General George Meade After the Battle of Gettysburg

Major General George G. Meade, a Union general during the American Civil War, has a reputation that has been historically criticized and misunderstood. Despite his important contributions at the Battle of Gettysburg and his cautious approach to warfare, he faced criticism for not aggressively pursuing and defeating Lee's army. Lloyd W Klein explains.

Major General George Gordon Meade.

During the war, Meade’s poor relationships with the press of his time and his secondary role under Grant further damaged his post-war reputation. However, modern appraisals recognize his competence and tactical acumen, including his appreciation for advancements in weapons technology. Meade's campaigns after Gettysburg, such as the Fall 1863 campaigns and the Overland Campaign, showcased his abilities as a general. While Grant's strategy ultimately led to victory, Meade played a crucial role in positioning his army to implement Grant's vision and should be credited for his contributions to the Union's success. It doesn’t help that the Overland Campaign was directed by Grant and that his victory at Gettysburg is typically considered a one-off.  The misunderstanding of the Williamsport circumstance will probably never be repaired.

Meade took command of the Union Army just a few days before the Gettysburg battle. General Meade commanded the Union Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg, and is regarded as a competent and capable general. Meade's leadership both preparing for and during the Battle of Gettysburg is often praised. He successfully organized his forces and made critical decisions that ultimately led to a Union victory in that significant battle. His strategic positioning and defensive preparations played a crucial role in repelling numerous Confederate attacks.

He faced Lee in two other campaigns in Fall 1863. They did not succeed.  For this, given that Grant won the war the year after, he is universally, but unfairly, criticized as another Union general hack. Yet few Civil War aficionados have studied these campaigns in much detail.

Meade was a competent general and a modest man. He was thorough, methodical and cautious; his engineering background had made him someone who planned his maneuvers carefully.

However, Meade's tenure as the overall commander of the Army of the Potomac was not without criticism. Some argue that he missed opportunities for more aggressive action and failed to decisively pursue and defeat General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army after the Gettysburg victory. Additionally, his cautious approach in subsequent campaigns, such as the Mine Run Campaign, drew criticism from his superiors.

Overall, while Meade's leadership at Gettysburg demonstrated his ability as a competent general, opinions on his overall performance during the Civil War vary among historians and military experts. A great deal of the bias we today have against Meade has its origins in the Congressional Investigations after Gettysburg. We today have the impression that Grant was brought east to supervise Meade and we therefore think that Grant held him in contempt

His post bellum reputation was damaged by his poor relationships with the press of his time, and his secondary role under Grant in 1864. We today have the impression that Grant was brought east to supervise Meade and we therefore think that Grant held him in contempt. The damaging consequences of the controversy arising from Gettysburg with General Sickles has also been damaging. Modern appraisals recognize Meade’s important contributions at Gettysburg.  His tactics in the field were one of the few that showed an appreciation for the improvements in weapons technology in the war:  he entrenched when feasible and did not launch frontal assaults on fortified positions.

Gettysburg Aftermath: Williamsport

Following the Battle of Gettysburg, the retreating Confederate troops and ambulance train occupied Williamsport. The retreat required an active rear guard defense and was mainly carried out in the rain. ,Meade was widely criticized for failing to pursue aggressively and defeat Lee's army after Gettysburg. Although Lincoln and Stanton insisted on his following Lee, Meade may have been justified in not attempting a rapid pursuit.

At the three-day battle at Gettysburg, Meade's forces had suffered heavy casualties, and he needed time to regroup, reorganize, and resupply his army. The Army of the Potomac  (AoP) had sustained over 20,000 casualties including the loss of many of its best officers, including three corps commanders.  Attacking immediately after Gettysburg would have put additional strain on his troops and risked further losses.

Following the Battle of Gettysburg, the retreating Confederate troops and ambulance train occupied Williamsport. Expecting to cross over the pontoon bridge they had constructed to get to Maryland, Lee had not been informed that a cavalry raid on July 4 had destroyed the bridge. Moreover,  there had been many days of rain after the battle, causing the Potomac River to rise. The Confederate Army was therefore trapped by the impassible Potomac. Under the direction of Brig Gen John Imboden, during the Confederate retreat, the wagon trains with thousands of wounded soldiers were escorted back to Virginia., Lee had not reached the town until a couple of days after an important cavalry attack that Imboden defended against. Imboden successfully managed to retreat and gather his forces, despite harassment from Union cavalry, to create defensive works against Union assault. Imboden was assigned to leading the ambulances, subsistence trains and cattle plundered during the campaign back to Virginia, with the active army in the rear as protection. When Lee arrived in Williamsport, he found the bridge out, the fords impassable, and no way to get over the river.

Meade chose not  to attack Lee in his trenches, believing the position could not be successfully breached. Attacking a well-entrenched enemy in this defensive position across a wide open field would have been a highly risky endeavor, potentially resulting in heavy casualties for Meade's forces.

Thirdly, Meade faced logistical challenges and supply issues. His army relied on a long and stretched supply line, and engaging in a major offensive action immediately after Gettysburg would have put additional strain on the already taxed supply system. Meade needed time to replenish his ammunition, food, and other essential supplies before considering another large-scale attack.

Expecting to cross over the pontoon bridge they had constructed to get to Maryland, Lee had not been informed that a cavalry raid on July 4 had destroyed the bridge. Moreover,  there had been many days of rain after the battle, causing the Potomac River to rise. The Confederate Army was therefore trapped by the impassible Potomac. Imboden was assigned to leading the ambulances, subsistence trains and cattle plundered during the campaign back to Virginia, with the active army in the rear as protection. When he arrived in Williamsport, he found the bridge out, the fords impassable, and no way to get over the river.

Expecting an attack, Brigadier General John D. Imboden set up defensive positions along the crest of a ridge about one-half mile from Williamsport on July 6. Arriving at Williamsport, Imboden found the pontoon bridge destroyed, and Federal cavalry attacked the wagon train of wounded. On July 6, 1863, the Potomac River flooding at Williamsport, Maryland, trapped Imboden's wagon train. He put together a defensive force that included an artillery battery and as many of the wounded who could operate muskets.

Late in the afternoon of July 6, 1863, Union cavalry under the command of Brigadier General John Buford arrived east of Williamsport, flanking the town. Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick took a different route that took him down the main road.  At sundown Union Brigadier General George A. Custer and his Michigan "Wolverines" arrived to fight but were quickly withdrawn.

By July 7, Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden stopped Brig. Gen. John Buford's Union cavalry from occupying Williamsport and destroying Confederate trains. On July 6, Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry division drove two Confederate cavalry brigades through Hagerstown before being forced to retire by the arrival of the rest of Stuart's command.

On the morning of July 14, Kilpatrick's and Buford's cavalry divisions approached from the north and east respectively. Before allowing Buford to gain a position on the flank and rear, Kilpatrick attacked the rearguard division of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth, taking more than 500 prisoners. Confederate Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew was mortally wounded in the fight.

On July 16, Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg's cavalry approached Shepherdstown where the brigades of Brig. Gens. Fitzhugh Lee and John R. Chambliss, supported by Col. Milton J. Ferguson's brigade, held the Potomac River fords against the Union infantry. Fitzhugh Lee and Chambliss attacked Gregg, who held out against several attacks and sorties, fighting sporadically until nightfall, when he withdrew. Meade chose not  to attack Lee in his trenches, believing the position could not be successfully breached.

Congressional Investigation of Gettysburg

In a 1961 article, The Strange Reputation of General Meade, Edwin Coddington wrote that Sickles’ attacks on Meade “greatly contributed to an unfavorable opinion of him as a commanding general, which has persisted to this day.” Coddington concluded that, “Sickles’ persistence in continuing his feud long after Meade’s death in 1872 had deep and lasting effects on publicists and historians of the battle,” and that “Sickles achieved a large measure of success” in his campaign to sully Meade’s name.

When Meade denied a request by Sickles to return to command, Sickles sought revenge. In February 1864, he went before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a highly influential committee dominated by Radical Republicans, and gave distorted testimony that Meade had handled the army ineptly at Gettysburg—that the Union army had won a great victory despite Meade. Notably, Sickles alleged that on the battle’s second day Meade had been a coward, eager to retreat rather than fight.

The two most important witnesses against him were:

a) Major General Abner Doubleday supported Sickles’ egregious claims by testifying that Meade had played favorites in command assignments. Doubleday in particular was bitter that Meade had ignored army seniority and not promoted him to command of the 1st Corps after its commander, Maj. Gen. John Reynolds, was killed early on July 1—instead choosing Maj. Gen. John Newton as Reynolds’ replacement.

b) Hooker’s Chief of Staff, Daniel Butterworth, who Meade kept on during the battle of Gettysburg (remember, he had just 3 days to prepare!). Butterfield, a close friend of Sickles’ and Hooker’s, falsely testified about the claimed July 2 order to retreat. Sickles elevated his attack on Meade when he (or a close associate) penned an anonymous article by “Historicus” in the March 12, 1864, edition of The New York Herald, the nation’s largest newspaper. Historicus condemned Meade’s handling of Gettysburg while praising the brave and brilliant Sickles. The article claimed Meade had ordered his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Butterfield, to prepare an order of retreat on July 2, the battle’s second day. The Historicus piece set off a firestorm, and stories of Meade’s alleged inadequacies appeared in papers nationwide.

The Joint Committee’s Radical Republicans wanted “Fighting Joe” Hooker back in command of the Army of the Potomac. The committee’s leaders, Chairman Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, demanded Lincoln dismiss Meade even before he had an opportunity to testify. President Lincoln declined to order a Court of Inquiry. The president wanted Meade fighting Confederates, not a political conflict against a fellow general.

The Fall 1863 Campaigns

After the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee retreated back across the Potomac River to Virginia and concentrated behind the Rapidan River.  Early in September 1863, Lee dispatched two divisions of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's Corps to reinforce the Confederate Army of Tennessee for the Battle of Chickamauga. Meade knew that Lee had been weakened by the departure of Longstreet and wanted to take advantage. Meade advanced his army to the Rappahannock River in August, and on September 13 he moved the AoP forward to confront Lee along the Rapidan. Lee was occupying Culpeper, Virginia, following the Battle of Culpeper Court House. Meade planned to use his numerical superiority in a broad turning movement, similar to the one planned by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker in the Battle of Chancellorsville that spring.

A traditional interpretation of this campaign is that Lee, despite having lost Longstreet’s Corps to the west, nevertheless beat Meade in the Bristoe Campaign. The reality is that on September 24 the Union split its forces as well, sending the XI and XII Corps to the Chattanooga campaign in Tennessee. It is interesting that this critical fact is rarely mentioned. Instead, the importance of Bristoe is nearly always depreciated. Its failure is often portrayed as the reason Grant was brought east, because its shows Meade to be too conservative to win.

In fact, four battles took place: Auburn, Bristoe Station, Buckland Mills, and Rappahannock Station. Every one of these is south of Manassas. Two are not far from Chancellorsville and the location of the Wilderness.

Lee knew of the departing Union corps, and early in October he began an offensive sweep around Cedar Mountain with his remaining two corps, attempting to turn Meade's right flank. Meade, despite having superior numbers, did not wish to give battle in a position that did not offer him the advantage and ordered a withdrawal along the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.

Lee had been planning to go into winter quarters at Culpepper. Instead, he set up south of the Rapidan. In fact, the AoP occupied  Brandy Station and Culpepper that winter. Meade had escaped allowing a major battle in a disadvantageous location and Lee had lost ground. It was certainly inconclusive – because Meade saw the danger.

Lincoln and Stanton weren’t mollified by the lack of progress in the Bristoe Campaign and pressured Meade to do more. Meade responded by planning a march to strike the ANV south of the Rapidan. He had intelligence suggesting that Lee had made a miscalculation in his positioning. But an incredibly incompetent Union general and an outrageously courageous movement by a Confederate general saved the ANV after a brief but deadly conflict few appreciate. Traditional history suggests Meade was incompetent and ignores this action as having any importance, which is completely wrong: he almost had Lee trapped.

Meade actually planned a rapid movement just west of Chancellorsville and where the Wilderness would be the next Spring. In fact, the Union movements were in the same general vicinity.

Unfortunately, Maj. Gen. William H. French's III Corps got mired in fording the river at Jacob's Ford, causing traffic jams when they moved their artillery to Germanna Ford, where other units were attempting to cross.

Maj. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's division was marching along the Raccoon Ford Road to join Early when the head of Gen. French's III Corps made contact in the heavy wooded terrain along the Widow Morris Road. Johnson turned his division about and ordered what can only be described as a reckless double-envelopment assault against a mostly unseen enemy of unknown strength, throwing his 5,500 men against French and John Sedgwick's VI Corps (a combined 32,000).  The fact is, if Johnson had cleared the Widow Morris Road before the arrival of French and Sedgwick, or had been driven away in defeat, the 32,000 Federals could have marched behind Lee's left flank and into his rear.

This battle is called the Battle of Payne’s Farm. Theodore P. Savas, together with Paul Sacra of Richmond, Virginia, set out to locate and map the Payne's Farm battlefield in the early 1990s. Savas believed published articles and books had incorrectly located the fighting area and was determined to test his theory. Armed with extensive primary sources and battle reports, he and Sacra located what they believed was the field and, with the permission from several landowners, used metal detectors to prove it. Within a couple days Savas and Sacra had unearthed hundreds of artifacts, including bullets, a ramrod, bayonet socket, a partial harmonica, belt buckles, buttons, and much more.

Overland Campaign

Often in the telling of Grant’s brilliant strategy of 1864 and the Overland Campaign, one gets the impression that Meade had been so incompetent that he was starting almost from Washington, but the fact is, in early 1864, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia faced each other across the Rapidan River. It was there because Meade had placed it there, and had fought for it to be there.

In the spring of 1864 Meade’s authority was superseded by the appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as general-in-chief of all Union armies. Although he was still technically the commander of the Army of the Potomac, Meade acted as Grant’s subordinate for the rest of the war.

In this capacity, Meade participated in Grant’s aggressive Overland Campaign of 1864, in which the Union army absorbed staggering casualties. Meade took part in in the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. He was also instrumental in the prolonged Siege of Petersburg (June 1864-March 1865), which was launched after Meade’s early assaults on the city resulted in heavy Union casualties.

Meade and Grant

In 1864, Grant was appointed as the overall commander of the Union armies and placed his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, led by Meade. Grant had a high regard for Meade's military abilities and acknowledged his successes, but there were instances where their working dynamics faced challenges.

Grant and Meade had a complex working relationship. Initially, there were some tensions and miscommunications between the two, but over time they developed a professional rapport and worked together effectively.

Meade sometimes felt that Grant did not fully appreciate his contributions and achievements. There were instances where the press assigned to the Army of the Potomac focused more on Grant's role in successes, while downplaying Meade's contributions. This caused frustration for Meade, as he felt he was not given the credit he deserved.

Despite occasional disagreements, Grant and Meade maintained a functional working relationship. They shared the goal of winning the war and coordinated their efforts to achieve military success.

Grant made his headquarters with Meade for the remainder of the war. Following an incident in June 1864, Meade disciplined reporter Edward Cropsey from The Philadelphia Inquirer. He falsely reported that  Meade had wanted to retreat after the Battle of the Wilderness. All of the press assigned to the AoP agreed to mention Meade only in conjunction with setbacks. Meade apparently knew nothing of this arrangement, and the reporters giving all of the credit to Grant angered Meade.

