Nurses in war – Cornelia Hancock, Legendary US Civil War Nurse

Cornelia Hancock was born in 1840, and by 1863 she was ready to help look after the sick in the US Civil War. Here, Matt Goolsby explains how Cornelia broke boundaries and helped many people during the Civil War and after.

From Quaker to Volunteer Nurse

Life in mid-nineteenth century America was vastly different to today. The news was relayed either by messenger via horseback, by train, or over telegraph wires. The northern states had more than 90% of the established infrastructure of the day versus the paltry facilities of the South.

Unsurprisingly, there was a heightened interest in news of the Civil War and especially of the battle of Gettysburg since the nation’s sons were involved.

Pennsylvania took center stage in July of 1863.

Driven by a desire to fulfill her life’s purpose, Cornelia Hancock knew that she needed to be involved.

Cornelia Hancock came from a very unassuming Quaker family. She had been born on February 8, 1840, at Hancock’s Bridge in Salem, New Jersey. Many Quakers had fled England due to religious persecution and had wanted only to live a quiet life and practice their religion. Their unique lifestyle even caused persecution to occur in early New England history, but had subsided with the Tolerance Act of 1689.

The Hancock family had abolitionist leanings due to their Quaker principles and believed that the nationwide conflict was just. Personally affected, Cornelia’s brother had enlisted in the Union Army, which motivated her to help in some significant way.

Cornelia’s older sister had been employed at the US mint in Philadelphia and later married a Quaker doctor named, Henry T. Child, also from Philadelphia, who felt strongly about caring for wounded soldiers.

Dr. Child knew of Cornelia’s desire to get involved and so requested she travel to Gettysburg to help relieve some of the pain the wounded and dying were going through.

Her arrival in Gettysburg established her role as a ‘Volunteer’ nurse as most of the nurses or assistants of the day had no formal medical training. Nurses of the day were called ‘Volunteer’ and were recruited as plain women over the age of thirty-five who were required to wear unassuming and non-adorning apparel. They were also instructed to wear nothing in their hair and forego jewelry so as not to be a distraction and to also not become a victim of men’s advances. This had been outlined by Dorothea Dix, the Army Superintendent of Nurses. Cornelia spurned these requirements being only 23 at the time and proceeded with grim determination. She made it to the battle site on July 6, 1863 to ghastly conditions.

Most of the dead had remained on the battlefield in the blistering summer sun for three days after the battle ended. This caused the bodies to quickly decompose, which created an unbearable stench that hang heavy in the air.

After losing the battle, Robert E Lee had fled the Union Army with his forces leaving 5000 of his Confederate troops behind. This only added to the misery experienced after the conflict ended.

Upon entering 3rd Division, 2nd Corps Field Hospital on July 7, 1863, Cornelia wrote that the wounded had been separated into differing levels of triage: those who had severe head wounds and were deemed ‘hopeless’, those who had a slim chance of survival, and those who were recovering. Her first official duties were to write down last requests to family members from those too weak to do it themselves who would soon become the ‘beloved dead’.

From Volunteer Nurse to Caregiver

As Cornelia quickly matured in her work at the Field Hospitals, she became a strong advocate for the men in her care. There were severe shortages of basic supplies, especially bedding and bandages. Her writings reflect the desire to meet these basic needs as she solicited family and friends for funds to procure what was essential for the care of the wounded.

The amazing aspect of Cornelia’s personality that comes out in her writings is that she was truly moved by the misery surrounding her and yet the sadness of the situation never seemed to paralyze her to the needs of others. These experiences would refine as well as clarify what her future life’s work would become.

As the war progressed and the suffering continued, she would jokingly refer to the ‘Copperheads’ as being worthy of death because of the lack of support they gave to the Union cause. This coming from a nurse who saw the best and worst in humanity shows the paradox of the experience of war and life itself. 

‘Copperhead’ was the term given to a group of Union Democrat politicians who were vociferous in their criticism of the war and wanted an immediate truce with the Confederates of the Southern United States. It was given to them by Republicans who likened them to a snake of the same name. Not an endearing term or moniker.

Another aspect of Cornelia’s personality that comes out is the love of her family and yet, in the resistance to become what they would have preferred. She had been raised with loving but strict Quaker principles. Her family would have preferred she take a more ‘prudent’ direction with her life. However, she chose to care for those who she felt needed her most. This is very evident in her letters.

One such letter shows the depth of compassion she has for both the wounded and their families and friends: “I have eight wall tents of amputated men. The tents of the wounded I look right out on - it is a melancholy sight, but you have no idea how soon one gets used to it. Their screams of agony do not make as much an impression on me now as the reading of this letter will on you. The most painful task we have here, is entertaining the friends who come from home and see their friends all mangled up”, written Sunday, July 26th, 1863 at 3rd Division-2nd Army Corp Hospital, Gettysburg, PA.

Cornelia had the innate ability to see the greater purpose in her service to others. Her desire to provide for the physical needs of the men as well as their emotional comfort is on plain display in many of her letters. When she speaks of men who are about to die from mortal wounds to those who would cry because they were being transferred to another hospital away from her care, you can hear her compassion and empathy for them.

From Caregiver to Lifelong Advocate

In the final two years of the Civil War, Cornelia spent her time moving to different locations as the need arose. During the latter part of October, 1863, she moved from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. to care for the ‘Contraband’.

The escaped slaves or those who sided with the Union Army during the Civil War were referred to as ‘Contrabands’. Cornelia also used the term in her letters to describe the families of those who had also escaped with them.

Conditions for those termed ‘Contraband’, were dismal at best. It was after witnessing the effects of slavery and poverty that she felt strongly that something had to be done to improve their lives.

Her first efforts were to solicit family for funds to purchase clothing for those who were the poorest of the poor. She also witnessed firsthand the brutal effects of what many a slaveowner had wielded on their slaves.

One such situation occurred when she described two slaves to her mother in a letter dated, November 15th, 1863, Contraband Hospital, Washington D.C.: “There were two very fine looking slaves arrived here from Louisiana, one of them had his master’s name branded on his forehead, and with him he brought all the instruments of torture that he wore at different times during 39 years of very hard slavery.” 

She goes on to describe the heinous instruments used to keep slaves from comfort and freedom. These experiences along with her witnessing what the ‘Contraband’ had for food and clothing only solidified her resolve to do what she could for the least of these, her brethren.

As the war continued, Cornelia would transfer to several different locations. They included: Brandy Station and Fredericksburg, Virginia, White House Landing, City Point, Virginia, and finally to where the war ended: Richmond, Virginia.

After the war ended, Cornelia spent the next ten years in which she established the Laing School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina whose mission was to educate former slaves and to inspire them to become good citizens through high ideals.

The remainder of Cornelia’s life was spent working on behalf of the poor and ministering to those who had no advocate. Her strength of character and purpose is demonstrated in the many letters written to family that document her experiences at Gettysburg and throughout the American experience during the Civil War. She was and continues to be a national treasure.

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

Finally, the next article in the series is on Clara Barton, another US Civil War-era nurse. Clara Barton also played a key role in the formation of the American Red Cross - article available here.

References

Henrietta Stratton Jaquette - Editor, “Letters of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock 1863-1865”, University of Nebraska Press, 1998, Foreword and 1-32.

“News and the Civil War”, http://americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-and-the-civil-war

“Cornelia Hancock – National Park Service”, https://www.nps.gov/people/cornelia-hancock.htm

“Definition of Copperhead (Politician)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperhead_(politics)

“Definition of Contraband (American Civil War)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraband_(American_Civil_War)

“Definition of Quakers”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers

“Laing School – Mount Pleasant, South Carolina”, http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/laing-school/

Truth to Power: First Ladies that Shaped Presidencies and Policies. Part 3: The Two Mrs. Woodrow Wilsons

Woodrow Wilson was US President from 1913-1921, during World War I and its aftermath. Here, Kate Murphy Schaefer follows her articles on Abigail Adams (here) and Eleanor Roosevelt (here), by looking at both of the first ladies to Woodrow Wilson: Ellen Wilson and Edith Wilson, who have contrasting legacies.

Woodrow and Edith Wilson in 1920.

Conventional wisdom tells us “the past doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”[1] It makes sense there would be some overlap in the experiences of American first ladies: only 46 women have known how it feels to be thrust into that kind of spotlight. Some embraced their new role; others simply tried to make the best of it. Many took on the weight of shaping and maintaining their husband’s legacy: Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jackie Kennedy come to mind. Two very different first ladies took on responsibility for the legacy of President Woodrow Wilson, however: Ellen and Edith Wilson.

