Extended "Lincoln's Labels" Excerpt (ESSAY ON SOURCES)

Another extended excerpt from Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2009)!

For many readers, Lincoln's Labels will be the first word on the role of well-known companies and brands in the Civil War; I sincerely hopes it will not be the last though. To that end, in the book I provided an essay on sources consulted in writing the book - with a separate section for each chapter - which I hope will inspire new lines of inquiry and scholarship.

Excerpts from the bibliographic essays for several chapters are below. Enjoy!

Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War
by James M. Schmidt

Excerpts - "Essay on Sources"

Chapter Three - "All That Glitters"
(Tiffany & Co.)

The earliest of the Tiffany histories is George F. Heydt’s Charles L. Tiffany and the House of Tiffany and Co. (Tiffany and Co.: Union Square, NY, 1893). Like many “corporate histories” of the late nineteenth century, it is self-published, short, and unashamedly hagiographic. Still, it is well-illustrated and relatively rich in information on the firm’s role in the Civil War. Of special note is the appendix of “War Testimonials,” which includes a list of Tiffany’s most notable presentation pieces. Period newspapers are rich sources of information on presentation ceremonies - especially for swords and flags – especially as they became increasingly public affairs.

The next comprehensive company history did not appear until Joseph Purtell’s The Tiffany Touch (New York: Random House, 1971). Though un-annotated, Purtell’s is an estimable history that gives good attention to the firm’s early history, including the Civil War years. The most recent accounts include John Loring’s sesquicentennial history, Tiffany’s 150 Years (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987). Loring is a longtime director of design at the firm and has also published more than a dozen other works on Tiffany’s influence in American taste and jewelry. Tiffany’s 150 Years and others of his books are richly illustrated and include full color plates of items from the Civil War era. There is less emphasis on history, but, given his important experience and place in the company, his monographs are well-informed.

The story of the Tiffany & Co. in the Civil War is less about the firm itself, or its principals, than in the lasting legacy of things it created, including swords, flags, and other materiel. In general, the author recommends Arms and Equipment of the Union (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books) for photographs of Civil War artifacts, including Tiffany swords and flags. In regards to swords specifically, the author depended on Richard H. Bezdek’s American Swords and Sword Makers, 2 vols. (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1994, 1999).

Howard Michael Madaus and Richard H. Zeitlin’s The Flags of the Iron Brigade (Madison: Wisconsin Veterans Museum, 1997) combines the authors’ articles on flags, especially those created by Tiffany, that originally appeared in the Wisconsin Magazine of History. Interested readers should consult the unmatched scholarship of Madaus – the acclaimed “godfather” of Civil War vexillology – who published widely on flags in American history.

After the Iron Brigade, the most fully documented and cited Tiffany-crafted flags are those of the Army of the Potomac’s Irish Brigade. The banners are mentioned without fail in brigade histories and memoirs. Peter J. Lysy, in his Blue for the Union and Green for Ireland: The Civil War Flags of the 63rd New York Volunteers, Irish Brigade (Notre Dame, IN: Archives of the University of Notre Dame, 2001), documents the succession of flags that the regiment carried – including its famous Tiffany colors – and, as Madaus and Zeitlin do in Flags of the Iron Brigade, places the flags in the larger context of wartime politics (although ethnic, rather than regional).

The Tiffany & Co. archive department is responsible for the collection and preservation of records and artifacts that document the history of the firm from its founding to the present day. The archives are not open to the public, but interested persons can contact archivists for information on individual pieces. The archives are open to scholars after approval of a written research plan.

Chapter Four - "A Regiment of Inventors"
(Scientific American magazine)

There are four “official” histories of the Scientific American, all published in the pages of the magazine: “Fifty Years of the Scientific American,” July 25, 1896; “Seventy Years of the Scientific American,” June 5, 1915; “The Diamond Jubilee of the Scientific American,” October 2, 1920; and Albert G. Ingalls, “A Century of Scientific American,” December, 1945.

A “coffee table-style” book, Free Enterprise Forever! Scientific American in the 19th Century (James Shenton, ed., New York: Images Graphiques, 1977), includes a historical sketch of the magazine but in the main consists of reproductions of selected covers and pages from the inaugural issue through the end of the nineteenth century, including some from the Civil War years.

The best scholarly history of the magazine is Michael Borut’s unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, “The Scientific American in Nineteenth Century America” (New York University, 1977). The study charts the history of the periodical from its inception through Beach’s death in 1896. In writing the dissertation, Borut drew extensively on the unpublished diaries of Orson D. Munn, which remain privately held by the Munn family.

Biographical sketches of the magazine’s principals - Porter, Munn, and Beach - can be found in Dictionary of American Biography, American National Biography, and in obituaries printed in the Scientific American. Only Porter, in Jean Lipman’s Rufus Porter: Yankee Pioneer (New York: C.N. Potter, 1968), has received a full-length biographical treatment.

On a more general level, Frank Luther Mott’s History of American Magazines, 1850-1865 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938) and David Forsyth’s The Business Press in America: 1750-1875 (Philadelphia: Clinton Book Company, 1964), in addition to their historical sketches of the Scientific American, were helpful in presenting an overview of journalistic practices of the era.

Likewise, Kenneth W. Dobyns’s (Fredericksburg, VA: Sgt. Kirkland’s, 1994) is a highly readable account of the state of patent law and the Patent Office in nineteenth-century America.Robert V. Bruce’s The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent OfficeLincoln and the Tools of War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956) draws heavily on the Scientific American in describing Lincoln’s role in arming the Union forces, and his Pulitzer Prize-winning social history, The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876 (New York: Knopf, 1987), encompasses the Civil War years in describing the maturation of American science and technology.

The real story of the Scientific American during the American Civil War is to be found in the wartime pages of the magazine itself. The index, published at the end of each 26-issue volume during the war years, organizes the material by illustration, “miscellany,” and patent claims. Researchers should not ignore antebellum issues as many technologies used effectively for the first time during the Civil War were actually prewar innovations.

Many large libraries have period issues on microfilm. In addition, Cornell University Library's “Making of America” collection, a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, includes electronic access to digitized pages of the Scientific American from 1846-1869. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has been performed on the images to enhance searching the texts by keyword.

Reading wartime issues of the Scientific American will naturally lead researchers to interest in the specifics of Civil War-era patents. Patents issued by the United States Patent Office (USPTO) during the war years are very accessible. Printed copies of almost all of the patents issued since 1836 (and some issued before 1836), are available in the USPTO Public Search Room in Arlington, Virginia, in chronological order on microfilm, and in Patent Depository Libraries throughout the country. If one knows the patent number, the USPTO will supply a copy by mail for a nominal fee ($3.00 at this writing). The USPTO has also made digital full-page images of all patents issued since 1790 available on its website.

