The Controversial

Electoral College
FDR’s Right-
Hand Admiral
Ithaca, New York:
Tinseltown East
John Trumbull’s
Americana

Hellbent on
Revenge
Washington
knew the
Redcoat was
innocent. He
was going to
hang him
anyway.

February 2020
HISTORYNET.com
Personalized
Super Sturdy
Hammer
Hammers have
a way of walking
off. Here’s one
they can call their
own. Hickory-wood
handle. 16 oz., 13"L.
816350 $21.99

Burl-handle
Pocket Knife
With a monogram
atop its burl-wood
Wood Inlay Multi Tool inlay, he’ll be proud
This multi-function pocket to call this hand-
knife/tool specializes in quick fixes. some folder his own.
Stainless steel with wood inlay and Stainless steel 2¼"L
keyring. 3½"L (closed). blade. Belt clip.
Z322832 $19.99 Z815915 $18.99

Credit Card Tool

This slim multi-use tool features 10
tools including can opener, wrench, saw,
screwdriver, ruler, bottle opener, and
more. Comes nicely packaged in this
vintage tin box. Stainless steel, 2x4".
GEN050  $19.99

Personalized Gun-Shaped
Pocket Knife
Ideal for camper, hunter, or
handyman, 6"L tool features a
2¾"L blade and handy LED light.
Batteries included.
817133 $16.99
 THESE COMEWITH OUR
STAMP OF APPROVAL... \

JUST ADDYOURS.
Our durable Lillian Vernon products are built to last. Each is crafted using the best materials
and manufacturing methods. Best of all, we’ll personalize them with your good name or
monogram. Ordering is easy. Shipping is free.* Go to LillianVernon.com

Personalized
Extendable
Flashlight Tool
Light tight dark
spaces; pick up metal
objects. Magnetic 6¾"
LED flashlight extends to
22"L; bends to direct light.
With 4 LR44 batteries.
Personalized Beer 817098 $27.99 New! Personalized
Caddy Cooler Tote Bottle Opener
Soft-sided, waxed-cotton canvas cooler Handsome tool helps top
tote with removable divider includes an off a long day with a cool
integrated opener, adjustable shoulder brew. 1½x7"W.
strap, and secures 6 bottles. 9x5½x6¾". Antler Initial 817714
817006 $44.99 Brewery 817820
Initial Family Name
817822
$11.99 each
Personalized Garage Mats
Grease Monkey or Toolman,
your guy (or gal) will love
this practical way to identify
personal space. 23x57"W. New! Personalized Set of 6
Tires 816756 Faux Leather Coasters
Tools 808724 Elegant individuality, rugged
$39.99 each durability, and quality
craftsmanship combine
to create a set to impress.
Water-resistant; 4" dia.
817712 $24.99

8LI4IVWSREPM^EXMSR)\TIVXW7MRGIÿćăÿ
*FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $50. USE PROMO CODE: H I S A H I 2 0 LILLIANVERNON.COM/AHI
OFFER EXPIRES 2/29/20. ONLY ONE PROMO CODE PER ORDER. OFFERS CANNOT BE COMBINED. OFFER APPLIES TO STANDARD SHIPPING ONLY. ALL ORDERS ARE ASSESSED A CARE & PACKAGING FEE.
 50
26

PHOTO CREDIT
 FEBRUARY 2020

FEATURES
26 George: Jury and Executioner
That time General Washington proposed to execute
an innocent man By Peter R. Henriques

34 Invisible Hand

34 With FDR dying, a career Navy man acted as America’s

WWII commander in chief By Phillips Payson O’Brien

42 Hard-Knock College
Among ways to pick a president, the Electoral College
may be the least worst By Joseph Connor

50 Hooray for...Ithaca?
A New York town famed for football and freezing cold
had a cinematic moment By Jan Bridgeford-Smith

58 Talking Trumbull
The painter of epic American themes had to struggle
for his art By A.K. Fielding

DEPARTMENTS
6 Mosaic
News from out of the past

42 12 Contributors
14 Interview
American History Museum chief
on the American experiment
16 Déjà Vu
Conspiracy theories are as old as
American politics
20 American Schemers

14
Besides having been the man and
suffered, Walt Whitman also hyped
22 SCOTUS 101 1790 pitcher
Reconstruction decision leaves vague commemorating
whether Congress can sue the president the first U.S. census
is on display in the
24 Cameo American History
Forgotten 19th-century feminist was Museum’s “Many

