Harvard University’s Boys in Gray

 The Blue versus the Gray, or the North versus the South, is often how we interpret the two opposing sides during the war. That is true to a degree, but often forgotten is just how connected the North and South were. Cotton grown in the South by slaves fueled textile miles in New England; wheat and rye grown in the Ohio River Valley floated down the Mississippi River en route to plantations to feed workers; farm machinery manufactured up North could often be found in Southern fields. This even holds true to education. For the elite, attending a college in the North was seen as a way for  advancement.

Each of what we consider the Ivy League schools, like the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), Yale University, and Harvard University, had Southern students who, despite their Northern education, fought for the South.

Harvard University was founded in 1636. It is the oldest university in the country. Some famous graduates include astronomer John Winthrop; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story; Revolutionary War Major General Artemas Ward; and minister Cotton Mather.

357 Southerners attended or graduated from Harvard prior to the war. Of that number, sixty-four were killed in action, and twelve died of disease. Sixteen achieved the rank of general.

Major General Henry C. Wayne, class of 1834, transferred from Harvard to West Point, graduating in 1838. He fought in the Mexican American War and worked with camels out west. Wayne resigned his commission in December 1861, and returning to Georgia, was commissioned Georgia’s adjutant and inspector general. In December 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general in Confederate service. When he was ordered to Virginia, Wayne resigned, preferring to serve in Georgia. During the Atlanta Campaign, he commanded a two-brigade division of Georgia militia and cadets. After the war, he returned to Savannah and worked in the lumber industry.

Brigadier General William Preston, class of 1838, Harvard Law School, was born in Kentucky. Besides practicing law, he served as lieutenant colonel of the 4^th Kentucky Infantry during the Mexican American War, served in the state house, in the US House, and as Minister to Spain. During the war he served as an aide-de-camp to Albert Sidney Johnson, was promoted to brigadier general in April 1862, and commanded a brigade under Breckinridge. Eventually, Preston was sent as an envoy to Mexico. After the war, he practiced law in Kentucky.

Alexander Lawton

Brigadier General Alexander Lawton, class of 1843, Harvard Law School, graduated from West Point, but resigned to study law. After graduation, the South Carolinian practiced law in Savannah, Georgia. He then ran a railroad and served in the Georgia house and senate. After secession, Lawton was elected colonel of the 1^st Georgia Volunteers. Lawton was promoted to brigadier general in February 1861. His brigade served in Jackson’s division in the Shenandoah Valley, Seven Days, and Ewell’s Division at Second Manassas. After Ewell was wounded, Lawton took command of the division, and was wounded at Sharpsburg. He never returned to active field command. Lawton was assigned as Quartermaster General. After the war, Lawton served in the state legislature and was minister to Austria.

Brigadier General John Echols, class of 1843, Harvard Law School, was born in Virginia and served as the Commonwealth’s attorney and in the House of Commons prior to the war. He was also a member of the Virginia Secession Convention. At Manassas, he commanded a regiment under Stonewall Jackson. His action at Kernstown, in which he was wounded, led to his promotion to brigadier general. He commanded the Department of Southwestern Virginia for a time, until ill health led to his resignation. After duty on a court of inquiry regarding the surrender of Vicksburg, Echols returned to active duty, commanding a brigade in the Army of Western Virginia. In August 1864, he assumed command of the District of Southwest Virginia. He was replaced by Jubal Early on March 30, 1865. After the war, Echols was president of a bank, organized a railroad, was on the board of Visitor of Washington and Lee College and the Virginia Military Institute, and ran other businesses.

Major General William B. Taliaferro, class of 1843, Harvard Law School, served in the Mexican American War and the Virginia House and militia. Taliaferro was elected colonel of the 23^rd Virginia Infantry, and by the end of 1861, was commanding a brigade. Although he was feuding with Jackson, he was promoted to brigadier general in March 1862. Taliaferro served under Jackson through the Shenandoah Valley and Seven Days Campaign, and assumed command of Jackson’s old division after Charles Winder was killed at Cedar Mountain. He was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, commanding the defenses at Battery Wagner, and then James Island, then Savannah, finally commanding a division under Johnston in North Carolina. After the war, he returned to Virginia, serving in the legislature and as a judge.

Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, class of 1845, was born in Kentucky, and was the son of Zachary Taylor. He was a large plantation owner and served in the Louisiana senate. He was elected colonel of the 9^th Louisiana Infantry, and in September 1861, was promoted to brigadier general. Taylor fought in Virginia under Jackson and was promoted to major general in June 1862. He transferred back to Louisiana, where he feuded with E. Kirby Smith. He fought at Fort Bisland, Fort Franklin, Red River Valley, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and then was appointed commander of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, with a promotion to lieutenant general. After the war, Taylor worked on rebuilding his plantations and worked against the Radical Republicans and Reconstruction.

Brigadier General Stephen Elliott, Jr., class of 1849, was a South Carolina planter, state legislator, and commanded a militia artillery battery. He was present at the capture of Fort Sumter, served as a company commander in the 11^th South Carolina Infantry, and then rejoined the artillery. He was highly active along the South Carolina coast, later serving as the commander of Fort Sumter. In April 1864, Elliott was promoted colonel of the Holcombe Legion, seeing service guarding the Weldon Railroad and at Bermuda Hundred. He was promoted to brigadier general in May 1864, commanding a brigade of South Carolina regiments. Elliott was seriously wounded while repulsing the attack at the Crater and did not return to duty until December 1864. He briefly commanded in North Carolina but returned to South Carolina. Elliott only lived a year after the war, dying of the effects of his wounds.

Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins, class of 1850, Harvard Law School, was a lawyer and United States Congressman prior to the war. He organized a cavalry company, then served as colonel of the 8^th Virginia Cavalry. He gave up that command to serve in the first Confederate Congress, then secured an appointment as a brigadier general. He led a couple of raids into present-day West Virginia before being assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia prior to the Gettysburg Campaign. Following the campaign, he was mortally wounded at the May 1864 battle of Cloyd’s Mountain.

Brigadier General John R. Cooke, class of 1851, civil engineering, was born in Missouri, the son of Philip St. George Cooke. After graduating from Harvard, he entered the military, serving in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. Once the war began, he served as a staff officer, commanded an artillery battery, and was colonel of the 27^th North Carolina. Cooke was promoted to brigadier general in November 1862. His North Carolina brigade fought behind the stone wall at the foot of Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg, and was wounded seven times throughout the war, including at Bristoe Station and at the Wilderness. After the war, he founded the Confederate Soldiers Home in Richmond.

Brigadier General Bradley Johnson, class of 1852, Harvard Law School. Born in Maryland, Johnson was the state’s attorney general. Once the war came, he organized a company of men, then served in the 1^st Maryland, fighting at First Manassas. He fought at various battles in the campaigns of 1862, and Stonewall Jackson recommended him for promotion to brigadier general. That promotion did not come until June 1864. Johnson commanded Grumble Jones’s brigade during Early’s advance on Washington, D.C. In November 1864, Johnson was assigned as commander of Salisbury Prison. After the war, he served in the Virginia Senate and practiced law before returning to Maryland.

Brigadier General States Rights Gist, class of 1852, Harvard Law School. Born in South Carolina, he practiced law and served in the militia prior to war. At Manassas, he served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Barnard E. Bee. Promotion to brigadier general came in March 1862. Gist commanded on James Island, serving along the coast until May 1863 when he was sent to Mississippi, and then with the Army of Tennessee, fighting at Chickamauga, Chattanooga, the battles for Atlanta, and Franklin, where he was killed.

Brigadier General Martin W. Gary, class of 1854, was a state legislator. He served as a captain in Hampton’s Legion. When the Legion was reorganized in 1862, Gary was elected lieutenant colonel, commanding the infantry battalion. The list of battles he fought in is lengthy. In April 1864, he was commanding the cavalry brigade, Department of Richmond. He was promoted to brigadier general in June 1864. His brigade supplied the only mounted troops protecting Richmond from September to December 1864. Gary refused to surrender at Appomattox and escaped. He was a leader in South Carolina after the war.

Brigadier General John Clark, Jr., class of 1854, Harvard Law School, was born in Missouri and was a practicing attorning when the war came. He rose through the ranks, serving as a company grade and field and staff officer in the 6^th Missouri Infantry. At the battle of Pea Ridge, Colonel Clark commanded the Third Division, Missouri State Guard. Clark was first promoted to brigadier by Edmund Kirby Smith in April 1864. Later, his name was passed to the senate by Jefferson Davis for confirmation. Clark commanded infantry and later cavalry under Sterling Price. After the war, Clark served in the US House, and later as clerk in the US House, and then practiced law in Washington, D.C.