The First Mrs. Wilson

Ellen Louise Axson was dedicated to her art, even winning a medal at the Paris International Exposition in 1878. This focus did not go unnoticed by the eligible bachelors in Rome, Georgia, earning her the nickname “Ellie the Man Hater.”[2] This changed when she met Woodrow Wilson. She set aside studio art in favor of the art of compromise, supporting her husband and his dream of entering national politics. Ellen was much more adept than her husband at making the connections and cultivating the relationships that would make presidential candidacy a reality. For example, she knew Woodrow would not win the Democratic nomination without the support of Congressional giant William Jennings Bryan, so she invited Bryan to dinner. She seemed to instinctively know how to make people feel at ease and how to portray her bookish college professor husband in the best light. Though she saw herself as the “most unambitious of women,” Ellen Wilson made President Wilson possible.[3]

She admitted “life in the White House has no attractions for me,” but vowed to make the best of her stay. She supported women’s suffrage, increased rights for African-Americans, and championed restrictions on child labor. She also worked for housing reform in Washington, D.C. A woman of her time and product of her Southern upbringing, she was not as progressive as some, but she was considerably more progressive than her husband. Evidence of her work lived on in the Alley bill passed by the House of Representatives after her death.[4] Ultimately chronic kidney disease, not lack of drive or dedication, kept Ellen from achieving all she wanted to achieve. She died on August 6, 1914. Devoted to Woodrow to the last, her final words were “take good care of my husband.”[5]

A New Mrs. Wilson

Woodrow Wilson grieved bitterly for his wife, but a new Mrs. Wilson was on his horizon. Hoping to break the president out of his depression, Ellen’s former secretary, Helen Bones, invited him to tea with her friend Edith Bolling Galt. Edith had lost her first husband six years before and was not inclined towards another romantic relationship. Wilson, on the other hand, was completely besotted. He proposed within three months, pursuing her even after she declined the first proposal. Initial reluctance aside, Edith seemed to know from the beginning that her future led to the White House, describing meeting Wilson as “an accidental meeting which carried out the adage of ‘turn a corner and meet your fate.’”[6] The couple married in December 1915. Edith was not Ellen: she was not as educated or as knowledgeable about social issues and politics. Where Ellen worked for several causes, Edith had only one: Woodrow Wilson. Fate, whether stumbled upon at tea or grasped head on, is a fickle mistress. On September 25, 1919, Wilson suffered a massive stroke in the residence of the White House. The Mrs. Wilson least prepared to take on politics became the woman in charge of the President and the presidency itself.

Following the stroke, Woodrow Wilson was “paralyzed, unconscious, (and) almost vegetative,” leading Edith to hide the severity of her husband’s condition.[7] Only the most senior White House officials knew the truth, and they were sworn to silence in the name of preserving Wilson’s legacy. Medical records and notes taken by the presidential physicians at the time were buried until 1991. They told a story much different than the one Edith insisted on. The stroke trauma was “so extensive…it would be impossible for him ever to achieve more than a minimal state of recovery.”[8] But the President was not dead, and the Constitution was vague about how to replace a living president that could not serve. (It would take nearly fifty years for the 25th amendment to be ratified.) Edith insisted her husband could still perform his duties as president, albeit with a few changes. She did not allow any visitors and was present in all meetings in his stead. She became the conduit to the President, and “access became tantamount to power.”[9]

The Price of Devotion

“I studied every paper, sent from different Secretaries or Senators, and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband.”[10]

What Edith called her “stewardship,” others called her regency. Some referred to her as “Mrs. President.” Title aside, there was little doubt the first lady was making decisions of her own accord. Politicians who spoke ill of her or her husband were soon cut off. She even fired the Secretary of State because he dared to call a Cabinet meeting without her.[11] Congressional and White House officials alike learned not to question Edith even as they quietly doubted the words she scrawled on their correspondence were from the President’s lips. Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall was aware of his precarious position as the lame duck vice president in Edith Wilson’s White House. Explaining his predicament to New York Times reporter Arthur Krock, he said “no politician ever exposes himself to the hatred of a woman, particularly if she’s married to the President of the United States.”[12]

Edith Wilson was more devoted to the President than to the ideals and nation he swore to protect. In hiding the president’s condition, she lied to Congress. In acting in a role for which she was not elected and far from equipped, she showed blatant disregard for the Constitution. Shaping the present to one exclusive purpose, she also shaped the future. The fallout from her prioritization of Wilson’s legacy would impact American and world history for years to come. As she shuffled papers from one side of the White House to another, the fate of the League of Nations, and the fragile peace of the 1918 Armistice, hung in the balance. Prior to his stroke, Wilson struggled with certain articles of the League, but Vice President Marshall was a staunch supporter. Many historians argue a Marshall presidency would have resulted in the United States joining the League of Nations, ensuring its success. With Edith’s decision to take over her husband’s presidency, the world lost an opportunity to head off the conflicts that would spark into another world war. “What was lost was a generation of experience in leadership,” explained John Milton Cooper.[13]

Historians also wonder whether Ellen Wilson would have made the same decision in Edith’s place. Her persistence in winning support for Wilson in Washington demonstrated her dedication, but would the woman for whom the White House held no attraction have been as eager to take control of the West Wing? It is impossible to know for sure, but remains a tantalizing debate. Devotion, like love, is a tricky thing. Both Mrs. Wilsons loved Woodrow Wilson, and both felt some responsibility for guiding and preserving his political career. Still we remember Ellen Wilson as everything a first lady should be, and Edith as everything she should not.

Do you agree with the author? Let us know below.

[1] Though not verified, this quote is often attributed to Mark Twain.

[2] John Milton Cooper, “Ellen Axson Wilson/Edith Bolling Wilson,” in Susan Swain and C-SPAN, First Ladies: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 241.

[3] “Ellen Axson Wilson,” The White House.gov, accessed June 15, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-ladies/ellen-axson-wilson/.

[4] The bill did not become a law until 1933 when it was championed by another progressive first lady: Eleanor Roosevelt.

[5] “Ellen Wilson,” White House Historical Association, accessed June 5, 2918, https://whitehousehistory.org/bios/ellen-wilson.

[6] Edith Wilson quoted in Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, (New York: Crown Publishers, 2015), 38.

[7] William Hazelgrove, Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, (Washington, D.C.: Regency Publishing, 2016), e-book.

[8] Medical records quoted in Phyllis Lee Levin, Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House. New York: Scribner, 2001), 344.

[9] Levin, 11.

[10] Edith Wilson quoted in Hazelgrove.

[11] Katie Serena, “Was Edith Wilson Actually America’s First Female President?,” All That’s Interesting, accessed June 5, 2018, http://allthatsinteresting.com/edith-wilson.

[12] Thomas Riley Marshall quoted in Levin, 342.

[13] John Milton Cooper, “Edith Ellen Axson Wilson/Edith Bolling Wilson,” in Susan Swain and C-SPAN, First Ladies: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 248.

Sources Cited

Cooper, John Milton and Kristie Miller, “Ellen Axson Wilson/Edith Bolling Wilson,” in Susan Swain and C-SPAN, First Ladies: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women. New York: Public Affairs, 2015.

“Ellen Wilson,” White House Historical Association, accessed June 5, 2918, https://whitehousehistory.org/bios/ellen-wilson.

Larson, Erik. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. New York: Crown Publishers, 2015.

Levin, Phyllis Lee. Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House. New York: Scribner, 2001.

Hazelgrove, William. Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson. Washington, D.C.: Regency Publishing, 2016.

Serena, Katie. “Was Edith Wilson Actually America’s First Female President?,” All That’s Interesting, accessed June 5, 2018, http://allthatsinteresting.com/edith-wilson.

Japan’s Secret World War II Atrocities – Unit 731

In April, the Japanese government released the names of over three thousand members of Unit 731. Unit 731 was a group in the Japanese Imperial Army responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II. Jack Gray explains.

Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731

(1)   Unit 731 is the commonly used name for the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army. It was a secret unit of the Japanese Imperial Army that carried out experiments in biological and chemical warfare using human test subjects. Unit 731 was only one unit of several in the Japanese Imperial Army that carried out medical experiments, but it is the best known. These units were known as the Ishii Network, after Lt. Gen. Ishii Shiro, the commanding officer of Unit 731 who spent his military career researching the development of biological weapons.

(2)   Unit 731 was established in 1936 and operated in the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. It was shut down in 1945 after the defeat of Japan. Lt. Gen. Ishii had been carrying out experiments in China in secret since 1933 during the second Sino-Japanese War, although most of these early experiments were much smaller in scale. After 1939, Unit 731’s headquarters were located in Pingfan, near Harbin in China. In its early days most of its members were medical researchers from various Japanese universities, not professional soldiers. There were only eight people in the first group posted to the unit, but it quickly grew in size until there were several thousand members (only a small number were doctors).

(3)   Unit 731 was known for their use of humans as test subjects in horrific experiments studying the effects of plague, frostbite, and other various diseases. While they did carry out several field tests using biological weapons, the use of their weapons was generally less successful than their gruesome experiments. In these, they examined the effects of diseases such as anthrax, cholera, dysentery, plague, smallpox, tetanus, tuberculosis, and typhoid on live human subjects. Researchers infected prisoners with the diseases and then performed vivisections on them while they were still alive to track the progress of the infection. Some experiments studying frostbite involved leaving prisoners outside until their limbs froze and then attempting various methods of reviving the necrotic body parts.

(4)   Many of the members of Unit 731 received immunity from the U.S. government in exchange for the data from their experiments. After the conclusion of the war, Americans began investigating the unit’s experiments and asked for the data, but never used it as evidence to prosecute any members, saying that the information gained from the experiments was too valuable not to take advantage of, since no similar experiments could be carried out in the United States due to moral scruples. In addition, seizing the data prevented the Soviet Union from being able to access it; using the experiments as evidence in a trial would have resulted in making the results public, thereby giving the Soviet Union the information as well. Regardless of the reason, no member of Unit 731 was ever prosecuted by the United States or by Japan.

(5)   The history of Unit 731 has been a contentious issue in Japan, as the government did not disclose any information about the group until recently. Only recently has more information come to light after a request from the public. Many people feel that the lack of any criminal charges against members of Unit 731 is a great injustice, and that the United States should have prosecuted every member. The publication of the names of several thousand members of the unit by the National Archives of Japan was the result of a petition led by Katsuo Nishiyama, a medical professor. The request was first made in 2015, but most of the names on the list were redacted. Only in January of 2018 did the government agree to release the rest of the names. Katsuo hopes that the release of the names will lead to greater awareness of the unit’s history and a new commitment never to repeat the crimes of the past.

