On a Young Officer

Like many young men of that time, John Clem wanted to join up in the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. He believed deeply in the cause of preserving the fragile union that had been forged almost “four score and seven years” earlier during the time of the American Revolution. However, he felt torn because his parents doted on him as an only and beloved child. Then, in a tragic accident, his mother died in a train crash. Well, that was all John needed to make his mind up. After his mother’s funeral, he left home and joined up with the 22nd Michigan Regiment.

The 22nd Michigan saw their fair share of fighting in the Tennessee theater of war, showing great bravery at the battle of Chickamauga on the Georgia-Tennessee border. In the battle, one of the bloodiest of the entire war, a Confederate officer yelled to a group of the Michigan men to surrender. In response, John fired at the officer and hit him, causing his fellow Union soldiers in the vicinity to rally around him and mount a counter-attack. For his courage and his heroism, John was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

Later in the war, John was captured with some other soldiers as they guarded a train. The Confederate soldiers who captured him took his kepi cap from him and discovered it had three distinct bullet holes in it–a cap that John took great pride in. After a short stay in a rebel POW camp, John was part of a prisoner exchange and soon found himself back with his old comrades. He went on to suffer two wounds in battle and further distinguish himself before being discharged in late 1864.

In that sense, John was much like many of the other soldiers in that war. They did their duties and fought like men to defend the principles they held dear. John’s army service actually continued after the war; he managed to rise through the ranks to become a commissioned officer. He managed to also serve during the Spanish-American war less than 30 years later and even be in the active military when World War 1 broke out. He died in San Antonio, Texas, in 1937, at the age of 85, a true hero of the United States Army.

If you’re doing the math, you’ll see why John is an interesting example of a Civil War soldier. 1851 is the year he was born. You see, John ran away from home to join the army…at age 9. He was still quite young when he shot that rebel officer. And John Clem became the youngest non-commissioned officer in the history of the United States Army…at age 12.

On a Beating

The rhetoric that surrounds much of the modern political discourse walks a razor’s edge of violence. Politicians know precisely what to say that will encourage their like-minded supporters to move to physical action while allowing the politicians at the same time to argue that their words were misconstrued. They rely on the plausible deniability to protect them from not only prosecution but also responsibility for the resulting violence. All of this has resulted in a polarization in the public discourse in the US that hasn’t been seen in a while. We need to remember that words have power and choose them carefully.

But what happens when the politicians who speak in these “dog whistles” become the ones who act out the violence? That’s something that happened in a most unusual place–the United States Senate floor. There was a time that tempers were running high between a Republican senator from the north against a Democratic senator from the Old South. The two men were on opposite sides of most issues, but the emotional issue of Civil Rights divided the pair the most. And it got personal. The Republican even made fun of the Democrat’s slurred speech that he had developed as a result of a recent stroke. True, this type of personal attack is unwarranted and uncouth, but politics is a nasty business, after all.

But a relative of the Democratic senator took great offense at the Republican’s attacks of both political and personal natures. And while the saying about sticks and stones is true, words can lead to the use of them for a certain. This man, this relative of the senator, he actually made plans to kill the Republican. And, to make this bad situation even worse, the relative with the murderous intent was a member of the US House of Representatives and also a prominent Democratic politician. A friend talked him out of murdering the poison-tongued northern senator and instead convinced the man to merely beat him. The younger relative reluctantly agreed.

Well, the Republican was at his desk on the almost empty Senate floor after the day’s business. He was busy writing a speech for the next day and was so intent on his work that he failed to notice the representative approaching him. The Democrat pulled out a cane with a golden handle and, with a mighty backswing, struck the sitting senator in the head with all his force. The blow knocked the man from his chair. He later said that he blacked out at that point and barely remembers holding his arms up in a vain attempt to defend himself against the blows that began raining down on his head and shoulders.

The attacker got several blows in before anyone nearby could intervene. Some later privately said that the northern senator got what was coming to him, but then others managed to tear the attacker away. The northern man was so severely beaten that pools of his blood surrounded his desk; he had to be carried from the chamber on a stretcher and then treated for a concussion and also received several stitches. The attack was so violent that the man wielding the can broke it in several places; his swings were so violent that he hit himself with the cane and had to also receive some stitches.

Sadly, the senator from the north was so badly beaten that it would be over a year before he was physically able to return to his desk. And equally as sad, many in the nation agreed with the attack. Some media recommended that the senator receive such a beating regularly. And some other people sent the young representative a new cane, one even inscribed with the words, “Do It Again.” However, other supporters of the beating said that it was not as bad as the senator made out. The severity of the beating was, in effect, fake news.