Brigadier General Benjamin Hardin Helm, class of 1854, Harvard Law School, was a brother-in-law to Abraham Lincoln, who first graduated from West Point, then resigned his commission to study law. He also served in the Kentucky House, and as one of Kentucky’s state lawyers. Helm was offered a job as an army paymaster by Lincoln, but declined, raising Confederate cavalry companies instead. In March 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general, commanding an infantry brigade under John C. Breckinridge. He was seriously wounded when his horse fell on him at Baton Rouge. Helm was back with the army in Mississippi. Helm was mortally wounded fighting with the Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga in September 1863.

John S. Marmaduke

Major General John S. Marmaduke, class of 1854, was born in Missouri, attended Yale, then Harvard, then West Point. After commissioning, he served in the west. After Lincoln’s call for troops, Marmaduke resigned from the army, and joined state forces in Missouri, being commissioned colonel, but later resigned and went to Richmond, joining the Confederate army. He served on William J. Hardee’s staff, then was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 1^st Arkansas Infantry Battalion, then colonel of the 3^rd Confederate Infantry. He fought at Shiloh, Corinth, Tupelo, and Prairie Grove. Marmaduke’s promotion to brigadier general came in November 1862. He participated in most of the battles in Arkansas and Missouri. He even fought a duel with Brigadier General L. Marsh Walker, in which Walker was mortally wounded. Marmaduke was captured late in the war and imprisoned at Fort Warren. After the war, he was an insurance agent, editor, governor of Missouri.

Major General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, class of 1858 and the son of Robert E. Lee, transferred from Harvard to West Point. Lee served in the Utah War against the Mormons but resigned from the US Army prior to the 1861. When the war came, he served in various cavalry commands before being appointed lieutenant colonel of the 9^th Virginia Cavalry. Both his father and JEB Stuart recommend Lee for promotion, which came in November 1862. He fought against Stoneman during Chancellorsville, and at Brady Station, was wounded in the thigh. He was captured by a Federal raiding party while recovering, and was not exchanged until March 1864. Lee was promoted to major general in April 1864. When Wade Hampton was transferred to South Carolina, Lee commanded the cavalry on the south side of the James River. After the war, he served in the state senate and the US House.

All biographical sketches taken from Davis, editor, Confederate Generals.

The Fate of the Confederate Governors

   As the war ground to a close, orders went out for the arrest of various political figures, including both sitting governors and former governors.

Alabama had three men who served as governors. Andrew B. Moore served from 1857 to 1861. The Alabama constitution did not allow Moore to run for a third term, although he remained active in the war effort. Moore was replaced by John G. Shorter, who served one term, and was replaced by Thomas H. Watts, then serving as Confederate Attorney General. Watts served as governor until the end of the war. US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered Moore to be arrested on May 16, 1865. He was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski in Savannah until being released in August 1865. Shorter apparently avoided arrest, while Watts was arrested on May 1, 1865, and sent to Macon, but appears to have been released by mid-June 1865.

Arkansas had three men in the governor’s chair during the war years. Henry M. Rector served from November 16, 1860, until he resigned after losing an election on November 4, 1862; President of the Senate Thomas Fletcher served from November 4, 1862, until November 15, 1862, when Harris Flanagin was elected. Flanagin served until May 26, 1865, often as governor in exile. None of these men appear to have served jail or prison time after the end of the war.

Florida had two war-time governors. Madison S. Perry and John Milton. Perry could only serve two-terms, and following his second term, became colonel of the 7^th Florida Infantry. His health was poor, and he returned to Florida, dying at home in March 1865. John Milton, realizing that the war was over, took his own life on April 1, 1865.

Georgia had one war-time governor: Joseph E. Brown. He was in office from November 6, 1857 to June 17, 1865, when he resigned. Brown was arrested on May 23, 1865 and imprisoned at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. He was released after meeting with President Andrew Johnson. (The Atlanta Constitution, August 7, 1910)

Kentucky, as a border state, is complicated. George W. Johnson was the first Confederate governor. He was serving as an aide-de-camp on Breckinridge’s staff at Shiloh when his horse was shot from under him. Johnson continued on foot, attaching himself to the 4^th Kentucky Infantry (CS). Johnson was mortally wounded in the afternoon of April 7, 1862, dying two days later. Richard Hawes was selected by the state council as Johnson’s replacement, often making his headquarters with the Army of Tennessee. Hawes returned home after the end of the war.

