Wilmot Proviso Research Articles

Decision in Mississippi: Mississippi's Important Role in the War Between the States (review)

Book Reviews103 month to cover the thirty miles to Corinth from Shiloh, and . . . had the troops throwing up entrenchments every night" was exploded long ago. Stephen A. Douglas did not lose his hold on Southern Democrats because "he refused to tolerate secession," but for a variety of complex reasons. Hansen fails completely to understand why the War Department insisted on leaving twelve thousand men at Harpers Ferry in September, 1862. His estimate of Confederate dead, 133,821, is absurdly low. Mr. Hansen's chronology is confusing. He discusses the Dred Scott decision (1857) before the Wilmot Proviso (1846), the Crittenden Compromise ( 1860) before the Lincoln-Douglas debates ( 1858) , and the faU of Fort Sumter (April, 1861) before Lincoln's inauguration (March, 1861). To make mercifuUy short what could have been a long critique, The Civd War violates every rule of good historiography and has nothing to recommend it. Stephen E. Ambrose Louisiana State University in New Orleans Decision in Mississippi: Mississippfs Important Role in the War Between the States. By Edwin C. Bearss. (Jackson: Mississippi Commission on the War Between the States, 1962. Pp. xvi, 636. $5.95.) No one knows the complicated details of the Civd War in Mississippi better than Edwin C. Bearss, regional research historian of the National Military Park Service at Vicksburg. This capacious volume, reflecting that knowledge, is devoted mainly to Champion HiU (not Champion's Hill, he assures us) and Vicksburg, widi preliminary attention to Iuka, HoUy Springs, and other affairs, as well as a later discussion of two or three Federal raids through the Magnolia State. Such an ample storehouse of facts wiU have lasting value as a guide to the more general historians and offer entertainment to coundess future buffs. Giving the assurance of scrupulous and devoted research, Mr. Bearss tramps confidendy through a number of gripping chapters. Among the best are those dealing with Rosecrans at Iuka; Van Dorn's HoUy Springs raid and the manner in which the bold Southerner extricated his command from the cordon set up by the chagrined and baffled Grant; and die Pemberton-Grant negotiations and train of events in the surrender and transfer of the Vicksburg river fortress. Squeezed down largely from the Official Records, the battle stories stiU bulge with such minutiae that, except for the dedicated student, they may be regarded as exasperatingly overloaded with smaU-unit clashes. The author is not to be criticized unduly on this score, for battie literature no longer has the broad strokes of a Tolstoy, a Victor Hugo, or a Sir Edward Creasy. Perhaps no present-day writer has fuUy mastered the perplexing technique of relating the events of a complicated engagement so as to preserve the high drama of the regimental and brigade actions and at the same time inform the layman of just what happened and where and when. A choice 104CIVIL WA R HISTORY must be made between satisfying die ravenous appetite of the initiated buffs for details, or inveigling the newcomer and attracting a wider popular following . Author Bearss looks toward the buff. The account of Champion HiU overcomes one with die amount of information crammed into the rapid-moving paragraphs, but some readers are likely to be perplexed by being shifted widiout warning from side to side. The author ends one often-repeated legend. He establishes that Grant did not, as historians aver and as the general contended in his Memoirs, cut free from his base and subsist his army off the lean Mississippi countryside in the Jackson-Champion HiU campaign. Bearss shows that large, heavily-guarded supply trains followed Grant toward Jackson on four different days from Grand Gulf on die Mississippi River. The secondary title is scarcely appropriate, for to cover the role of Mississippi in the war one would have to travel with Lee to Gettysburg, Bragg to Perryville and Chickamauga, and to scores of other far-off fields where famed Mississippi units fought in the forefront. With die stricdy Mississippi campaigns the book is highly selective. While Iuka is described lengdidy and interestingly, the companion battle of Corinth is dismissed in a line. No effort is made to analyze Grant's personal conduct in die Iuka campaign, nor...