58 the “mother of climate science” Voices, One Nation”

exhibit.
66 Reviews
72 An American Place
PHOTO CREDIT

Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

ON THE COVER: In a little-known episode in 1782, a
vengeful General George Washington made ready to
hang an innocent British prisoner of war.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: FAED, JOHN (1820-1902)/PRIVATE COLLECTION/
PHOTO ©CHRISTIE’S IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; COURTESY OF WHARTON
STUDIO MUSEUM; PHOTO BY MYRON DAVIS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION
VIA GETTY IMAGES/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN WALKER; UNDERWOOD
ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO;
3
PITCHER: COURTESY OF THE SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF
AMERICAN HISTORY; COVER: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART FEBRUARY 2020
 HISTORYNET
MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER
DAVID STEINHAFEL PUBLISHER
ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

American FEBRUARY 2020 VOL. 54, NO. 6

History
ONLINE MICHAEL DOLAN EDITOR
NANCY TAPPAN SENIOR EDITOR
SARAH RICHARDSON SENIOR EDITOR

EXCLUSIVES
Visit HistoryNet.com/American-
STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR
BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR
JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR
MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
History and search for online-only
stories like these: CORPORATE
DOUG NEIMAN CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
Irishmen Attack Brits ROB WILKINS DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIP MARKETING
TOM GRIFFITHS CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
by Way of Buffalo GRAYDON SHEINBERG CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
In 1866, Irish rebels trying to oust SHAWN BYERS VP AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
Britain from their homeland invaded JAMIE ELLIOTT PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
Canada from upstate New York. ADVERTISING
bit.ly/BattlingBritain
MORTON GREENBERG SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com

Crazy Commander TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com

Nearly Sinks Voyage
The deranged leader of an 1830s
Pacific expedition made that cruise a
nightmare for sailors and scientists.
bit.ly/CrazyCommander
Nautical Beginnings
of the War on Drugs
When smugglers loaded San
Francisco-bound ships with opium,
federal agents gave chase.
bit.ly/WarOnOpium
RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com
DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING
NANCY FORMAN / MEDIA PEOPLE
212-779-7172 ext. 224 nforman@mediapeople.com
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM or 800-435-0715
YEARLY SUBSCRIPTIONS IN U.S.: $39.95
American History (ISSN 1076-8866) is published bimonthly by HistoryNet, LLC
1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA, 22182-4038, 703-771-9400
Periodical postage paid at Vienna, VA and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER, send address changes to American History,
P.O. Box 422224, Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224
List Rental Inquiries: Belkys Reyes, Lake Group Media, Inc.
914-925-2406; belkys.reyes@lakegroupmedia.com
Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519,
Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001
INTERFOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

© 2020 HistoryNet, LLC

Love history? Sign up for our FREE monthly The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced
e-newsletter at: historynet.com/newsletters in whole or in part without the written consent of HistoryNet LLC.

FOLLOW US AT PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA

facebook.com/American
HistoryMag

4 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Retro-style
chronograph
with precision
accuracy

ÌÌÌÌ
ONLY
“Cool, hip, stylish and $79!
very retro. Very pleased
with this watch.”
— Ernie,
Los Angeles, CA

ÌÌÌÌ
“One of my all time
favorite Stauer
timepieces!”
— John,
Spring, TX

Time Flies
The Co-Pilot Watch recalls an era of unforgettable aerial bravery for a most memorable price.
“See a man with a functional chronograph watch on his wrist,
S oaring over English skies in 1940, Royal Air Force pilots
knew they were all that stood between the British people
below and the impending Nazi invasion. Day after day, these
and it communicates a spirit of precision.” — AskMen.com®

brave men took their Hurricanes and Spitfires to the air, relying refund of your purchase price. But, we’re confident this ace will
on nothing and no one but their instruments and each other, to accomplish its mission.
engage the invaders, defend their countrymen, and change the Limited Reserves. A watch of this caliber takes over six months
course of history by handing Hitler his first defeat of World War to create. Don’t miss this opportunity to honor the heroic pilots
II. “Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by of World War II with a top performance timepiece. Call today!
so many to so few,” said Winston Churchill.
The Co-Pilot Men’s Watch is inspired by what was accomplished TAKE 80% OFF INSTANTLY!
in the Battle of Britain. We studied classic aviator timepieces to When you use your OFFER CODE
match the vintage design and then gave it a 1940s price. Our
watchmakers updated the movement for the 21st century, making Co-Pilot Men’s Watch $399†
it even more accurate than the originals. It features markings to Offer Code Price now only $79 + S&P Save $320
calculate velocity, and a stylish sepia-toned dial carrying three
classic complications: 24-hour at 3 o’clock and chronograph You must use the offer code to get our special price.
60-minute at 9 o’clock. A vintage-style distressed brown leather
strap recalls the battle-worn bomber jackets of the 1940s.
1-800-333-2045
Satisfaction is 100% Guaranteed. Take the Co-Pilot for a test Your Offer Code: CPW181-02 Rating of A+

flight and if it fails to impress, send it back within 30 days for a Please use this code when you order to receive your discount.
• Precision crystal movement • Stainless steel case, caseback & crown
• Chronograph minute dial • 24-hour dial • Water resistant to 3 ATM • Distressed leather brown band fits wrists 6 ¼" to 8¼"

Stauer ® 14101 Southcross Drive W., Ste 155, Dept. CPW181-02, Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 www.stauer.com
† Special price only for customers using the offer code versus the price on Stauer.com without your offer code.