In 1948, Munn & Co., owners of the Scientific American for a century, sold the magazine to Gerard Piel, Dennis Flanagan, and Donald Miller for $40,000. A German-based publishing group, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, bought Scientific American, Inc., in 1986. Unfortunately, all of the archival material was disposed of when Munn & Co. transferred ownership of the magazine to Piel, except for some of the more interesting material relating to Thomas Edison, which was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution.

Chapter Five - Fire and Brimstone (E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.)

The body of literature on the du Pont family and the du Pont powder mills in the American Civil War is immense and can be divided into several categories: official company histories, histories of the family as a whole, biographies of the principals, special studies of the explosives industry in America, relevant monographs in the periodical literature, and the company archives.

The years following the 1902 centennial of the du Pont mills witnessed the publishing of several histories, including Atwood and Rideal’s The History of E.I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company: A Century of Success (New York: Business America, 1912), B.G. du Pont’s E.I du Pont de Nemours and Company: A History, 1802-1902 (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin, 1920), and A History of du Pont Company’s Relations with the United States Government, 1802-1927 (Wilmington: du Pont, 1928). More recent publications marked other anniversaries, including the sesquicentennial history Autobiography of an American Enterprise (Wilmington: du Pont, 1952) and Adrian Kinnane’s bicentennial history From the Banks of the Brandywine to Miracles of Science (Wilmington: du Pont, 2002).

The epic story of the du Pont family has been the subject of a number of works, all of which include sketches of the company’s involvement in the Civil War. They include William Carr’s The du Pont’s of Delaware (New York: Dodd, Meade, 1964), Marc Duke’s The du Ponts: Portrait of a Dynasty (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1976), and Leonard Mosley’s Blood Relations: The Rise and Fall of the du Ponts of Delaware (New York: Atheneum, 1980). The best, in terms of scope, writing, and scholarship is Joseph Wall’s Alfred I. du Pont: The Man and His Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Capsule biographies of the du Pont principals can be found in the Dictionary of American Biography and American National Biography. The best work on Lammot is N.B. Wilkinson’s Lammot du Pont and the American Explosives Industry (University of Virginia, 1999). An unpublished monograph, Nancy Parker’s “Biographical Essay on Lammot du Pont” (Hagley Museum and Library, April 2005), draws heavily on Wilkinson, but also includes interesting original research.

Unfortunately, especially given his contributions as a soldier, statesman, and businessman, Henry du Pont has not received a full-length biographical treatment. The Hagley Museum and Library holds the manuscript of the late Harold B. Hancock’s unfinished biography of him. He also appears in compilations of notable West Pointers, including W.H. Baumer’s Not All Warriors: Portraits of 19th Century West Pointers who Gained Fame in Other than Military Fields (New York: Smith & Durrell, 1941).

For studies of the history of gunpowder and the development of the explosives industry in America, the following proved especially helpful: G.I. Brown’s The Big Bang: A History of Explosives (Stroud, Gloucestire, UK: Sutton, 1998), Jack Kelly’s Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics (New York: Basic Books, 2005), and Schlatter and van Gelder’s History of the Explosives Industry in America (1927; reprint New York: Arno Press, 1972).

Few companies have maintained their historical record in original documents as well as du Pont. The collected business and personal papers of the company and the family form the core of the Hagley Museum and Library, which sits on the original powder works property on the Brandywine. Though dated, John Beverly Riggs’s A Guide to the Manuscripts in the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library (Greenville, DE: Library, 1970; supplement published in 1978) remains an essential starting point for the huge amount of material. Inventories and finding aids are available online through the library’s website.

Extended "Lincoln's Labels" Excerpt (SPECIAL DELIVERIES)

Another extended excerpt from Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2009)!

This excerpt is from Chapter Seven - "Special Deliveries."

Enjoy!

The principal express companies of the Civil War era all remain in business today: American Express, now a global leader in travel and financial services; Adams Express, a successful investment trust; and Wells Fargo, one of the country’s best known banking interests. Though the companies’ missions have changed over the years, their names have not, and each points with pride to its Civil War heritage.

During the war, they shipped arms, munitions, and other supplies; delivered packages from the home front to soldiers in camps and hospitals; and forwarded soldiers’ pay and messages back to their homes.

They also got into some trouble in doing so: accused by Northerners of being traitorous and being robbed by Confederate guerillas of the treasure in their charge - which you can read about in today's excerpt from Lincoln's Labels!

Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War
by James M. Schmidt

Excerpt - Chapter Seven - "Special Deliveries"

Gestures of patriotism and declarations of fidelity notwithstanding, some citizens accused the express companies of the very opposite, especially Adams Express, which historically had stronger commercial ties to the South. The problems began when Postmaster General Montgomery Blair ordered the cessation of U.S. mail service throughout the South on May 31, 1861. In doing so, he created a heavy business for the express companies, and a ready (and for awhile, legal) means for Confederate sympathizers in northern states to transmit to the South intelligence such as information about troop movements, and materiel, such as tactical and drilling manuals, firearms, and medicine.

Wartime arrest records of “Suspected and Disloyal Persons” include cases of attempted smuggling via express. In October 1861, U.S. marshals in New York arrested John F. Parr on suspicion that he purchased items in New York to transmit to his native Tennessee. Evidence against the man included a trunk seized in Buffalo - sent there by American Express - containing a large amount of quinine intended for Confederate surgeons. During an intense deposition in a separate case, a member of the “Order of American Knights” - a secret association whose members were suspected of disloyal and treasonable actions - admitted that the Order had members purposely placed in express offices.(19)

In a single week in late August 1861, Secretary of State William H. Seward received several complaints from prominent citizens in the North, including a New Yorker who wrote: “It is well known here that Adams Express daily conveys information in every shape to all quarters of the Southern Confederacy.” In another letter, a self-described “Union man to the backbone” complained “considering the facility the enemy has for letter transportation [via Adams] it is not to be wondered at that they know our movements so well,” and demanded that “something be done to suppress such a dangerous conveyance.”(20)

Northern newspapers printed caustic accusations that the express companies carried mail and packages to and from the South. After a Philadelphia paper reported that the Adams Express would be brought to trial for the purported traffic, Adams’s General Superintendent in the city wrote a strongly worded rebuttal to the War Department with a demand that it “make someone responsible for statements of this character.”(21)