To summarize, Unit 731 was a group in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II that was responsible for war crimes involving experimentation on live human beings, but escaped prosecution. Only recently have the names of the members of the Unit come to light. Hopefully with this new information there will be new commitments to avoid further atrocities and remember those who suffered.

Jack Gray is from Pacific Atrocities Education, www.pacificatrocities.org.

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

New York City in the 1930s – And How Hitler’s Nazis Tried to Gain Influence There

New York City was changing in the 1930s – from the 1920s boom to the Great Depression, many people quickly went from a comfortable life to the breadline. And the Nazis entered this climate and tried to gain more influence. Terrence McCauley, author of the New York-based novel The Fairfax Incident (Amazon US | Amazon UK), explains.

A German-American Bund Parade in New York City in 1939. The group had links with Hitler's Nazis.

One of the many reasons why I enjoy writing about 1930s New York is because of the complex social dynamics occurring in the city’s history at that particular time. By 1933, the city and the country were undergoing a period of great change. The Roaring Twenties had come to a screeching halt, Prohibition was repealed, a new president was in the White House and the Great Depression was beginning to tighten its grip on every strata of society.

Economic Problems

For the first time since it had assumed control of the city’s modern political machine, Tammany Hall was beginning to lose its legendary power thanks to many of the reforms that had been set in place by former governor and then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The time of the omnipotent ward boss was on the wane and people like Mayor LaGuardia were poised to rise to power. The criminal underworld faced changes of its own as the Irish, whose immigrant population had been here the longest, began to leave the streets to become police officers, firemen, lawyers and yes, politicians. This criminal power vacuum was quickly filed by hungrier new immigrants like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.

As is usually the case in times of economic unrest, the middle class suffered the most. With their jobs gone and prospects of other employment scarce, many people lost their homes. Families were split apart as children were sent to live with relatives better suited to take care of them. Breadlines seemed to grow longer by the day. As the flop houses quickly filled, shantytowns known as Hoovervilles sprang up along the waterfront and even in the bucolic confines of Central Park. People accustomed to living in decent apartments were now forced to live in shabby structures comprised of any material the builders were fortunate enough to lay their hands on. The wolf was no longer at the door. It had blown the whole neighborhood down.

Germanic – and Nazi - Influence

The rest of the world faced revolutionary change of its own, especially in Europe. The monarchies of old had died away in the wake of the conflagration that came to be known as the First World War and a downtrodden Germany turned to a maniac they believed to be their savior. The man who vowed to restore their country’s dignity and make the world pay for punishing it so harshly in 1918. A man named Adolf Hitler.

As his Nazi Party took root in Germany, Hitler’s henchmen sought to export its philosophy to other parts of the world. America was no exception. Only here, its infiltration into society took a subtler, more devious approach. Knowing Americans would likely reject unpatriotic overtures from a foreign land, Hitler’s organization encouraged the formation of The Friends of New Germany, which spurred the American Bund movement. The Upper East Side of New York City, known as Yorkville, had a large German population and the organization found fertile ground there under the guise of a fraternal organization no different than the Knights of Columbus or the Ancient Order of Hibernians. They sought to encourage German immigrants and German-Americans to take pride in their heritage and cast off the shame of defeat in the Great War.

In New York, storefronts opened up featuring Bund material including Nazi propaganda and, of course Mein Kampf. It’s hard to believe such places could exist in as diverse a city as New York, but they did. Soon, the movement established Youth Camps in Long Island and New Jersey that claimed to be like the Boy Scouts, but more resembled the Hitler Youth in Germany.

The strength of the ties between the German Nazi Party and the Bund Movement have always been some matter of dispute. But there is no disputing the Bund’s power in organizing a large rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939 that drew 22,000 supporters who carried Nazi banners and saluted the evils of Hitler’s aims.

Despite the 22,000 people inside, over a hundred thousand protestors were outside, using their freedom of speech and assembly, not granted to the people in Germany, to voice their opposition to the movement. The event turned out to be a disaster, causing Germany to cut all ties with the movement, which collapsed completely when its members withdrew when the Second World War began.

A dark era in the city’s history was brought to an end by the brave citizens who took a stand against evil and promoted liberty.

I’m glad those ideas still exist in the city I call home today.

What do you think of the article and the role of the Nazis in 1930s New York? Let us know below.

As a reminder, you can get a copy of Terrence McCauley’s novel, The Fairfax Incident, here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Key Events and Trends in the Cold War in 1955

The Cold War was becoming part of international relations by 1955. Here, some of the key events and trends at the time are explained: the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, and between the US and Europe in general. And how the fledgling CIA operated is also considered. Bill Rapp, author of Cold War Spy thriller The Hapsburg Variation (Amazon US | Amazon UK), explains.

Kim Philby, an important member of British Intelligence who would later defect to the Soviet Union. 

The most realistic thing about The Hapsburg Variation is the general background set at the height of the Cold War, as well as the developing relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom--a relationship that has been labelled as "special" for several decades now.  Following my own recent assignment in London, I can attest that it truly is special--especially in the fields of intelligence and diplomacy.  I enjoyed an extremely close working relationship with my British colleagues.  In fact, I even held a building pass to the Foreign Office that allowed me to move about the halls un-escorted.  I did often get lost, but that had nothing to do with the "special relationship," but more with the elaborate design and recent remodeling that steered British diplomats in the wrong direction on occasion.

That relationship has not always been as close as it is today, nor even that friendly, especially at the time of The Hapsburg Variation.  The British had just gone through the painful experience of having two of their rising stars (Burgess and Maclean) flee to Moscow as they were about to be exposed as Soviet spies, and suspicion for their warning and flight fell heavily on Kim Philby.  As Philby was also considered one of the darlings, and even a possible future leader of MI6, the British resisted the American push to have the man sacked, or at least have his security clearance revoked.  Not only did London resist, but he was even cleared shortly after the Maclean-Burgess affair by a government inquiry.  Washington, of course, remained suspicious and was eventually proven right when Philby disappeared from his Beirut posting and then resurfaced in Moscow as a hero of the Soviet Union some six years later.  Not that some in the American intelligence community hadn't been complicit in their refusal to accept Philby's guilt.  James Jesus Angleton, the head of the Agency's Counter-Intelligence bureau, had spent many a boozy and extended lunch sharing operational secrets with Philby, who promptly reported them to Moscow.  Readers will no doubt pick up Karl Baier's cautious and at times negative attitude toward his British counterparts in Vienna and London, an attitude driven by the CIA's disappointment with MI6's and London's refusal to face the proverbial music on the spies in their midst.  It would takes years for the "cousins" to regain the Americans’ full trust.

An important year in the Cold War

1955 also marked a high point in the Cold War.  Several of the events that precipitated the change in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union from that of wartime ally to peacetime nemesis were part of the very recent past: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, the Communist coups in Czechoslovakia and Romania, the Greek civil war, the Korean War, the East Berlin uprising and its suppression.  But not all the developments were negative.  Khrushchev had already decided that the Soviet system was badly in need of reform, and that the USSR would undoubtedly benefit from a relaxation in tensions with the West.  In fact, he had probably already begun to draft--or at least consider--his speech for the 1956 party congress that would denounce the crimes of Stalin and usher in a short-lived period of mild reforms at home and in the satellite states of the Warsaw Pact.  This almost certainly helped inspire the agreement to negotiate the reunification of Austria, the withdrawal of all foreign troops, and the restoration of full Austrian sovereignty, all of which culminated in the State Treaty of May, 1955.  Of course, Khrushchev did not enjoy unanimous support at home for this shift, and this opposition that would come to the fore during the Hungarian Revolt a year later.

The impact on European History

Then there is the broader sweep of European history and the part of the United States in that, thanks to the cultural and political legacy the country carries.  Europe had just emerged from two devastating wars, which would end its role as the preeminent geopolitical region. That role would fall first to the United States, and secondly to the Soviet Union, with China waiting in the proverbial wings.  And it would fall to Washington to ensure that the liberal and democratic traditions that were inherited from their European settlers would not be lost in their homelands.

The Second World War also accelerated the fracturing of Europe that emerged from the collapse of the three great Central and Eastern European empires in 1919.  Although World War II had helped the nations of Western Europe to put their nationalistic and even xenophobic pasts behind them, further east it strengthened those national and ethnic animosities that continue to bedevil American and European policymakers to this day.  Nonetheless, there have always been some who regretted the loss of the Hapsburg Empire in particular, viewing it as the best answer--with some serious reforms, of course--to the divisive animosities that have undermined the region's stability and prosperity ever since.  Herr von Rudenstein represents those who moaned the loss of that world, a feeling captured in the numerous studies of fin de siècle Vienna, the novels of Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig, and more recently the film The Budapest Grand Hotel.  Such nostalgia should never have a part in policy-making, but you would never convince the likes of Herr von Rudenstein that his dreams were not the stuff of realistic goals.  The history of the twentieth century in the region would suggest that he might have had a point.