Louisiana had two Confederate governors: Thomas O. Moore and Henry Watkins Allen. Moore could only serve two terms. He returned to his home near Alexandria, but after Federal troops burned his plantation, he fled to Mexico, and then Cuba. He eventually returned to Louisiana. Hawes also lost his home to fire, and with Moore, also went to Mexico. Allen, who was colonel of the 4^th Louisiana infantry, was wounded at Shiloh and Baton Rouge and died of his unhealed wounds in Mexico City on April 22, 1866.

Mississippi had John Pettus and Charles Clark. At war’s end, Pettus, wanted for questioning regarding the Lincoln assassination, went into hiding. He died of pneumonia in Lonoke County, Arkansas, on January 28, 1867. Clark was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Pulaski and was held until he took and signed the Oath of Allegiance in September 1865.

Missouri’s Claiborne F. Jackson took office on January 3, 1861, and after June 1861, was basically a governor in exile. Jackson was deposed by the General Assembly in July 1861, followed various Confederate military forces around on campaign, and died in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 7, 1862. Lieutenant Governor Thomas C. Reynolds assumed the role of governor, but really did not have a large role in political affairs. At the end of the war, he also went to Mexico, but returned to St. Louis.

North Carolina had three war-time governors. John W. Ellis led the state out of the Union in May 1861, only to die in July 1861. He was replaced by Speaker of the North Carolina Senate Henry T. Clark. Clark did not pursue election and stepped down at the end of the term in September 1862. Zebulon Baird Vance, colonel of the 26^th North Carolina, was elected as governor twice during the war years. At the end of the war, he attempted to surrender and was told to go home. In Statesville, he was arrested on his birthday, May 13, 1865, and imprisoned in Old Capital Prison. Vance was released after receiving his parole on July 6, 1865.

South Carolina had three men in the role of governor: Francis W. Pickens, Milledge L. Bonham, and Andrew G. Magrath. Pickens and Bonham were limited in the number of terms they could serve. Pickens retired to his plantation, and Bonham was reappointed a Confederate general and served in the Army of Tennessee. Magrath was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Pulaski, not being released until December 1865.

Tennessee had only one Confederate governor: Isham G. Harris. After the fall of Nashville, Harris served on the staffs of several Confederate generals, including Joseph E. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and Albert S. Johnston. The US Congress issued a $5,000 reward for the capture of Harris at the end of the war. He fled to Mexico, then England, only returning to Tennessee once the bounty was removed.

Texas had Sam Houston, who was removed in March 1861; Edward Clark, the lieutenant governor, who lost the election in November 1861; Francis Lubbock who did not run for reelection and stepped aside in November 1863; and Pendleton Murrah.  Houston died in 1863. Clark served as colonel of the 14^th Texas Infantry but fled to Mexico at the end of the war. Lubbock was commissioned lieutenant colonel on the staff of Maj. Gen. John B. Marguder, and then aide-de-camp for Jefferson Davis. Lubbock was captured with Davis in Georgia and imprisoned at Fort Delaware for eight months.

Virginia had two governors. John Letcher and William Smith. Letcher’s arrest order was issued by U.S. Grant, and he was taken into custody on May 20, 1865, and imprisoned at Old Capital Prison. He was released forty-seven days later. Likewise, Smith turned himself in on June 8, 1865, and was paroled.

More information on these governors can be found in Years, editor, The Confederate Governors. For information on biographies on each governor, check out this link.  

Quantrill goes to Richmond

   In the 1860s, with a war going on, the theater of operation for William Quantrill was a long way from the Confederate capitol in Richmond. Some might even say they were worlds apart. Yet the famed Confederate leader took that long trip in January 1863.

   The war waged beyond the Mississippi was brutal, spanning back a decade prior to April 1861. “Bleeding Kansas” had spilled over into the surrounding areas between 1854 and 1859. There were instances of electoral fraud, raids, and violent clashes carried out. The violence continued into the 1860s, spreading over the entire country. William C. Quantrill arrived in Kansas in 1857, and in 1858, joined an army expedition headed to Utah. Quantrill served as a teamster, and most of the group died during the trip. Quantrill returned to Kansas, associated with the Free-Staters, then the proslavery group. At the start of the war, Kansas Jawhawkers, described as “antislavery Unionists,” crossed over into Missouri “to burn and plunder.” Quantrill and others in Missouri organized guerrilla bands to fight against the plunderers.[1] 

William Quantrill (LOC)