On the authority of E.D. Gazzam, chairman of the “Committee on the Transportation of Contraband Goods,” other papers published allegations that American Express had “gone around to various houses which had been shipping this kind of goods by the Adams Express Company…and informing those houses that if they would ship their goods by the American Express Company such goods would pass safely by other and more northern routes.”(22)

In response, Henry Wells, President, and Alex Holland, Managing Director, of American Express, issued a rebuttal:

“this company has, on the contrary, through its officers and agents, issued orders to all their collectors and receivers of freight to take nothing like arms or munitions of war, or any kind of contraband articles for any point in the seceding States…besides which they have stopped on the way and refused to forward many articles which they had only a doubt in their nature…The officers of the federal, State, and city governments are fully aware of the course we have pursued from the beginning, and approve of the same, and are constantly employing us in transporting for them.”(23)

Critics might have tempered their accusations had they known the risks that expressmen took in performing their services on behalf of the Union. Confederate sympathizers surrounded express offices in Union-held territory in states such as Mississippi and Kentucky, and Rebel cavalry and guerillas fired on trains, made off with packages and money, and took expressmen as prisoners. In April 1862, at the Battle of Shiloh, a cannonball passed through and nearly destroyed the log house the Adams agent used as an office. Charles Woodward, a wartime superintendent for Adams, was captured several times, once by the Rebel cavalryman Nathan Bedford Forrest; in another episode he was pressed into service as an ersatz artilleryman in an emergency defense of the Union-held fort at Helena, Arkansas.

If American and Adams were closer to the “sword,” then Wells Fargo was closer to the “purse,” and distance from the battlefields did nothing to protect its expressmen or the treasure in its charge. The daily shipments of California gold and Nevada - by land and sea - made an inviting target for Rebel sympathizers and guerillas. Capture of the valuable metals put badly needed cash into Confederate hands while damaging the Union’s purchasing power and weakening its credit.

Recognizing the threat, Wells Fargo joined more than thirty other banks and merchants and petitioned Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles for protection in April 1862. The businessmen, acting on information that there were “citizens of Spain and other foreign countries who are…in possession of letters of marque, granted by the Confederate states, who are likely to seize upon the California steamers, on the Pacific and Atlantic, having on board large amounts of treasure,” petitioned Welles to “detail a Government steamer on the Pacific to act as a convoy.”(24)

Their fears were well founded: on December 7, 1862, the Ariel, a packet steamer owned by shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, was rounding Cape Maysi, Cuba, when the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, commanded by the intrepid Raphael Semmes, came upon her rapidly. The Alabama fired twice, striking the Ariel’s foremast. Facing a faster ship with superior firepower, the Ariel’s captain had no choice but to ransom the ship to Semmes. In doing so, he surrendered more than $15,000 belonging to Wells, Fargo & Co.

Wells Fargo treasure was also at the center of what one historian called “without question the most daring and desperate undertaking by any of California’s Secessionist movement.” The instigators were the so-called “Captain Ingram’s Partisan Rangers,” named for Rufus Ingram, an erstwhile member of William Quantrill’s band of guerillas. Ingram’s band had spent weeks observing the comings-and-goings of Wells Fargo shipments. The targets were two stagecoaches that had left the Virginia City, Nevada, mines with nearly $30,000 in bullion.(25)

On the night of June 30, 1864, the coaches reached a bend in the road at Placerville, California where the “Rangers,” masked and armed with pistols and shotguns, were lurking. Ingram jumped in front of the lead coach and demanded the silver bars and gold dust. The driver retorted “Come and get it,” at which point two of Ingram’s men threw the bags to the ground. Ingram sent the lead coach on its way when he saw the trailing coach come around the bend. Ingram declared: “Gentleman, I will tell you who we are. We are not robbers, but a company of Confederate soldiers…All we want is Wells, Fargo and Company’s treasures to assist us to recruit the Confederate Army.”(26)

As the band of Rebels removed treasure from the second coach, Ingram handed the driver a receipt stating: “This is to certify that I have received from Wells, Fargo, & Co. the sum of $_________ cash [in his haste, Ingram failed to enter his take], for the purpose of outfitting recruits in California for the Confederate States Army.”(27)

Lawmen, aided by citizen posses, pursued the robbers and surprised them at a boardinghouse not far from the crime scene and a firefight ensued. A deputy sheriff was killed, another was wounded, and one of the robbers was captured. The pursuit continued, and by early September all of the Rangers had been killed or captured, except for Ingram and another who made it to Missouri. At trial, one of the guerillas testified to the band’s motive: “They were robbing our people back home and it was nothing but right to rob the Federal Government, or rob Wells, Fargo, & Co.’s Express. We had a right to retaliate.”(28)

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Added to care packages, pay, battlefield souvenirs, and government treasure, the express companies also handled (probably unwittingly) a number of banned items, especially liquor. A wartime American Express circular warned that in addition to other items prohibited by the Treasury Department and military authorities, agents were “specially enjoined not to receive…any package or article of freight which they have reason to believe contains spirituous liquor.” Generals and provost marshals ordered express agents to subject every box to strict inspection and confiscate such items, but ingenious subterfuges still worked: peaches in glass jars were awash in liquor instead of syrup; bottles of patent medicines, emptied of their contents, were filled with something more intoxicating; and trunks false bottoms concealed bottles of wine.(35)

Even authorized shipments of liquor were not always safe. Adams’s superintendent Woodward recalled an incident when one of his messengers was to deliver a barrel of whisky to the Union Army military hospital in Jackson, Tennessee. The expressman delivered the barrel at the train station platform and took the railroad agent’s receipt. A freight car loaded with soldiers was on the rear of the train that carried the whisky. Woodward remembered: “As the car slowly passed the platform when the train had started, four of the soldiers jumped upon the platform, and, though the train was still in motion, succeeded in pitching the barrel of whisky into the car in the presence of the agent who could not stop them.” The agent informed the commanding general, who telegraphed ahead to authorities in Corinth, Mississippi, to arrest every man in the car on arrival. After their capture and arrest the men were sentenced to forfeit two months’ pay and reimburse Adams Express for the value of the whisky.(36)

Seemingly innocent clothing sent from home to the camp also proved a bane to maintaining discipline in the Union army. In February 1863, from his camp near Falmouth, Virginia, an adjutant sent a letter to officials of Adams Express stating that packages containing certain attire would not be allowed for soldiers’ use. He made exceptions for underclothing, mittens, and “other little items that may be desired,” but strictly forbade outer garments, adding that the policy was necessary due to the “pernicious practice of treasonable persons sending citizens’ clothing to soldiers here to encourage and facilitate desertion.”(37)