Meade wrote to his wife:

“I had a visit today from General Grant, who was the first to tell me of the attack in the Times based upon my order expelling two correspondents. Grant expressed himself very much annoyed at the injustice done to me, which he said was glaring, because my order distinctly states that it was by his direction that these men were prohibited from remaining with the army. He acknowledged there was an evident intention to hold me accountable for all that was condemned and to praise him for all that was commendable.”

Nevertheless, Meade is frequently blamed for specific problems in the Overland Campaign. As the fighting reached Cold Harbor and Petersburg, Meade is blamed for not directing his men to scout properly prior to the former battle and failed to coordinate his corps properly in the opening stages of the latter. During the siege of Petersburg, Meade again erred altering the attack plan for the Battle of the Crater for political reasons. But it is known that Grant approved these plans.

Grant issued orders to Meade who in turn issued them to the army. 

Meade, despite his aggressive performance in lesser commands in 1862, had become a more cautious general and more concerned about the futility of attacking entrenched positions. Most of the bloody repulses his army suffered in the Overland Campaign were ordered by Grant, although the aggressive maneuvering that eventually cornered Lee in the trenches around Petersburg were Grant's initiative as well.

Without question, Grant’s strategy won the war. Without doubt, Grant made the tough decisions and took the criticism of the heavy casualties.  But it was Meade who made Grant’s strategic plan a reality, being the commander who positioned his army to operationalize Grant’s vision.

Conclusion

General Meade was a thorough, methodical man as would be expected of a professional military man and engineer.

What do you think of the General George Meade? Let us know below.

Now, if you missed it, read Lloyd’s piece on how the Confederacy funded its war effort here.

Suggested Reading

• Brown, Kent Masterson. Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2005.

• Nugent M, Petruzzi JD, Wittenberg EJ. One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, July 4 - 14, 1863. Savas Beattiem 2011.

• Coddington, Edwin. The Gettysburg Campaign. Morningside Bookshop, 1979.

• Sears, Steven W. Gettysburg. Mariner Books, 2004.

• Woodruff, Joshua D. The Impact of Logistics on General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1083715

The Legacy of 19th Century American Military Leader George Custer

Lieutenant Colonel George Custer played a role during the American Civil War on the Union’s side. However, he is most famous for his engagements with the Plains People in the American West. Here, Olivia Jacobs, in her debut article for the site, explores Custer’s legacy.

George Armstrong Custer in the mid-1860s.

Introduction

One of the United States' most notable military figures is Lieutenant Colonel George Custer. His legacy is gilded with themes of Manifest Destiny and the romanticization of the American West. In the past, Custer has been painted as a great hero who sacrificed his life to defend America, and Western media have idolized his story. He has been depicted in at least twenty films beginning in 1912 with the silent film Custer's Last Fight. Many of these depictions portray the lieutenant colonel as the gallant hero that the history books have described him. However, a shadow has been cast on him in a select few pieces of American media.

The musical legend and staple of American culture, Johnny Cash, performed a song called Custer. It details the unspoken dark parts of Custer's story. His likeness is also used in the Dreamworks film Spirit; Stallion of the Cimarron. Unlike most depictions of Custer, the character, only referred to as "The Colonel," is a significant antagonist of the children's film. However, as the character is not referred to by name, it is clear to older audiences who The Colonel should be.

Simply by analyzing the media of Colonel Custer, it is clear that his reputation is hyper-complex. By diving into his military career and reading first-hand experiences of both his friends and victims, historians have attempted to sort out Custer's morality. Despite these efforts, however, the water remains murky.

George Custer's legacy began in 1861 when Custer enlisted in the Union Cavalry. He was present for significant battles, including the most famous American Civil Conflict, Gettysburg. By 1865, Custer had distinguished himself as a successful military man, even finding himself at the surrender of the Confederate military. He earned the Brigadier General rank and supported the Union Army at the Appomattox Court House (Wert 225).

Custer and the Plains People

By mid-1866, Custer was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment. Up until 1868, he found himself on the frontier and scouting duty. Later that year, Custer raided the territory of the Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle. The conflict is commonly known as the Battle of Washita River; this 'victory' caused casualties to the Cheyenne peoples and forced a significant portion of their territory under American Control (Hardoff 30).

The Battle of Washita River was not uncommon, as during this age, the United States government was driving people away from their ancestral land in hopes of eradicating the traditions and cultures that differed from their narrative of white greatness. Despite the unfortunate commonality of Custer's actions, he was set on the Plains people like a rabid dog.

Custer's most popularized military feat is the Battle of Little Bighorn. Many films, including the very first, Custer's Last Fight, depict the events of Little Bighorn. However, much of this conflict is shrouded in mystery. What is known is that with the help of the Crow People, the Seventh Cavalry identified a significant encampment. Said encampment consisted of recorded history's most considerable convergence of Plains Peoples. Members of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples had gathered together to oppose the American government.

On June 25, 1876, Custer divided his forces into two groups. Five companies remained with Custer, while the others were entrusted to Marcus Reno. His tactics at Little Bighorn were similar to his actions at the Battle of Washita River. The strategy consisted of using non-combats as hostages to force the 'hostiles' into submission. These non-combats would typically consist of women, children, elders, and disabled members of the community.

The intention was for Reno's team to lure the active combatants away from the encampment, and Custer would flank the encampment to kidnap the unarmed innocents. Unfortunately for the Seventh Cavalry, they grossly underestimated the size of the indigenous forces. Their presence was also already known by the occupants of Little Bighorn. Due to this, Reno's companies were forced to form a skirmish line instead of luring the warriors away. Marcus Reno's forces could not hold the line and were forced to withdraw as at least five hundred furious Plains warriors counterattacked (Perrett 8).

After taking control of the non-combats, Custer was supposed to reinforce Reno's team, but they have yet to make it that far. At this point, it needs to be clarified on the precise details. What historians do know for sure is that Custer and all of his companies were successfully wiped out. The other details come from the oral accounts told by indigenous survivors.

An Apsáalooke Crow woman, Pretty Shield, recounted that Custer died while attempting to ford the river of Little Bighorn. She remarks seeing the multiple white men in blue attire attempting to cross the river. Pretty Shield's story is countered by the story of Chief Gall, a Lakota, who claimed that Custer did not attempt to ford the river. Chief Gall stated that Custer died near the famous Custer Hill. Other Lakota people corroborate Gall's story, also present at Little Bighorn (Michno 284-285).

The exact circumstances of Custer's idolized death are foggy; however, when his remains were found, Custer had two bullet wounds. There was a bullet in his skull and a bullet in his chest. To make the story more complex, some historians suspect that the wound on the left side of his skull indicates assisted suicide. Current speculation suggests that the right-handed Custer was fatally shot in the chest, and one of his men shot him in the head shortly after. However, that is only speculation, and the Lakota narrative claims that Custer was shot off his horse (Brininstool 60-62).

Frustratingly, events after Reno and Custer split ways are mostly speculation, as the survivor stories do not align. Even the exact location of the encampment and the subsequent is uncertain. Custer's death via gunfire and the length of the conflict (under an hour) is clear to modern-day historians (Graham 88)

The Legacy

In less than a week after George Custer's death, he was immortalized by the American newspapers. The New York Times ran an article titled Massacre of Our Troops, thrusting the hero narrative into Custer's lap (New York Times 1). He was romanticized as a gallant hero who sacrificed himself to protect United States territory.

His wife, Elizabeth Custer, was said to have insisted that her late husband was a war hero and heavily pushed the popular narrative. Her efforts were solidified when the painting Custer's Last Fight by Cassilly Adams circulated throughout the continental United States. Budweiser Beer reproduced the painting from 1888 as a branding effort, further popularizing the Custer story.

George Custer's legacy held firm until World War II, as distrust and skepticism in the government rose in the West. Historians began to dig beyond the gilded legacy, bringing light to the reality of Custer's actions. Undeniably, Custer and his men were active participants in eradicating the Indigenous populations. However, the toxic legacy is not the fault of Custer. Although those around him described Custer as glory-hungry, he did not spread his narrative. He can and should be faulted for the atrocities committed by his hand, but the heroic idolization can not be blamed on Custer.

Conclusion

Lieutenant Colonel George Custer was seared into the American history books regardless of if he was a hero or a hedonist. To readjust the scales, stories about Crow woman Pretty Shield or Cheyenne man Chief Black Kettle deserve to be immortalized. The fantasy of American greatness and the "sacrifice" of Custer comes at the cost of ancient cultures deeply rooted in the land. The stories of victims deserve to be known and reach far beyond Custer's untruthful blaze of glory.

What do you think of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s legacy? Let us know below.

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References

Brininstool, Earl A. Troopers with Custer : Historic Incidents of the Battle of the Little BigHorn. Stackpole Books, 1994. p. 60–62.

Graham, William A. The Custer Myth : A Source Book of Custeriana. Stackpole Books, 1986. p. 88.

Hardorff, Richard G. Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village. University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. p. 30.

Linderman, Frank B., et al. Pretty-Shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows. University of Nebraska Press, 1931. pp. 135-136.

Michno, Gregory F. Lakota Noon, the Indian Narrative of Custer's Defeat. Mountain Press, 1996. pp. 284-285.

Perrett, Bryan. Last Stand: Famous Battles Against the Odds. Arms & Armour, 1993. p. 8.

Taft, Robert. "The Pictorial Record of the Old West 4." Kansas Historical Society, www.kshs.org/p/the-pictorial-record-of-the-old-west-4/13042. Accessed 27 May 2023.

The New York Times. "MASSACRE OF OUR TROOPS.; FIVE COMPANIES KILLED BY INDIANS.GEN." The New York Times, 6 Jul. 1876, p. 1.

Wert, Jeffry D. Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer. Simon & Schuster, 1996. p. 225.

The Union Blockade During the US Civil War: The Anaconda Plan

Anaconda was the strategic plan proposed by General Winfield Scott early in the US Civil War. Scott’s concept was to defeat the Confederate States of America (CSA) through economic measures rather than a land war. Its purpose was to devise an approach to prevent imports and exports, which would squeeze and strangle (like the snake) the Confederacy into submission. Scott thought that by depriving the South of foreign trade and the ability to import or manufacture weapons and military supplies, the war could be won with a minimum of battlefield casualties.

Lloyd W Klein explains.

First, if you missed it, read Lloyd’s piece on how the Confederacy funded its war effort here.

A cartoon-esque map of General Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan to defeat the Confederacy in the American Civil War.

Scott reasoned that the vulnerability of a southern nation was its absence of manufacturing, supplies, and weapons production in the region. He recognized that the seceded states depended on bringing military and consumer imports in, and trading cotton and agricultural exports out. Since the CSA trading partners were overseas and there were no land connections, its economy depended on open rivers and seas. Scott devised a plan for a naval blockade of the ports of the Confederate Atlantic shoreline, an invasion and occupation down the Mississippi River, and the consequent strangulation of the South by combined Union land and naval forces. Scott expected that a land war would be a long, arduous undertaking despite the general opinion that it would be over in weeks.

The two objectives of the blockade were: 1) to prevent war material, manufactured goods, and luxury items from reaching the South to boost their war effort and morale at home and 2) to stop the exportation of raw cotton to foreign manufacturers, which would bring cash to the Confederate economy. By blockading the southern ocean ports and the Mississippi River, its military would slowly suffocate as supplies dwindled and the country became isolated from its trading partners.

Southern Economic Realities

The ante bellum economy of the South relied on bringing manufactured goods from the Northern states and trading raw agricultural products with foreign countries. The South grew crops and raw materials, which were then sold to industrial centers and in return, manufactured goods were purchased. In addition, the South needed markets to sell its cotton and other cash crops. Before the war, the South relied on coastline ports to ship goods and products to other regions and countries.

More specifically, southern economy was dependent on exporting cotton to Great Britain and to the Northeastern states, where clothes and other items were manufactured. The revenue from cotton sales were used to purchase finished products and goods. Food was purchased from Texas and Arkansas or the Midwestern states. Southern reliance on cotton sales and the absence of manufacturing centers in the region delineated why the prewar Southern economy was dependent on maritime trade.

The only way to transport these goods to the consumer were by rail. The blockade overburdened roads and the railroad system in the South, which were not designed to transport troops north-south where the troops needed to go but rather west-east towards the ocean. This increased the cost of transporting goods, raising the prices on agricultural products and stressed the Southern economy. The main role of the railroads before the war was to bring goods to port; the opposite direction was rarely used for transporting heavy loads from the ports to the cities or countryside. This pattern would have to be modified rapidly to stay in the war.

Moreover, the South in 1861 has limited facilities to produce the weapons of war. Only one iron works existed that could produce artillery weapons and armaments, and few manufacturing centers of guns and bullets. All of these would have to be imported to engage in war once those stolen from federal armories in the South had been used.

Proclamation and Management of the Blockade

US Secretary of State William Henry Seward recommended adopting the blockade immediately following the firing on Fort Sumter. Union military commanders were not sanguine about the idea, preferring a rapid attack strategy to a slow suffocation, believing that the war would be rapidly over.

On April 19, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports, putting the Anaconda Plan into effect. The blockade was extended to include North Carolina and Virginia on April 27. The Union Navy had established blockades of all major southern ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile, by July 1861. Other important ports included Norfolk, Charleston, Wilmington and Savannah.

To manage the blockade, a commission called The Blockade Strategy Board was created by the United States Navy at the direction of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox. The group was comprised of: Samuel Francis Du Pont, who acted as chairman; Charles Henry Davis; John Gross Barnard; and Alexander Dallas Bache.  They first met in June 1861 to determine how best to stop maritime transport to and from New Orleans and Mobile. Their analysis of the Atlantic ports was very good from the start but that of the Gulf Coast was not. At that time, detailed oceanographic knowledge was not available for the Gulf.

Legal Implications and Foreign Response

Lincoln was immediately confronted with the question of whether the secession of the South should be regarded as rebellion or as war. The fact that the CSA had a government elected by representatives of the people made declaring it a rebellion appear politically motivated. The US continued to insist that the parties to the contest were not belligerents, and that rebellion was not a war. From the legal point of view, the action had to be regarded as armed insurrection. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles advised an undeclared blockade; his idea was to prevent foreign governments from granting the Confederacy belligerent status or recognition as an established nation.

Others suggested that the southern ports be declared closed, which was a legal act. Legally, governments have the right to close its own ports, and to impose penalties upon ships attempting to enter. Only an executive order would be necessary, and would not raise these thorny issues. However, such an order could only be enforced in US waters, which would not allow for stopping ships on the high seas. Additionally, violations would only be breaking a US revenue law, which were only to be adjudicated in a federal court in that state. And, European nations would not have to follow this order because it wasn’t an international law. Convincing foreign governments to view the blockade as legitimate was crucial.  The search and seizure of foreign vessels on the high seas, even though bound for the embargoed port, is an act of war, unless there is a declared and established blockade. But, once that happens, the nations are legally belligerents.