   Quantrill served in different groups at the beginning of the war, including Mayes’s 1^st Cherokee Regiment and then Sterling Price’s Missouri State Guard, fighting with the latter at Wilson’s Creek. When Quantrill’s enlistment expired, he was allowed to go home to wage war locally, including cutting telegraph lines, attacking foraging parties, Union garrisons, and disrupting Union activities whenever possible. He returned to Blue Springs, recruited ten men, and joined with others in an attempt to root out Federal forces from their home counties. Quantrill was commissioned a captain in Confederate service.[2]

   In the winter of 1862-1863, with his men in winter quarters, Quantrill set out to visit Richmond and Jefferson Davis, lobbying the Confederate president for a colonel’s commission. It was Quantrill’s argument that he was already commanding enough men to warrant the promotion. Quantrill made his way to Little Rock, catching a train toward Memphis. He was traveling with two fellow soldiers. Memphis was in Federal hands, and at some point, Quantrill moved overland to a train that took him to Jackson, Mississippi. Another train took him to Atlanta, then Columbia, South Carolina. Quantrill then entered North Carolina, passed through Petersburg, and eventually reached Richmond. (It is unclear why Quantrill followed this route, rather than the closer route through Knoxville and Bristol.)[3]

   Jefferson Davis was not in Richmond. He had left Richmond on December 9, reaching Chattanooga on December 11. He visited Murfreesboro, Atlanta, Montgomery, Vicksburg, Augusta, Charlotte, and Raleigh. Davis did not return to Richmond until January 4, 1863.[4]

   Outside of “Christmas time,” it is unclear just when Quantrill arrived. Davis was not present, and Quantrill met with Secretary of War James A. Seddon. There is no really good account of the meeting, but one biographer reported that Quantrill asked Seddon for a colonel’s commission under the Partisan Ranger Act. A much later account had Quantrill stating that he would “cover the armies of the Confederacy all over with blood. I would invade. I would reward audacity. I would exterminate. I would break up foreign enlistments [in indiscriminate massacre. I would win the independence of my people or I would find them graves.” When it came to prisoners, Quantrill stated that he would take no prisoners. “Do they take prisoners from me?” he reportedly questioned Seddon.[5]

   Quantrill was soon on his way back to his command in the Trans-Mississippi department. There is no documentation that the Confederate War Department ever promoted Quantrill to the rank of colonel. However, as Petersen pointed out, several of Quantrill’s men affirmed he was promoted to colonel, something that Quantrill’s commander, Sterling Price, had the authority to do.[6]

   For the next couple of years, Quantrill fought his war. Neither side in the Missouri – Indian Territory-Texas theater took many prisoners. Accounts paint a picture of some of the most vicious violence of the conflict. Quantrill met his end in Kentucky in June 1865, attempting to reach Confederate lines. His trip to Richmond in December 1862 to meet with Jefferson Davis is little documented, both then and today.

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[1] Fellman, “William Clarke Quantrill,” Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, 3:1289.

[2] Peterson, Quantrill in Texas, 49, 52; William E. C. Quantrill, CMSR, NA.

[3] Paterson, Quantrill in Texas, 72-75.

[4] Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, 417-18.

[5] Schultz, Quantrill’s War, 130-31.

[6] Petersen, Quantrill in Texas, 74-77.

Stonewall Jackson biography banned!

May 2, 1864, Lexington, Kentucky, General Orders No. 39: “In obedience to orders from headquarters Department of Ohio, the circulation of a book entitled “Life, services, and campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, from official papers,  contemporary narratives and acquaintance, by a Virginia,” is interdicted with the limits of this command… Any one found with copies of such books in his possession, offering or intending them for sale, is either a traitor or one who loves money better than his country, and his right to the book is declared forfeited, and the same is ordered to be seized and destroyed… By command of Brigadier General Burbridge.”[1]

Interdicted means that the book was banned within the District of Kentucky, commanded by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge (US). Anyone found trying to sell the book was to have his stock confiscated and the person was to be turned over to headquarters “to be dealt with for uttering treasonable publications.” The book in question was a brand-new biography on Stonewall Jackson by John Esten Cooke.[2]

A Virginia native, Cooke was a lawyer and writer prior to the war, and arguably one of the best-known Southern writers of the time. When the war came, Cooke enlisted in the Richmond Howitzers, fighting at the battle of First Manassas. He then began to write articles for Virginia newspapers. Cooke was a first cousin to JEB Stuart’s wife, and after a stint as a volunteer aide-de-camp, was promoted to lieutenant and officially assigned to join the famed cavalry commander’s staff. After Stuart’s death, Cooke served on the staff of Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, rising to the rank of major by the end of the war.