Commenting on the flip side of this problem, another wartime expressman wrote of his bemusement at the “habits of rigid economy” of soldiers from Maine who were “exceedingly careful” with their worn clothes: “After a new fit-out was furnished a regiment, the ragged, filthy, and worthless duds were packed in boxes and sent home to their friends from sadly mistaken motives of economy – thousands of these boxes constantly arriving per express to their destination…a large proportion of them freight unpaid, at burdensome charges to the almost destitute families…from five to twenty-five dollars and upwards, the contents of which were utterly worthless unless as paper stock.”(38)

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Endnotes (from Excerpt)

19. For the case of John H. Parr, see Official Records (OR), Series 2, Vol. II, p. 1023; also see mention of express companies in the deposition of Green B. Smith of the “Order of American Knights,” in OR, Ser. 2, Vol. VII, p.648.
20. “It is well known here…” in OR Ser. 2, Vol. II, p. 579; “Considering the facility…”in OR, Ser. 2, Vol. II, p. 44.
21. OR Ser. 2, Vol. II, p. 87.
22. A. L. Stimson, History of the Express Business (New York: Baker & Goldwin, 1881), p. 115.
23. Ibid, pp. 115-16.
24. OR (Navy), Series 1, Vol. I, pp. 10-11.
25. K. Boessenecker, Badge and Buckshot: Lawlessness in Old California (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), p. 133; Robert Chandler, Senior Research Historian, Wells Fargo Historical Services, San Francisco, CA, has concluded that the raid’s daring was matched in its foolhardiness because the gang robbed the “down” coach – carrying heavy silver bars – rather than the “up” stage to Virginia City carrying cash in gold coin (letter from Chandler to author, 24 April 2007).
26. Ibid, p. 142.
27. Ibid, p. 144.
28. Philip L. Fradkin, Stagecoach: Wells Fargo and the American West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 74.

35. Circular to Agents, February 6, 1863, American Express Corporate Archives
36. C. Woodward, “Express Operations During the War,” The Express Gazette, Vol. XXII, No. 5, May 15, 1897, p. 139.
37. OR, Ser. 1, Vol. 25, Part II, p. 73.
38. T. W. Tucker, Waifs from the Waybills of an Old Expressman (Boston: Lee and Shephard, 1872), p. 69

Extended "Lincoln's Labels" Excerpt (FIRE AND BRIMSTONE)

Another extended excerpt from Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2009)!

This excerpt is from Chapter Five - "Fire and Brimstone" - which describes the interesting and important role that the du Pont gunpowder works played in the American Civil War.

This particular excerpt describes the challenge that du Pont faced in guarding their works against sabotage, accidents, and concerted Confederate movements.

Enjoy!

Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War
by James M. Schmidt

Excerpt - Chapter Five - "Fire and Brimstone"

“A strong feeling in the two lower counties of Delaware is aroused in favor of Delaware joining the Southern Confederacy… With a man or two from you to give directions and a hint that arms would come if necessary, the people of Sussex themselves would destroy the Delaware railroad terminating at Seaford…The arms that Delaware own are in the hands of the secessionists. The powder mills on the Brandywine (owned by relations of mine) should be secured at all hazards. With a not very large force, if we cannot hold them, they should be destroyed. If it is possible to guard these works for a few weeks the stock of powder for the southern confederacy would be largely increased….Come to our help.”(24)

This urgent appeal to Virginia’s governor, Henry Alexander Wise, written by Charles du Pont Bird - a purported du Pont relative (he wasn’t) and ardent secessionist, gives a description of the situation in Delaware in April 1861. As a border state, Delaware – like the du Pont family - was home to divided loyalties. Sussex and Kent counties, in particular, had southern leanings, while New Castle County, home to the powder mills, was strong for the Union. Mississippi authorities led an effort to lure Delaware into the Confederacy, but Delaware’s legislature, led by a Unionist (albeit anti-abolitionist) governor, rejected secession. Still, Delaware had sufficient Southern sympathizers to give the du Ponts pause.

Not unexpectedly, the security of the du Pont mills was a constant concern throughout the Civil War, for, as Bird had declared in his appeal to Governor Wise, their capture or destruction would have been a great coup for the Confederacy. Within days of the firing on Fort Sumter, Henry du Pont wrote to Secretary of War Simon Cameron on the tenuous situation in his state:

“I will remark that the gunpowder mills in this neighborhood, of which I am the head, are of importance to the Government in these times, from their extent and immense facilities of production. They are wholly unprotected, and there is not a musket or rifle in the place; but we have over 300 good men, true, and loyal, and if we could get some 200 or 300 stands of arms from Franklin Arsenal and accoutrements, if there, we could take care of ourselves for the present, as far as mobs and disaffected persons are concerned.”(25)

Similarly, New Jersey’s Governor Charles S. Olden, wrote directly to President Lincoln on the “exposed and defenseless condition” of important points on the Delaware River and the port of Philadelphia. Among specific targets of concern, Olden wrote that a rebel expedition of sufficient force “would with ease destroy the machine-shops and Du Pont powder mills at the city of Wilmington.”(26)

The fears were well-founded. Although it would be more than a year before serious Confederate military movements would threaten the mills, Henry du Pont had to wait only a day after his letter to Cameron for the specter of Rebel sabotage to rear its head. On April 20, he received a telegram warning that a large band of Maryland secessionists – as many as 150 men – were planning to seize a du Pont powder magazine on the Delaware River. Cameron had not yet had time to respond to du Pont’s appeal (he wouldn’t till weeks later, anyway), so Henry, his nephews, and a party of workmen armed themselves and retrieved the powder in the middle of the night.

Less than two weeks later, a sordid-looking interloper was spotted on the mill grounds. Workmen – yelling “A spy! A spy!” - chased the stranger and might have beat him had he not been rescued by Lammot and another. Some of the powdermen claimed that the intruder had asked about the whereabouts of the powder magazines, but Lammot, after an interview with the “spy,” let him go with a word of warning. The du Ponts were also put on alert over rumors that two men, dressed as women, had been seen near the yards; another warning had a “known desperado” from Philadelphia on his way to blow up the works.(27)

All the incidents proved to be false alarms, but Henry du Pont – keen to prevent sabotage – organized the workmen into the “Brandywine Home Guards” (Delaware’s Governor William Burton appointed him as major general of the state militia in May 1861; he insisted on being called “General Henry” from that point on). Lammot, who turned thirty the day after Sumter, was named captain of Company A. He supervised the drilling in the manual of arms (still without guns); Lammot’s cousin, Ellen, thought that his company “looked mighty well in ranks” and drilled “infinitely better” than Company B. Lammot’s men bested the rival company in a May 1861 competition, winning a sword for their captain.(28)

While the du Ponts and the Home Guard guarded against perceived threats to the mills, there was in fact a very real and constant danger: explosions. Accidents had happened at the powder works about every fourteen months on average since their inception. The first had occurred on August 18, 1807; it broke windows in founder Irenee du Pont’s home, but caused no deaths. The first fatal accident, on June 8, 1815, claimed nine lives and caused $20,000 in damage. The du Pont family was not immune: the founder’s son, Alexis, was killed in an 1857 explosion.