As Welles anticipated, Great Britain granted belligerent status on May 13, 1861, Spain on June 17, and Brazil on August 1. Other foreign governments issued statements of neutrality. These governments acknowledged the right of the US to stop and search neutral ships in international waters, but were concerned that the methods being used went beyond what international law allowed.  Lincoln specifically noted in his announcements that the US would “follow the law of nations; this meant that the blockading ships would first issue a warning and would only capture the suspected ship on its next attempt to evade the blockade. Union ships decided arbitrarily which ships in Caribbean ports were preparing to run the blockade, waiting outside the territorial limits for those ships to clear port and then board and search.

After the war, Raphael Semmes insisted that the blockade carried recognition of the CSA since countries do not blockade their own ports. Semmes was captain of the blockade runner CSS Alabama, the most successful commerce raider in maritime history, taking 65 prizes. Late in the war, he was promoted to rear admiral and also acted briefly as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.

US Naval Maritime Strategy

The basic blockade strategy was simple. The Navy used lightly armed former merchant vessels close to shore, faster and more heavily armed steam frigates patrolling offshore, and cruisers that searched around the globe to interdict Confederate blockade runners and commerce raiders on the high seas.

Actually putting into practice a blockade of the southern half of the United States and a huge transcontinental river, however, was not an easy task. The Atlantic ports had numerous defenses and entrances, and the Mississippi River defended in a number of locations. To succeed, the blockading navy had to patrol 12 major ports, 189 harbors and 3,500 miles of coastline.

In fact, the US Navy was unprepared for this mission at the beginning of the war. The Union had only thirty-five modern vessels, just three of which were steam powered. Accomplishing this task required a huge building program to build ships to cover Southern seaports. Eventually, the Union produced 500 ships for the sole purpose of creating an effective blockade.

The Mississippi River comprised an entirely different problem. The Navy developed a combined-arms strategy with the Army in amphibious and coastal/riverine operations. Both forces were necessary to control of riverways and ports.  River warships had to have sufficient power to run battery fire from the shore and enemy ships in an enclosed space. The river experience to that time had been all about commerce and there was no experience building boats to maneuver and carry heavy artillery in a river. These ships had to be designed and built.

Blockade Runners

Maintaining international commerce by overcoming the blockade was crucial to the CSA. Because it lacked sufficient manufacturing centers in the South, the only way to supply its military needs and keep its economy going was by international commerce. Therefore, among all of its other priorities, the CSA had to build a navy with the purpose of evading the US ships blockading its ports. Freighters were much too slow and lacked the ability to outrun or outmaneuver the Union gunboats.

By the end of 1862, the efficiency of the blockade required that only specially designed vessels could attempt to run it. The nature of their operations was risky because they are the targets that blockading fleets try to corner or fire upon. However, the potential profits and benefit were tremendous. Nonetheless, over 80% of attempts to evade the Union blockade were successful.

A blockade runner was a ship built expressly for the purpose of evading a blockade of a port or strait.  Steam engines made these ships fast and difficult to trap.  These ships were designed to be fast with a light draft, with exceptional maneuverability.. They were lightly armed and armored to save weight and space; their purpose was to “outrun the blockade” not fight the defending naval vessels. To remain undetected, usually the ships made their runs at night. Once sighted, the runners tried to outmaneuver or outrun the Union ships.

However, these necessary characteristics were the opposite of their purpose of carrying heavy weaponry and large amounts of supplies. Consequently, it became necessary to make multiple trips, further increasing the risk. For this reason, most were ultimately captured or sunk. In all, 1,504 blockade runners were captured or destroyed during the war. By the end of the war the Union Navy had captured 1,149 blockade runners, and had destroyed or run aground another 355 vessels.

Blockade runners were privately owned.  They typically operated with a letter of marque issued by the Confederacy. These vessels carried cargoes to and from neutral ports.  The four principal intermediary points were: Bermuda, Nassau, Havana, and Matamoras. There, neutral merchant ships, usually based in England or other points abroad, would exchange their cargoes. Inbound, the ships brought military supplies and other goods to the Confederacy while outbound ships exported cotton, tobacco and other goods for trade and for sale.

Great Britain played a major role in blockade running. Liverpool was especially prominent; its shipbuilding businesses were ideal for designing and building commerce raiders and blockade runners. The British developed steamships that were longer, narrower and faster than the conventional steamers guarding the American coastline, enabling them to outmaneuver and outrun blockaders. Many British businesses had investments in the South, and were suffering due to the Lancashire Cotton Famine. Furthermore, Great Britain controlled many of the ports in the Caribbean, making it an ideal partner in defeating the blockade.

Blockade runners faced an increasing risk of capture as the war continued. In 1861 and 1862, only about 10% of attempts ended in capture; but by 1863 and 1864, one in three. By war's end, imports had been choked to a trickle as the number of captures came to 50% of the sorties. Some 1,100 blockade runners were captured (and another 300 destroyed). British investors frequently reinvested their profits in the trade; when the war ended they were stuck with useless ships and rapidly depreciating cotton. Ultimately about half the investors made profits  while half sustained losses. Although a large proportion of blockade runners did evade the Union defense, the strength of the blockade is better measured as the kinds of ships, and their numbers, that never tried knowing they would be caught.

Confederate Threats to the Blockade

Recognizing that the US Navy were building powerful gunboats, the Confederacy initially countered with small, fast and sleek boats called torpedo boats. These were equipped with spar torpedoes, which were easily countered by hanging chains over the sides of the boats. Another problem was that they really couldn’t carry many supplies.

The Confederates initially operated privateers, allowing them to attack Union ships. However, these ships could only sail from Confederate ports under international law; this rendered them ineffective after 1862 as the blockade ramped up. Confederate commerce raiders were very effective countermeasures. These were gunboats built with the specific purpose of attacking the blockading ships. The CSS Alabama and the CSS Florida were highly effective and rendered maintenance of the dangerous. Despite the attacks by Confederate warships, there were few Union losses. After the Alabama attacked and sank the USS Hatteras off Galveston, it was clear that small gunboats could not blockade shallow inlets without support. Consequently, strategy changed so that large flotillas were deployed, by which large numbers of naval vessels were sent to chase these Confederate warships in open seas.

Confederate ironclads were another innovation designed to break the blockade. In March 1862, the blockade of the James River was threatened by the first ironclad, CSS Virginia, often incorrectly named the Merrimac which was its original name before it was salvaged. in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Union ironclad Monitor battled the Virginia for hours, ending the threat. Two months later, Virginia and other ships were scuttled in response to the Union Army and Navy advances.

Effectiveness of the Blockade

At first, the blockade was ineffective: in the first six weeks after Ft Sumter, the Confederacy exported 30,000 bales of cotton from Charleston in 150 ships. In April 1861, a small Union flotilla seized 16 Confederate ships and privateers in the vicinity of Fort Monroe off the Virginia coastline over two weeks. In May, two blockading squadrons were created by Welles, an Atlantic and a Gulf squadron. In October, the Atlantic Squadron was divided in to a North and South Atlantic division, and in February 1862 the Gulf squadron was partitioned into East and West Gulf division.

As the Union fleet grew in size and sophistication, more ports came under Federal control. The port of Savannah was effectively sealed by the surrender and occupation of Fort Pulaski in April 1862. Only Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Mobile, Alabama remained open after this point in the war.

The largest Confederate port, New Orleans, fell early in the war. There were 5 entrances to the Mississippi River, making it a very difficult military target.  In April 1862, Forts Jackson and St. Philip were bombarded by Porter's mortar schooners. Farragut's fleet successfully ran past the forts on the morning of April 24, forcing the surrender of New Orleans.

Charleston was the major Confederate port on the Atlantic Coast until 1863. The city has a wide and deep harbor, with a sand bar about five miles from the harbor entrance.  There were  four large channels into the harbor. The port of Charleston with its excellent rail connections became the prime port due to its location just 780 miles from Bermuda and 500 miles from Nassau. Charleston was severely restricted by Admiral Dahlgren's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in 1863 as Union ironclads moved into the main shipping channel. Although it remained open until February 1865, it never played a major role after that time.

The harbor at Wilmington North Carolina was small and had none of the natural advantages that Charleston or New Orleans possessed. For this reason, the Union did not include it in the blockade it right away. But the city had good railroads to Richmond, and because of its location it was immune to a direct assault. Its convenience to the Caribbean also made it an attractive alternative. Once this harbor became a prime destination, it required Union warships to patrol as much as 130 miles offshore to stop the trade.

Although the Atlantic coast was initially the main object of the blockade, eventually the Gulf became a very important and extremely large zone to cover. The 2000 mile coast ultimately was never fully blockaded. Only Mobile and Galveston could harbor large seagoing vessels due to the shallow waters and multiple barrier islands. Havana was the main connection to Europe from the Gulf.

Mobile was the major port in the Gulf and remained highly active until it was captured in August 1864 by Admiral David Farragut. The Battle of Mobile Bay between his fleet and the Confederate warships in the harbor closed the last major Confederate port in the Gulf of Mexico.

In December 1864, Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles sent a force against Fort Fisher, which protected access to the Atlantic from Wilmington, North Carolina, the last open Confederate port on the Atlantic Coast.  The fort was captured in January 1865, assuring the closure of the final Confederate port.

Impact of the Blockade on the Confederacy

The Union blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually destroyed the Southern economy, at the cost of very few lives, just as General Scott envisioned. War is largely about supporting armies with supplies throughout the various fields of conflict. The river campaigns of 1862-3 in the west crushed the South while the Atlantic blockade raised the costs. The best measure of the blockade's success was that many ships, and none of the very large ones, ever tried. Standard seagoing freighters had little chance of evading the blockade and few attempted. Restricting coastal trade put even more pressure on an outdated railroad system. Lee's army, at the end of the supply line, had to contend with a chronic shortage of supplies in the final two years.

The blockade became more effective as the war proceeded and more southern territory came under Union control. In part, the reason was that there were fewer ports to protect; but also the blockade fleets caught on to the tricks of the blockade runners. Overall, only about 10% of ships trying to evade the blockade were intercepted. However, as the Union Navy increased in size and sophistication as the war progressed, drastic reductions of shipments into Confederate ports were realized. By 1864, only one-third of attempts to run the blockade were intercepted. In the final two years of the war, only blockade runners specifically designed for this task had a reasonable chance of success.

Another  significant achievement of the blockade was restricting the exportation of cotton. Before the war, the South supplied 75 to 80 percent of the world's raw cotton.  Inability to export their cash crop markedly reduced cotton revenue, disrupting the Southern economy.

Unsurprisingly, southern merchants and black markets preferred the importation of luxury consumer goods, which could be sold to the wealthy, rather than weapons and medical supplies. The Confederate government eventually regulated the traffic, so that at least half were armaments and munitions.

Moreover, the southern economy had to react to these stresses, and did so in predictable yet devastating ways. Since the Southern food supply was located in the west and revenue generation east of the Mississippi, the weak and overburdened rail system became the limiting factor of supply. This forced the new Confederate national government, which had little revenue generating power, to spend its money on  infrastructure rather than military or social needs.

Overall, the Union blockade did not come close to stopping all supplies from reaching the Confederacy, but it disrupted the usual flow of supplies into and out of the South enough to severely restrict its ability to make war. However, the reduced flow of goods and food led to severe shortages and higher prices. Along with Confederate currency inflation, civilian discontent became a significant war problem. The blockade demonstrated that war was no longer a matter only for soldiers, and that the effects of the war were no longer confined to the battlefield. Civilians had become combatants in the sense that undermining their morale became a military goal. Thus warfare was aimed not only at destroying armies, but also disrupting the economy and depriving people of consumer goods and food.

What do you think of the Anaconda Plan? Let us know below.

Now, if you missed it, read Lloyd’s piece on how the Confederacy funded its war effort here.

Bibliography

• Carse, Richard. Blockade: The Civil War at Sea. New York: Rinehart, 1958.

• Surdam, David. Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

• Charles D. Grear. Americans at War

• https://www.thoughtco.com/anaconda-plan-definition-1773298

• https://www.encyclopedia.com/defense/energy-government-and-defense-magazines/blockade-civil-war#:~:text=The%20first%20action%20of%20naval%20warfare%20in%20the,reduce%20the%20South%20%27s%20ability%20to%20make%20war.

• https://history.state.gov/milestones/1861-1865/blockade

• https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/blockade

• https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-union-blockade-of-the-southern-states.html

• https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2021/october/economic-warfare-union-blockade-civil-war

How did the Confederacy Fund its War Effort in the U.S. Civil War?

Following secession and the onset of the American Civil War, the southern Confederate states needed the funds and infrastructure to wage war. This article addresses the “sinews of war” from the Confederacy’s perspective: where did the money needed for weapons and supplies during the Civil War come from? How its needs were determined,  procured, transported and distributed is a complex story. Lloyd W Klein explains.

Above: George Alfred Trenholm, an influential supporter of the Confederacy and the Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury from 1864-65.

With secession, the Confederate States of America (CSA) recognized that war was a likely possible consequence.  After First Manassas, it was clear that a long struggle was ahead, which posed a series of problems for the CSA as to how it would obtain weapons. A rebellion cannot be sustained without armaments, and money is required to purchase them if your country has no manufacturing capacity, and doesn’t have foundries for their production.  Initially, federal forts were seized and weapons taken, but ultimately, a network of war goods supply would need to constructed.

Where did the Confederacy get financial support to purchase weapons and carry out a war with a limited treasury? Moreover, if there was no existing capacity to produce weapons, and must be imported from overseas, how did European armaments make it to the CSA despite a blockade? When the war began, the CSA had no manufacturing capability to produce artillery tubes. Tredegar was the only major iron foundry south of the Mason-Dixon line. There were no large scale rifle manufacturers. The armaments and weapons the Confederacy used were mostly made in Europe at the start of the war, and brought over despite the blockade.

The Blockade

General Winfield Scott predicted that a civil war would be a long affair when everyone else thought it would be over in weeks. He was a top-notch military strategist who was a hero of the Mexican War. He saw long in advance that the weakness of a Southern nation was its absence of manufacturing, supplies, and weapons production. Therefore, he developed what came to be known as the Anaconda Plan, named after the snake that squeezes its victims and suffocates them to death. The idea was that by blockading the southern ocean ports and the Mississippi River, the CSA military would slowly die as its supplies dwindled and the country isolated from its trading partners elsewhere.

Other Union commanders were not sanguine about the idea, preferring a rapid attack strategy to a slow suffocation. Although Anaconda was not implemented fully, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade in April 1861. This required the monitoring of 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile.

The Union blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually destroyed the Southern economy, at the cost of very few lives, just as General Scott planned it. The river campaigns in the west crushed the CSA and the blockade raised the costs of overseas trade. The measure of the blockade's success was not the ships that slipped through but the thousands that never tried.

At first, the blockade was only partially effective; perhaps only about 10% of freighters attempting to evade the blockade were intercepted. However, the Union Navy gradually became better at the task; by 1864, about one-third of ships attempting to run the blockade were intercepted, and the only ships with a reasonable chance of evading the blockade were blockade runners, which were specifically designed for speed and maneuverability.

Beating the Blockade

Finding a way to deliver supplies and arms despite the blockade was a necessity. The only way its military could be supplied and the economy kept afloat was by international commerce. Therefore, the CSA had to build a fleet of ships to evade the blockade of its ports.

