the fallen, their markers already decorated with flags. A parade around the commons followed comprised of no more than 30 people. Leading were the veterans of the two World Wars, the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. Behind them were children with decorated tricycles, bikes and Red Flyers. That was the parade. When it was over, we went back home and had a cookout.  

Village Green-Temple, New Hampshire

This year’s Memorial Day is the first national holiday since the global pandemic gripped our lives. When the shut down rolled across the country nine weeks ago we probably never expected being in such a prolonged state of uncertainty and disruption.  The grim reality of 100,000 deaths will reminds us that this plague is not going away anytime soon. On Friday flags flew in memory of those who perished. The New York Times printed the names of 1% of them on the first page of Sunday’s paper. It’s fitting; reminding us of that we’re still at war—this time with an invisible enemy. Heroes fighting to defeat Covid-19 surround us and they give us hope.

How should we remember this Memorial Day? Taps played at a cemetery, perhaps even an outdoor brass quartet at a gazebo while observing social distancing.  Memorial Day services and parades live streamed or broadcasted in other social distancing ways. And of course family cook outs. We honor the fallen of the armed forces for we can never take their sacrifices for granted. But this year we’ll remember those of all ages, and health conditions who succumb to this pandemic including health care responders who sacrificed their lives for us. We won’t forget. This Memorial Day is like no other.

Categories
Art of Living Culture and Value

Navigating Life in Times of Pandemic

boba-jovanovic-nfQo34LLCVY-unsplash
Photo by Boba Jovanovic on Unsplash

At the end of March New York Times reported: “COVID-19 is the largest public health crisis in modern American history. To date more than 17,000 cases have been detected and 200 people have died.” Four weeks later there are 1.5 million confirmed cases and close to 70,000 deaths in the United States alone. It’s the largest crisis our nation has faced in recent history.  It has dramatically changed our world and our lives will not be the same as before.

However, COVID-19 is neither the first pandemic nor the last. A hundred years ago another pandemic generated similar disruptions. Between 1918-1919 fifty-to-one-hundred million people died in a year and a half — 650,000 in the United States. (smithsonianmag.com). Older adults with underlining health conditions are the majority of fatalities of our pandemic. But the majority of lives taken during the 1918-1919 influenza were those of otherwise healthy young adults. Many stricken, soldiers of WWI returning to the States contracted the flu while in Europe. They became sick rapidly while on board closed quarters of ships. Within hours of displaying symptoms, people’s conditions would worsen and they would die.

Camp Devens

While the epidemic reached every part of the country including remote Alaskan villages, Boston and several other U.S. port cities were hit especially hard. It’s not clear why healthy young adults were particularly prone to catching the disease and succumbing to death.  My grandparents were young adults at that time. They survived–or I wouldn’t be here today.  Unfortunately, the stories of how my predecessors persevered are now buried with them. Thus, I’ll have to conjecture based on snippets from historical research and generational storytelling.

Photo by Gabriele Strvinskaite on Unsplash

My great-grandfather Paul Thorndike was a surgeon at Boston City Hospital and an early advocate of meticulous hand washing and the disinfecting of surgical instruments prior to operations. As late as the beginning of the 20th century little was known about how germs spread. Presumably my great-grandfather had contact with people of Boston who had contracted the virus. Maybe he was even one of the specialists brought to Fort Devens 20 miles west of Boston to examine the young soldiers returning to the US with this deadly unknown virus. In any case there’s no record of him contracting the illness and he lived for another twenty years. His wife, my great grandmother Rachel, did not. A second wave of the virus surged in the fall of 1919. She was one of the several thousand who contracted it and died in October of that year. Her obituary omitted the cause of death; focusing rather on details of the funeral. David Brooks commenting on the PBS NewsHour in early March noted that the influenza of 1918-1919 was widespread and swift. People of all ages died within several days of showing symptoms. Families weren’t able to cope with how fast they were losing their loved ones and often they had to bury their own relatives. Brooks’ point was that people came up short either by lack of financial resources or by circumstances less blameless; the nation wanted to move quickly past the tragic state of affairs.