The incidents made a great impression on Lammot du Pont; as a teen, he wrote his brother: “This morning just as I got out of bed I saw a flash of light and then a loud explosion. I dressed as soon as I could and ran down to the refinery…There were two men killed, entirely blown to pieces, there were 4200 lbs of powder in the mill, all finished ready to pack, so you may know it made a pretty good crack…Every window or door that was shut was burst open in our house.”(29)

More than ten explosions occurred at the du Pont mills during the Civil War- an average of one about every five months. The first explosion, in October 1861, caused no fatalities, but did level a number of buildings. An explosion a month later claimed the lives of three men. Others that followed killed nearly forty more workmen. Newspapers across the country carried bulletins of the wartime explosions; of one incident, Gettysburg’s Adams Sentinel reported that “large pieces of timber and barrels were thrown by the force of the explosion entirely across the Brandywine creek, and for a great distance evidences of the disaster were visible.” Of another, an Iowa paper reported with just amazement that a correspondent “distinctly heard the explosion of the du Pont powder mills at his residence [in Clifford, Pennsylvania]; the distance…he says, is 135 miles.”(30)

None of the explosions could be categorically attributed to saboteurs; certainly the accelerated pace of production and inexperience of newly-hired hands contributed to the accidents, and any clues would be lost in the destruction. Still, the truism that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” makes one wonder whether Rebel saboteurs may have indeed been successful in attempts to damage the mills.

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With the du Pont mills under careful watch of the Home Guards and a plentiful supply of saltpeter on hand, the du Pont principals and the powdermen went to work in earnest. Lammot in particular poured himself into work at the mills. Aunt Sophie wrote her husband that Lammot was “killing himself in the refinery, working day and night.” His Cousin Sallie testified to the same, writing her brother, Henry A.: “They have night work all the time in the refinery; and as it is all lighted up with kerosene-lamps, the illumination is quite splendid all night, from the back windows. Cousin Lammot and Gene work there, night bout; and are both there all day, so are never visible.”(37)

Orders poured in from the Union Navy and Army ordnance bureaus on a regular basis for thousands of hundred-pound barrels of powder at a time, to be delivered within weeks to depots in Philadelphia, Boston, Portsmouth and elsewhere. Although government orders took first priority, du Pont did its best to keep up with its regular trade (including gold miners in California and coal miners in Ohio). The du Ponts sold more than $1,000,000 worth of powder every year of the war, with a peak of $1,625,305 in 1864 – more than twice their best year ever before the war.

The war made the du Ponts quite wealthy - especially “Boss Henry,” who held the greatest number of shares. Income tax returns for 1863 (Congress passed the “Revenue Act of 1861,” which included a tax on personal incomes, to help pay war expenses; it was repealed ten years later) show that Henry du Pont’s income of $123, 968 was the largest in Delaware that year. Though they didn’t reach the scale of Henry du Pont’s share, the workmen did benefit from the increased production and sales. Wages increased from $22-26 a month in 1861 to $32-35 in 1865. Actual take-home pay was even higher: with the mills operating ‘round-the clock, many of the men put in several days of overtime each month.

In the summer of 1862, threats of sabotage were replaced with by the dangers of concerted military movements as the Confederate Army moved through Virginia and into Maryland. In order to fill its quota of volunteers to meet the emergency, Delaware drafted nearly four-dozen men from the powder works into the ranks. Lammot was keen to volunteer himself, but was dissuaded by his mother, his Uncle Henry, and his Aunt Sophie, who wrote to Lammot’s “Uncle Frank”:
“Lammot, it seems, has been wanting to go for a good while, but the consciousness that he was absolutely needed here withheld him from volunteering. It is perfectly absurd, for he serves his country far more usefully here, not only in making powder, but in other ways. Any Irishman could be drilled to make as good a soldier in the ranks – but there is not one man in a thousand with Lammot’s scientific genius and knowledge, and his acute mind.”(38)

Henry’s plea that his remaining workers be exempted from the draft was approved with dispatch. Nevertheless, Lammot got his wish to serve: the Brandywine Home Guards were incorporated into the Fifth Regiment of Delaware Volunteers, with Lammot receiving a commission as captain of Company A. For Lammot, the move required more attention to drills and an officer’s uniform, which – according to his cousin Ellen – he declared “a humbug” (and officers: “nonsense”).(39)

Despite a proviso that the companies were only to be used (and paid when doing so) to protect industry in and around Wilmington, the two companies were dispatched to the Union’s Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island to quell a riot of Rebel prisoners kept there. As a captain, Lammot pulled several 24-hour-long stints as officer-of-the-guard or officer-of-the-day, which, he wrote his mother, gave him “the fort to look after as well as 4,000 prisoners. So you see my hands are full.” Lammot fell ill – a victim of the typhoid endemic to the POW camps. The disease, nearly fatal, left him “42 days delirious without intermission.” Even when the danger had seemed to pass, he was plagued with inflamed eyes and a sore back.(40)

Though the specter of sabotage seemed to have passed with the first months of the war, the remaining years saw the mills guarding against seemingly annual crises as Rebel movements threatened the mills. The first came during the Antietam campaign in the fall of 1862. On reports that 3,000 Confederate cavalrymen were set to ride across Maryland to destroy the mills, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton wrote to General-in-Chief Henry Halleck of the:
“…immediate necessity of a military force to protect the powder mills of Messrs. du Pont, on the Brandywine. You are aware that a large portion of the Government ammunition is made there, the works being the largest in the world. I have been informed that in the last war with Great Britain a guard of 4,000 men was kept there. It seems to me that at least an equal force is now necessary.”(41)

Halleck could not spare anywhere close to 4,000 men; with the emergency at Sharpsburg, he wrote that “every man must be sent to General McClellan.” He did, however, telegraph Brigadier General John Reynolds with the suggestion “that a guard of Pennsylvania militia be sent to guard these mills,” with the promise they could be soon replaced by volunteers. Within a day, an advance guard of several hundred men from the Third Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve brigade arrived and camped within a half-mile of the works and remained there until month’s-end.(42)

The powder works were threatened again during the Gettysburg campaign in the summer of 1863. Henry du Pont asked Union authorities to alert him when the enemy approached so that he could dump powder stores into the creek. Lammot’s Aunt Sophie, sure their home would be burned in retaliation for her husband’s signal victory at Port Royal, South Carolina, boxed the Admiral’s papers and had them ready to secret away. Despite the temporary states of “alarm and anxiety” that beset the mills over the course of the war, Henry du Pont’s wife wrote to her son that she was confident that “as a people and family we du Ponts are not easily frightened.”(43)

More Lincoln's Labels excerpts - and contest giveaways - to come soon!