Blockade runners were steam ships built for speed in order to make its way through the Union blockade that extended some 3,500 miles along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the lower Mississippi River. To get through the blockade, the runners ran at night and if detected, they would attempt to outmaneuver or outrun the ships on blockade patrol. These vessels carried cargoes to and from neutral ports often located in Nassau and Cuba where neutral merchant ships in turn carried these cargoes, usually coming from or destined to England or other points abroad. Inbound ships usually brought badly needed supplies and mail to the Confederacy while outbound ships often exported cotton, tobacco and other goods for trade and for sale.

How did the CSA obtain the money to purchase these ships?

Charles Kuhn Prioleau was the most highly placed and influential supporter of the Confederacy in Britain. He was the sole British partner and representative of Fraser, Trenholm, & Co., the unofficial bankers to the Confederacy in Europe, which helped supply the South with arms throughout the war. He was a South Carolina cotton merchant who was the senior partner of the firm, based in Liverpool, acting as the European banker for the CSA. As such, this firm purchased military armaments, transported them to the US through the blockade, and extended the CSA credit when it couldn’t meet its obligations.

Prioleau was a partner in Fraser, Trenholm. He had moved to Liverpool in the early 1850s to establish a steamship line from England to Charleston. With his connections to Fraser, Trenholm, he became very well respected in Europe. When the war broke out, the CSA deposited large amounts of funds with his firm. Prioleau became the sole CSA agent in England, purchasing armaments and shipping them on blockade runners financed by Fraser, Trenholm.  Prioleau made a huge fortune on these transactions.

Who Made the Arrangements?

James Dunwoody Bulloch was the Confederacy's primary foreign agent in Great Britain. In 1861, almost immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter, he traveled to Liverpool to establish a base of operations. Britain was officially neutral in the conflict between North and South, but private and public sentiment of most of the English people – although not the monarchy -- favored the Confederacy. British firms were eager to purchase cotton smuggled past the Union blockade.  The proceeds provided the South with its only real source of hard currency.

His primary mission was to sell Confederate cotton, then use this currency to purchase arms and ammunition, uniforms, and other supplies for the war effort. Bulloch arranged for the purchase of Confederate cotton by British merchants, paid in cash, then purchased (mostly by credit) and transported armaments and other war supplies to the South.

Bulloch was employed by the shipping firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Company to buy and sell Confederate cotton, using this currency to purchase arms and ammunition. Fraser Trenholm & Co. became, in effect, the Confederacy's international bankers.  He operated blockade runners and commerce raiders. Bulloch arranged for the construction and secret purchase of commerce raiders as well as many of the blockade runners that acted as the Confederacy's commercial lifeline. In essence, Bulloch was the most significant international Confederate operative. His half-sister Martha was the mother of President Theodore Roosevelt and paternal grandmother of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Bulloch worked with John Laird Sons & Co. in Birkenhead, across the Mersey River estuary from Liverpool, to build warships for the South. John Laird was the main ship builder in Liverpool. His business built the CSS Alabama and most of the other blockade runners. He was mayor of Birkenhead, across the river from Liverpool.

Warships could not legally be built in Britain for the Confederates as a consequence of its neutrality.  Bulloch circumvented this problem by ensuring that the ships, while clearly designed for battle, were not actually fitted with armaments in Britain. Through this strategy, the ships could be presented as civilian vessels when they left British jurisdiction, but they would then travel to Terceira, a Portuguese island located in the Azores, where they were re-fitted and armed. This blatant subterfuge successfully confused the legal definition of what could be defined a warship in Great Britain.

In 1862, Bulloch arranged for the CSS Florida and the CSS Alabama to cross the Atlantic and join the Confederate Navy. Other British-built ships soon followed. Bulloch's smokescreen, the British Government’s reluctance to become involved, and the complicity of Liverpool's port officials, who were Confederate sympathizers, allowed the CSS Alabama to successfully sail through. Confederates used the CSS Alabama to attack Union merchant and naval ships for two years, before the ship sank in 1864.

Who Did They Work With?

Although the British government remained neutral, the local government and port in Liverpool strongly favored the Confederacy. Businesses in the city tended to be favorable to the Confederate cause and had a long tie with slave trading. Liverpool had been the primary slave trading port and its ships and merchants were strongly associated with the slave trade. These businesses and owners formed what was called The Southern Club. Some were families with historical involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Nearly all had homes located in a single area called Abercromby Square. PM Gladstone also had a home there. There was a business and political conspiracy in Liverpool favoring the CSA, and it’s existence is clear. Prioleau lived at 19 Abercromby Square. The individuals who lived in Abercromby Square designed and built the ships. This included: improved propelling navigable vessels and the construction of metal, wood, and iron ships. sold arms to the Confederacy and built many of the blockade running ships.

The Man Behind the Curtain

George Alfred Trenholm was the principal partner of Fraser, Trenholm, manipulating all of the levers that allowed the building of blockade runners and the purchase of arms.  He was without a doubt the role model Margaret Mitchell used for Rhett Butler.  He was tall, handsome, fearless, crafty, highly intelligent, and very rich. This shipping and banking magnate from Charleston, South Carolina masterminded and made a fortune during the war.

Trenholm’s grandfather was a major slave owner in Haiti before the slave revolution.  Trenholm inherited large holdings of land and slaves. At age 16 he joined a cotton brokerage based in Charleston called John Fraser and Co. In 1853, he rose to partner and became its managing partner when Fraser died. He was one of the wealthiest men in the US, owning ships, hotels, docks, plantations, and cotton.  When secession happened, he moved his firm’s HQ from NYC to the West Indies and built an ironclad and 12 ships for the Confederacy. He owned 60 commercial ships running the blockade and he became even wealthier.  He worked directly with the Confederate government to supply their military needs, including arranging for funding for the building of blockade runners in England.

Fraser, Trenholm & Company was originally a commercial firm based in Charleston, S.C., with offices in New York City, that shipped cotton to Great Britain, among other ventures. When secession was declared, Trenholm saw a substantial business opportunity and moved his firm’s headquarters from to the West Indies.  During the war, the firm served as the overseas banker of the Confederate States of America, financing the supply of weaponry and essential goods in exchange for cotton, tobacco, and turpentine. His firm initially financed an ironclad and 12 ships for the Confederacy. Fraser, Trenholm and Company diversified to become an international bank representing the CSA, eventually owning 60 commercial ships running the blockade and he became even wealthier.

How did Fraser, Trenholm profit? Behind every one of these clandestine transactions for arms, supplies, and blockade running, military or commercial—stood Fraser, Trenholm, & Co. and its overseas director and Abercromby Square resident, Charles Prioleau.  Remember that Prioleau was in Liverpool and he was the one who contracted for building ships using designs for blockade running made by British firms, all of which were members of the Southern Club. A profit was made at every step by the business and its principals. So, on  the outward bound trips, cotton and other products were transported and sold for profit, and on the inbound trips, armaments, and all on ships built and owned by Fraser, Trenholm. The firm collected service fees on every transaction, received credit and cash internationally, and pocketed the proceeds.

Trenholm also served as Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederacy during the last year of the Civil War, an obvious choice since was building the fleet of ships on credit for the South. In essence, this private firm WAS the Confederate Navy, WAS the military supply line, and WAS the main fleet of blockade runners. The CSS Alabama was the most successful of these. Fraser, Trenholm remained highly respected until the end of the war when it went “bankrupt”.

The Supply Network

Prioleau worked directly with the Confederate government to supply their military needs. On board the ships were the weapons and armaments that the CSA needed for the war effort. But how did the agents in Europe know what was needed at any moment on the battlefield on this side of the pond? The answer was Brig Gen Josiah Gorgas, the Chief of Ordnance.  His experience made him the perfect man to serve as the linkage between industry and the military.

Born in Pennsylvania, he graduated from West Point and immediately served in the ordnance department. During the Mexican War, his job was to ensure that the army was supplied appropriately  from arsenals in the US. He routinely sought positions in the South because of his opposition to Republicans and abolitionism. By the time of the Civil War, he had served in almost every arsenal in the country. President Davis immediately hired him and he moved to Richmond. He was responsible for ensuring that artillery tubes and rifles were delivered through the blockade. He established armories to store the materials so when needed, they could be transported easily to the front lines. His job was to create an armaments supply system literally from nothing and without much money.

He interacted directly with Prioleau to assure stockpiling of supplies and timely transport of the needed goods on blockade runners. Fraser, Trenholm arranged for the purchase and transportation of weapons on Gorgas’s order. Gorgas estimated in 1863 that Fraser Trenholm had made $9 million running the blockade. And they imported $4.5 million in cotton to England. The Confederate Army never lacked weapons. It was said that the only two things that worked well in the Confederacy was General Lee’s Army and General Gorgas’s supply lines. By 1863 Gorgas had several factories producing rifles. There was also a small foundry in Selma, AL.

After the War

As the southern economy tanked, Prioleau used his reputation to extend substantial credit to keep the war machine going. When the CSA collapsed and its credit called, Prioleau moved to Belgium.

Trenholm as CSA Treasury Secretary was in charge of the Confederate gold when Richmond fell. So, the part of the movie at the end of the war where the dashing Rhett Butler is in jail and accused of making off with the gold of the Confederacy? Not so far-fetched. Except there was no Scarlett involved; he was married with children and remained so forever (her name was Anna, FYI.) It would not be surprising if whatever Confederate Gold there was found its way into his pockets. Trenholm was captured and arrested escaping from Richmond, and his firm went bankrupt.

Trenholm never faced legal actions to make him responsible for treason, despite the fact that in essence, he bankrolled the Confederate war machine. Unquestionably, he hid his money overseas, in the Caribbean and London, and that his agent Charles Prioleau funneled the money here and there during and probably after the war.

How did Trenholm get out of taking responsibility for these obviously treasonous acts? Trenholm, just like Rhett Butler, was imprisoned for treason. Just like Rhett, he was believed to have possession of the Confederate gold.  Just like Rhett, he used his charm and influence (and surely his money), which extended into the United States Army and the White House, to get out of prison and secure a pardon. The pardon was especially clever since he never officially asked for it, nor did he ever admit that he had done anything wrong to deserve one.

After his release, Trenholm fought the Federal government in lengthy lawsuits. The government claimed Trenholm and his partners had illegally converted today’s equivalent of billions of dollars in Confederate assets. He disingenuously claimed he was bankrupt, saying he had lost everything in the war. And just like Rhett, he was cleared and completely exonerated.  But he reorganized, made another fortune after the war in phosphate mining and railroads, and became a philanthropist funneling money to black education. And then lived a lavish life until his death in 1876. Trenholm died a very wealthy man at age 69. Tomorrow is another day.

Prioleau moved back to London and died in 1887. He is buried in London. He was never held to account for his activities or war time debts.

Who Ultimately Paid for the Confederate War Machine?

In the international admiralty law, a foreign power cannot build a navy for an unrecognized combatant. After the Confederate surrender, the U.S. government filed suit against Great Britain for its conduct during the Civil War. The claim was heard at the Tribunal of Arbitration in Geneva in 1871. The US claimed direct and collateral damage against Britain. The US sued for the covert assistance given to the Confederate cause in the form of construction of commerce raiders and cruisers built or equipped in British ports for the Confederacy. Since the CSS Alabama was the ship that caused the US the most damages, the name given to the case was the "Alabama Claims".

The most serious charge was that the English allowed the Confederate cruisers "Alabama", "Shenandoah", and "Florida" to be armed in British ports. These ships created significant “damage” to the American merchant marine. Early attempts to resolve this dispute were unsuccessful. At one point, US Senator Charles Sumner stated that England was responsible for half of the cost of the war, and that the US would consider Canada as payment made on such a claim. This shocked the British and they realized that they had better come to some agreement.

In the Treaty of Washington, on May 8, 1871, it was agreed that the "Alabama Claims" should be referred to 5 arbitrators: one to be named by the US, one by England and one each by the King of Italy, the emperor of Brazil and the president of Switzerland. A commission was formed and met in Geneva on December 15, 1871.

The decision was given on September 14, 1872. England was held liable for the Alabama (unanimous), Florida (4-1), Shenandoah in part (3-2) and the tenders of both the Alabama and Florida (unanimous). The total amount of damage to be re-paid was $15,500,000, the US being left to settle with private claimants. This was a high reward at that time. In fact, by 1882 only 3/5 had been paid, requiring yet more adjudication. The British also lost their investment of $1,100,000 in Confederate Bonds.

Conclusion

How the Confederacy financed and constructed its blockade running and developed its war supply production network is rarely discussed.  Fraser, Trenholm and Company, working through its agents Charles Prioleau and James Dunwoody Bulloch, created an entire banking and military supply network, including a navy. A single privately held merchant company, a cotton export business, which diversified to become an international bank representing the CSA and then built and operated ships to run the blockade was the central mechanism. Trenholm had direct connections to the CSA Government and military. His business contracted and built the ships, took the orders for arms, arranged and took the risk to transport the cargo in both directions, acted as CSA banking agent in Britain, and represented the CSA government, all for profit. Huge profits were made at every step, in which the business received actual cash but paid in CSA credit. The business represented the CSA in European circles, and had ties to British businesses and its prime minister, Gladstone. None of this money was ever recovered, and the principals were never brought to justice, although many years later the British did have to pay damages.

What do you think of how the Confederacy funded itself during the American Civil War? Let us know below.

References

Abercromby Square and The Southern Club.

https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-abercromby-square/abercromby-southern-club

James D. Bulloch: Secret Agent and Mastermind of the Confederate Navy By Walter E. Wilson, Gary L. McKay.

George Alfred Trenholm and The Company That Went to War 1861-1865 By Ethel Trenholm Seabrook Nepveux

Trauma during War: Part 1 - The American Civil War

The US Civil War was the first modern war in which the productive capacities of the industrial state were completely integrated into the war effort. This has significant impacts on the ability to kill and injure the enemy. Here, Richard Bluttal starts a three-part series on the impacts of trauma during wars by looking at the American Civil War.

Clara Barton, a nurse and founder of the American Red Cross, in the 1860s.

In early May 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) launched his Overland campaign, in which his Army of the Potomac clashed with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a series of battles in Virginia. Lt. J. E. Mallet of the Union army distinctly remembers the sensations experienced upon being hit.” I imagined that a cannonball had struck me on the left hipbone, that it took a downward course, tearing the intestines in its course, and lodged against the marrow of the right thigh bone. I fancied I saw sparks of fire, and curtains of cobwebs wet with dew, sparkling in the sun. I heard a monstrous roar of distant cataracts. I felt my teeth chatter, a rush of blood to my eyes, ears, nose and to the ends of my fingers and toes. I tried to get up, fell, and "became completely insensible” He described his wait on the battlefield (at least a day) and the journey to the hospital transport ship quite matter-of-factly. Men in his regiment on the ards. The heavy soft, unjacketed lead bullet flattened out on impact, which produced severe wounds and carrying pieces of clothing into the wound.