Frontier Politics and the Sectional Conflict: The Pacific Northwest on the Eve of the Civil War (review)

464civil war history Some conceive of their lives as part of history, dramatic history beginning in their own time. Even the most sophisticated do not think in the manner of a twentieth-century woman like Pearl Buck, who reflects while hiding from a mob of Chinese Communists that she cannot escape "history"—referring to all that Europeans have done in Asia for generations. No passage in Heroines of Dixie questions the institution of slavery (Constance Cary's anti-slavery views are not mentioned). But there are imaginative and thoughtful women in this book, women who use their minds honestly. Mary Ann Loughborough wonders at the ladies who all cried, "Oh, never surrender!" for, she says, "After the experience of the night [under fire at Vicksburg], I really could not tell what . . . my opinions were." They read and reflect. Sara Rice Pryor recalls a friend who taught her to live without provisions, and who "kept me a living soul' in other and higher ways. She reckoned intellectual ability the greatest of God's gifts. . . . Her talk was a tonic to me." Thus the book reminds us that these women were not intellectually fragile. There is, at least in the published memoirs, still more in this vein that might have been included. Much of Mrs. Chesnut is here, but not her reflections about "the social evil" and the meaning of the slave women she sees on the block, her criticisms of Mrs. Stowe, or her observations of the effect upon men and women of absolute power or perfect beauty. We miss Sarah Morgan's expressed need to relieve her feelings by speculating privately upon politics, although she dislikes women who rant on the subject in public. We do not see how Eliza Andrews , bitter and suffering in the last war-torn days of Georgia, can generalize from what she sees and so maintain a kind of perspective. Imagination and thought were in the experience of these women, and if they were heroic helped to sustain them in their heroism. Caroline G. Mercer Poughkeepsie, New York. Frontier Politics and the Sectional Conflict: The Pacific Northwest on the Eve of the Civil War. By Robert W. Johannsen. (Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1955. Pp. xiii, 240. $5.00.) when discussing the sectional crisis that was developing during the 1850's, historians inevitably consider the problems presented by the western territories. Initiated by the enigmatic David Wilmot, punctuated by the oratory of the compromisers of 1850, their accounts usually reach a bloodv climax south of the Kaw and subside while the authors gather strength to describe the holocaust ahead. With this book Robert Johannsen has greatly improved the perspective in the American historians' picture of territorial issues during the turbulent fifties by analyzing the impact of sectional controversy in the nation on the new territories of the Pacific Northwest. Nor, as he shows, did the lines of influence run only toward the west; the long debate over the Oregon organic act in Congress , for instance, contributed to sectional distrust generally and Breckenridge's running mate of 1860 was Joseph Lane, senator from the new state of Oregon. Book Reviews465 The author's study is thoughtful, clearly written and reflects broad and thorough research. After a discussion of the land and the people of the Pacific Northwest, Mr. Johannsen describes the relation of the Oregon territory bill to the Wilmot proviso controversy, the attitude of the western settlers toward slavery (they were in general both anti-slavery and anti-Negro) , the development of the Democratic and ultimately the Republican parties, the schism in the former and the relation of this split to the strife between Buchanan and Douglas, the alignment of parties and groups in 1860 and finally the reaction of the Pacific Northwest to the secession crisis. He has placed major emphasis upon events in the more populous Oregon but discusses developments in Washington territory as well. One eminent historian of the slavery controversy has criticized the author in an earlier review for expecting too much knowledge of national figures and events from his public. On the other hand, the reader interested primarily in the territorial process could conceivably complain that he would have liked...

Chicago Giant: A Biography of "Long John" Wentworth (review)