Endnotes (From Excerpt)

24. Official Records, Series 1, Vol. LI, Part II, p. 46.
25. Official Records, Series 1, Vol. LI, Part I, pp. 328-329.
26. Official Records, Ser 3, Vol. I, pp. 765-766.
27. N.B. Wilkinson, Lammot du Pont and the American Explosives Industry, 1850-1884 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984), p75.
28. Ibid, p. 75.
29. N. Parker, “Biographical Essay on Lammot du Pont,” April 2005, Hagley Museum and Library (HML), p. 29
30. “Large pieces of timber…” in The Adams Sentinel, August 2, 1864, p. 4; “distinctly heard the…” in Burlington Weekly Hawk Eye, March 14, 1863, p. 4; an exceptionally detailed report of a wartime powder works explosion at the Hazard Powder Company (a chief competitor to du Pont) can be found in the Berkshire County Eagle, July 31, 1862, p.3.

37. “Lammot is killing himself…” in Wilkinson, Lammot, p. 87; “They have night work…” in Sallie du Pont to Henry A. du Pont, April 20, 1862, HML, Group 8, Series B, Box 11.
38. “Lammot, it seems, has been…” in Mrs. S.F. du Pont to S.F. du Pont, August 16, 1862, HML, Winterthur Manuscripts, 9/D/106.
39. Parker, p. 17.
40. “the fort to look after…” in Wilkinson, Lammot, p. 97; “42 days delirious with…” in Wilkinson, Lammot, p. 104.
41. Official Records, Series 1, Vol. XIX, Part 2, p. 307.
42. Ibid, p. 307.
43. Wilkinson, Lammot, p. 91.

Extended "Lincoln's Labels" Excerpt (INTRODUCTION)

This week, I'm pleased to post some extended excerpts from my first book, Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2009).

Also stay tuned this week for some contest giveaways of advanced review copies of Lincoln's Labels at the book's Facebook page!

It seems like a good place to introduce the book is...well...the Introduction. Enjoy!!

Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War
(Edinborough Press, 2009)
by James M. Schmidt

Introduction

On September 17, 1861, a notice on the front page of Cincinnati’s premier newspaper, the Gazette, attracted the interest of the city’s businessmen. The long announcement - beginning just above the fold and continuing for several inches below - declared that proposals were being sought to supply a million pounds of bread, hundreds of thousands of pounds of bacon, rice, and sugar, and tens of thousands of pounds of hams, coffee, and apples. Also needed were “25,000 pounds first quality candles,” and “80,000 pounds of good hard soap.”(1)

In another year, the solicitation for so much in the way of food and staples might have signaled preparations for a magnificent autumn social befitting the Ohio River’s “Queen City.” But 1861 was no ordinary year, and a closer perusal of the paper would have belied any illusion of normalcy. Poems, including one entitled “The Picket,” flanked the sides of the long list, and above and below were even more requests: for mess pans, infantry pants, and “gunboats for the western rivers.” All this served as evidence that the Civil War – the first shots of which had been fired that spring, was in full gear. What’s more, battles already waged from Missouri to Virginia to South Carolina were testament that the war would not be a picnic.(2)

The long advertisement in the Gazette was printed at the behest of Major A.B. Eaton, chief of the Office of the Commissary of Subsistence, with an eye towards building up stores to feed the Union armies in the coming campaigns. Still, Eaton’s seemingly long list represented only a fraction of the needs of the army’s subsistence department. Indeed, several such rolls, from “A to Z,” were needed to outfit all of the departments of the rapidly growing Union Army and Navy, including their ordnance, medical, and quartermaster departments:

ambulances, badges, caissons, drums, envelopes, fifes, grapeshot, hardtack, insignia, johns tents, knapsacks, lamps, minie balls, needles, overcoats, pens, quinine, rammers, sabots, telescopes, uniforms, valises, wagons, yams, zouave caps, and so on.

To acquire these items, government authorities – state and federal – advertised widely in newspapers and then granted supply contracts to hundreds of companies. Most of these firms are long out of business, but a few still remain, as witnessed in another notice printed in the same newspaper a few months later. There, on the front page of the March 20, 1862, edition, was a list of contracts awarded the previous day by Major C.L. Kilburn, a commissary agent headquartered in the city: “30,000 lbs. new bacon sides to Brooks, Johnson & Co,” “50,000 pounds lbs. hard bread to Brubeck & Height,” and “7,000 lbs. Rio coffee to R.M Bishop & Co.” At the end, given contracts for “1,200 lbs. star candles” and “400 lbs. soap,” was a Cincinnati company whose products (including soap) are found in an estimated ninety percent of American households today: The Procter & Gamble Company.(3)

P&G serves as a worthy model for introducing the other companies covered in this book, as its own story makes for something of an “everyman” experience of the various successes, challenges, and events, that drive the narratives of companies – famous and obscure – that did business in the Civil War: a “secession crisis,” loss of a Southern base of materials or customers, competition for lucrative army contracts, the costs of doing business with the government, charges of profiteering, and the challenges of being close to the battlefields; all informed by an interesting company history and founding philosophy.

William Procter and James Gamble, immigrants from England and Ireland, respectively, arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the early 1800s. James established himself as a soapmaker and William as a candlemaker. The men merged their businesses at the suggestion of their mutual father-in-law, Alexander Norris. A respected local candlemaker himself, Norris recognized both men competed for the animal fats from Cincinnati’s many slaughterhouses (the city had been dubbed “Porkopolis”), necessary ingredients in the manufacture of soap and candles. On this advice, the partners gave birth to the Procter and Gamble Company in October 1837. By 1859, on the eve of southern secession, P&G sales had reached $1 million and the company employed eighty people in its manufactory.

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For P&G, a critical raw material was rosin. A key ingredient in soapmaking, rosin came almost exclusively from the harvest of trees from forests in the Deep South, arriving in Cincinnati on boats from New Orleans, the principal center of the trade. War would stall P&G’s relationship with southern rosin merchants, and thus stall the company’s ability to continue its primary product. It was this concern that prompted the principals to send their sons, William Alexander Procter and James Norris Gamble, to New Orleans in 1860. The two young men managed to quickly purchase a huge cache of rosin at the low price of $1.00 a barrel.