The number of combat engagements during the American Civil War was the largest in history to that time, and exponential increases in the killing power of weapons produced rates of casualties beyond the imagination of military medical planners. In a four-year period, 2,196 combat engagements were fought, in which 620,000 men perished—360,000 in the Union Army and 260,000 in the Confederate Army. Some 67,000 Union soldiers were killed outright, 43,000 died of wounds, and 130,000 were disfigured for life, often with missing limbs; 94,000 Confederate soldiers died of wounds. Twice as many soldiers died of disease during the war than in combat. During the 1860s, doctors had yet to develop bacteriology and were generally ignorant of the causes of disease. Generally, Civil War doctors underwent two years of medical school, though some pursued more education. Medicine in the United States was woefully behind Europe. Harvard Medical School did not even own a single stethoscope or microscope until after the war. Most Civil War surgeons had never treated a gunshot wound and many had never performed surgery. Medical boards admitted many "quacks," with little to no qualification. Yet, for the most part, the Civil War doctor (as understaffed, underqualified, and under-supplied as he was) did the best he could, muddling through the so-called "medical Middle Ages." Some 10,000 surgeons served in the Union army and about 4,000 served in the Confederate. Medicine made significant gains during the war. However, it was the tragedy of the era that medical knowledge of the 1860s had not yet encompassed the use of sterile dressings, antiseptic surgery, and the recognition of the importance of sanitation and hygiene. As a result, thousands died from diseases such as typhoid or dysentery.

Why did so many have to die? The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease. In particular, intestinal complaints such as dysentery and diarrhea claimed many lives. In fact, diarrhea and dysentery alone claimed more men than did battle wounds. The Civil War soldier also faced outbreaks of measles, smallpox, malaria, pneumonia, or camp itch. Soldiers were exposed to malaria when camping in damp areas which were conductive to breeding mosquitos, while camp itch was caused by insects or a skin disease. In brief, the high incidence of disease was caused by inadequate physical examination of recruits, ignorance, the rural origin of soldiers, neglect of camp hygiene, insects and vermin, exposure; lack of clothing and shoes; poor food and water.

The Germ Theory, which states that microscopic bacteria and viruses caused disease, was not yet understood (Sohn). These pathogenic microorganisms thrived in filthy environments, and the conditions soldiers lived in were horrendous. Because of water shortages in camps, items were rarely cleaned. This includes all medical tools. If scalpels or forceps were dropped on the ground, they were "only washed in tap water," according to one Civil War surgeon (Ledoux). Between operations, tools were not sterilized. Doctors rarely washed their hands, and even less often were their garments cleaned. No one yet knew why these post-surgery infections took place, nor how to prevent them.

Organization of Battlefield Medical Care

On July 16, 1861, Clara Barton watched more than 30,000 “noble, gallant, [and] handsome” Federal soldiers, “armed to the teeth,” march out of Washington to confront a Confederate army near Manassas Junction, this was the first engagement, Battle of Bull Run, against confederate forces. Many around the country, soldiers and citizens alike, naively expected a short conflict with no need to prepare for large numbers of wounded. In the days before the First Battle of Bull Run, as the US Army neared contact with the enemy, the army’s medical department made no preparation to set up hospital sites until after the battle began. No permanent military hospital sites had been established in the city. Instead, sick soldiers were languishing in abandoned warehouses, churches, schools, and other public buildings. That meant Washington’s “hospitals” were already overflowing when the army left for battle. There was simply no space for more patients in these makeshift facilities. A significant number of Union wounded were left on the battlefield because the medical department didn’t have authority over most of the ambulances. The medical disaster at Bull Run in July 1861 convinced Clara Barton, ordinary citizens, and even the Union medical department to take the medical needs of the US Army in the aftermath of a battle more seriously,

How medical care was delivered on and off the battlefield changed during the war. Early on, stretcher bearers were members of the regimental band, and many fled when the battle started. There was no military ambulance corps in the Union Army until August of 1862. Until that time, civilians drove the ambulances. Initially the ambulance corps was under the Quartermaster corps, which meant that ambulances were often commandeered to deliver supplies and ammunition to the front.

If a soldier was injured during battle, volunteers took the howling victim behind the front lines using a stretcher made from canvas and wooden poles. From there, a horse-and-buggy-type wagon would cart them to the nearest field hospital. The "stretcher-bearers" would assess the condition of the patient, dividing them into three main categories: mortally wounded, slightly wounded, and surgical cases. They would then assist the patient to the best of their ability in the back of the jostling horse-drawn vehicle. This process was called "Letterman's Ambulance," devised by the director of the Army of the Potomac, Jonathan Letterman. His system evacuated the injured more efficiently and paved the way for our modern ambulance system.

Combat Related Injuries

In order to be reported, a soldier had to be either transported to or make it back to a field hospital, and this may have resulted in an underreporting of deaths from cannon fire.  Most injuries resulted from the Minié ball invented by the French officer Claude-Etienne Minié in 1849. The Minié ball is a 0.58-caliber bullet that is slow moving and is made from soft lead. It flattens on impact and creates a wound that grows larger as the bullet moves deeper into tissues. It shatters bone above and below impact and usually does not exit. Because of its relatively slow muzzle velocity, it brought bits of clothing, skin, and bacteria into the wound. The majority of gunshot wounds occurred in the upper and lower extremities, but the fatality rate from these wounds was low. Only 18% of wounds were to the abdomen, but these were more often fatal from intestinal perforation in the preantibiotic era.

Non-Combat Related Death and Illness

A variety of factors contributed to a high rate of noncombat-related illness, including overcrowded and filthy camps. Latrines were often not used or were drained into drinking water supplies or not covered daily. Food quality was poor from several standpoints. It was poorly stored, poorly cooked, and lacked enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy. The Army of the Potomac eventually added a number of rules: camps had be pitched on new ground and drained by ditches 18 inches deep, tents had to be struck twice a week to sun their floors, cooking had to be done only by company cooks, all refuse had to be burned or buried daily, soldiers had to bathe twice a week and change clothing at least once a week, and latrines had to be 8 feet deep and covered by 6 inches of dirt daily.

There were few useful medications at the time, and about two thirds of all drugs were botanicals. In 1860 Oliver Wendell Holmes stated at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, “I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes”. Medications that were helpful included quinine for malaria, morphine, chloroform, and ether, as well as paregoric. Many others were harmful. Fowler's solution was used to treat fevers and contained arsenic. Calomel (mercurous chloride) was used for diarrhea. Mercury is excreted in high concentration in saliva. This led to excessive salivation, loss of teeth, and gangrene of the mouth and cheeks in some patients.

Battlefield Wounded and Surgery

Battlefield surgery was also at best archaic. Doctors often took over houses, churches, schools, even barns for hospitals. The field hospital was located near the front lines -- sometimes only a mile behind the lines -- and was marked with a yellow flag with a green "H". Anesthesia's first recorded use was in 1846 and was commonly in use during the Civil War. In fact, there are 800,000 recorded cases of its use. Chloroform was the most common anesthetic, used in 75% of operations. In a sample of 8,900 uses of anesthesia, only 43 deaths were attributed to the anesthetic, a remarkable mortality rate of 0.4%. Anesthesia was usually administered by the open-drop technique. The anesthetic was applied to a cloth held over the patient's mouth and nose and was withdrawn after the patient was unconscious. Surgeons worked all night, with piles of limbs reaching four or five feet. Lack of water and time meant they did not wash off their hands or instruments. Bloody fingers often were used as probes. Bloody knives were used as scalpels. Doctors operated in pus-stained coats. Everything about Civil War surgery was septic. The antiseptic era and Lister's pioneering works in medicine were in the future. Blood poisoning, sepsis or Pyemia (Pyemia meaning literally pus in the blood) was common and often very deadly. Surgical fevers and gangrene were constant threats. One witness described surgery as such: "Tables about breast high had been erected upon which the screaming victims were having legs and arms cut off. The surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and bespattered with blood, stood around, some holding the poor fellows while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws, cut and sawed away with frightful rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile nearby as soon as removed." If a soldier survived the table, he faced awful surgical fever. However, about 75% of amputees did survive.

Amputation was the most successful method used to halt the spread of deadly infections, like gangrene, caused by battle wounds during the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, the process was not as barbaric as it seemed. The process was efficient and effective. After a soldier was injured on the battlefield, he was immediately bandaged by medical volunteers. He was shuttled to either the nearest field hospital or medical tent at a camp using the new ambulance system. On the way, the wounded soldier was given whiskey to ease his shock. Once the patient, still in great distress, was set on an "operating table," a chloroform- soaked cloth was held onto the patient's nose and mouth. Tourniquets were tightly secured above the amputation area to prevent the patient from bleeding out. A long, though often dull, blade was used to sever tissue and ligaments, then a serrated saw was used to cut through the bone. One man who witnessed an amputation said this: "Tables about breast high had been erected upon which the screaming victims were having legs and arms cut off. The `surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and bespattered with blood, stood around, some holding the poorfellows while others, armed with long,  bloody knives and saws, cut and sawed away with frightful rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile nearby as soon as removed.” An experienced field surgeon could perform an amputation in under ten minutes.

Medical advances and improvements leading up to World War 1

The contributions to medical care that developed during the Civil War have not been fully appreciated, probably because the quality of care administered was compared against modern standards rather than the standards of the time. The specific accomplishments that constituted major advances were as follows. 1. Accumulation of adequate records and detailed reports for the first time permitted a complete military medical history. This led to the publication of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, which was identified in Europe as the first major academic accomplishment by US medicine. 2. Development of a system of managing mass casualties, including aid stations, field hospitals, and general hospitals, set the pattern for management of the wounded in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. 3. The pavilion-style general hospitals, which were well ventilated and clean, were copied in the design of large civilian hospitals over the next 75 years. 4. The importance of immediate, definitive treatment of wounds and fractures was demonstrated, and it was shown that major operative procedures, such as amputation, were optimally carried out in the first 24 hours after wounding. 5. The importance of sanitation and hygiene in preventing infection, disease, and death among the troops in the field was demonstrated. 6. Female nurses were introduced to hospital care and Catholic orders entered the hospital business. 7. The experience and training of thousands of physicians were upgraded, and they were introduced to new ideas and standards of care. These included familiarity with prevention and treatment of infectious disease, with anesthetic agents, and with surgical principles that rapidly advanced the overall quality of American medical practice. 8. The Sanitary Commission was formed, a civilian-organized soldier's relief society that set the pattern for the development of the American Red Cross.

In August of 1862, a physician named Jonathan Letterman set up the first ambulance system in the Union’s Army of the Potomac. With the support of Hammond, he instituted a three-step system for evacuating soldiers from the battlefield and established the Ambulance Corps. Their first stop was a field dressing station, where tourniquets were applied, and wounds were dressed. Then they moved to a field hospital, where doctors performed emergency medical procedures. Finally, ambulances would transport patients to a large hospital far from the battlefield for long-term treatment. The U.S. military uses the same basic system today.

What do you think of trauma during the US Civil War? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s piece on the history of slavery in New York here.

Superstitions at Sea Throughout History

Throughout history, many people have crossed the seas searching for new lands, a new life, cargo and leisure resulting in millions of journeys undertaken by boat. Life at sea was treacherous and many sailors faced uncertainty as to what their voyage would entail. The many myths and legends of sea monsters, curses and superstitions attempt to offer an explanation for natural events or understand things people couldn’t explain, such as sea creatures. Popular culture has romanticised the idea of sea myths and superstitions that belittle the beliefs that many men and women governed their lives and actions throughout history. Many films and television shows explore plots where crews are cursed for immoral actions at sea, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Curse of the black pearl.  Superstitions surrounding sea travel dictated when to sail – not on Fridays – and who could and couldn’t be aboard the ship, such as priests. Some of these beliefs have religious connotations, such as not starting a voyage on a Friday. The idea of good and bad luck is dictated by our actions or decisions like a lucky pair of socks or a ritual before taking an exam. While the ritual itself is not the decider of the future, it makes people feel like they have control in a situation that has many variables.

Here, Amy Chandler explores the types of superstitions that were believed by sailors and why they became popular throughout history.

A depiction of the Mary Celeste in the 1860s (then known as Amazon).

Origins of superstitious beliefs

Superstitious beliefs or behaviours “arise through the incorrect assignment of cause and effect”. (1) In order to explain an event or action that is strange, an individual assigns what they think is a logical reason based on their current knowledge. (1) During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a rise in belief in witchcraft and the idea of what a witch was and how they behaved. It is not difficult to understand how this susceptibility to the idea of witchcraft, voodoo and individuals possessing ideas, knowledge and power is beyond humanly possible in small communities. Many sailing families pass down stories and superstitions from generation to generation. These types of beliefs set the scene for other ideas of mermaids, krakens and sea monsters to thrive in the imagination. These stories and beliefs thrive on fear.

The fear of the unknown was common amongst sailors, with vast areas of the world undiscovered and undocumented, so meaning that little was understood. Superstitions when sailors were aboard and before they set sail helped many crewmembers have control in an uncontrollable situation. It is naval tradition to bless the boat and its crew before sailing; for example, in Britain it is customary to bless a ship by breaking a bottle of wine or champagne. (2) Life was difficult with long periods away from land, poor hygiene and sanitary conditions, disease was rife, and diet was inadequate.

Furthermore, boats throughout history have changed dramatically from straight sterns to curved ones. (3) Oak was the most common wood for battleships in the eighteenth century because of its strong structure, while ships are now made of steel and reinforced to ensure a safer voyage, especially with the increase of cruise ships with many floors, guests, facilities and weight. The change in sailing boats and increased knowledge in scientific and technological advancement reduces the risk at sea.  The idea of sea superstitions and myths are still prevalent in popular culture and society.

Influence of literature on myths

Literature like Homer’s The Odyssey mentions Greek mythology like Scylla and Charybdis, Circe and other monsters that commonly lure men to their deaths within myths and popular culture. While these figures featured in Odysseus’ journey are fictional, they suggested an explanation as to why ill-fated events happened through an individual's actions. Similarly, in Samuel Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the crew shoots down the albatross and dooms their voyage.

A famous example of a ship that was abandoned with no trace of the passengers is the Mary Celeste, discovered on December 5, 1872 abandoned near Azores, Portugal. The boat went through a name change, major structural changes and owners before this voyage. Originally called the Amazon, the boat underwent many damages and mishaps, was sold in 1868 to Richard W Haines who renamed the ship. Once sold again after major refurbishments, the ship set sail on November 7, 1872 from New York City to Genoa, Italy with 1,700 barrels of alcohol. The ship’s log recorded two weeks of bad weather and when the ship was spotted by British ships near Portugal, they realised the boat was abandoned with no crew or captain, but the longboat was missing. (4) On closer inspection, the boat had taken on water, but was still sailable. The crew and captain were never found and what happened is only speculation. This incident is an example of an ‘ill-fated’ voyage where the ships experienced bad weather and the name of the boat was changed. While it is logical to assume the crew left the boat to avoid sinking and used the longboat to escape, it still encouraged superstitious thought. Authors like Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by the story and anonymously published J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement in The Cornhill Magazine in January 1884. (5) The story became popular and the press thought this was a real account from a survivor of the Mary Celeste.

In some incidents, the sensation of curses and myths becoming a reality is one that is fuelled by the popular press and thrived on creating reports that caused a stir. During the famous Titanic’s voyage in 1912 the ship was also said to be transporting an ancient Egyptian artefact, the ornate coffin belonging to Princess of Amen-Ra. It was not until after the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, that the sensational story of an Egyptian curse was widely commented on. This idea of a curse was then applied in retrospect to Ancient Egyptian artefacts, such as the one aboard of the Titanic.