The Central Intelligence Agency

Finally, there is the matter of a young Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), just eight years old at this point.  The CIA was still emerging from its apprenticeship as the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, during World War II.  From those early years the Agency carried an unfortunate, in my mind, fascination with covert, paramilitary action that did gain some notable--if momentary--successes with the coups in Iran and Guatemala, but also a host of unmitigated disasters in futile attempts to foment revolts in the Communist states of Eastern Europe.  The Agency was also, again in my mind, too reliant on the British “cousins” in those early years, an admittedly natural dependency given their long history in the business of espionage.  It would take the Americans some years to develop their own capacity for recruiting and handling agents in hostile environments, learning how to vet and protect them, and provide the sort of human intelligence that can best inform policymakers in Washington.  But the Americans were learning in 1955, and they would soon emerge as the more powerful and more successful of the two.  This is the sort of environment Karl Baier was operating in during his tour in Vienna, and he was prone to many of the same assumptions, resentments, and expectations that governed the outlook and perspectives of his real-life colleagues in those days.  But he also learned to overcome the challenges those presented and reach his goals, occasionally with the help and assistance of his hosts and his British partners.

Let us know what you think about the article below.

Bill’s book, The Hapsburg Variation, is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

ABOUT THE BOOK

Eight years into his career with the CIA, Karl Baier once again finds himself on the front line of the Cold War. He is stationed in Vienna in the spring of 1955 as Austria and the four Allied Powers are set to sign the State Treaty, which will return Austria's independence, end the country's postwar occupation, and hopefully reduce tensions in the heart of Europe. But the Treaty will also establish Austrian neutrality, and many in the West fear it will secure Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and create a permanent division. Asked to help investigate the death of an Austrian aristocrat and Wehrmacht veteran, Baier discovers an ambitious plan not only to block the State Treaty, but also to subvert Soviet rule in lands of the old Hapsburg Empire. Then Baier's wife is kidnapped, and the mission becomes intensely personal. Many of his basic assumptions are challenged, and he discovers that he cannot count on loyalties, even back home in Washington, D.C. At each maddening turn in the investigation, another layer must be peeled away. Even if Baier succeeds in rescuing his wife, he faces the unenviable task of unraveling an intricate web of intrigue that reaches far back into the complicated history of Central Europe. Book 2 in the Cold War Thriller series, which began with Tears of Innocence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Rapp recently retired from the Central Intelligence Agency after thirty-five years as an analyst, diplomat, and senior manager. After receiving his BA from the University of Notre Dame, an MA from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from Vanderbilt University, Bill taught European History at Iowa State University for a year before heading off to Washington, D.C. The Hapsburg Variation is the second book in the Cold War Spy series featuring Karl Baier. Bill also has a three-book series of detective fiction set outside Chicago with P.I. Bill Habermann, and a thriller set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. He lives in northern Virginia with his wife, two daughters, two miniature schnauzers, and a cat. For more information, go to BillRappsBooks.com.

How did Queen Mary I of England’s Reign Fail? King Philip II of Spain, the Struggle between France and Spain, and how England lost Calais

Regarding Mary Tudor’s reign as Queen of England, John Knox defiantly asserted, “unworthy, by reason of her bloody tyranny, of the name of a woman.”

The Tudor Dynasty of England, which spanned the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century, was filled with many colorful monarchs who impacted the country politically, economically, and socially. One of these monarchs was Queen Mary I of England (1553-1558) – otherwise known as Bloody Mary. Anthony Ruggiero explains how Mary’s marriage to King Philip II of Spain and England’s role in the ongoing struggle between France and Spain ultimately led to the fall of Calais (England’s territory in modern-day France) and greatly undermined Mary.

King Philip II of Spain and Mary I of England - the pair married in 1554.

Mary would England into a war against France from 1557-1558, which ultimately proved to be a disaster for England, considering the loss of numerous lives and the loss of the Calais territory. Influenced by her husband, Philip, Mary entered a conflict that was initially contested by Spain and France over territory in Italy, known as the Italian Wars. Mary’s decision to enter the Italian War of 1551-1559 was also a result of two insurrections affiliated with the French by Henry Dudley and later Thomas Stafford. Mary’s involvement put her at odds with the Pope, Paul IV, turning her and the country against the authority of the Catholic Church, a relationship she had worked so hard to once again obtain. This would ultimately tarnish her reputation.                                                                                 

Prior to entering the Italian War of 1551-1559, France and Spain had long engaged in a war over claimed territories in Italy. Beginning in 1494, the Italian War dominated a majority of the sixteenth century, with a frequent back-and-forth between Emperor Charles V of Spain and the Valois kings of France.[1] Both countries continued lobbying for the support of the English, which placed England in the middle to serve as a potential ally to either of the two countries. All three countries depended on each other for trade. England and France exchanged grain in order to prevent food shortages. Spain heavily relied on access to the English Channel, which connected Spain to the Netherlands, another important country for trade, which was also a Spanish-controlled area.[2]  Mary recognized the importance of forging peace between England and Spain in order to maintain access to the benefits England could receive through trade. Furthermore, Mary and Philip’s act of marriage prevented her from involving England in any conflict between France and Spain.[3] The act of marriage states:

The realm of England, by occasion of this matrimony, shall not directly or indirectly be entangled with the war that is between the most victorious lord the emperor, father unto the said lord prince, and Henry, the French king, but he the said lord Philip, as much as shall lie in him, on the behalf of the said realm of England, shall see the peace between the said realms of France and England observed, and shall give no cause of any breach…[4]

This statement from the act of marriage reaffirmed that Mary could not involve England in the current conflict happening between Spain and France. Mary initiated treaty negotiations in 1555; unfortunately, nothing resulted from these negotiations due to each country refusing to give up land the other had requested.[5] Despite this initial failure, negotiations continued, and Spain and England did ultimately obtain brief peace through the treaty of Vaucelles in February 1556.[6]

Not keeping the peace

However, the treaty of Vaucelles would not keep the two countries from eventual conflict due to interference from the Catholic Church. The newly elected Pope, Paul IV, was described as a “bitter foe” of the Spanish due to their rule of his native Naples. Overall, Paul was against Spanish control in Italy due to his overwhelming fear that the Spanish were a threat to the Papacy’s independence and authority.[7] Paul openly expressed his disdain by labeling Charles V as “heretic, schismatic, and tyrant” and asserting that Philip, who now assumed power after Charles abdicated the throne in 1556, was the same.[8] Paul stated that Charles, and now Philip, was attempting to take the lands away from the papacy to continue to amass their own wealth, and as he also stated, to “oppress the Holy See,” meaning to take away the authority and power of the Catholic Church.[9] Philip reacted to this denouncement of both himself and his father by prompting an invasion by his viceroy, the duke of Salva in Naples, of the Papal States in September 1556.[10] France had signed a secret treaty with the papacy in December of 1555 that promised them control of Naples if they could force out the Spanish.[11] They countered this attack through a surprise invasion of one of the Spanish occupied lands of Douai, France in January of 1557.[12] Thus, the treaty of Vaucelles was officially broken, war was declared, and Philip returned to England in March of 1557 to ask the assistance of his wife Mary.[13]

Mary’s hands were tied. Both France and Spain were allies to England, and the marriage act prevented Mary from placing England in the conflict between the two countries. Additionally, Mary and her council were concerned that if England were to assist the Spanish, they would be cut off from access to grain and wool from France.[14] The harvests responsible for supplying a vast majority of food within England were particularly horrendous in both 1555 and 1556, resulting in shortages of food and rises in prices due to scarcity. Maintaining trade with France was crucial in order to supply the people of England with food.[15] There was additional concern that assisting the Spanish would lead to France prompting Scotland to invade England, and Ireland, controlled by England at the time, to rebel against England.[16]

Choosing Spain

Despite these factors, due to preexisting French hostilities between France and England, as well as her marriage to Philip, Mary was more inclined to pursue assisting Spain against France. For example, prior to Mary’s ascension to throne, Henry II supported the Duke of Northumberland’s choice of Jane Grey as the successor of Edward VI due to Mary’s inclination towards the Spanish.[17] Another event that continued to sour Mary’s sentiment towards the French occurred in 1556: Henry Dudley, who allegedly conducted a conspiracy in France with French influence, was discovered attempting to steal from the Exchequer and invade England due to hatred of the Spanish and his favor of Mary’s sister, Elizabeth.[18] The conspiracy was defeated, and the French ambassador who was suspected in the plot, Antoine de Noailles, was dismissed from the English court.[19] England did eventually decide to assist Spain and declare war on France when nobleman Thomas Stafford arrived in England on April 23rd, 1557 with two French warships; combined with French and English rebels, they seized Scarborough castle with between 30 and 100 men.[20] Stafford further intended to dispose of Mary, declaring that she was “handing the country to foreigners.” He also added that the crown needed to be “kept in English blood,” and declared his right to the throne.[21] Mary and her council were informed four days later, and on April 28th the insurrection was defeated.[22] This event, along with the improved harvest in May of 1557, which meant England was not dependent on France for grain, allowed the council to officially declare war on France on June 7th, 1557.[23]

Although many still feared a break from France would have negative effects on England, there were some of Mary’s subjects who supported the war. For example, William Paget, the serving Lord Privy Seal and strong supporter of the marriage of Mary and Philip, was eager to get into the field of battle.[24] Support for the war was also derived from national pride and support of the King and Queen. For example, a Scottish Earl stated in a conversation with the earl of Westmorland, “I am no more French than you are a Spaniard,” to which Westmorland replied, “as long as God shall preserve my master and mistress together, I am and shall be a Spaniard to the uttermost of my power.”[25] This conversation insinuated that as long as they were able to maintain the safety of their monarchs and their way of life in England, they would be willing to fight. Furthermore, support for the war was created due to the job opportunities and profit it offered.[26]

At the start of the war, things looked optimistic for Mary and Philip. For example, large focus was placed on improving the navy. Initially rising to prominence in the early 1540s, the navy suffered under the regime of Edward VI, when economic issues resulted in Edward’s government having to sell off war ships in order to garner money for the government, thus downsizing the navy.[27] By the time war was declared during Mary’s reign, twenty new ships had been constructed.[28] By July of 1557, approximately 7,000 men were across the English Channel, and allied with the Spanish fleet, they were able to successfully clear out French ships from the channel.[29] Further victories came in August and October of 1557. One of these was the Battle of St. Quentein. On August 10th, 1557, Englishmen, as well as Spanish and Imperial forces, were able to capitalize on the mistake of the French Constable, Anne de Montmorency, and successfully break through French forces, killing 3,000 French troops as well as capturing 7,000 others, and eighteen days later they were able to take the town.[30] Additionally, the French were able to convince the Scots to join their forces. Mary of Guise, who was serving as Regent of Scotland, due to her daughter living in France, hoped to also maintain French support, which contributed to her aligning with the French.[31] The two forces first met in October of 1557, which saw the English emerge victorious.[32] Both Mary and Philip rejoiced as the war was seemingly progressing in their favor. However, as the war continued, things would soon begin to unravel.

