Michigan Civil War Blog

Looking for Lincoln...

This past Wednesday, YT had the honor of giving some remarks at the Detroit Public Television "Looking for Lincoln" teacher training workshop. The PBS program of that title will air on Wednesday, February 11, to coincide with the Bicentennial of the 16th President's birth. The event was at the Charles Wright Museum of African-American History and was well attended despite another bout with what has become quite a winter in these parts.

Here's the text from that evening: Download Abraham Lincoln

A more precious Union

From the post earlier this week can be gained insight into why Michigan was so much behind the efforts from '61 to '65 to preserve the American Union. Of all the 37 later-admitted States, Michigan remains the single example of Congress requiring preconditions not found in the U.S. Constitution.

Having had to negotiate its way into the Union beyond the customary admission procedure, it doesn't take much to see how Michiganders became outraged when some wanted to tear asunder the Compact they had fought so hard to enter. Less than a quarter-century after its admission into the world's most elite club, Michigan faced the prospect of 11 members deciding they wouldn't continue their membership, wouldn't continue supporting the Continental defense, would 'occupy' federal installations that citizens of every State, including Michigan, had helped fund, and would set up a rival club based on the proposition that all men were not created equal. Michigan had been grounded on the opposite principle since at least 1787.

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable, trumpeted Daniel Webster in the 1830 debates with Haynes. Webster's peroration concluded with this wish: "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured...."

It doesn't take much to see how such sentiment would find a home here in the Great Lake State in the middle of the 19th century.

Today in history

On January 26, 1837, President Andrew Jackson signed legislation admitting Michigan into the Union as the 26th State.

Michigan's admission marked a doubling of the number of the Original Thirteen States (not to be confused with the NHL's Original Six, of course). A curiosity of the event is that the Great Seal of the State, used for special official documents, has the date of 1835 on it, along with identification as "the Great Seal of the State of Michigan", a whole two years before admission. What gives?

In 1835, Territorial Governor Stevens T. Mason believed Michigan deserved admission and called for a convention to draft a constitution for entry into the Union. The document was approved and admission was sought that year. Two more years elapsed before the step was accomplished, due to a dispute over the Toledo Strip with Ohio, which blocked Michigan's admission until Congress insisted, as a condition of admission, that Michigan concede its claims. To compensate, Michigan's geography was expanded to the current Wisconsin boundary in the UP.

The Great Seal of Michigan features a Coat of Arms with a shield held by an elk on the left and a moose on the right. Since Michigan is on an international boundary, a figure of a man standing on a shoreline shows his right hand raised in peace. His left hand holds a weapon, just in case. The phrase "Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice" is below these figures and means, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." This may be a reference only to the Lower Peninsula, given the mindset of the 1835 conventioneers, for the actual graphics were adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1835. Lewis Cass created the design.

The Coat of Arms is familiar because it is shown on Michigan's State flag, first occurring in the year of admission. From then on, numerous flags were used bearing the Coat of Arms along with various designs and emblems. Not until 1865 was an official Michigan flag adopted. The design of this flag, recommended by A-G John Robertson and approved by Governor Henry Crapo, bore on one side the Coat of Arms on a field of blue and the arms of the United States on the reverse.

Michigan's State flag was first unfurled at the laying of the cornerstone at its monument in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, July 4, 1865. And it's largely the same today, nearly a Sesquicentennial later.

Michigan birthday party

Historical Museum Throws 172nd B-Day Party

The Michigan Historical Museum will feature costumed interpreters, craft demonstrations, and musical presentations during the Museum's annual Statehood Day celebration tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 24, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is free of charge, and the first 100 visitors will enjoy a piece of cake to celebrate Michigan's 172nd birthday. Volunteers will talk about life during tough times in Michigan and how these experiences enhance understanding of the people of our past.

Historic stimulus?

Reports indicate that the stimulus package undergoing mark-up in Congress includes the following three categories of relevance to historic/heritage needs:

Construction on Public Lands and Parks: $3.1 billion for infrastructure projects on federal lands including improvements to visitor facilities, road and trail restoration, preservation of buildings of cultural and historic importance, rehabilitation of abandoned mines and oil fields, and environmental cleanup projects. This includes $1.8 billion for the National Park Service, $325 million for the Bureau of Land Management, $300 million for the National Wildlife Refuges and National Fish Hatcheries, and $650 million for the Forest Service.