Popular superstitions at sea

Many weird and wonderful sailing superstitions exist, to bring good luck included having tattoos of lucky animals such as pigs or roosters, stepping on the boat with the right-foot, cats were good omens and having salt in their pockets are just a few. Similarly, it was bad luck to have bananas on board, red-headed women or women in general, whistling at sea, losing a hat overboard and saying goodbye before a voyage. These are just several of the many superstitions sailors believed throughout history.

In the Nottingham Evening Post, February 7, 1931, reported a crew of British trading ship sailing near New Zealand began throwing cargo overboard because they “believed it was bringing them bad luck”. (6) This report is one of few recorded events of maritime superstition that impacted the day-to-day workings of a ship. The reports continues that sailors would usually indulge in their superstitions in private “without advertising it to the outerworld” suggesting that people who aren’t sailors are not exposed to the myths and legends do not understand why sailors behaved in certain manners.

Similarly, a report in the Fleetwood Chronicle in 1911 suggested that many people were aware of sailing superstitions, such as “the ill-luck which is said to belong to the ship whose name has been changed” and was a “belief [that] prevails among seafaring men that the vessel whose name ends in ‘A’ rests, also, under an evil spell”. (7) This report continues to give evidence of incidents where a ship with a name ending in an ‘A’, sinks or has a disaster. This offers a clear reason, albeit incorrect, to why a ship has a disaster, such as HMS Victoria that sunk in the Mediterranean in 1893, killing 358 crewmembers. While this incident has a logical and reasonable explanation of colliding with another ship, it fuels that idea that some names, places or objects are ‘cursed’ or ‘ill-fated’.

Another report in the Westerham Herald in 1917, recounts that while aboard a ship travelling from Massina to Malta a passenger noticed the ship’s Captain, an experienced sailor “standing at the bow, muttering and pointing with his finger”. (8) The captain was supposedly breaking the force of waves by making a ‘cross’ shape with his fingers and speaking a prayer. The account suggests when asked the captain replied that every ninth wave was dangerous and fatal to the ship’s safety, and the passenger said it was “strange to say, every ninth wave was much greater than any of the others, and threatened the ship with immediate destruction”. (8) Interestingly, when the ninth wave approached the ship with a captain who was signing a ‘cross’, the wave began to break and the danger was avoided.  The report continues that “Arab sailors believe[d] that the high seas off the coast of Abyssinia [were] enchanted” and whenever they sailed through these waters would “recite verses which they suppose have a tendency to subdue them”. (8) This report emphasises that superstitions and actions that cause good or bad luck differs around the world and cultural beliefs. Despite this passenger not having a logical reason why the waves were breaking, seeing the captain perform a ritual that coincides with the danger subsiding provides evidence to those who witness it that these superstitions and rituals work. These experiences are told to others and reported that reinforces these actions and continues to support the idea of good and bad luck.

Science and superstition

Scientifically, there is a logical reason for why sailors claim to see floating, ghost ships. Objects that appear to float above the horizon or appear distorted are due to the Fata Morgana, a type of mirage. This mirage was named after the Arthurian legend of Morgan Le Fey that were believed to occur on the Strait of Messina where fairy castles floated in the air and false lands were created by witchcraft to lure sailors to their death. (9)

Scientifically mirages and superior mirages are created by atmospheric refraction where light bends through varying density of temperature or air creating distorted images, where an object in the distance is longer, higher, and ghostly. Whereas a Fata Morgana is a superior mirage that is more complex. The mirage is created below the original object and distorts an object to a point of being unrecognisable. These mirages are not limited to the sea, but are seen on land, polar or desert terrain and use any distant objects, like boats, coasts or islands to create an image. These images also change rapidly and stack on top of each other creating an imposing image of elongated and compressed versions of the original object. Therefore, this change in temperature, light refraction and distortion creates the appearance of ghostly and distorted image that has no resemblance to the original objects. (9) These boats appear to sit in the waves, on top of the water or parallel with the original object in a ghostly image. Sailors did not understand science in the same way we do now and seeing such a phenomenon would prove to many men that the stories and legends were true.

Conclusion

Sailor superstitions are engrained in how the public view the profession historically and many tourist seaside towns play on the idea of pirates in smugglers cove, strange stories of ghost ships and noises that draw visitors into the local history of the area. Real events and fiction become blurred and embellished over time, especially as there are no sailors from history alive to contradict what they may have seen or heard. It is difficult to understand what is fact or fiction when reading historical accounts. Scientifically we can attempt to explain why these stories developed and demystify the myths and legends through studying mirages and weather conditions that alter the senses. However, there is a large majority of the sea that has not been discovered and there is a high possibility that strange creatures that have mutated over time do exist through evolution. One of the many allures and fears of the sea is the unknown and what could be lurking beneath the sea’s surface. This unknown is what fiction and film thrive on and use to create imaginative situations and worlds that have some resemblance to real events caused by nature, such as deep caverns and whirl pools.

What do you think of superstitions at sea? Let us know below.

Now read Amy’s article on the history of medicine at sea here.

References

(1) K.R. Foster. H. Kokko, ‘The evolution of superstitious and superstition-like behaviour’. Proc Biol Sci. vol. 7 (2009) 2009, p.31.

(2) Royal Museums Greenwich, ‘Ship launching ceremonies’, 2023, Royal Museums Greenwich <https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/ship-launching-ceremonies> [accessed 24 April 2023].

(3) Royal Museums Greenwich, ‘Ship building: 800 – 1800’ , 2023, Royal Museums Greenwich <  https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/shipbuilding-800-1800 > [accessed 24 April 2023].

(4) A. Tikkanen. ‘Mary Celeste’. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mary-Celeste > [accessed 20 April 2023].

(5) The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia, ‘J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement’, The Arthur Conan Doyle, 2023, < https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/J._Habakuk_Jephson%27s_Statement >[accessed 19 April 2023].

(6)British Newspaper Archive, ‘Superstition of the sea’, Nottingham Evening Post, (7 Feb 1931).

(7) British Newspaper Archive, ‘Good and Bad luck on the ocean waves’, Fleetwood Chronicle, (11 July 1911)

(8) British Newspaper Archive, ‘Superstitions of the sea’,Westerham Herald,(3 Nov 1917)

(9) SKY brary, ‘Fata Morgana’, SKY Brary, 2023 < https://www.skybrary.aero/articles/fata-morgana >[accessed 15 April 2023].

The Japanese Meiji Restoration: Building a Modern Empire

Imperialism leads to war, bloodshed, and generations suffering from its consequences. It is rare to see imperialism yield positive outcomes. While imperialism was not that favorable in China, the cabinet of Emperor Meiji brought about drastic changes in Japan that laid the foundations of the advanced nation we know today. The advanced military technologies adopted by Japan were a significant factor in its victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. Was modernization the only smart step toward the building of a strong country? What did the Tongzhi Restoration lack in comparison to the Meiji Restoration? Disha Mule explains.

If you missed them, you can read Disha’s article on the First Sino-Japanese War here, and how the war may have led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty here, and Korea in the 19th century here.

An. image of Emperor Meiji in 1873. Photograph by Uchida Kuichi.

The Tokugawa Shogunate

As far back as the twelfth century, Japan was ruled by shoguns or military generals. The emperor did not exercise much power. The shogun did not need the emperor’s permission to run the administration. The country was divided into numerous domains, each ruled by a daimyo. The stability of this system was disturbed during the fifteenth century when Japan found itself in a constant state of war, that continued for about a hundred years. It was in 1603, with the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, that the chaos ended. After its victory at Sekigahara, one of the major problems for the new shogunate was impressing its superiority upon the entire country.

The founder of the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had a clever way of keeping the daimyos in check. This system was called sankin kotai. The daimyo had to be present in the shogun’s castle in Edo (now Tokyo) from time to time. In his absence, he had to leave his family there. The main purpose behind keeping these hostages was to ensure there was no possibility of any rebellion against the shogun. This system was made more strict during the time of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu(1).

However, the shogun’s rule was not entirely unquestioned. The daimyos at Choshu and Satsuma were among the strongest of his opponents. He ensured that these tozama (outsiders) daimyos remained far away from the capital of Edo(2).

And so, the Tokugawa rule continued for over two centuries. This period is also called the Edo period and saw many developments in the economic and educational fields.

The Western World Comes Knocking

As many European powers had started establishing colonies worldwide, the constant threat of invasion from the West loomed over kingdoms in Asia. It was inevitable that the kingdoms in the east, that had remained secluded for centuries, had to open up. The isolation policy of Japan (sakoku) prevented the entry of foreigners and prohibited Japanese people from leaving the country. The only Western country that had contact with Japan during this period of seclusion was Holland. This changed with the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa.

Japan was coerced into signing the Treaty of Kanagawa when Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy brought his fleets to Japanese shores. China’s defeat in the First Opium War was an important turning point in Japan’s perception of the West. The Japanese were convinced that the ‘barbarians’ would stop at nothing until they had everything going their way(3). The unequal treaties were calculated plans made by the Western powers to exploit the resources of the other country involved. The Treaty of Nanjing opened up five Chinese ports; the Treaty of Kanagawa was meant to serve a similar purpose. By agreeing to the treaty, the Japanese cleverly appeased the Westerners and at the same time, got a chance to explore Western advancements.

Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese were already educated about the happenings around the world(4). The Dutch traded with Japan through the port of Nagasaki. They were demanded to submit reports to the shogun, detailing everything that they learned about the world from the ships arriving at Nagasaki(5). The Tokugawa regime had also set up a similar outpost at Pusan, in order to maintain diplomatic relations with Korea(6).

It is also noteworthy that during the 1860s, the Qing dynasty in China was trying to bring back its popularity through the Tongzhi Restoration. The chief driving force behind the movement was the emperor’s mother, Empress Dowager Cixi. But it was not an easy task.

China was home to a diverse population. It consisted of the Hans, the Mongols, the Manchus, etc. These communities often had many clashes, making governing them difficult. The improper execution of Confucianism was labeled as the root cause of all the difficulties of the state(7).

The Self-Strengthening Movement in China helped in uplifting the situation to some extent. In 1868, the Burlingame Mission was sent to countries like the US, Britain, France, etc. In the same year, China and the US signed the Burlingame-Seward Treaty which reduced the hostility between the states and made traveling less complicated. Despite its intentions of reforming China, the Burlingame Mission could not make much of an impact due to the reluctance of certain pro-Confucian officials(8).

On the contrary, Japan was a more homogenous society. The sense of solidarity was strong amongst the Japanese youth who spoke the same language and belonged to the same culture. This unity proved to be advantageous for the shogunate as these scholars would later become the leaders of their domains and help in smooth administration(9). Japan had also started sending missions to other countries, even before the famous Iwakura Mission during the Meiji period. Traveling became much easier for Japanese citizens, thanks to the Tariff Convention of 1866 which removed the ban on overseas travel(10). A Chinese writer called Wei Yuan had written a book containing details about Western countries. Ironically, it was more popular among the Japanese than the Chinese(11).

Emperor Meiji

The Choshu and Satsuma domains were not particularly on friendly terms, but they shared a strong dislike for the shogunate. The age-old saying ‘The enemy of an enemy is a friend’ seems apt to describe the formation of the Satcho alliance in 1866.

The shogunate went to war with Choshu in 1866, where it had to accept defeat. The next months were marked with numerous rebellions - as many as 106 peasant protests(12). The daimyo at Tosa, another anti-Tokugawa domain, proposed to make the administration bicameral. The shogun seemed to come to terms with the idea, provided the Tokugawas would be the rightful owners of their land(13). However, the Choshu and Satsuma domains were not pleased with the fact that the shogun’s family would still, within the new system, manage to hold a considerable amount of power with the lands they possessed. They marched to Kyoto and convinced the crown prince Mutsuhito, who had just ascended the throne, to take the power in his hands. This was the start of a massive civil war between the armies of the Tokugawa shogunate and the imperial loyalists, otherwise known as the Boshin War.

The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned on November 9, 1867. This formally marked the end of the shogunate. The power was handed over to the emperor. Mutsuhito was now known as Emperor Meiji.

In 1868, in the coronation ceremony of the new emperor, it was proclaimed that decisions would be taken after consulting the public and ‘knowledge would be sought from all around the world’(14). Many Western military traditions like firing a twenty-one-gun salute soon became an eminent part of Japanese military traditions. The emperor himself wore Western clothing but did not entirely give up his Japanese roots(15). It was the Emperor's cabinet that was responsible for the rapid changes in the society (the emperor was just a boy of 15 when he was crowned). But the emperor was sincerely curious about the developments in the nation. He valued education - both traditional and Western(16). He also encouraged the production of Japanese goods. Sakuma Shozan’s ideology of blending Eastern ethics with Western science is said to have influenced Meiji greatly(17). While major changes kept happening, a mission was sent abroad in 1871 to learn about the West with a closer lens. The Iwakura Mission was a milestone in the process of establishing a distinct identity of the imperial state and nullifying the effects of the unequal treaties.

It is quite interesting that both China and Japan faced similar kinds of crises. Japan systematically tackled them by making the necessary changes that the circumstances called for. The rise of imperialism in Japan overlapped with the decline of the Qing dynasty in China. The Qings, undoubtedly, made a blunder by ignoring the telltale signs of their incompetence, resulting in a rather humiliating defeat in the war with Japan in 1894.

What do you think of the Meiji Restoration? Let us know below.

Now read Disha’s article on the Hitler Youth here.

Bibliography

Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.

Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852-1912. Columbia University Press, 2002.

Vogel, Ezra F. China and Japan: Facing History. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.

Wilson, Noell H. “Western Whalers in 1860s’ Hakodate: How the Nantucket of the North Pacific Connected Restoration Era Japan to Global Flows.” Chapter. In The Meiji Restoration: Japan as a Global Nation, edited by Robert Hellyer and Harald Fuess, 40–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

References

1 Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, ‘The Tokugawa State’, 56-57.

2 Ezra F. Vogel, China and Japan: Facing History, ‘Trade without Transformative Learning, 838–1862’, 52.

3 Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, ‘The Overthrow of the Tokugawa’, 48-49.

4 Vogel, China and Japan, ‘Responding to Western Challenges and Reopening Relations, 1839–1882’, 67-68.

5 Ibid.

6 Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, ‘The Tokugawa Polity’, 18.

7 Vogel, China and Japan, ‘Responding to Western Challenges and Reopening Relations, 1839-1882’, 69.

8 Ibid, 71.

9 Ibid, 66.

10 Noell H. Wilson, The Meiji Restoration: Japan as a Global Nation, ‘Western Whalers in 1860s’ Hakodate: How the Nantucket of the North Pacific Connected Restoration Era Japan to Global Flows.” 48-49.

11 Vogel, China and Japan, ‘Responding to Western Challenges and Reopening Relations, 1839–1882’, 67-68.

12 Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, ‘The Overthrow of the Tokugawa’, 57-58.

13 Ibid.

14 Vogel, China and Japan: Facing History, ‘Responding to Western Challenges and Reopening Relations, 1839–1882’, 73.

15 Keene, Emperor of Japan, 'Chapter 23', 214-215.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid, ‘Chapter 21’, 193.

Why did the Spain Lag Behind Much of Europe in the Mid-1800s?

The Industrial Revolution, which saw many countries move from predominantly farming economies to industrial ones, began in England in approximately 1840. However, Spain did not experience that movement until at least roughly 1880. Janel Miller explains some of the reasons why.