  • Helen Allingham
  • Anna Thorndike
  • Rachel Thorndike with her father

Paul and Rachel Thorndike’s youngest daughter, Anna, my grandmother, was in France volunteering with the Red Cross when her mother got sick and died. Since travel was still by ship in those days she didn’t return home in time for the burial.  A few years later, Nan met her future husband, John Rock, who graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1918. Earlier he had tried to enlist in the army to fight in the Great War but failed to qualify. Strangely, it appears from his journals he had little if anything to do with providing medical assistance during the pandemic. After graduating he began studies and work specializing in the fields that eventually shaped his long medical practice and research in gynecology and obstetrics including for the working poor of the tenement slums of Boston. Helen Allingham, my father’s mother migrated from New Brunswick, Canada and worked as a nurse’s aid. What were her stories? Facing death daily? Or perhaps caring for the sick in other hidden ways. Who knows? Her stories, like those of my maternal grandparents and their parents from those years, are also forgotten. As a child I remember that she would insist that hand washing, Cream of Wheat and cod liver oil were the best ways to boost the immune system. It never entered my ten year old brain to ask her why.

Two of my grandparents died before I was born or shortly thereafter. The other two were alive while I was writing high school and college essays on what makes for a meaningful life. But it never occurred to me to ask people around me who had lived full purposeful lives how they did so. Maybe that’s still true nowadays; it doesn’t occur to us to ask those who are older and presumably wiser how they faced challenges when they were our age. On the other hand, maybe a pandemic can actually wake us of out somnolence. We can think to ask questions that matter. What can I learn from my ancestors? Maybe I would ask Paul Thorndike and John Rock how and why they chose medicine and what helped them persist in finding solutions to dire human conditions. I would ask Rachel what was it like to care for her own parents when they died. I would ask my grandmother Nan about driving ambulances in post war France and my grandmother Helen about nursing with little training and resources during a pandemic. What can I do to transform knowledge into an art of living of one’s own shaping? How do my decisions and behavior impact the lives of the people around me? Do I care?

If there were ever a time to reflect on what it means to live an intentional, meaningful or caring life it would be now during a crisis that impacts everyone of us. First responders and health care works show us how to strengthen resilience and cultivate compassion. Data may determine public health policy and even best practice for preventing spread of a virus but it doesn’t show me how to care for people around me. Data doesn’t teach me how to be kind and merciful.   We may not be faced with such epic moments of life and death. But we all are faced with the challenge of going beyond the froth of a superficial living and navigating into the deep; the wind and waves of a live well lived. Choosing to do so will make all the difference.

Photo by Jordan Madrid on Upsplash
Categories
Culture and Value

A Winter Day in Monterey

hills of Monterey –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ord

“The intervals between rains give the finest weather possible”

Memoirs of W.T. Sherman Volume I

So writes W. T. Sherman of his first stay in Monterey, California in February of 1847.  Recently I spent a few days close to the Carmel River just south of Monterey.  While gazing along the Carmel valley, river, mountains and sea I thought about how it could have been like for my grandfather Sherman mounted on horseback exploring these very same places.

As in Sherman’s time this year’s winter rains marked their recent visit with “bright green grass with endless flowers”.  While Sherman experienced something of a warmer tropical climate in Florida his growing years included winters in Ohio and later New York. Thus, a February of flowers and green fields remained vivid enough in his memory to write of it in detail years later in his memoirs.

Having grown up in New England I recall my initial disbelief of green hills and flowers typical in northern California in February after five days of precipitation. Similarly, I was shocked at the dryness and barren shrubbery of August. The hills of the ‘Golden State’ seemed highly over rated.  But now like rain water I store expansive vistas of green hills and flowers for the arid dusty days of summer. I’ve now come to think of the hills that have turned a dreary brown as golden.

Before reaching Carmel I drove past the artichoke fields of Castroville and Salinas Valley.  Then on through Seaside and Sand City the “pretty valley and sandy country covered by oak bushes and scrub” that Sherman writes of. Closer to the Monterey shoreline, dilapidated buildings of old Fort Ord, strip malls and parking lots have replaced oak bushes and scrub that Sherman once traversed with his horse.