National Treasures: $400 million, including $200 million to address the deterioration of the National Mall, such as repair of the Jefferson Memorial’s collapsing Tidal Basin walls; $150 million to address the repair backlog at the Smithsonian; and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Veterans Cemeteries: $50 million to put people to work making monument and memorial repairs at cemeteries for American heroes.

If passed, significant portions of these tax dollars should be spent on (A) Civil War sites, and (B) in Michigan. Why here? While the U.S. jobless rate in December rose by .4 % to 7.2 %, in Michigan our rate was 10.6 %, and in the Detroit metro area 11.1 %, reaching levels not seen in a quarter-century. Leading the Nation in economic distress, Michigan should be at the front of the line for stimulus benefits.

Lincoln exhibit in Plymouth MI

Just in time to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday on February 12, the Plymouth Historical Museum will be showcasing original furniture from Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois, home in its upcoming exhibit, “In the Presence of Lincoln.” The exhibit opens today, January 21, and runs through November 4, 2009. The four furniture pieces—two rockers, a claw-foot table, and a mantle clock, all on loan from The Henry Ford in Dearborn—have not been available for public display in many years. Shortly before Lincoln left Springfield for his inauguration in 1861, he held a furniture auction. A number of the pieces were purchased by Harry Wilton, a Lincoln acquaintance and Springfield neighbor. In 1930, the Wilton family sold many of the pieces to Henry Ford while he was gathering historic items for Greenfield Village. After a lengthy application process, The Henry Ford approved the request from the Plymouth Historical Museum to borrow the furniture to enhance its already remarkable collection.

While the furniture is the highlight of the exhibit, the Museum will also have on display original historic ephemera associated with Lincoln that were loaned by the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Museum’s own voluminous Weldon Petz Lincoln Collection will enhance displays throughout the Main Street exhibits, as well as in the permanent Petz Lincoln Collection area. The permanent collection’s displays have recently been refreshed with new signage and a more historic interpretation. Items of note from the Petz Lincoln Collection include:

• Artifacts from Lincoln's youth
• A rare book belonging to Lincoln as a boy
• Rare family genealogy and photographs
• Handwritten legal documents and law books
• Life mask of Lincoln made in 1860
• A lock of Lincoln's hair
• Artifacts relating to Lincoln’s assassination

The Plymouth Historical Museum is located at 155 S. Main Street just north of downtown Plymouth. Hours are Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1–4 p.m. Admission prices are still only $5 for an individual, $2 for students 6–17, and $10 for families. Tour groups can be accommodated, but please call in advance. For more information, call 734-455-8940 or visit www.plymouthhistory.org. The exhibit is made possible through generous sponsorship from Hines-Park Lincoln Mercury, as well as donations from Citizens Bank and the McLaren Family.

MiCW prof #4

Janet L. Coryell is Professor at Western Michigan University. Degrees: Ph.D., College of William and Mary (1986); M.A., University of Delaware, 1980; B.A., State University of New York, College at Cortland, 1977. Specialties: Antebellum and Civil War; Women's History; Biography. Teaches a variety of courses in U.S. women's history, in the antebellum and Civil War eras, and trains students in documentary editing; has taught graduate readings courses in 19th-century political culture and American biography. Also offers survey classes in U.S. women’s history and American history online.

Publications include: Neither Heroine Nor Fool: Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1990); A Surgeon's Civil War: The Letters & Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D, ed. James M. Greiner, Janet L. Coryell, and James R. Smither (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994); Managing Editor, "Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers that Be, eds. Janet Coryell, Thomas Appleton, Anastatia Sims, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, vol. 4 of Southern Women series (Columbia, MO:, University of Missouri Press, 2000); "Superseding Gender: The role of the Woman Politico in Antebellum Partisan Politics," in Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century America (Texas A&M Press, 2000); also published articles in Civil War History and numerous encyclopedia contributions in civil war history and women's biography. A recent item is “Music in the Civil War,” an invited lecture for “Michigan’s Fight for Freedom: The Civil War Era” at the Albert L. Lorenzo Cultural Center at Macomb Community College, May 2008.

