The Atlantic - Latest Comments in One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Michael Heilman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:53:12 -0000

Link seems to be broken, found it here, though:

http://us.history.wisc.edu/his...

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

TheRaven — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:35:43 -0000

Link in post is now broken (7.13.10)

This one works:

http://us.history.wisc.edu/his...

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Rich in PA — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:49:56 -0000

Eric, that claim ("Jourdan dictates it to him...") is, I suspect, an author's gambit to explain the otherwise unlikely fluency of the letter. It's ass-covering.

Of course, it's entirely plausible that the substantive points come from Jourdan. We could list them: I'm in Ohio now, people treat me (and my wife) tolerably well, and thanks for not killing me. But my sense is that the *exposition* is what makes this letter "significant," and if you credit the notion that someone turned Jourdan's raw material into this comedic gem, the way we read it changes entirely.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Jennifer D. — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:14:35 -0000

True. I have seen some letters these days by graduates of Ivy League colleges that read as if composed by eighth graders.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Jennifer D. — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:11:58 -0000

Ditto.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

David — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:53:52 -0000

Mr. Shrimp and Deborah -

The few soldiers' letters I've read do seem to be very well written. Helped, I'm sure, by a desire to document each day for their families - just in case. This letter was less urgently written. Jourdan could easily have just ignored the Colonel's letter, but he had some stuff to say, and clearly spent time thinking through his reply. In the Snopes thread linked to above, someone questioned whether an illiterate person could put together such a cogent letter. I think that question has a flawed premise. In 2009, there may be some justification in thinking that an illiterate adult ended up that way because of low intelligence or a severe lack of effort, and we don't have much of a frame of reference for the idea of a smart, motivated and witty person who is also illiterate. That wasn't the case in 1865.

To me, the shift in tone with each new paragraph reinforces the idea that these are the genuine thoughts of a real person. In the first paragraph, he's talking about the past, reminiscing and showing that complicated relationship with his former master that TNC described. In the second paragraph, he's talking about his current life, and the pride and hope for the future are palpable. But the third paragraph is all business. Maybe the transcriber's voice takes over a bit there. I can certainly imagine Jourdan going to the person who transcribed the letter for him with the idea of back wages, but not having the words or numbers to express it. Some parts of that paragraph may not be his voice, but if not, it is clearly a sympathetic and trusted collaborator.

All this leads to the dagger of the last paragraph. The comments there seem almost random at first, but I think the basic idea is, "The War is over. I won. You lost. Suck on that, you miserable piece of filth."

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Darth Thulhu — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:25:58 -0000

"You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood"... Wow if that doesn't get to the heart of it. One hundred years later the answer was still, at best, "grudgingly, some minimal ones".

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Darth Thulhu — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:06:31 -0000

Similar willful blindness is evident in the romanticized fiction and literature addressing that time. I read or watch Gone with the Wind or Song of the South and I'm almost viscerally struck by how obviously happy the black folk are with their lot. Civil War passes and everyone goes right back to Tara, working joyfully for Ms. Scarlett as if nothing had changed. That's heavy mythmaking in action.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Deborah — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:48:24 -0000

It was an age of letter writing; everyone got practice at communicating in this way, and so got better at it. Since the telephone became a regular thing, it was natural that our average letter writing skill would diminish. (I was thinking about this this week when someone used Civil War letters as a way to prove how far our educational standards have fallen....letter writing hasn't been seriously practiced by most people for decades.)

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Jennifer B — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:56:43 -0000

I've read several history text books (high school level) from the early 1900's and 1920's, and, for the most part, although the texts admit there were "a few" bad plantation owners and overseers, they mostlyh present what they saw as a positive view of the "good ole days" of slavery in the sense of slaves being well-treated, well-fed, and thus being loyal to their "masters."

If the people who wrote these textbooks could believe this, I can only assume the slave owners shared the same world view. It seems to me that the mental shift needed to accept that owning other humans is a good thing is just a short jump from thinking those humans enjoyed being owned and thus would welcome being able to come "home."