The purchase the two young men managed was no small deed: it proved the largest single acquisition of rosin made by any Cincinnati soap manufacturer up to that time. Wartime P&G employee John M. Donnelly, in his reminisces, regarded the New Orleans episode as “one of the many instances of keen foresight so characteristic of members of this firm in all its history.” Lacking the same foresight, the other local soap manufacturers considered the purchase extravagant and unnecessary, and predicted the doom of P&G.(4)

The gamble paid off for P&G. When war broke out only months later, other soap manufacturers scrambled to find rosin so they could submit bids and samples to the government. Donnelly later recalled that “Rosin went up to eight, ten, and fifteen dollars a barrel, and there was none to be had anywhere. Procter and Gamble were the only people who had any.” After close inspection of the P&G samples, officials gave the company contracts to furnish the western armies with soap and candles during the entire war.(5)

Still, lucrative government contracts had their own risks for the winning bidders. Before goods were shipped to the depots, they were subject to inspection, and the rigor and probity – or lack thereof - of the inspectors could have important consequences for the contractors. If too strict, they could refuse materiel, thus damaging the contractors’ profits; if too lax (or corrupt) they could do damage to the Union war effort. More important, delays in accepting the goods necessarily delayed payment. Donnelly maintained that the inspectors “never once failed to find [the P&G soap] up to the standard marked on each one of the boxes: ‘Full Weight.’”(6)

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To be sure, not all suppliers to the Union Army were as particular about the quality of their goods, and P&G’s adherence to such high standards may have embittered other local manufacturers. One historian relates an anecdote in which a gang of hoodlums threw stones at the Procter home, breaking windows and hurling debris inside. A reporter explained that “both William Procter and James Gamble had been denouncing manufacturers who were cheating the government and the troops.” Procter in particular had exposed a company which was supplying soldiers with supposedly woolen blankets actually made of mere rags. An unexplained fire in a wing of the P&G factory during the war might also have been due to sabotage.(8)

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Contracting during the Civil War had its disadvantages, but businesses also reaped the benefits of an unprecedented and unforeseen economic force: wide distribution of their products and labels, and subsequent name recognition by large groups of customers. P&G delivered their supplies to Camp Dennison, Ohio, where they were further distributed by the Union Army. When the cases of soap and candles carrying the P&G’s name and their “moon and stars” trademark reached the camps, soldiers used every scrap of material. Donnelly recalled, “It was often said at the army camps that the only seats provided for them were the Procter & Gamble soap boxes, but they had plenty of them.” After four years of this ersatz “advertising,” P&G became one of the best known firms in the North.(10)

The reputation for quality, and name recognition, that P&G sowed during the Civil War produced a harvest of innovation and expansion that transformed it into one of the nation’s largest and most familiar firms. To be sure, the saga of P&G in America’s great conflict is fascinating; even more so because it strengthens our own sense of identity with the average soldier. But the company’s experience is not singular: a host of other iconic names in American business – Brooks Brothers, Borden’s, Tiffany’s, Scientific American, du Pont, Squibb, American Express, and Wells Fargo – all have wartime narratives every bit as interesting.

Lincoln's Labels tells those stories and more!
More excerpts to come soon!

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Endnotes (Selected)

1. Cincinnati Gazette, September 17, 1861, p.1.
2. Ibid
3. “The Civil War: Its Impact on a Border Community,” Cincinnati: Procter & Gamble Educational Services, 1984,“Border Community,” n.p.
4. Mark R. Wilson, The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 127-28.
5. “Border Community,” n.p.
6. Ibid
8. Oscar G. Schisgall, Eyes on Tomorrow: The Evolution of Procter & Gamble (Chicago: J. G. Ferguson, 1981), p. 18.
10. “Border Community,” n.p.

Red Tape! Period Civil War Pension Ephemera in the "Schmidt Collection" #2

You think YOU have problems filling out claim forms for your insurance company?! The graphic and text below are from a 3-page letter in my collection of Civil War pension ephemera.

The pension scheme required veterans to secure affidavits from physicians attesting and confirming disabilities and disease. The Pension Office in Washington served as a gatekeeper, passing judgment on the applications. Pension attorneys promised to secure increases and often used political clout to achieve those ends. As the letter below demonstrates, though, veterans often found themselves in the middle of politico-medico-legal red tape.

May 22, 1891
Department of the Interior
Bureau of Pensions
Washington, D.C.
To Henry H. Williams
19th Maine Volunteers Bowdoinham, Maine

Sir:

In reference to your above-cited claim for increase and additional pension, you are informed that part of your claim which relates to increase of pension is now in process of review by the adjudicating Board of this Bureau. You will be advised at an early date of the decision reached.

In regard to your claim of additional pension on account of disease of lungs and kidneys, you are informed that it requires the affidavit of a commisoned officer or first sergeant of your company showing when and where disease of lungs was contracted.

If such testimony cannot be obtained, you should state the reasons under oath, when the affidavits of one or more enlisted men of your company will be considered.

The affidavit of Captain Charles E. Nash, now on file, cannot be accepted, the statement therein showing that he has no personal knowledge of the alleged diseases. The affidavits of Alonzo Starbird and Anaziah E. Googins fail to cover diseases of lungs.

The affidavit of a surgeon, or assistant surgeon, of your regiment as to treatment while in the service is also required.

You should also furnish the testimony of two credible witnesses showing whether you have suffered from disease of lungs and kidneys during each year since 1878.

The affidavit of Dr. A. H. Cheney, now on file, fails to cover this point.

Upon receipt of the testimony indicated, your claim will be promptly considered.

Very Respectfully,

Commisioner

See more Civil War pension ephemera from my collection here:

#1 - Leaflets advertising the services of an attorney to help settle claims regarding desertion and loss of horses and equipment.

Are You a Deserter? Lose a Horse? Have I Got a Lawyer for You! Period Civil War Pension Ephemera in the "Schmidt Collection" #1

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting images of period Civil War pension attorney, examining surgeon, and Bureau of Pension documents in my collection.

Below are leaflets advertising the services of an attorney to help settle claims regarding desertion and loss of horses and equipment.

Enjoy!

Medical Department #33- Addison D. Bridgman, M.D.