However, once closer to Carmel the valley and river bird, fish and foul life resemble in kind if not in numbers what Sherman would have seen. Birds of all sorts were gathering for nesting, ducks and mallards were busy fishing for their breakfast, deer emerged from thickets  and walked by their intruder (that would be me) towards the river’s edge to quench their morning thirst.  A flock of geese flew overhead. “The Carmel is a lovely little river –John Steinbeck writes in Cannery Row—It isn’t very long but in its course it has everything a river should have.”

“It’s everything a river should be “

John Steinbeck Cannery Row Viking Press-Compass Book Edition, 1963

The river adroitly reflects the rainy and dry seasons of Carmel. Accordingly during rainy season it floods even violently and then subsides to what can seem a little more than a large stream as meanders through the valley and on to the Pacific a dozen miles or so  to the west. This time the river was burbling with excitement as if its fresh waters knew the course would soon end-or begin in a vast ocean on the horizon.

Carmel River and Lagoon, photography by H.McKay

Curious, I went with a friend to the Carmel River beach north of Point Lobos where the river shifts into a lagoon before flowing to the Pacific. When overtaken by high tide the seemingly small pool of water merges with the ocean. We learned that the hard way. We parked our car and enchanted with the afternoon sunlight and migratory birds in the lagoon we quickly walked over a sandbar to continue along the beach toward the southeast. However once the sun was setting we started heading back only to find that river waters of the lagoon and surf waters of the Pacific swallowed our little land bridge. Wading through the waters didn’t seem to be an option given the incrementally growing relentless surf of the Pacific.

Perhaps Sherman camped on this very beach, as the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola did while running low on food supplies in 1769 as did the Ohlone-Esselen. But I had no desire for such similar adventures.

The parking lot was within sight.  But access was not. Immediately surrounding us was beach, water and no clear way of returning to the car without a ten-mile hike.  Thankfully we encountered a local resident out for an evening stroll. She led us up the pathway from the otherwise isolated beach into adjacent streets and drove us along the coastal highway.  Following the north side of the river we past the legendary Carmel mission, a turn of last century ranch now a restaurant-resort and made a quick turn through quaint neighborhood streets.  With the sun setting over the Pacific, We reached the beach parking lot shortly before its closing.   

With Steinbeck’s and Sherman’s descriptions of Carmel river and valley in mind, the river’s final egress to the Pacific emphatically declared as it were of convergence of memories of time and place flowing back into the sea.

“ When the wind blows – the grass whistles and whispers in myths and riddles and not in our language–the sea is always the sea”

Mary Oliver The Oak Tree Loves Patience Collection Blue Horses, Penguin Books 2014

And so it is.

Carmel River and Beach at dusk
Categories
Culture and Value

Monterey, California 1847

historic Monterey

Recently rereading volume one of the W.T. Sherman’s Memoirs, I discovered this past January 26, marked the 173rd anniversary of his arrival to Monterey California. By his own description he was a young army officer, hoping to gain fame and glory in the Mexican War. Instead he was sent to keep the peace in the main port of entry in Alta California recently transferred to U.S. possession. His first stay lasted just short of two years yet a pivotal time and watershed moment in California’s history—the discovery of gold. Sherman’s eyewitness accounts are descriptive and sometimes entertaining though not particularly insightful. Except for one observation—that the discovery of gold would forever change the landscape and history of California.

I live in the Bay Area and over the years I’ve visited Monterey, California several times. This coming February 8th marks the 200th year of WTS’ birth in Lancaster, Ohio. Since I’m not able to attend the upcoming festivities hosted by the Sherman House Museum and Fairfield County Historical Society, I commemorated the upcoming occasion by visiting the historic old town of Monterey imagining what it must have been like when a young army officer set off for adventures on the other side of the continent and lived there in the wake of times that shaped its own story.