Changing Fortunes

Despite their initial success, Mary and Philip’s luck ran out as the war progressed. Although the English and Spanish forces were victorious at the battle of St. Quentein, it can be argued that from an early point there was the foreshadowing of a negative outcome for the English. For example, according to casualty statistics from the treasurer, Mary supplied more men in battle than the Spanish.[33]

However, each group endured various circumstances that hindered their abilities in battle and the effectiveness of a large majority of English subjects in service.  For example, out of the 4,148-foot soldiers, 417 were sick, 137 hurt, and 108 were discharged due to the severity of their sickness.[34] Additionally, the English were ill equipped with weapons, food, and money. These were provisions necessary for the English to handle a “large-scale” and surprise attack from the French. Absence of these provisions would prove to be detrimental for the English during the French attack on the English controlled town of Calais.[35]   

The French were initially skeptical about deciding to attack the town of Calais. Calais was described as an “isolated fortress.”[36] It was protected by a series of smaller forts and benefited from its geographic location. To approach the town from the north, the French would encounter the fortress of Rysback that guarded Calais. Rysback, which bordered the English Channel was also surrounded by a marsh, which made it virtually impossible to penetrate the fortress.[37] Attempting to capture the town from the south also seemed impossible due to its protection by a fortress at Newnham Bridge, also called Nieulay by the French.[38] Despite the obstacles, King Henry II attempted to gain revenge from the loss of St. Quentein by calling upon the Duke of Guise, the brother of Mary de Guise and commander of the French army, to attack and claim Calais.[39] Furthermore, Antoine de Noailles, the former French ambassador to England, described that Calais possessed a large level of Protestant activity, and projected that any attempts by the French to claim Calais would be seen as favorable by the people living there.[40] In an attempt to take Calais, the Duke of Guise devised a plan.[41]

The Attack on Calais

In December of 1557, it was officially decided by the French to attack Calais while the Duke of Guise would also attack Calais from the south, separate his troops, and attempt to take the town from both sides. This plan would eventually prove to be successful.[42]

News of France’s intentions to attack Calais spread to the English government by December 22nd, 1557.[43] During this time, the English government was in the midst of reducing its army due to the fact that, historically, no attacks took place in December or January because of the holiday and weather conditions; additionally, peace was usually negotiated at this time.[44] On December 29th, Wentworth mistakenly wrote to Queen Mary I that the French were not targeting Calais when he heard of their presence in another one of Philip’s fortresses in France; he stated “the enemy's power is already planted before New Hesdin, where the French King is shortly looked for.”[45] This miscalculation would prove to be costly, as 27,000 men of the Duke of Guise’s forces arrived at Newnham Bridge on January 1st, 1558, while another group of Guise’s men simultaneously crossed the frozen marshes and arrived at Rysback the same day.[46] French forces were able to successfully defeat the English forces at Rysback on January 2nd and then Newnham Bridge on January 4th to finally proceed to Calais. Outnumbered, Lord Wenworth surrendered the town of Calais to the French on January 7th, 1558.[47]

Philip recognized that the loss would weaken both the English desire to continue to engage in a war in Europe as well as his own reputation in England.[48] People speculated that Philip purposely allowed Calais to fall so that he could conquer the territory himself.[49] This was widely debated due to Philip’s fervent pleas to the Privy Council to send troops to reclaim Calais as well as his mournful statements of the loss. Philip lamented, “That sorrow was unspeakable, for reasons which you well imagine and because the event was extremely grave one for those states.”[50] The cost of the war had drained Mary’s ability to afford to send more troops. At the start of the war, taxes had been raised to four times the normal rate on goods in order to accumulate £ 300,000.[51] Although the amount was achieved, immediate payments towards both weapons and soldiers quickly drained their expenses, which meant there was no more money in reserve. In order to avoid a taxpayer strike, Parliament refused to raise taxes, and denied the requests for reinforcements in March of 1558.[52]

Turning away from Mary

Coinciding with the loss of English morale was Mary’s declining popularity. Following the loss of Calais, soldiers soon began deserting their posts due to their lack of faith in Mary’s ability to recover from the loss. Additionally, soldiers and sailors also began deserting the army and navy due to Mary’s inability to pay their salaries, which led to a proclamation labeling desertion as a felony.[53] One of Mary’s subjects, Robert Cockrell, was executed for stating, “he would serve the French King before he would serve the Queen’s Majesty.”[54] John Knox, a Protestant reformer who was forced to retreat to Geneva, Switzerland during Mary’s reign, published The First Blast of the Trumpet the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Although the overall rhetoric of the publication was that women should not rule over men in all aspects of life, Knox used Mary as an example to justify his argument and commented on her marriage to Philip:

[55]Wonder it is, that the advocates and patrons of the right of our ladies did not consider and ponder this law, before they counseled the blind princes and unworthy nobles of their country to betray the liberties thereof into the hands of strangers: England, for satisfying of the inordinate appetites of that cruel monster Mary (unworthy, by reason of her bloody tyranny, of the name of a woman), betrayed, alas! to the proud Spaniard…

Knox commented that women should be wary of whom they marry. Additionally, he accused her of handing over the “liberties” of the English people to a “Spaniard,” and compared her to a “monster.”[56] Furthermore, Mary’s failure to secure Calais resulted in fear of a French invasion throughout the spring and summer of 1558 in England.[57] Mary’s health was also rapidly declining during this time; with her chances of survival low, Philip recognized that Elizabeth was next in line to the throne. In order to maintain an alliance with England, he secretly offered marriage to Elizabeth.[58] However, Elizabeth refused as she believed that, “the queen had lost the affection of the people of this realm because she had married a foreigner.”[59] Whether Mary knew of this is unknown; however, during this time and throughout the later months of that year, Mary’s health continued to rapidly decline, and on the morning of November 17th, 1558, Mary passed away at the age of forty-two.[60]

England’s involvement in the French War ultimately demonstrated how foreign influence was detrimental to Mary’s reign. Philip’s goading and Mary’s willingness to please her husband led to England’s involvement in a long standing rivalry between the French and Spanish. Although the war was initially successful, the outcome was ultimately a disaster with England losing Calais to the French. With the loss came the continued decline of Mary’s popularity, which plagued her reputation until her death.

What do you think of Queen Mary I of England? Let us know below.

Bibliography

Secondary Sources

Davies, C.S.L. England and the French War. In The Mid-Tudor Polity, 1540-1560, edited by Jennifer Loach and Robert Tittler, 159. London, England: Macmillan Press, 1980.

Loades, D. M. Mary Tudor: A Life. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Loades, D. M. The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553-1558. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979.

Porter, Linda. Mary Tudor: The First Queen. London, England: Portrait, 2007.

Tittler, Robert. The Reign of Mary I. London: Longman, 1983.

Whitelock, Anna. Mary Tudor: England's First Queen. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.

Primary Sources

"'Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain (1554).'" Last modified 1920. http://rbsche.people.wm.edu/H111_doc_marriageofqueenmary.html -.

Eworth, Hans. Mary I and Philip II of Spain. 1558. Oil on Panel. Woburn Abbey, Woburn, Bedfordshire, England.

"Mary: August 1554," in Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Mary 1553-1558, ed. William B Turnbull (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), 110-117. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/foreign/mary/pp110-117

"Mary: December 1557," in Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Mary 1553-1558, ed. William B Turnbull (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), 346-354. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/foreign/mary/pp346-354.

Knox, John. The First Blast of the Trumpet the Monstrous Regiment of Women. N.p., 1558. http://www.swrb.ab.ca/newslett/actualNLs/firblast.htm.

[1] C.S.L. Davies. England and the French War. In The Mid-Tudor Polity, 1540-1560, edited by Jennifer Loach and Robert Tittler, London, England: Macmillan Press, 1980, 159.

[2] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 160-161.

[3] Titler, The Reign of Mary I, 68.

[4] "Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain (1554)." Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain (1554). http://rbsche.people.wm.edu/H111_doc_marriageofqueenmary.html.

[5] Titler, The Reign of Mary I, 68.

[6] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 160.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Titler, The Reign of Mary I. 68

[11] Ibid.

[12] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 161.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Titler, The Reign of Mary I, 69.

[15] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 161.

[16] Titler, The Reign of Mary I, 69.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life, 261. The Exchequer was a department that managed the royal revenue.

[19] Ibid, 262.

[20] Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553-1558, 365.

[21] Ibid, 366.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 162.

[24] Ibid, 162.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 162-163.