But it wasn’t fake. Nor were the divisions between the two sections of the nation.

The beating of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by US Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina in 1856 symbolized the moment when the rhetoric about the issue of slavery turned violent and presaged the bloody Civil War that would follow four short years later.

On A Congressional Expulsion

When the state legislature voted to expel the black congressmen, many in the nation were justifiably outraged. Unfortunately, many Americans, especially in the state where it happened, cheered the action.

Politics in the country had grown poisonous to the point of revolt and armed insurrection. The justification of racism by religion across much of the conservative political spectrum had brought the United States to the point of making any political interaction a potentially violent enterprise. Add the pervasive, omnipresence of guns to the equation, well, it all added up to a recipe for disaster, a powder keg that was only needing a spark to explode.

State and Federal Courts were appealed to after the expulsion, and rightly so. Justice is always depicted as being blindfolded because all people are considered equal before the law. The reality, of course, is that we all bring our biases and prejudices to any decision. Conservative judges, appointed by radical politicians, chose to defer rather than decide, thereby giving themselves an “out” in the situation.

And then the campaign of intimidation and threats of violence began. The racists, for a time shamed into keeping their hatred and anger private, had been embolden by their political leaders to give loud voice to their opinions. The expelled Black congressmen and their allies were harassed and berated and became the objects of scorn and malice.

Of course, media, as it usually does, tried to “both sides” the issue. Instead of calling out the obvious injustice and blatant racism behind the expulsion, the media only poured more gasoline on an already blazing fire. They pointed out the numerous negative interactions between White policemen and Black suspects over the years, but then they often portrayed Blacks as being uneducated or vaguely threatening or somehow almost deserving of the treatment they received at the hands of law enforcement. All of this served to only muddy the public consciousness about the way the Black congressmen were treated.

Yet, all of this happened in the state of Georgia in 1868. Thirty-three Black legislators were expelled by a coalition of White Republicans and Democrats. But the courts eventually allowed all the expelled members to retake their seats in the Georgia congress. However, within 30-odd years, all Black members of the Georgia legislature were either harassed or gerrymandered, or else Jim Crow laws took away enough Black votes that the congressmen were replaced by White legislators.

Yes, the group, known as the Original 33, were the beginning of several decades of racist behavior that took away any rights Blacks may have gained as a result of the American Civil War and the passage of several constitutional amendments. Eventually, the Civil Rights movement of the 20th Century restored many of these.

But surely such a racially-motivated expulsion of Black congressmen by the legislature of a former Confederate state couldn’t happen again.

Right?

On a Double Date

Clara accepted her friend Mary’s invitation to double date on behalf of her fiancé, Henry. The two couples had shared evenings in the past, and they enjoyed each other’s company despite the fact that Mary and her husband were older than Clara and Henry. In this case, Mary invited the couple to see a show together.

To say that the double date proved memorable is an understatement, but let’s fast forward a couple of years. Clara and Henry married and, within five years, had three kids, two boys and a girl. Sadly, Henry developed mental and emotional issues. He had fought in the war, and today we would recognize at least a large part of his situation as being Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of all he had witnessed. He had been a front-line officer, you see, and had seen some of the fiercest fighting during the conflict and even rose to the rank of Major.

The couple had grown up with each other–literally. Both were from comfortably upper-middle class families from upstate New York. Henry’s widowed mom had married Clara’s widower dad when he was 11 and she was 13. The two formed a close friendship that blossomed into romantic love when they reached their early 20s. So, in many ways, the pair had been a couple much longer than other engaged young people their age.

A few years later and despite Henry’s continued mental deterioration, he managed to obtain a diplomatic post to Germany where the young family moved in the 80’s. Finally, Henry’s mental instability reached its climax. Wildly and paranoically suspicious of Clara, Henry attempted to kill their three children. Clara stood in the way of his anger and aggression, and Henry shot and killed her. He spent the rest of his life in a German mental institution, and the three children were sent back to the Untied States to be raised by an uncle. A sad ending to the couple’s realtionship.

Of course, some would point back to the double date the couple went on years before as being one of the main reasons for Henry’s issues and eventual mental breakdown. You see, the married couple Henry and Clara had been invited to go to the show with weren’t some ordinary husband and wife.

No, Clara and Henry had accepted an invitation to attend a showing of My American Cousin at Ford’s Theater that night with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.