  • “[Monterey bay] is shaped somewhat like a fish-hook, the barb being the harbor, the point being Point Pinos, the southern headland.” p45
  • “Captain Bayiley gave directions to alter the course of the ship more to the north, and follow the coast up and to keep a good lookout for Point Pinos that marks the location of Monterey Bay.” p45
  • “it was found that we were North of Ano Nuevo, the northern headland of Monterey Bay.” p45
  • “everything was in a bustle when the old Lexington dropped her anchor on January 26, 1847 in Monterey Bay after after a voyage of 198 days from New York.” p46
  • “nothing could be more peaceful in its looks than Monterey in January 1847” p 46
Monterey Bay
  • young WTS
  • back side of adobe cottage
  • one room interior of adobe cottage
  • Larkin House garden
  • historic Monterey
  • the adobe cottage adjacent to the Larkin House, residence of young Sherman
  • Larkin House
  • “everything was in a bustle when the old Lexington dropped her anchor on January 26, 1847 in Monterey Bay after after a voyage of 198 days from New York.” p46
  • “nothing could be more peaceful in its looks than Monterey in January 1847” p 46
  • “everybody was talking of “Gold! gold!!” until it assumed the character of a fever. p68
Monterey then and now
Categories
Culture and Value Uncategorized US History

Sherman’s Stuff

Sherman's Tent, Sherman House Mluseum, Lancaster OH

Lost and Found

Sherman’s Hat– Smithsonian Museum of American History

It’s that time of year when people are spring-cleaning. Garage sales, flea markets and EBay will be selling whatever is not tossed or given away. The proverbial one “person’s junk is another’s treasure” is the operative phrase of this time honored practice. And while looking at this ‘stuff’, we do well us to remember that “all that glitters is not gold” before we click to purchase or pull out our wallets.

I have nothing that would engross profits.

Sherman Family Letters, 1865

Spring-cleaning implies the gargantuan task of sorting; what is kept and what is to find a new place. For the environmentally conscious dumping is the option of last resort. De-cluttering attics, basements, garages and large barns or storage units is not for the faint of heart. But I digress, that’s another topic emotionally charged and too big to include here. More relevant are those items that are kept carefully so as to pass along to future generations as a witness to the past and a legacy for the future.

Sherman’s Sword Smithsonian Museum of American History

Recently I learned of Sherman memorabilia to sold at auction. After the initial shock of noting that these items of prominence (at least in my view) are not within the confines of a museum or library -I sent an email blast to my immediate cousins. “Where did these items come from? “-I asked. They didn’t know. The lot to be auctioned includes the Sherman family Bible. Bibles, I note were often the repository of family events and memories, and in some cases pious commentary. Family trees were also recorded in them. I’m curious if the said Sherman Bible might include his own commentary providing a keyhole into his inner thought. Then again, maybe he never opened it. Also in this collection is another sword, personal correspondence and war memorabilia. My cousins also presumed that such items were safely guarded in museums like the Smithsonian and the Sherman House in Lancaster Ohio and a few universities. This is where our aunts, grandmother and great-grandmother bequeathed most of the items in their possession. A few items remained in their childhood home of my mother and her sisters. But perhaps after some mishaps, like my mother taking Sherman’s rifle (so the story goes) when she was 7 and losing it someplace deep in the autumn New England woods of fallen leaves behind the their house, it probably was decided that family heirlooms would be better suited for museums and centers of learning. At least they wouldn’t be lost.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s illustration Conversation with Smaug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smaug

Malcolm Gladwell notes in a podcast Revisionist History; Dragon Psychology 101 that there’s a difference between hoarding and collecting. This distinction helps to explain what we keep and sort and why. Collecting and curating objects require some rationale or rubric. While Gladwell defines hoarding as indiscriminate collecting; he observes that there’s still some sort of rational but for different reasons. This would be another instance of “one person’s junk is another’s treasure” as it were. Gladwell notes that hoarders know what they’re keeping for reasons, sometime visceral that the rest of us don’t understand. In this episode Gladwell also cites Smaug the fire belting dragon of J.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and poem The Hoard. The poem tells of a beast that jealously keeps treasures for his pleasure only. Gladwell observes that in addition to some individuals, some large art museums with holdings buried in warehouses that seldom can be seen in the light of day are like Smaug [that] to his belly’s slime gems stuck’. The Hoard J.R.R. Tolkien.


Photo by Sergey Sokolov on Unsplash

It makes perfect sense that other Sherman descendants come to the conclusion that now is the time to off load memorabilia of our mutual grandfather x 3 in their possession. Keeping artifacts in an attic and saving them for the future generations when they don’t even want our stuff doesn’t make sense. Thus, I respect my relatives decision to sell these items. Admittedly though there’s a part of me that worries that they could be condemned to a futile existence tucked away in someone else’s basement or private collection where no one but a Smaug is sitting on them. Stories these items could someday convey will no longer be accessible nor remembered.