Book Reviews345 Chicago Giant: A Biography of "Long John" Wentworth. By Don E. Fehrenbacher . (Madison, Wisconsin: The American History Research Center. 1957. Pp. vii, 278. $4.50.) in Tins WOBK MB. FEHHENBACHEK has made a substantial contribution to American history, particularly to the history of Chicago and the state of Illinois. For readers of Civil War history, the book will be of special interest in its portrayal of the pressures of conflicting ideas and loyalties upon a northern Democratic Congressman in the years just before the Civil War. John Wentworth arrived in Chicago in 1836—a Chicago of some four thousand people huddled on a marshy plain on the shore of Lake Michigan. Entering the rough and tumble of Chicago politics as the virulent editor of the Chicago Democrat , he managed to buy the paper in July, 1837. In a period marked by vigorous but irresponsible journalists, Wentworth's columns, shrewdly based in fact, made the Democrat a power to be reckoned with in Illinois. Subsequently, Wentworth served as Congressman from 1843 to 1851 and from 1853 to 1855, as Mayor of Chicago from 1857 to 1858 and from 1860 to 1861, and again as Congressman from 1865 to 1867. With two terms as mayor and six terms in the House of Representatives, his political experience attained considerable depth. Always aggressive and controversial, he entered politics as a Jacksonian Democrat, but by 1857 was a reluctant Republican and by 1865 a Radical Republican. It is this shift in party affiliation which will be of greatest interest to Civil War readers. The slavery issue started the pendulum swing of Wentworth's career when he became the only Democrat from Illinois to vote for the Wilmot Proviso. He was the only Illinoisan to vote against the Utah Territory Bill (which neither forbade nor authorized slavery). As Mr. Fehrenbacher notes, Wentworth was subjected to "painfully contradictory pressures from his constituents, on the one hand, and the leaders of the Illinois Democracy, on the other." He castigated Pierce for supporting the "Border Ruffians"; he fought popular sovereignty, and finally attended the anti-Nebraska convention held in Bloomington in 1856, although he denied being a Republican. In February, 1857, however, he was nominated for Mayor of Chicago by the Republican partv, and on March 3 was elected the First Republican Mayor of Chicago. In the Presidential campaign of 1860, Wentworth favored Lincoln, but ardently espoused the abolitionist cause, to the discomfiture of Illinois Republicans, who hardly wished to emphasize this faction of their party. So strong were his pronouncements for "Black Republicanism" that some feared a secret Democratic plot was under way to sabotage the Republican party. When Fort Sumter capitulated, Wentworth was a leader in raising troops and supporting the war effort. But he was not suited either physically or temperamentally for the vigors of army life. He is supposed to have exclaimed: "Great heavens abovel If I had physical courage equal to my moral courage, I would make a splendid commander ." To sum up, Chicago Giant is a well written, thoroughly documented, entertaining biography of a man significant in Illinois history. In many ways, mis 346CIVIL WAB HISTORY study of John Wentworth points out the dilemma of northern Democrats in the years prior to the Civil War; the conflict between party loyalty and personal conviction is admirably set forth. Complete with a comprehensive bibliography and index, Chicago Giant is highly recommended to all students of American history. Clyde C. Walton Springfield, Illinois. Congressman Abraham Lincoln. By Donald W. Riddle. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1957. Pp. vii, 280. $4.50.) in his PBEFACE t? this Study, Mr. Riddle states that he has "thoroughly investigated " Lincoln's one term in Congress and that "this field is now covered." Undoubtedly the author has made extensive researches into the sources that touched on Lincoln's rather undistinguished single term in the House of Representatives . It appears, however, that Mr. Riddle finds it necessary to extol the virtues and rectitude of President Polk while growing impatient with Lincoln and actually suspecting his motives. The portrait of Congressman Lincoln that emerges from this account is not as fully drawn as one might wish. To the author Lincoln's...

The Motivation of the Wilmot Proviso

The Motivation of the Wilmot Proviso

David Wilmot, Free-Soiler; A Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Provis

Journal Article David Wilmot, Free-Soiler; a Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso. By Charles Buxton Going. (New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1924. xvii, 787 p. $6.) Get access Thomas Robson Hay Thomas Robson Hay Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 11, Issue 4, March 1925, Pages 610–612, https://doi.org/10.2307/1895936 Published: 01 March 1925

David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: A Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso

David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: A Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso

<italic>David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: a Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso</italic>. By <sc>Charles Buxton Going</sc>. (New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1924. Pp. xvii, 787. $6.00)

David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: a Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso. By Charles Buxton Going. (New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1924. Pp. xvii, 787. $6.00) David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: a Biography of the Great Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso. By Going Charles Buxton. (New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1924. Pp. xvii, 787. $6.00.) E. I. McCormac E. I. McCormac Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 30, Issue 2, January 1925, Pages 376–377, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/30.2.376 Published: 01 January 1925