Honestly, it's all sort of sickening to think about. And sad.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Mr. Shrimp — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:03:10 -0000

I'll admit I'm no expert on this subject, but I think assuming no former slave could have dictated this is incorrect. I've always been amazed by Civil War letters of common soldiers, many of whom were completely uneducated poor whites: they are models of erudition. It was a different time in terms of use of language, and a very smart person who is able to listen might have a great gift of self-expression, even if he or she didn't know how to actually read or write.

So no, it's not unreasonable to wonder, and many people have done that. People have even seriously researched it. So far, it has not been proven definitively that this letter was not composed (is that a better word than "written" for this, in the case that it was dictated and perhaps edited?) by former slave Jourdon Anderson.

But honestly, I'm not sure how much I care who wrote it. Take it as fiction: is it somehow less brilliant? We see the truth in it.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

tom c — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:41:02 -0000

The letter is read in lecture 20 if I remember correctly.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:56:07 -0000

Apologies for sounding a bit pissed, but I find Miles has taken what little patience I had for this.

Didn't we all have to read about Frederick Douglass in school? What the hell did they teach you, seriously? And plenty of illiterate slaves had their words dictated-- Harriet Tubman and Sojuner Truth seemed to do okay. And that's just off the top of my head, with people I learned about in elementary school.

(Also, of course it was published in anti-slavery papers. What pro-slavery paper would have run it?)

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:52:46 -0000

Oh, damn. I know what I'm listening to this weekend.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:51:51 -0000

It says a lot about you that you only seem to be discomfited by white people getting shot at.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:48:56 -0000

A++ comment, MikeS.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:47:01 -0000

That's the good side of southern gentility; Twain and apparently Mr. Anderson were masters at hiding the iron fist in a lovely silk glove.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:45:56 -0000

Oh, man, I hadn't even thought of that.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Persia — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:43:00 -0000

I like the subtle way that indicates "oh, by the way, I know a lawyer."

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:28:32 -0000

Yeah it's from A Slave No More. That's on my list. I expect to get to it sometime in July.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Doug T — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:05:34 -0000

Echoes of that In the Heat of the Night--"They call me Mr. Tibbs!"

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

tom c — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:57:24 -0000

I have the last two left. I think that I may be saving them for a rainy day.

I know that story and if my memory serves correct its the basis of about half of the book A Slave No More. You are thinking of John Washington and his story actually gets better.(spoiler alert?) After Washington tells those guys to head north and stay to the union lines he goes and visits the Union camp itself and, of course, John's feeling pretty damned good about the Union so he starts bringing them food and I guess the he was a hell of a good cook. So he gets hired by the army (his first job) and works his way up quickly and ends working for one of the generals. In the best bit he's riding alongside Union officers and pointing to them all the houses belonging the the heaviest of Confederate sympathizers and watching them be arrested and hauled off on horseback. I cannot even begin to imagine the satisfaction.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Tim McGaha — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:16:05 -0000

Oh, to have been there when Col. Johnson opened and read this letter ...

By God, this was a man!

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:35:54 -0000

Read the Snopes page. The guy certainly existed, as they've found his grave. I guess it's possible that someone used the name of some freed black guy, and then wrote the letter. But I think it's more likely that the slave dictated it. Also, we should watch the presumption of illiteracy among slaves. Most obviously were. A sizeable minority were not.

Re: One Last Civil War Thought For The Day

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:28:12 -0000

You've listened to them all, I assume? I have to tell you I've been blown away a few times by his stories--I wish there was a way to chop up and clip some of them. There is this incredible one, where he talks about a Virginia slave who escapes, as his mistress is fleeing South.

Her last words to him are something like, "Now, you'll be with us in the morning won't you John?" And he just looks are her and says "Yes ma'am." Then he goes to the hotel (where he's hired out) and takes all the black workers to the roof. They have a toast and can see the Union armies coming across the river. And he tells them, "Now get out of here. But don't get to far from Union lines."

Incredible.