Sherman’s wife Ellen was the collector (if not all out hoarder) and memory keeper of the family. Sherman seems to have just been interested in keeping what was useful and most memorable to him. He was willing to part with some of his private collection of books and maps giving them to the Louisiana Military School since much of their holdings were destroyed during the Civil War. For Sherman it was personal—he was the school’s first superintendent resigning from the school when the state voted to secede from the Union. There were other items he also freely parted with: While he was in the last stage of his military campaign and was already celebrated as a war hero, Ellen wrote to him asking if he had anything he could send her that she could sell at a charity fundraiser for wounded soldiers. He responded;

“I have nothing that would engross profits —my saddlebags a few old traps, etc. I could collect plenty of trophies [presumably he means war booty and stolen goods], but have always refrained and think it best I should. Others do collect trophies and send [them] home but I prefer not to do it.”

Sherman Family Letters, 1865
Navajo Blanket-Smithsonian Museum

A traditional Navajo blanket once belonging to Sherman is at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Could it have been gifted to him during the signing of the 1868 Navajo Peace treaty? Did he use it as a saddle blanket or on his camping trips? How it came to his possession remains unknown to me. For now I’m grateful it’s at the Smithsonian accessible for the time when I or others can unravel that story nestled in the weave.

Returning to the upcoming auction, I can only hope that some advocate of history will want to rescue these items from a doomed existence of a private –never to be seen again collection in a place like Smaug’s lair. It’s my hope that the collections finds a new home in a museum, library or place of learning, that is the memory keepers of culture. That way the commentators of our time and indeed all who are curious can delve into the past as to make sense the present world around us. In Tolkien’s words “all that is gold does not glitter”.

You can view the Sherman items to be auctioned on May 14, 2024 here and listed to the Gladwell’s episode Dragon Psychology 101 here. You can listen to J.R. R. Tolkien reading his poem The Hoard here. You can read my previous post about Navajo Peace Treaty here. And if you’re ever in Fairfield County Ohio visit the W.T. Sherman House Museum A thoughtful visit through the house and gardens will transport you to earlier times of our country and the world most familiar to Sherman and his family.

Categories
Art of Living Culture and Value US History

New Year’s Eve in Monterey

This is the season of dancing and there has been a good deal of it, in fact one is looked for every Sunday night.

February 3, 1848, Sherman’s Family Letters

Writes Sherman to his family from Monterey California. More than a year earlier, that is New Year’s eve of 1846  he was still en-route by ship to his new assignment. The voyage lasted close to one year.  And the new year celebration of 1846-1847 was marked by a pleasant stretch of “fair wind and truly Pacific sea crossing the equator in Longitude 117 West”. 

Nautical Clock 1759, By Tatters ❀ from Brisbane, Australia – Wikimedia Commons

While the passage to California provided enough adventures to satisfy anyone looking for them, the tasks that lay ahead at first seemed to young Sherman dull with little prospects of career advancement which he deemed essential to eventually supporting a family. The war with Mexico including the battle of Monterey in July 1846 ended by the time Sherman arrived six months later. Thus, instead of participating in combat, he was assigned tedious duties of managing military affairs in an outpost that also served as the port of entry of foreign goods in Alta California.

The young lieutenant’s reaction to his assignment in California was ambivalent.  Letters to his family and future wife reflect his mixed feelings. On the one hand he lamented that there’s no hope for military promotion and more pay now that the Mexican war had ended. On the other, he was clearly enjoying hist post in a bustling  port town still heavily dominated by Spanish and Mexican customs and ways of life.  At that time it seems that theater productions, dances and horse racing far surpass church activity despite the cathedral being one of the oldest and most prominent building of the town. And so, after complaining of the scant career opportunities he reports on the party life and leisure activities even as he critiques the frivolity with his typical ironic humor.