[27] Ibid, 164.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Titler, The Reign of Mary I. 72

[30] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 164.

[31] Titler, The Reign of Mary I, 73.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 166.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid, 167.

[36] Ibid, 169.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid, 168.

[40] Ibid, 169.

[41] Figure 3 in Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 171.

[42] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 170.

[43] Ibid,173.

[44] Ibid,170.

[45] "Mary: December 1557," in Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Mary 1553-1558, ed. William B Turnbull (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), 346-354. British History Online, accessed September 13, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/foreign/mary/pp346-354.

[46] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 172.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Porter, Mary Tudor, 396.

[49] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 176.

[50] Porter, Mary Tudor, 396.

[51] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 180.

[52] Porter, Mary Tudor, 396.

[53] Davies, England and The French, in The Mid-Tudor, 179.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Knox, John. The First Blast of the Trumpet the Monstrous Regiment of Women. N.p., 1558.

[56] Knox, “The First Blast of the Trumpet the Monstrous Regiment of Women.”

[57] Porter, Mary Tudor, 401.

[58] Ibid, 405-406.

[59] Ibid, 406.

[60] Ibid.

Aaron Burr, New York's Deadly Water Supply, and the Manhattan Water Company Scam

Aaron Burr's life has always tangled itself in controversy. From killing the first Secretary of the Treasury and key figure in the Federalist Party, Alexander Hamilton, to being the defendant of the United States' first treason case, Aaron Burr was well known for a lot of questionable decisions and bad luck. However, none of his decisions were as objectively manipulative, callous, and greedy as purposefully letting New York City suffer with tainted water for the sake of building a bank. Haley Booker-Lauridson explains.

An early 19th century painting of Aaron Burr.

The New York Water System

Back when New York was New Amsterdam, the water sources were from nearby ponds, streams, and wells, and continued that way for many years. Without a waterworks system, the city's waste ran into the same water it drank from, and distributing drinking water to various areas of the city proved difficult. This troubled Christopher Colles, an Irish engineer and inventor who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1771, just four short years before the Revolution.

In 1775, he began organizing a project he proposed, constructing a water distribution system in the heart of New York. This system used a steam engine pump to extract water from various wells into a reservoir, which would then distribute the water throughout the city in pipes. However, the Revolutionary War came to the city a year later and the project had to be put on hold, and the British soldiers soon destroyed what was left of the fledgling water system.

Though he made several attempts at creating various waterways and different systems in the newly formed United States, none of his projects came to fruition. The water in New York was left in a state of rapid pollution. Without a way to draw clean water, the citizens of New York City drank water steeped in animal, human, and industrial waste. Water distribution was another problem; fires could not consistently be quelled without a distribution system that could quickly get the water to the flames.

With a population of 60,515 people in the city, the waters became increasingly dangerous. By 1798, up to 2,000 people died of yellow fever, which doctors attributed to the filthy water people were drinking. By that time, New Yorkers desperately needed a plan to bring clean water to the city.

"Pure and Wholesome Water"

Nearly 24 years after Colles proposed a water distribution system, a bill to secure water from the Bronx River was drafted and sent to the New York State Assembly in 1799.

Aaron Burr, State Assemblyman and Democratic-Republican, worked to convince the Assembly to let the city and state use a private company for their water. While Democratic-Republicans were the main supporters of the bill, they received help from an unlikely ally, Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton campaigned for the Federalist Assemblymen to reach across the aisle. As New York had become his home when he emigrated to America in 1772, it is easy to see why he might want to turn the water bill into a bipartisan decision. The water was terribly polluted and toxic, and Aaron Burr had partnered with him on several occasions, including working as defense attorneys in the first murder trial in the United States. Having trusted Burr and having believed in the cause for a waterworks system, Hamilton convinced his fellow Federalists to back the creation of the Manhattan Water Company.

What Hamilton, and many Assemblymen, did not know was that Burr, just before submitting the bill for its final approval, slipped in a clause allowing the company to use "surplus capital" however it chose, as long as it followed state and federal law. The bill passed through with this clause on April 2, 1799, and the Manhattan Company was created to supply New York with "pure and wholesome water."

This small, unassuming clause transformed what was intended to be a water system for New York into a bank. Burr intended to establish a bank all along. He and other Democratic-Republicans inherently distrusted the First Bank of the United States and its branch in New York, as it was linked with Federalist politics. They feared discrimination in receiving credit and loans, and also desired the power to control campaign finance with their own bank. They wanted to establish a bank manned by their own political party, and schemed to use the city's water crisis to manufacture one right under the Federalists' noses.

The Manhattan Water Company's Legacy

By September 1, 1799, the Bank of the Manhattan Company opened, eventually becoming the oldest branch of JP Morgan Chase, and remains a financial institution today.

While the Manhattan Water Company was ostensibly a front for a bank, it did provide the city's first waterworks system. Shoddily put together, it constructed a cheap, crude network of wooden water mains throughout the city, by coring out yellow pine logs for pipes and fastening them together with iron bands.

The system was sub-par at best. It froze during the winter and the tree roots easily pierced through the log pipes, causing terrible back-ups. Even when the system worked, the people suffered through pitifully low water pressure. And, despite having permission to get clean water that ran down the Bronx River, Burr chose to source water from the polluted sources the city tried to get away from.

The Manhattan Water Company continued laying wooden pipes in the 1820s, even though other U.S. cities began using iron clad pipes. It remained the only drinking water supplier until 1842, leaving people with unreliable and bad water for over forty years.

As the water system floundered and the bank flourished, Aaron Burr experienced very little but misfortune from then on. Hamilton made it his duty to keep Burr out of influential public offices, famously campaigning against Burr during the 1800 election, and later in New York's gubernatorial race in 1804. Hamilton often negatively featured Burr in his newspaper, the New York Post. He likely would have continued had he not been fatally wounded in a duel with the man in July of 1804. Burr faced political exile that solidified when he was tried for treason in 1807, eventually fleeing to Europe for several years before returning to the U.S. and living as a perpetual debtor until his death in 1836.

What do you think of Aaron Burr? Let us know below.

References

Beatrice G. Reubens, “Burr, Hamilton and the Manhattan Company. Part I: Gaining the Charter,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXII (December, 1957), 578–607.

Beatrice G. Reubens, “Burr, Hamilton and the Manhattan Company. Part II: Launching a Bank,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXIII (March, 1958), 100–25.

“New York City (NYC) Yellow Fever Epidemic - 1795 to 1804” http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/disasters/yellow_fever.html

"The History of the Water Mains in New York City" https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/wood_water_pipes_history.shtml.

New York Laws, 22nd Sess., Ch. LXXXIV.

The Latin American Wars for Independence: What is the Background to Colombia’s Independence from Spain?

The Latin American wars for independence were perhaps the most important series of events that occurred on the American continent during the early part of the 19th century. From around 1810 to the 1820s, the dominance of Spain over much of the continent was broken, and many new republican states were created.

The enormous extension of the territory dominated by Spain led to the formation of many autonomous territories that approached the independence question in different ways, each one with their own kinds of social struggles, cultural identities, political complexities and economic structures.

In this series of articles, we will approach the independence wars in the northern part of South America, in the territory that would become the Republic of Colombia. We will look through the reasons that this specific land had for independence, and the many different events that led to the final formation of the new republican state.

Guillermo Morales explains.

Pedro Messia de la Cerda, Viceroy of New Granada from 1761 to 1773.

The Spanish Empire

To understand the series of events that resulted in the independence struggle, first it is important to understand the political, social and economic structures that existed in the region when it was a colony of the Spanish Empire.

The territory that would later become Colombia, in those times was known as the ‘Nuevo Reino de Granada’ (New Kingdom of Granada). After the Spanish conquest over the many native kingdoms that existed in the region, they established a governorship that was dependent on the viceroyalty of Peru. But in 1717, King Phillip V decided to create a new viceroyalty aside from the already existing ones in Mexico and Peru, so their American colonies, and the multiple riches in them, could be better administered. The viceroyalty of Nueva Granada existed at first from 1717 to 1723, when it was temporally abolished, but it was reinstated in 1739.

The viceroyalty was governed by a viceroy designated directly by the king. He was usually a military commander born in the Spanish peninsula, and who usually had never lived on the land he was to rule.  Alongside the viceroy a court body called the ‘Real Audiencia’ (Royal Audience) governed over the colony. Their members were called the ‘oidores’ (hearers) and their function was to apply the law of the kingdom over the viceroyalty.

The government was based in the city of Santa Fe de Bogota, high on the Andean mountains, in the center of what used to be the kingdom of the Muisca. The city was located near the center of the viceroyalty, and access to it was usually difficult. From the Caribbean coast travelers had to navigate through the broad Magdalena River, which went through dense jungles, and from there, ascend to the mountains on mules, horses or ‘silleteros’ (natives who carried chairs on their backs for travelers to sit on).

Another important city in the viceroyalty was the walled city of Cartagena, which was located along the Caribbean coast, and was one of the main ports in the American colonies, being a place where merchants sent gold, silver and jewels to Spain, or received slaves for the haciendas and mines in the colony. Also on the Caribbean coast was the port of Santa Marta, the oldest city in the colony. Down the Magdalena River were the river ports of Mompox and Honda, and located on the Andean cordilleras were the cities of Ocaña, Pamplona, Cucuta, Socorro, Tunja, Popayan, Cali and Pasto. There was also the port of Buenaventura on the Pacific coast. On the east of the Andean cordillera there were the so called ‘llanos orientales’ (eastern plains), an enormous extension of plains that were mostly uninhabited, with the exception of natives, ranchers called ‘llaneros’ (plain men), and missionaries trying to convert the natives to Catholicism.