The group who built a tramline from Barcelona to Mataro in mid-19th century Spain.

Multiple Reasons for the Delay

As late as 1855, only about 20 percent of Spain’s land was considered cultivated. The rest had been “blasted by a ruinous system of exploitation.” Around the same time, criminals and beggars were rampant, formal education was not widespread and free speech was not common.

For those reasons and likely others, very few roads had been built by 1955. Compounding Spain’s ability to transport what goods it did produce and thus grow its economy was that its geography is more mountainous than all but one other European country (Switzerland). Spain also had “virtually no” rivers or canals that ships could sail on smoothly.   

In the limited instances where roads did exist, it appeared that few bridges spanned waterways well into the 1860s, hindering some transportation efforts. In addition, in the 1850s and 1860s, a majority of Spain’s workforce was employed in an agricultural-based business. Spain’s coal, which was being used in large amounts by the United Kingdom (and likely at least several other countries) to support the industrial plants being built on their landscapes, was also apparently inferior to that of some of its neighbors.

As one author put it when describing Spain during some of the years discussed here, “the rest of the world had long since awakened to a life of freedom and joined in the race of modern development; Spain was still asleep, drugged with the fumes of prescribed ignorance and dictated intolerance.”

Spain’s Gross Domestic Product

Spain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew only about 1.1 percent annually from 1850 until 1935. This increase was better than countries such as Italy and Britain, whose yearly GDP grew 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, during that 85-year span.

However, Spain’s GDP was lower than that of France and Germany, each of whose annual GDP increased 1.6 percent each year from 1850 to 1935.

Efforts to Modernize Hit Roadblock

Various regimes in the 1850s and 1860s enacted several laws to try and modernize its economy. Some of these laws are discussed below.

One such law was known as the Disentailment Law in the English language. This law allowed the taking of land and the awarding of lands that once belonged to the church, state and local governments to the highest bidder.

Another such law, whose name in English translated to the General Railway Act, removed many of the “administrative” difficulties in building railways that had previously been in place.

A third law was known as the Credit Company Act in the English language. This law allowed the creation of investment banks that were similar in scope to other countries that had already begun the economic modernization process.

However well-intended these laws may have been, Spain experienced a financial crisis from 1864 to 1866 that at least partially hindered that country’s growth.

In Context

Spain’s economy during the 1850s and 1860s, when looked at how it compared to some of its European neighbors, may remind some of how Haiti’s economy compares with the relatively nearby United States. (Haiti was chosen randomly for the purposes of the comparisons that follow.)

In the United States, the GDP of the United States is more than $20 trillion, placing it first among all countries, while Haiti’s GDP is approximately $21 billion, and the poorest (or almost the poorest) country in the Americas per head of population. In addition, while roughly 10.5 percent of U.S. workers are in the agricultural, food and related businesses, about 66 percent of Haitian workers are employed in farming.   

Determining the appropriate GDP to maintain a decent standard of living and the suitable number of agricultural workers a country should employ is beyond the scope of this blog.

That said, since the 1860s, Spain has gained economic ground against its neighbors, providing hope that in the future, the difference between the lower, middle and upper classes in all countries will become less apparent.

What do you think of Spain’s position in the mid 19th century?

Now read Janel’s article on the role of Brazil in World War 2 here.

References

Brittanica.com Editors. Brittanica.com. “Industrial Revolution.” https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution. Accessed April 2, 2023.

Tapia FJB and Martinez-Galarraga J. “Inequality and Growth in a Developing Economy: Evidence from Regional Data (Spain 1860-1930).” Social Science History. Volume 44, Number 1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history/article/inequality-and-growth-in-a-developing-economy-evidence-from-regional-data-spain-18601930/802599439621953BD012A8797A684DC7. Accessed March 31, 2023.

Delmar A. “The Resources, Production and Social Condition of Spain.” American Philosophical Society. Volume 14, Number 94, Pages 301-343. https://www.jstor.org/stable/981861. Accessed March 21, 2023.

Simpson J. “Economic Development of Spain, 1850-1936.” The Economic History Review. Volume 50, Issue 2, Pages 348-359. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.00058. Accessed March 21, 2023.

Delmar A. “The Resources, Production and Social Condition of Spain.” American Philosophical Society. Volume 14, Number 94, Pages 301-343. https://www.jstor.org/stable/981861. Accessed March 21, 2023.

Clark G and Jacks D. “Coal and the Industrial Revolution.” European Review of Economic History. Volume 11, Number 1, Pages 39-72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41378456. Accessed April 18, 2023.

Delmar A. “The Resources, Production and Social Condition of Spain.” American Philosophical Society. Volume 14, Number 94, Pages 301-343. https://www.jstor.org/stable/981861. Accessed March 21, 2023.

Moro A, et al. “A Twin Crisis with Multiple Banks of Issue: Spain in the 1860s.” European Central Bank. No. 1561. Published July 2013. Accessed March 31, 2023.

WorldPopulationReview.com Editors. WorldPopulationReview.com. “GDP Ranked by County 2023.” https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/by-gdp. Accessed April 17, 2023.

USDA.gov Editors. USDA.gov. “Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy.” https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-sectors-and-the-economy/. Accessed April 17, 2023.

NationsEncyclopedia.com Editors. NationsEncyclopedia.com. “Haiti-Agriculture.” https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Haiti-AGRICULTURE.html. Accessed April 17, 2023.

Simpson J. “Economic Development of Spain, 1850-1936.” The Economic History Review. Volume 50, Issue 2, Pages 348-359. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.00058. Accessed March 21, 2023.

Amazing Women in the Wild West

When we think of the Wild West, we usually picture cowboys, rangers, and formidable gangsters who followed their own laws. However, women also left their mark on this piece of American history.

In the 1800s, the way of life in the American West demanded tough character from both men and women. In order to survive and thrive, they had to be cunning, quick-witted, and often merciless. Not to mention skilled at shooting firearms. Men weren’t the only colorful figures of the Wild West. Women proved easily their equal.

It was during this transition period of the Old West that several women established names for themselves, names easily as famous as their male counterparts.  There has been little written about some of these unhearled  women but each one had a major impact in the journey West and formation of our nation.

Richard Bluttal explains.

A picture of Calamity Jane, around the year 1880.

Calamity Jane (1856-1903)

Martha “Calamity” Jane Cannary was a frontierswoman who earned her nickname after rescuing a military Captain involved in a Native American ambush. How did Martha Jane Canary go from an orphaned prostitute to one of the most famous women in the Wild West? In Wyoming, she began to develop the identity that would make her famous as Calamity Jane.

With questionable character, boldness, and the ability to captivate, Calamity Jane was a woman-of-all trades. Following the military from fort to fort on the frontier, Jane was no stranger to the Wild West.

Far from a blushing rose, Jane’s life story is peppered with wild tales that still inspire filmmakers and writers to this day. She was even known to claim children in her company as her own, only to never be seen with them again.

Calamity Jane, one of the rowdiest and adventurous women in the Old west , was a frontierswoman and professional scout, who was known for her being a friend to Wild Bill Hickok and appearing in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.

In 1870, she joined General George Armstrong Custer as a scout at Fort Russell, Wyoming, donning the uniform of a soldier. This was the beginning of Calamity Jane’s habit of dressing like a man. Heading south, the campaign traveled to Arizona in their zest to put Native Americans on reservations. In her own words, Calamity would later say of this time, that she was the most reckless and daring rider and one of the best shots in the West.

Some legends say that she disguised herself as a man to accompany soldiers as a scout on expeditions, including the 1875 expedition of General George Crook against the Lakota. She developed a reputation for hanging out with the miners, railroad workers, and soldiers—enjoying heavy drinking with them. She was arrested, frequently, for drunkenness and disturbing the peace.

In 1877 and 1878, Edward L. Wheeler featured Calamity Jane in his popular Western dime novels, adding to her reputation. She became something of a local legend at this time because of her many eccentricities. Calamity Jane gained admiration when she nursed victims of a smallpox epidemic in 1878, also dressed as a man.

How did Jane get the moniker "Calamity Jane"? Many answers have been offered by historians and storytellers. "Calamity," some say, is what Jane would threaten to any man who bothered her. She also claimed the name was given to her because she was good to have around in a calamity, such as the smallpox epidemic of 1878. Maybe the name was a description of a very hard and tough life. Like much in her life, it's simply not certain.

Charley Parkhurst (1812-1879)

Charley Parkhurst was a legendary driver of six-horse stagecoaches during California’s Gold Rush — the “best whip in California,” by one account.

Times were rough for ladies in the Wild West, so this crackerjack stagecoach driver decided to live most of her life as a man. Born in 1812, Parkhurst lived well into her sixties, in spite of being a hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing, fearless, one-eyed brute. She drove stages for Wells Fargo and the California Stage Company, not an easy or particularly safe career. The job was treacherous and not for the faint of heart — pulling cargos of gold over tight mountain passes and open desert, at constant peril from rattlesnakes and desperadoes — but Parkhurst had the makeup for it: “short and stocky,” a whiskey drinker, cigar smoker and tobacco chewer who wore a black eyepatch after being kicked in the left eye by a horse. In California, she quickly became known for her ability to move passengers and gold safely over important routes between gold-mining outposts and major towns like San Francisco or Sacramento. “Only a rare breed of men (and women),” wrote the historian Ed Sams in his 2014 book “The Real Mountain Charley,” “could be depended upon to ignore the gold fever of the 1850s and hold down a steady job of grueling travel over narrow one-way dirt roads that swerved around mountain curves, plummeting into deep canyons and often forded swollen, icy streams.”

The legend really took off after her death, when the coroner learned that Charley was a female, who had been named Charlene and had once given birth. She had pulled off one of the most remarkable hoaxes on record. It was an amazing story and much talked about in California, where her exploits driving four-in-hand or six-in-hand teams was common knowledge and where so many in the livery business had personal recollections of her daring coolness in times of danger.

Using her secret identity, Parkhurst was a registered voter and may have been the first American woman to cast a ballot. She lived out the rest of her life raising cattle and chickens until her death in 1879. It was then that her true identity was revealed, much to the surprise of her friends.

Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847)

Narcissa Whitman was one of the first white women to cross the North American continent overland on her way to become a missionary to the Cayuse Nation in present-day Washington. She, and her husband Marcus, helped facilitate the colonization of the Oregon Country via the Oregon Trail before ultimately being killed during an attack on the mission site in 1847.Pioneer and Missionary in Oregon Country Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847) traveled some 3,000 miles from her home in upstate New York to Oregon Country. She was the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1836 on her way to found the Whitman Mission among the Cayuse Indians near modern day Walla Walla, Washington. She became one of the best known figures of the 19th century through her diaries and the many letters she wrote to family and friends in the east.

Narcissa Prentiss married Marcus Whitman on February 18, 1836. She was 27; he, 33. Among the guests was one of two Nez Perce boys that Marcus had brought back with him, in hopes they would learn enough English to serve as translators once the new mission was established. He was the first Native American Narcissa had ever seen.

The Whitmans left for Oregon Country in March 1836 to begin their missionary activities among the Native Americans there. The 3,000-mile journey – made by sleigh, canal barge, wagon, river sternwheeler, on horseback and on foot – took about seven months. As the missionaries traveled in relative comfort on Missouri River steamboats, Narcissa reveled in the luxury of “servants, who stand at our elbows ready to supply every want” (March 28, 1836).

“Can scarcely resist the temptation to stand out to view the shores of the majestic river,” she wrote in her diary as the boat approached St. Louis. “Varied scenes present themselves as we pass up – beautiful landscapes – on the one side high and rugged bluffs, and on the other low plains” (March 28, 1836). She was in good spirits. “I think I shall endure the journey well – perhaps better than any of the rest of us” (April 7, 1836).

Ahead lay some 1,900 miles of prairie, mountain and desert. To cross in safety, the small missionary party joined the American Fur Company’s caravan of 70 or so traders on their way to the annual rendezvous in Green River, Wyoming. The missionaries were late setting out and ended up having to make several forced marches before they caught up with the caravan on May 26, 1836.

The next day, they encountered their first Indian villages. Narcissa and Eliza were the first white women the Indians had ever seen. “We ladies were such a curiosity to them,” Narcissa wrote. “They would come in and stand around our tent, peep in, and grin in their astonishment to see such looking objects” (June 27, 1836).

The caravan’s route followed river valleys westward toward the Rocky Mountains. This part of the journey was long and tedious, covering only fifteen miles or so in a good day. The diet by that point consisted mostly of buffalo meat (supplied by the caravan’s hunters), supplemented with milk from the missionaries’ cows. Narcissa seemed to relish the experience. “I never was so contented and happy before, neither have I enjoyed such health for years,” she wrote (June 4, 1836).

Narcissa died on November 29, 1847, along her husband and eleven other adult men. She was killed in an attack on the mission by a small group of Weyíiletpuu men who were motivated by the raging measles epidemic in their community and Dr. Whitman’s inability to cure their dying people.  

Mary Fields (1835-1914)

Better known as “Stagecoach Mary,” was a force to be reckoned with: a pioneer who made a name for herself as the first African American woman to receive employment as a U.S. postal service star-route mail carrier.

Fields was born into slavery and was freed at the end of the Civil War. She eventually made her way out west to Montana where she worked for St. Peter’s Mission. She received her mail service contract in 1895 and held her contract for 8 years. Fields had the star route contract for the delivery of U.S. mail from Cascade, Montana, to Saint Peter's Mission.

By 1895, at sixty years old, Fields secured a job as a Star Route Carrier which used a stagecoach to deliver mail in the unforgiving weather and rocky terrain of Montana, with the help of nearby Ursuline nuns, who relied on Mary for help at their mission. This made her the first African-American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service. True to her fearless demeanor, she carried multiple firearms, most notably a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron to protect herself and the mail from wolves, thieves and bandits, driving the route with horses and a mule named Moses. She never missed a day, and her reliability earned her the nickname "Stagecoach Mary" due to her preferred mode of transportation. If the snow was too deep for her horses, Fields delivered the mail on snowshoes, carrying the sacks on her shoulders.

Mary’s legend grew her death. She was made a hero, a symbol of female black empowerment. Yet how did Montanans truly understand about her during her time in Cascade? Were people capable of understanding the autonomy, persona, and character of a freed, literate African American woman who did not conform to the ideals put on her by society?

Mary drank and wore men’s clothing at times, she smoked and carried guns. Yet in death she has become this powerhouse woman. Mary had the ability to become the first African American woman Star Route Carrier during a time when the West was a predominantly white society, which says something to Mary’s relentless character and larger than life personality

Sacagawea: Translator and Guide (1788-1818/1819)

One of the best-known women of the American West, the native-born Sacagawea gained renown for her crucial role in helping the Lewis & Clark expedition successfully reach the Pacific coast.

President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart the new land and scout a Northwest Passage to the Pacific coast. After more than a year of planning and initial travel, the expedition reached the Hidatsa-Mandan settlement. Here they met Sacagawea and Charbonneau, whose combined language skills proved invaluable–especially Sacagawea’s ability to speak to the Shoshone.