“The officers gave the ‘great ball’ of the season on New Year’s Eve – wrote young Sherman.  ‘You have no doubt heard of the Mexican custom of filling eggshells with cologne and other fragrant water to break upon passers by. Here it is carried to a great extent but confined to the house and chiefly at balls and dances.The shells are mostly filled with gilt and colored paper cut very fine, which broken overhead leave it covered with spangles. The ladies break over the gentlemen’s heads and the reverse, and so great are the liberties taken to accomplish the feat that some from behind will clasp your arms tight whilst others shower on the Cascarones’ (filled eggshells). They do not like the shell filled with perfumed water as it produces stains on the dresses and also causes colds to which these people are very subject. It is polite to avoid a Cascacron and even to grasp a lady’s hand to crush the shell in it, if she be in the act of breaking it, but  when a gentleman gets a Cascaron on his head he is bound to return it which is sometimes quite difficult when the ladies are skilled in dodging. You can scarcely imagine the extent to which this is carried [out]. At a small party a few nights ago, there were upwards of four hundred Cascarones broken among a party of not over twenty-five persons. “

February 3, 1848, Sherman Family Letters
  • Women’s Evening Dress c. 1842 By MET Museum –
  • Men’s Jacket By MET Museum
Mid 19th cent evening wear https://www.metmuseum.org

He continues describing how ‘the ladies’ can spend the whole day preparing the cascarones, which apparently are still in use today in Mexico to mark various celebrations. And he concludes:

I have often laughed to see a whole party of grown men, myself included sitting round a table clipping this stuff in preparation for a coming dance, but the customs of Monterey are as sensible as the customs of other places, and must be respected.

Sherman Family Letters 1848

While cracking egg shells on the heads of our family, friends and neighbors may not be our thing, may our own welcoming the New Year be as festive and safe as Sherman’s in Monterey.

Photo: By Rubina Shrestha
Categories
History of the West US History

Sutter’s Fort July 4, 1848

Sherman writes of celebrating Independence Day during his first stay in California. At that time the country was rapidly expanding and yet it hadn’t even reached its centennial. He along with other military personnel stationed in Monterey were en route to the American River to inspect and report on the recent findings of gold which had already radically changed the flow of history in ways that merit attention in some future musings. Here I just focus on Sherman’s journey, from Monterey by sailing vessel, dugouts, horseback and foot (which will also warrant a separate entry) to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range some 200 miles north east. Along the way they stopped at Sutter’s Fort built by Swiss John Augustus Sutter a self proclaimed ruler who had established a plantation/colony of sorts under nefarious conditions and circumstances. Sherman makes no mention of this. Instead he writes only of the visit en route towards the goldfields along the riverbeds.

Sherman writes:

The fort itself was one of adobe-walls, about twenty feed high, rectangular in form with two-story block-houses at diagonal corners the entrance was bay a large gate, open by day and closed at night, with two iron ship’s guns near at hand. Inside there was a large house with a good shingle-roof, used as a storehouse, and all around the walls were ranged rooms, the fort-wall being the outer wall of the house. The inner wall was of adobe. These rooms were used by Captain Sutter himself and by his people. He had a blacksmith’s shop, carpenter’s shop, etc., and other rooms where the women made blankets.

We found preparations in progress for celebrating the Fourth of July, then close at hand and we agreed to remain over to assist on the occasion; of course, being the high officials, we were the honored guests. People came from a great distance to attend this celebration of the Fourth of July and the tables were laid in the large room inside the storehouse of the fort. A man of some note, named Sinclair, presided, and after a substantial mean and a reasonable supply of aguardiente   we began the toasts. All that I remember is that Folsom and I spoke for our party; others, Captain Sutter included, made speeches, and before the celebration was over Sutter was very “tight,” and many others showed the effects of the aguardiente.   

Gold Regions of California James Wyld 1849 www.wdl.org

Map of Gold Strikes 1848 -1849

The next day (namely July 5, 1848) we resumed our journey toward the mines, and, in twenty-five miles of as hot and dusty a ride as possible we reached Mormon Island”

W.T. Sherman Memoirs Vol I
(L)US Flag 1851 (California’s entry into the Union),(R) California State Flag

Sherman’s eye witness account of the discovery of gold in California and its rapid chaotic transformation offers perspectives that deserve more attention. Perhaps though the July 4th at Sutter’s Fort was one of the first commemoration of a still very newly formed democratic republic committed –however inconsistently and imperfectly– to the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

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