Officially the territory of the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada comprised what now are the countries of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, but the latter territories had a large degree of autonomy. Venezuela, with its capital in the city of Caracas, was governed by a Captain General designated by the king, so the region was named the ‘Capitania General de Venezuela’. Ecuador (which was known then as Quito, the same name as its capital city), had their own Audiencia, with its president as the main authority over the territory, so for this reason this region was known as the ‘Presidencia de Quito’.

Structure of Society

The Spanish conquerors, facing the enormous diversity found in the colony (white Europeans, native Americans, black slaves and people of mixed origins), built a heavily structured social pyramid based on the so called ‘pureza de sangre’ (blood purity). This system came from the times of the Spanish ‘Reconquista’ when the European Spaniards were at war with the Muslim ‘moors’ on the Iberian Peninsula. When they had control of all of the peninsula, they tried to differentiate themselves from the Muslim and Jewish people that still lived there, and also from the ones who converted to Catholicism, called ‘conversos’, who were mistrusted. They brought the same idea to the American colonies, but now differentiated the white Europeans from the Native Americans and the African slaves.

For this reason, the Spanish designated different names and scales of ‘mestizaje’ (mixed-blood), given that the conquistadors had a lot of children with the natives and the African slaves. For example, the child of a Spaniard and a native would be a ‘mestizo’, the child of a Spaniard and an African would be a ‘mulatto’, the child of an native and an African would be a ‘zambo’, the child of a mestizo and a Spaniard would be a ‘castizo’, the child of a mestizo and a native a ‘cholo’, and so on.

Usually the white Europeans represented the higher aristocratic class, while the mixed people and the natives represented a lower class, and the Africans were relegated to the lowest slave class. This was translated in the design of the cities, with the higher class living near the city main square, and the rest living in the outskirts of the city.

The race based system was used by the authorities to determine who was allowed in certain political, military or religious posts; whose children were allowed to enter in the important schools of the colonies; or who could buy an aristocratic title. For this, meticulous investigations over people’s lineage were made, so it could be determined that there was no ‘mala sangre’ (bad blood) in them. Because of this, many paid to erase any undesirable bad blood from their family trees.

The sole fact of being born on the colonies and not on the Spanish peninsula could reduce someone’s status. The criollos (white people who were descendants from Spaniards, but were born in the ‘Indies’), normally shared the same privileges as the peninsular whites, but they were not the preferred option for higher political posts, like oidor of the Real Audiencia, or viceroy. If they went to the Peninsula, they were treated as less than the Spanish-born whites, and called the disdainful title ‘manchado de la tierra’ (stained by the land).

But life was worse for mixed people, Africans, and natives. Native numbers were severely reduced after the ‘Conquista’ because of the brutality of the war, the introduced diseases and the forced labor that they had to do for the Spanish.  Still, the Spanish Crown tried to protect them from total annihilation, passing laws that forced the conquistadors not to mistreat them, and giving them some land, called ‘Resguardos’. Their towns were separated from the European cities, and were called ‘pueblos de indios’.

Black Africans had it even worse. As they were slaves, they were forced into brutal conditions on the mines or the haciendas. Many Spaniards considered the Africans to have no soul, so they were basically on the same level as animals, although some at least tried to give their slaves the chance to hear Mass. Some ran away from their owners, and managed to build settlements deep in the jungle, the so called ‘Palenques’, that were so distant from the European settlements, that in the end the Spanish authorities decided to leave them alone.

All this social and ethnic division led to severe tension between the different classes. For instance, the Criollos were upset that the natives were allowed to abandon the haciendas to move to the ‘Resguardos’, reducing the available workforce. Natives and Africans also mistrusted criollos, as they felt that any demand they made to the crown would be to worsen their own living conditions. This is why, later during the independence movement, some natives and Africans, disdainfully called ‘pardos’ (browns) by the whites, preferred to side with the crown. Even so, Spaniards were also severely mistrusted by the general population, who mockingly called them ‘chapetones’.

Decline of Spanish Rule

The increasing racial and social tensions, combined with the misinformed policies of the Spanish ‘Metropoli’ (the name given to the center of government), led to a path that ended in the independence wars. One of the policies was that manufactured goods were only to be produced on the Spanish peninsula, while the colonies produced raw materials that could only be sold to Spain, and not any other country. While this worked quite well in places like Peru (which was a major producer of silver), in Nueva Granada it was problematic, as there weren’t many mines for precious metal production, and the ones that existed, were located in places like the jungles of the Choco on the Pacific coast, which were far away from the major cities.

Because of this, the general population, being far away from the main economic activities of the colony, began to fall into poverty. The workers in the mines, being slaves or natives, essentially received no compensation for their work. Little wealth was produced, and when wealth was created, it was concentrated in Criollo and Spaniard aristocratic hands.

Spain established itself as the sole producer of manufactured goods for the colonies, blocking all commerce with other countries, and in general forbid the colonies from creating their own industries. Most people were unable to buy to expensive products brought from Spain, so a working class, called the ‘artesanos’ (craftsmen), supplied the general populace with products like clothing and furniture. Even so, they couldn’t create a colony based industry, as they mostly worked in an informal economy that usually was heavily restricted or even repressed by the colonial authorities.

This fragile economic system was very susceptible to any new policy implemented by Spain, like new taxes. This meant that the situation in the colonies by the end of the 18th century was very far from being stable, and that a collapse of Spanish authority would come sooner rather than later.

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Sources

Mejía, Germán. Historia concisa de Colombia. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Javeriana, 2014.

Tirado Mejía, Álvaro. Nueva Historia de Colombia Tomo I. Bogotá: Editorial Planeta, 1998.

Bushnell, Davis. Colombia: a nation in spite of itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Liévano Aguirre, Indalecio. Los Grandes Conflictos Sociales y Económicos de Nuestra Historia. Bogotá: Ediciones Nueva prensa, 1960. 

Lincoln and The Battle of Gettysburg: How the Joy of Victory Quickly Turned into Agony

With the Union’s Army of the Potomac finally defeating Robert E. Lee, you’d think the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg would have elated Abraham Lincoln. Instead, for him, the battle produced a harvest of bitterness and disappointment. Lamont Wood, whose book Lincoln's Planner: A Unique Look at the Civil War Through the President's Daily Activities (Amazon US | Amazon UK) was recently published, explains why this American Civil War battle produced such feelings.

A depiction of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. Hand-colored lithograph by Currier and Ives.

After two years of indecisive yet bloody warfare, Lincoln glimpsed victory in July 1863. Out West, a Union army was besieging Vicksburg and it looked like the Union would soon control the Mississippi River. Another Union army was advancing in central Tennessee, while on the coast the Union siege of Charleston looked promising. With the addition of Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, surely victory was within grasp.

But there was no follow-through.

As reflected in his collected wartime papers (and recounted in “Lincoln’s Planner”), as the battle unfolded on July 1 and 2, 1863, the president spent a lot of his time in the War Department’s telegraph office, reading dispatches from the front as they arrived.

Independence Day

On July 4, Independence Day, a Saturday, and the day after Pickett’s Charge, both sides at Gettysburg stood in place during the morning, Lincoln put out a press release congratulating his army, asking that, “He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude.” That night he helped mount a fireworks display at the White House.

But that was as upbeat as things got.

Meanwhile, torrential rains began falling at Gettysburg and Lee began pulling his army out of Pennsylvania. From out of left field, the Confederate vice president, Alexander H. Stephens showed up under a flag of truce at Fortress Monroe, asking to come to Washington to talk to Lincoln, supposedly to discuss prisoner exchanges. (Presumably, Stephens’ real motivation was to be on hand should the Administration become favorable to peace negotiations following Confederate successes in Pennsylvania.)

On July 5 (Sunday) Lincoln attended a Cabinet meeting where they discussed Stephens’ request, which Lincoln discounted. Lincoln (accompanied by his 10-year-old son Tad) then visited wounded general (and Republican friend and all-round scandal magnet) Dan Sickles, who had been evacuated to Washington after losing a leg at Gettysburg.

Back at the telegraph office, Lincoln saw a report about a Union cavalry raid the previous day that destroyed a Confederate pontoon bridge across the Potomac at Falling Waters, West Virginia. Lincoln bypassed the chain of command and directly telegraphed Gen. William French asking if the rain-swollen Potomac could be forded. The answer: no.

The enticing implication was that Lee was stuck on the north side of the Potomac, unable to retreat to Virginia, and subject to momentary destruction by the pursuing Federals – a development that could wrap up the war.

Too Quiet on the Potomac

The next day (Monday, July 6) Lincoln attended a morning Cabinet meeting and convinced them to ignore Stephens—if the Confederate vice president really wanted to talk about prisoner exchanges, there were existing channels for that.

And then Lincoln’s hopes were shattered by the arrival of Gen. Herman Haupt, the chief railroad engineer of the Union army, who pulled into town from Gettysburg on one of his trains and rushed to the White House. He told Lincoln that he feared Gen. George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, was going to let Lee get away. Haupt had spoken with Meade Saturday and heard Meade say that his army had nearly been defeated and needed rest. Meade noted that since Lee did not have a pontoon train his army would be stuck on the north side of the Potomac, implying that an immediate pursuit wasn’t necessary. Haupt told him that the Confederates could throw together a temporary bridge by tearing down buildings for lumber, but Meade wasn’t impressed.