“SHERMAN COMPLETELY RUINED ME”

By James M. Schmidt

The Civil War News – “Medical Department” – Feb/Mar 2010

This month’s column is based on an interesting postwar (1866) letter I recently added to my collection. Though the letter itself is short, further research has revealed some wonderful elements of an interesting story: the letter writer was a native of New England (and an Ivy Leaguer!) who moved south before the war, joined a Confederate regiment, served as a nurse and hospital steward, jumpstarted a medical career in war-ravaged Georgia, and is part of a quite interesting family.

But first, the letter:

Scarboro Screven Co. Ga.
30 November 1866

A.T. Stewart

New York Sir:

I have often heard your name spoken of in deeds of mercy & kindness & trust you will excuse me for asking a favor of you. I was formerly a teacher, a native of N.H., but Sherman in his grand march completely ruined me. But on that ruin I am struggling to build myself again. Our country is just now badly bankrupt & I am trying to make an honest living by the practice of medicine. The favor is this: Could you not send me a pocket case of instruments (3-ply) & wait on me for a short time. I am needing them every few days but am unable to secure them. I used to have many acquaintances in N.Y. before the war but have no knowledge of them since. I enclose a card where the best instruments can be obtained.

Very Truly,

A.D. Bridgman, M.D.

Note: Bridgman enclosed a calling card for George Tiemann & Co., the eminent manufacturer and dealer in surgical instruments (see photo of actual card!)

So…Who is A.T. Stewart? Who is A.D. Bridgman? And is there anything else interesting here? (The answer to that question is a definitive “Yes”!). Clues in the letter (beginning with connections to Screven County, Georgia, and New Hampshire) led me to identify “A.D. Bridgman” – our main “character” – as Addison Daniel Bridgman, after consulting college directories, period newspapers, census information, published family histories, and (most interesting!) Confederate service records.

As for “A.T. Stewart,” he is almost certainly the famous businessman Alexander Turney Stewart. Stewart was born in Ireland in 1803 and effectively orphaned when his father died shortly after his birth and his mother remarried and sailed to America. He was then raised by his grandfather, who in turn passed away when Stewart was a teenager. By then he had begun a correspondence with his mother and soon wanted to travel to America himself. He gained some business experience working with a grocer and - with his savings – left Belfast for New York City in 1818.

Stewart was a natural salesman and opened his first retail store, specializing in Irish and domestic fabrics, in 1823. He built the small store into a thriving business and by 1848 had completed his “marble palace” on Broadway as well as a tremendously successful mail order business. By the time of the Civil War, Stewart was one of the wealthiest men in America. No doubt Bridgman felt comfortable in asking Stewart for the favor as the retailer had gained a reputation for charity, trust, and lenient credit terms; indeed, he would often send products to his mail order customers (postage paid!) before they had paid for the goods themselves.

A.D. Bridgman was indeed a “native of N.H.,” as he wrote, having been born in 1832 in Hanover, New Hampshire, to Daniel and Harmony Bridgman. Daniel was deacon of the Baptist church of Hanover for many years and held most of the town offices, served in the state legislature, and was a successful businessman. A published family history, Genealogy of the Bridgman Family (1894), indicated that the Bridgman patriarch was “worthy and esteemed by all.” The family was large: Addison was the fourth of nine children (three boys and six girls), although tragedy would strike them.

A.D. Bridgman was also – as he wrote in his letter - “formerly a teacher.” He attended Thetford Academy in Vermont, Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N.H., and Dartmouth College (1852-54), and then attended a year’s course of lectures in Dartmouth’s Medical Department. For reasons unknown, he settled in Georgia in 1856, teaching in schools in Macon and Hawkinsville, before opening his own school in Screven County.

In the 1860 census, Bridgman is listed as a “teacher” in Screven County, but his birthplace is listed as North Carolina! F. Terry Hambrecht, M.D., an esteemed medical historian (who kindly provided me with the census information), wonders if Bridgman (falsely) represented himself as being from a southern state so that local citizens wouldn’t suspect him of having abolitionist sympathies. It’s interesting to consider!

In 1866, Bridgman (who married late in 1860) was still in Georgia, where he hoped to open a medical practice; thus the letter to A. T. Stewart asking for a favor. But what of the intervening years of the Civil War, 1861-1865? That’s the interesting part! In his letter to A.T. Stewart, Bridgman left out a very important piece of information; he simply stated that “Sherman in his grand march completely ruined me.” What he failed to mention is that while Sherman was “marching through Georgia,” Bridgman was fighting with the 25th Georgia Infantry!

The 25th Georgia Infantry Regiment was organized at Savannah, Georgia, in September, 1861. The unit served on the coast until the summer of 1863 when it was ordered to Mississippi. It fought with the Army of Tennessee from Chickamauga to Atlanta and saw action at Bentonville. The unit was greatly reduced in numbers by the time it surrendered on April 26, 1865.

Whether or not Bridgman himself was shooting at men from the Granite State or other New Englanders is hard to say. While the 25th saw significant action in the latter part of the war, Bridgman’s compiled service record indicates that he spent most of the war on detached service.

In early 1862, he was reported as on “sick leave” back home in Screven County. Later that year he was detailed to work on a “floating battery” and “gun boat” at Savannah. In November 1863, he appeared on the roll of the Ocmulgee Hospital in Macon, Georgia, with the complaint of “anasarca” or “dropsy,” a general swelling of the body due to fluid buildup in tissues. For most of 1863 – and to the end of the war – Bridgman was a nurse and then “acting hospital steward” at City Hall hospital in Macon and then Lee hospital in Columbus, perhaps taking advantage of his year’s worth of formal medical education.

When the war was over, Bridgman returned to New Hampshire, took another year’s medical courses at Dartmouth, received his M.D., and returned to Screven County to practice medicine, teach, and serve as postmaster. Bridgman and his wife, Salome, moved to Decatur, Illinois in 1874, where he resumed his medical practice, before passing away in 1916.

Addison Bridgman also had a very well-known older sister: Laura Bridgman. Born in 1829, Laura is famous for being a deaf-blind child who received instruction a full fifty years before Helen Keller. The Bridgman family was struck with scarlet fever in 1832, losing Laura and Addison’s two older sisters to the disease. Laura was left deaf, blind, and with no sense of smell or taste.

Through the kindness and expert care of people like Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe and other tutors, Laura learned to write, do arithmetic. She even attracted the attention of Charles Dickens, who wrote of Laura and Howe in his American Notes. It was Dickens’ account of Laura Bridgman that prompted Helen Keller’s mother to seek treatment for her daughter several decades later. Laura Bridgman was very fond of her younger brother, Addison, and he is mentioned often in her journals.

So, a letter of less than 150 words reveals a most interesting life, and the information left out is as interesting as the information within.