Cooke was already working on The Life of Stonewall Jackson, when Jackson was killed in May 1863. Cooke quickly finished upon Stonewall’s death, and the book appeared in print across the South by June 1863, published by Ayers and Wade.[3]

The book also made its way North. Later that year, New York publisher Charles B. Richardson released a copy of the Life of Stonewall Jackson. “Reprinted from advanced sheets of the Richmond edition,” the front matter read. It was actually pirated. The New York Times advertised that the new volume would be ready on September 10, and that 10,000 copies had been ordered. Strangely, the New York publisher listed the author as John M. Daniels.[4] Other advertisements for the book soon appeared in newspapers across the north: Burlington, Vermont, on September 22; Alexandria, Virginia, on September 23; Evansville, Indiana, on September 25; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Louisville, Kentucky, and Chicago, Illinois, on September 29.[5]

The popularity of the book soon raised the ire of Federal commanders first in Missouri in March 1864. Federal agents had discovered Confederates distributing “books, documents, and publications of various kinds, inculcating rebel views and sentiments.” One local distributor told a newspaper in St. Joseph that it was “almost impossible to supply the demand for the work [Life of Stonewall Jackson].”[6] But it was more than just the Life of Stonewall Jackson on the list. Other volumes included Pollard’s Southern History of the War; Official Reports of the Confederate Government; articles from the Metropolitan Record; Revelations-or the Companion of the New Gospel of Peace, according to Abraham; Book of the Prophet Stephen, son of Douglas; Abraham Africanus—the Mysteries of the White House; The Lincoln Catechism--or a Guide to Presidential Election of 1864, and Indestructible Organics by Marvinia T. Triga.[7] On March 31, the Federal Provost-Marshall in St. Louis ordered the seizure of Pollard’s Southern History of the War; Official Reports of the Confederate Government; the Life of Stonewall Jackson; and Morgan and His Men.[8]

Were there cases of seizures? In mid-May 1864, soldiers visited the publishing house and bookstore of Kelly and Piet in Baltimore, Maryland. Both were taken into custody, and books, such as The Life of Stonewall Jackson, along with photographs of Confederate generals, playing cards with Confederate generals, and notepaper bearing the Confederate flag were seized.[9] A search of the Federal Provost records would undoubtedly produce more examples.

Book censorship in the history of the United States is nothing new. The Puritans in Boston banned Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan not long after it was published in 1637 and then burned William Pynchon’s pamphlet The Meritorious Price of our Redemption in 1650. Fanny Hill (1748) by John Cleland was widely banned when it was released. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Impending Crisis of the South (1857) by Rowan Help were two books banned in the South in the 1850s.

Did banning The Life of Stonewall Jackson actually stop people in the North from acquiring and reading it? Not at all. Banning books almost always drives up interest and sale. The book was still advertised for sale in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Maysville, Kentucky.   The Courier-Journal in Louisville, one of those areas covered by Burbridge’s order, advertised in September 1864 that agents were being sought to distribute the books.[10]

Once the war ended, Cooke revised and reprinted the book. It was widely popular for decades after the war. Cooke would go on to write books on Robert E. Lee and the Stonewall brigade, as well as numerous novels. He died in 1886 and is buried in Clarke County, Virginia.  

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[1] Official Records, Vol.39, part 2, 7.

[2] Official Records, Vol.39, part 2, 7.

[3] Memphis Daily Appeal, June 9, 1863; Richmond Enquirer, July 21, 1863.

[4] The New York Times September 4, 1863.

[5] The Burlington Free Press, September 22, 1863; Alexandria Gazette, September 23, 1864; The Evansville Daily Journal, September 25, 1863; The Daily Milwaukee News, September 29, 1863; Chicago Tribune, September 29, 1863; The Louisville Daily Journal, September 29, 1863.

[6] The Morning Herald, April 1, 1864.

[7] Official Records, series 2, volume 2, 237.

[8] The Buffalo Commercial, April 1, 1864.

[9] The Selinsgrove Times-Tribune, May 27, 1864.

[10] Intelligencer Journal, September 15, 1864; Maysville Weekly Bulletin, June 9, 1864; The Courier-Journal, September 23, 1864.