Lincoln then spent the afternoon back in the telegraph office, and what he saw confirmed the fears raised by Gen. Haupt. He returned to the White House about 7 and wrote to Gen. Henry Halleck, his chief of staff, complaining that the messages he saw indicated a policy of herding the enemy forces across the river rather than trapping and destroying them. “You know I did not like the phrase… ‘Drive the invaders from our soil,’” Lincoln said.

The next morning (Tuesday, July 7) Gen. Meade finally had his infantry march in pursuit of Lee. Lincoln was back in the telegraph office when notice arrived from Vicksburg of the Confederate surrender there on July 4. (Grant’s army did not have a direct telegraph connection with Washington.)

The city erupted into celebration and a crowd eventually gathered outside the White House demanding a speech. Lincoln made his longest-known off-the-cuff address, with themes he would re-use in the speech he gave four months later at Gettysburg, such as, “On the 4th the cohorts of those who opposed the declaration that all men are created equal turned tail and run.”

The day after (Wednesday, July 8) Gen. Meade’s infantry caught up with Lee’s cornered army, but there was no major action. Lincoln was heard to complain that Gen. Meade is “as likely to capture the Man-in-the-Moon, as any part of Lee’s army.”

Thursday was equally frustrating, as Lincoln returned to the tasks of the Executive Branch, while things remained all quiet on the Potomac. Friday, the opposing armies probed each other, while Lincoln sent a telegram to an old friend back in Illinois, saying that the rumors were true and Lee had indeed been defeated at Gettysburg.

Saturday (July 11) Gen. Meade reported that he had decided to attack the trapped Confederates, and Lincoln’s mood was seen to improve.

Then, Sunday, Gen. Meade pushed the attack back a day, saying he needed time for reconnaissance. “Too late!” Lincoln groaned when he read the message.

On Monday, July 13, Lincoln sent a thank you letter to Gen. Grant for his recent victory at Vicksburg, noting that he had been worried about Grant’s plan to operate away from the Mississippi and take the city from the land side, but “you were right and I was wrong.” (Grant took a month to respond.)

Getting away

That night, Lee’s army slipped across the falling Potomac.

The next day, Lincoln wrote a thank you letter to Gen. Meade, as he had done to Gen. Grant. But the tone was radically different. “I am very – very – grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country… I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely... Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.”

He filed the letter away, and never sent it.

As Lincoln feared, the war did drag on, lasting nearly two more years. The main impact of Gettysburg was that Lee would never again launch a major offensive.

What do you think of this article? Let us know below.

Lamont Wood is a journalist and history writer. He has been freelancing for more than three decades in the history, high-tech, and industrial fields. He has sold more than six hundred magazine feature articles and twelve books. He and his wife, Dr. Louise O’Donnell, reside in San Antonio, Texas. His book, Lincoln's Planner: A Unique Look at the Civil War Through the President's Daily Activities (Amazon US | Amazon UK), is available here.

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: Napoleon’s Unwanted American Sister-in-Law

As the nineteenth century began, both the United States and France were in transition. The American Revolution only officially ended in 1783, and now the president-helmed United States was forging an identity that rejected the courtly atmosphere of its European counterparts. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, France was moving away from the republicanism of its own revolution. Approximately twenty years after the executions of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, France was poised to become an empire under Napoleon Bonaparte. Amidst these changes, a scandal occurred when Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérôme, surprised the world by marrying Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, Maryland.

Christine Caccipuoti explains.

A triple portrait of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. By Gilbert Stuart, 1804.

Marital Bliss?

When eighteen-year old Elizabeth wed nineteen-year old Jérôme on Christmas Eve of 1803, few people other than the bride and groom approved. She was the daughter of a well-off businessman, but despite being lauded as the “Belle of Baltimore” she loathed the newfound United States’ lack of sophistication and glamour. He was only in Maryland because he decided to take a detour before returning to France after an unsuccessful stint in the Caribbean with the French Navy. After their respective social lives brought them into contact, their courtship was a whirlwind, and the starry-eyed pair were engaged within months of meeting.

Elizabeth’s father did not trust Jérôme and French diplomats in the United States warned that Napoleon hated the match, but the couple did not care. They allowed Elizabeth’s father to draw up documents requiring Jérôme to defend his marriage to the best of his ability should Napoleon object and had their nuptials conducted by a Catholic clergyman to underscore its legitimacy through religion. To Elizabeth and Jérôme, marrying was the important part. Acceptance, they believed, would soon follow.

The newlyweds enjoyed an extravagant honeymoon that established them as newspaper celebrities, with Elizabeth immediately turning heads after she adopted French fashions. It wasn’t long before word of the union reached Napoleon, who was about to be crowned Emperor of the French. What little respect Napoleon had for Jérôme evaporated and he made his opinion known by banning French ships from allowing Elizabeth aboard. They were still not deterred. By the time they managed to reach Europe in 1805, Jérôme’s brother was formally Emperor Napoleon I and there was an added complication: Elizabeth was pregnant.

Aware of his responsibilities, Jérôme went to France to win over his brother while Elizabeth traveled to England, a country hostile to Napoleon that welcomed the opportunity to show kindness to a woman he shunned. During this separation, Elizabeth gave birth to their son, boldly named Jérôme Napoleon, who went by the nickname “Bo”.

Elizabeth waited, but Jérôme never sent for her. Because of his unacceptable marriage, he was not among the family members elevated to the title of prince, and this greatly upset him. Although he wrote loving letters to Elizabeth, once Napoleon told him that he would be cut off forever if he remained married, Jérôme abandoned his wife. A shattered Elizabeth had no choice but to take her baby home to Maryland.

Unhappily Ever After

Napoleon sought to annul Jérôme’s marriage but the Pope denied the request. Undaunted, Napoleon had the French ecclesiastical courts declare it void and decided that was good enough. As far as he was concerned Jérôme was free again. Quickly, Napoleon arranged a politically advantageous marriage for him to Princess Catherine of Württemberg and named him King of Westphalia, two moves done to cement his growing influence in Europe. In stark contrast, Elizabeth was still legally married to Jérôme in the eyes of the United States and several years passed before she gained a divorce. Following this, numerous suitors sought her hand, but neither they nor a pension from Napoleon made up for what she lost.

It wasn’t until Napoleon lost power in 1815 that Elizabeth was able to finally experience the pleasures of European life. After all, with the Bonapartes defeated, no one could stop her. She and Bo spent years traveling the continent. They even visited Rome, where part of the Bonaparte family resided after their expulsion from France. This enabled Bo to meet not only his grandmother, but also his father and half-siblings. It is possible that Elizabeth too saw Jérôme but the sole surviving story indicates only that they were once in the same gallery, but did not speak. Elizabeth harbored hopes that Bo would make an illustrious marital match in Europe, perhaps even to one of his Bonaparte cousins, but it would not come to pass. Instead he returned home and married an American woman with whom he later had two children, Jérôme and Charles. Bo’s decision not to pursue what Elizabeth saw as his rightful place in European society broke her heart almost as much as her initial divorce and severely tarnished their mother-son relationship.

Their contact with the Bonapartes continued. In the 1850s when Napoleon III (who was Bo’s cousin, as his father Louis was yet another of Napoleon and Jérôme’s brothers) made France an empire again, he welcomed Bo as part of the family. Jérôme, however, did not. When he died in 1860, Bo was not included in his will. Elizabeth faced one last disappointment when her battle to have Bo recognized as one of Jérôme’s heirs failed.

Once again Elizabeth returned to Maryland devastated. Although she made lucrative financial investments, her personal relationship with her son and his family was strained. The wounds of her youth never healed and her bitterness manifested in the composition of pieces like Dialogues of the Dead, which placed her disapproving father and scoundrel ex-husband together in hell. After such a disappointing life, it is only fitting that following her death in April of 1879, at the age of 94, it was decided her tomb should read, “After life’s fitful fever, she sleeps well.”

An American Legacy

Elizabeth may have disliked the United States, but her grandson Charles lived to serve it. In the 1890s, he met future President of the United States Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt when both men were involved in reform work. When Roosevelt took office in 1901, Charles went along with him, serving as Secretary of the Navy then Attorney General and earning a reputation as Roosevelt’s troubleshooter. His most significant achievement was creating a force solely to carry out investigations at the behest of the Department of Justice. This group later adopted a name that remains recognizable today: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI. Whether or not Elizabeth would have been proud of her grandson’s enduring contribution to the American government is impossible to say because while yes, he rose to an impressive height, he did so in the wrong country.

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Christine Caccipuoti is a New York-based historian and received both her BA and MA in history from Fordham University. In her position as Assistant Producer of the podcast Footnoting History (FootnotingHistory.com), she serves as the resident Napoleonic historian and is the person behind its twitter account (@historyfootnote). Her personal website and blog can be found at ChristineCaccipuoti.com.

Sources

Carol Berkin, Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: An American Aristocrat in the Early Republic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

Paul-Napoléon Calland, “Jerome Bonaparte Biography”, Irène Delage (trans), The Fondation Napoléon, 2006. (https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/biographies/bonaparte-jerome/)

Lewis L. Gould, “Bonaparte, Charles Joseph”, American National Biography, February 2000. (https://doi-org.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0500081)

---, “Bonaparte, Elizabeth Patterson”, American National Biography, February 2000. (https://doi-org.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.2000085)

Desmond Seward, Napoleon's Family, New York: Viking, 1986.

Attorney General: Charles Bonaparte, via The United States Department of Justice (https://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/bonaparte-charles-joseph)

Brief History of the FBI, via The Federal Bureau of Investigation (https://www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history)