Boiling down a 9-page CV like this isn't fair, but we do have space limitations. Perhaps Dr. Coryell's most recent action in signing aboard the CWPT letter opposing development at the Wilderness Battlefield [Historians' letter] is a credential that summarizes what's not here.

So concludes our mini-series on the Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial Academic Advisory Committee.

MiCW prof #3

Scott L. Stabler is Assistant Professor of History at Grand Valley State University. His education: Ph.D. History, Arizona State University, 2005; M.A. History, University of Houston, 1999; B.A., Baylor University, 1989. Publications: “O. O. Howard” for Paul Hutton and Durwood Ball, eds., Soldiers West, 2nd ed., University of Oklahoma Press (expected fall 2008); “Free Men Come to Houston: Blacks during Reconstruction,” The Houston Review of History and Culture 3:1 (winter 2005), 40-43, 73-84; “Ulysses S. Grant and the ‘Indian Problem,’” Journal of Illinois History 6:4 (winter 2004), 297-316; “Young Napoleon versus Old Abe,” Lincoln Editor, Quarterly Newsletter of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, April-June 2003 v.3, no.2.

His 9-page vitae includes: H-CivWar Book Review Editor, 2001 – 2008; Moderator for “New Directions in Civil War History”, Great Lakes History Conference in Grand Rapids, MI, October 28-29, 2005; Underground Railroad Tour of Michigan; and Sponsor of the GVSU Civil War Club. It also includes this curiosity: Professional Baseball Umpire, Office of Major League Baseball, Umpire Development, St. Petersburg FL, 1990-93. Perhaps this latter experience comes in handy on scholarly panels where the debate needs someone to be arbiter.

Courses taught at Grand Valley include: Era of Sectional Conflict and Civil War; Strategies for Social Studies Teachers; Methods and Strategies of Teaching History and Social Sciences.

Tomorrow our final of the quadrant providing key academic advice for Michigan's Civil War Sesquicentennial.

Lincoln music, tonite, in Michigan

Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Howard Performing Arts Center, January 17, 2009

Michigan’s third largest professional orchestra, with 77 musicians and an 87 year history, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is recognized throughout the country as a “regional orchestra of excellence.” Under the direction of conductor, Raymond Harvey, the Symphony will present an evening featuring a world premier by composer Kenji Bunch commission to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth by the KSO and the Michigan Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Committee. Also on the program will be Ives’ Symphony No. 3, Mendolssohn’s Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 5 by Sibelius.

A link to program info: Kzoo Symphony

Here's another link: MLive

MiCW prof #2

Matthew Daley is Assistant Professor, Department of History, Grand Valley State University, 2004-present. His education: Ph.D. Bowling Green State University, 2004; M.A. History and Archival Management, Wayne State University, 2000; B.A. History, University of Detroit Mercy, 1997. Courses taught include: Michigan History; United States Urban Society; Techniques in Local and Archival History; History of American Technology; Survey: United States to 1877. In addition to service on the Grand Rapids Historical Commission, he participated in the Neighborhood History Group, Detroit Historical Museum.

Prof. Daley's Civil War specific experience has come through work on the Detroit 300 anniversary history component that led to a great deal of research on the regiments and local experiences in the conflict, particularly on the homefront. He also had a large amount of coursework on the social and community history of the war with a particular emphasis that students in his Michigan History class get a great deal of: why the men of Michigan and other Northern states would serve in the conflict, particularly after Shiloh and other large battles.

He has also reviewed many Civil War article manuscripts and reviewed book manuscripts on Civil War topics for local publications. Further, through his students at GVSU, he's done a series of readings on regimental histories which has led him to go through a huge amount on the conflict with a Michigan focus. Also, his students have written and researched Civil War topics and that has pushed him to continue education on the subject.

Finally, "it is a topic of no small personal interest to me." For that and all of the above, his inclusion on the academic advisory committee is obviously appropriate.