Sacagawea, along with her newborn baby, was the only woman to accompany the 31 permanent members of the Lewis & Clark expedition to the Western edge of the nation and back.  Her knowledge of the Shoshone and Hidatsa languages was a great help during their journey. She communicated with other tribes and interpreted for Lewis and Clark. She was also skilled at finding edible plants, which proved to be crucial to supplementing their rations along the journey. Further, Sacagawea was valuable to the expedition because her presence signified peace and trustworthiness

Once they reached Idaho, Sacagawea’s knowledge of the landscape and the Shoshone language proved valuable. The expedition was eager to find the Shoshone and trade with them for horses. The success of the journey hinged on finding the tribe: without horses the explorers would be unable to get their supplies over the mountains. Recognizing landmarks in her old neighborhood, Sacagawea reassured the explorers that the Shoshone - and their horses - would soon be found. When the Expedition did meet the Shoshone, Sacagawea helped the Corps communicate, translating along with her husband.

Historians have debated the events of Sacagawea’s life after the journey’s end. Although opinions differ, it is believed that she died at Fort Manuel Lisa near present-day Kenel, South Dakota. At the time of her death she was not yet 30.

Short stories about other women

Mary Walton

Mary Walton was an early environmental pioneer. In 1879, she developed a way to deflect factory smokestack emissions using water tanks. This technology was later adapted for steam engines, which emitted large plumes of soot as they rode the rails.

Cathay Williams

She was the first African-American woman to enlist in the army, and did so by disguising herself as a man. Though she was hospitalized five times, no one ever discovered her secret. She called herself William Cathay and was deemed fit for duty. 

Biddy Mason

She started life as a slave, but after winning her freedom in court in 1856, she moved to Los Angeles and became a nurse and midwife. Ten years later, she bought her own land for $250, making her one of the first Black women to own land in Los Angeles.

Goldy Griffith

Goldie Griffith, often known as the “Rose of the Klondike,” was a well-known character during the late-nineteenth-century Klondike Gold Rush. She was born in Montana in 1871 and became involved in the Alaska gold rush when she was in her twenties.

Goldie soon rose to prominence as a prospector with the ability to hold her own in a male-dominated sector. She was also recognized for her beauty and charm, and she was well-liked by the region’s miners and prospectors.

Goldie staked a claim in the Yukon in 1898, becoming one of the few women to own and run a mine during the gold rush. She was also well-known for her involvement in a number of businesses, including a saloon and a hotel.

What do you think about women in the Wild West? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s piece on the history of slavery in New York here.

The Mexican War of Independence: Sudden Independence - Part 5

By the latter half of the 17th century, the rule of Spain in the New World was reaching 200 years. Times were changing, both in the New World and in Europe, and the leaders of Spain knew it. Their problem was what to do about it. Spain had never had a coherent policy in its imperial rule. Since 1492, Spain was seemingly constantly at war, with an endless series of crises thrown into the mix. Solutions had to be found for the here and now, the future would take care of itself.

Erick Redington continues his look at the independence of Spanish America by looking at the Mexican War of Independence. Here he looks at how the Mexican War of Independence finished rapidly. This was in large part due to Agustín de Iturbide and the Plan of Iguala. However, independence did not bring calm and prosperity.

If you missed them, Erick’s article on the four viceroyalties is here, Francisco de Miranda’s early life is here, his travels in Europe and the US is here, and his later years is here. Then, you can read about the Abdications of Bayonne here, the start of the Mexican War of Independence here, how Hidalgo continued the war here, the impact of José Morelos here, and the changes of the 1810s here.

A print of Agustín de Iturbide as Emperor of Mexico.

The revolution in Spain meant the mother country had no credibility left either at home or abroad. The country was a basket case. For the last 30 years, some of the most feckless and dim-witted leaders in the sorry history of humanity had presided over the Spanish people and empire. Revolutions, war (worse—a guerilla war), coups, invasions, mismanagement. You name it, Spain had gone through it. The country could not get its act together. What was there left to be loyal to at this point?

The grueling continuation of the war of independence was destroying New Spain. Most of the original leaders of the war, on both sides, were either dead or out of the country. The economy had been devastated. The rebels had their backs to the wall, and there seemed to be no way for the rebels to militarily achieve their goals, namely the expulsion of the Spanish and freedom for the people of Mexico. The situation seemed hopeless. Yet, within a matter of months, Mexico would achieve its independence. This was due to the machinations of one man, Agustín de Iturbide.

Return of Iturbide

Iturbide has been seen before, in the decisive defeat of Morales’ army. He was born in Valladolid (as seemingly so many others in this war were). After studying at the Colegio de San Nicolás (again, as so many others did), he joined the royal army and progressively rose through the ranks. Recognized as a bold and forceful soldier, he achieved several victories against Morelos.

Cruelty was something that came naturally to Iturbide. He ruthlessly crushed his opponents and harshly punished civilian populations that had supported the rebels. To celebrate Good Friday one year, he had 300 rebels executed. Relieved of command in 1816 for corruption and graft in even greater excess than those around him, he spent a year on the sidelines clearing his name, which he did. Despite his exoneration, Iturbide would never forgive those who sullied his name.

Iturbide was young and dashing on the battlefield. Handsome, and cutting a good figure on a horse, he looked like a hero out of central casting. But still, he was born in New Spain. The leaders of the viceregal government, particularly Calleja, had never really trusted him. Ambition is a good thing, in moderation, and Iturbide was full of naked ambition. During the war, he had risen from lieutenant to general. Having powerful enemies, this fact is a testament to the skill he did have. Iturbide was a good general, and a very good leader of men, which is something that gets forgotten with later events. It does explain, however, that when he did say to the effect “move in a different direction”, everyone did.

He had never forgotten his humiliation. Like an old wound that would not heal, the ordeal he went through to clear his name festered. Added to this resentment was the humiliation of what was happening in Spain. Now, he was fighting for a government that did not support the ideals he held dear anymore. There was a liberal government in Spain, and the king had been forced to reintroduce the constitution. What was the point? Perhaps, there was another way.

Seeing Another Way

Why would independence mean, by default, a social revolution and the chaos inherent in republican rule? Why would liberal ideas, which Iturbide and the rest of the royalists thought were foolish at best, and malevolent at worst, automatically guide an independent Mexico? Couldn’t an independent Mexico be guided by conservative ideals, based on order and structure in society?

What if, as the most powerful leader on the royalist side, and as a native-born Mexican, Iturbide could bring the two sides together? If the independentists and the royalists joined forces, then everyone could get what they wanted. The rebels would get a Mexico free from Spain and Spanish oppression. The royalists would get a conservative Mexico with a monarchy at its head. And Iturbide…he would get to be the leader of it all.

In 1820, Iturbide was given command of troops in the south of New Spain. This put him in direct conflict with Vincente Guerrero. The two fought several battles, with both men gaining victories over the other. However, despite the clashes, both men were exchanging letters, decrying the fighting, and trying to convince the other of their good intentions. The letters, and the subsequent negotiations, would lead to both commanders coming to an agreement.

The Plan of Iguala

On February 24, 1821, the proclamation of the Plan of Iguala was made. It was a plan made by Iturbide and supported by Guerrero. There was a list of 24 articles that laid out how the newly independent Mexico would be governed. In a brilliant piece of branding, the combined armies of Iturbide and Guerrero would be known as the Army of the Three Guarantees, after the first three articles of the plan. These were an independent Mexico, Catholicism was to be the official religion, and racial and political equality was to be had by all. There was something in the plan for everyone. Independence for the rebel leaders. Protection for the church for the royalists. Civil equality for the masses. Under this umbrella, it was felt everyone in New Spain could unite and transform the country into Mexico.

Iturbide and Guerrero met at Acatempán. When they saw each other, they embraced as a symbol of their new union, receiving cheers from their watching armies. For Iturbide, there was the concern of convincing his army to go along. This is where the previous successes of the royalists doomed the viceregal government. The former viceroy, Apodaca, had been able to sway many former rebels to come over to the royalist side. There was a not insignificant proportion of the royalist army that were former rebels. This meant many were happy about this turn of events and formed the basis of support within the regular army for this new turn. In addition, many were touched by the prospect of quick advancement in a new national army after independence. Antonio López de Santa Anna, for example, was a captain. He, at first, refused to come over to the rebel side. He was offered the rank of lieutenant colonel if he did. He began to “waver” in his firmness and was offered the rank of colonel. When he joined Iturbide, it was as a general.

The key to military support was the army of Anastasio Bustamante, commander of the royalist army in Guanajuato. Known as one of the royalist’s best commanders, and probably just as aggressive and ruthless as Iturbide, with 6,000 men under his command, he could make life very difficult for the Army of the Three Guarantees. It was not to be. Not only did Bustamante declare for the Plan of Iguala, he symbolically came over as well. This royalist commander, who had executed as many rebels as he could get his hands on, took the skull of Hidalgo out of the cage in which it had been on public display since his execution and buried it will full honors.

After Bustamante came over, the movement snowballed. Commanders in the north declared for the Plan of Iguala. By August, Iturbide marched his army into Puebla with Guadalupe Victoria, now out of hiding, by his side. Puebla was a good prize on its own, yet its position was most important for Iturbide. A new viceroy, Juan de O’Donojú, had arrived in New Spain and was in Veracruz. Iturbide had cut the route between Veracruz and Mexico City.

O’Donojú was in a tough spot. He had just arrived at his new posting and the rebels were taking over the country. He and his family were stuck in Veracruz and the city was notorious for terrible yellow fever outbreaks. His family was becoming ill, and he feared for their lives. O’Donojú was not a dumb man. He could see the writing on the wall. The only thing left to determine was if Spain could have relations with this new Mexican nation, or if the two nations would be determined enemies. O’Donojú preferred friendship.

The Treaty of Cordoba

The new viceroy came out of Veracruz to negotiate with the rebels. The two sides were able to hammer out an agreement very quickly, and the viceroy and the general signed the Treaty of Córdoba. Article 1 of the treaty stated that Mexico would receive independence from Spain as the Mexican Empire. So far so good.

The problem arose with Article 3, which stated that Ferdinand VII was to be invited to take the throne. How serious this offer was is unknown. Many conservatives supported the reactionary king, and for the liberals, Ferdinand was still the “desired one” from all those years ago. Should Ferdinand refuse, the throne would descend through his brothers. Here was the rub.

When informed about the treaty, Ferdinand immediately repudiated it and denied for all his relations any rights to the throne of Mexico. Going even further, Ferdinand notified the other courts of Europe that should any royal house accept an offer of the Mexican crown, that would finish all diplomatic relations between Spain and that country. To him, New Spain was simply another rebellious colony that would be suppressed in time. This, however, was for the future.

There was now a treaty that guaranteed independence. Iturbide, Guerrero, O’Donojú, and the rest now began a triumphal march to Mexico City. On September 27, 1821, the Army of the Three Guarantees entered the capital, bringing the War of Independence to an end. Unfortunately, the unifying act of both conservatives and liberals arriving in the capital to begin a new national life would not be the end. The conflict between the two sides began.

The Plans Fall Apart

First, a government had to be set up. The Treaty of Córdoba laid out a framework. Article 2 stated that the government would be a monarchy but limited by a constitution. Article 6 laid out that an assembly would be created, to be made up of the “most eminent” men. It was explicitly said that this assembly would be named, not elected. The assembly would then name a president (Article 9), set up the rules for the election of a national Cortes, or legislature (Article 10), and set up a regency council of three men (Article 11). The goal of the regency was to rule in the name of Ferdinand VII, or if he were to refuse, find another to take up the throne.

Of course, Ferdinand refused. With the automatic rejection from his brothers, who would be made emperor? Even Joseph Bonaparte, the usurper against whom the entire empire had risen in 1808 was allegedly offered the throne, but he refused. With no ruling houses taking the job, yet still supporting the concept of a monarchical government, someone had to be found.

In February 1822, elections were held for the first Mexican Congress. With no history or tradition of democratic rule, the elections were obviously weighted toward the wealthy and powerful. The assumption by all concerned was that the congress would assemble and ratify the choice of the new Emperor, Ferdinand VII, to be Ferdinand I, Emperor of the Mexicans.

When it became clear that Ferdinand would not be coming by the time the congress convened, the members declared that they would not be bound by the Treaty of Cordoba and would not allow all power to be concentrated into the hands of one person (which was not what the treaty said, by the way). Congress, it declared of itself, was the ultimate holder of sovereignty with a legitimate claim to exercise, not only the legislative powers, but executive and judicial as well. In addition, the congress struck at the army, considering it a threat. The army was to be reduced to 60,000 men. Further, no member of the regency council was to be allowed to hold a military command, striking directly at Iturbide.

Same Song, Different Words

There had been several attempts to name Iturbide emperor. At least twice, back in September and October, 1821, he had rejected calls to assume the throne. On May 18, 1822, soldiers of the 1st infantry regiment marched out of their barracks and demonstrated in favor of making their old commander, Iturbide, the emperor. Appearing at his doorstep, the soldiers called out for their hero to take the crown. This time, he would “reluctantly” acquiesce. The congress, now surrounded by mobs of soldiers and citizenry voted for Iturbide to become emperor. Only 15 congressmen voted no.

On July 21, 1822, Iturbide was officially declared Emperor Agustín I in the National Cathedral of Mexico. Modeled on the coronation of Napoleon, the ceremony had all the pomp and circumstance befitting the birth of a new, grand empire. New titles of nobility and offices were created for Agustín’s cronies. Orders of chivalry issued row upon row of shiny medals for the heroes of the revolution in an attempt to buy loyalty to the new regime.

The Infighting Begins - and Truly Never Ends

Immediately, the new emperor and congress squabbled. The country was bankrupt, and the lavish spending was the first issue upon which the congressmen felt they could attack Agustín. Not having any money, but needing more, especially to pay his power base in the army, the emperor’s government authorized the printing of paper money, causing massive inflation and economic dislocation, driving discontent. By August, Agustín ordered the arrest of 15 members of congress. Due to the discontent this caused, he would disband congress by force.

The conservative forces rallied around the figure of the emperor and the liberals rallied around the congress. Two divergent views of how the future of Mexico would be. Now, seemingly, those views were irreconcilable. Not even a year before, both sides had united around the Plan of Iguala and marched triumphantly into Mexico City side by side. There had been so much hope, and so much hope had died.

This was the great tragedy of the Mexican War of Independence. The conservatives believed that they could simply transfix the edifice of the Spain of old onto the new structure that was Mexico. The good old days could come back, only this time they would be in charge. They believed that the people could easily be led by their intellectual and social betters, and building a conservative Mexico would be simple if everyone could just be put back in their place. The conservatives were blind to the idea that they expected everyone to go back to their old social and economic stations but them. They could rise to the top of the social pyramid, but everyone else should stay in their place. That would be only right and just in their eyes.

Unfortunately, the liberals were just as good at fooling themselves. They believed in the greatest lie ever told, that human nature is changeable with laws, constitutions, and good intentions. If the perfect constitution could be drafted, an elected government of Plato’s philosopher kings could transform society and the hearts of men. Everyone would be brothers who would live in social and economic harmony. It was obvious. Once good government for all the people was instituted, knowing the right and subsequently doing the right would finally be possible. Everyone would live happily ever after.

Then Santa Anna opened Pandora’s box.

What do you think of the sudden independence of Mexico and the results? Let us know below.

Now, read about Francisco Solano Lopez, the Paraguayan president who brought his country to military catastrophe in the War of the Triple Alliance here.