Stauer… Afford the Extraordinary.®

 by Sarah Richardson

A statue of Chief Standing Bear of the

Ponca tribe has replaced one of William
Jennings Bryan in the U.S. Capitol’s
Statuary Hall. The substitution was the
first of two the Nebraska legislature
voted. Besides putting the chief in for
Secretary of State Bryan, legislators
voted to swap out a statue of Secretary

Statue
Swap Capitol Gain
Benjamin Victor’s
sculpture of Chief
of Education Julius Morton for one of
novelist Willa Cather in 2020. A mix-up Standing Bear is a
led to the Ponca being displaced from gift to the nation
their tribal lands in 1877 to a reservation from Nebraska.
500 miles southeast in Oklahoma. En
route nearly a third of the Ponca died,
including Standing Bear’s daughter,
Prairie Flower. The rest arrived sick and
hungry. In 1879, the chief’s 16-year-old
son died. Bear Shield had asked to be
buried on Ponca land. Bearing his son’s
bones, Standing Bear and 66 other Pon-
cas returned to Nebraska. Federal offi-
cials had U.S. Army Brigadier General
George Crook arrest them. Crook,
despite his extensive role in forcing
Apaches, Lakotas, Cheyenne, and oth-
ers from their lands during the Indian
Wars, empathized with the Poncas. The
general enlisted the aid of Omaha jour-
nalist Thomas Henry Tibbles. Tibbles
hired lawyers to sue to establish Stand-
ing Bear’s right to bury his child where
he wanted. “That hand is not the color
of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel
pain,” Standing Bear told the court,
Smithsonian reported. “If you pierce
your hand you also feel pain. The blood
that will flow from mine will be of the
same color as yours. I am a man. The
same God made us both.” Ruling in
Standing Bear v. Crook, the judge found
Standing Bear to be a person with the
right to freedom of movement. The
chief remained on Ponca land in
Nebraska until his death in 1908.

6 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Point of
Departure
Union Square’s usual public event is a
four-times-a-week farmer’s market. How-
ever, the Manhattan site has long been a
locus of protest, including the first Labor
Day parade, a 10,000-strong event on Sep-
tember 5, 1882, according to Joanna Mer-
wood-Salisbury in her 2019 book Design
for the Crowd: Patriotism and Protest in
Union Square. Originally a private park
fenced off to exclude all but the vicinity’s
privileged residents, Union Square became
a site of political rallies during the Civil War. In 1872, landscape architect Frederick Law Olm- Get Up, Stand Up
sted removed the fence and reconceived the location. His redesign downplayed statues of The Knights of
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and emphasized public gatherings. Arguing there in Labor staged
1893 that public demonstrations were a better tool for the unemployed than the ballot box, the first Labor
anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman was arrested and charged with inciting riot. Convicted, Day parade on
September 5, 1882.
she spent 10 months in jail. Her defense championed the right to free speech and, Mer-
THIS PAGE: ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL; OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP: GRANGER, NYC; BOTTOM: SAN ANTONIO LIGHT PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION; UTSA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

wood-Salisbury, a professor of architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand,

notes, helped influence the founding of the nonpartisan Free Speech League in 1902.

Bulletproofing ./

Till Memorial /

An inch-thick, 500-lbs.-plus marker cast

of bulletproof steel is the fourth memorial
Making History to be placed since 2007 at Graball Landing,
Officer Arthur Perez where Chicagoan Emmett Till’s body was
arrests a picketer removed from the Tallahatchie River out-
during a 1938 strike
side Glendora, Mississippi, on August 31,
in San Antonio (“Shell
Game,” October 2019). 1955. Three days earlier two white men had
kidnapped and lynched the black 14-year-
old and dumped his body in the river. Pre-

Mexican American vious markers have been removed or shot

Civil Rights Institute Debuts
The San Antonio city council allocated $500,000 over 2020-21 for an
institute in that Texas city focusing on Mexican American civil rights
history—a first in the United States. The work of scholars, activists, and
lawyers, the institute plans to operate out of Our Lady of the Lake Uni-
versity. Local schools and libraries will host its programs. San Antonio
was the site of strikes (“Shell Game,” October 2018) and struggles over
bias in labor and education. Retired educator and institute advocate
Paul Ruiz told a local news station, “It’s now on us to honor the council,
the city, and the taxpayers and create a great historical association.”
up. Over October 17-19, 2019, the Emmett
Till Memorial Commission hosted screen-
ings, a panel discussion, and a dedication
that began at the Sumner, Mississippi,
courthouse and ended at the latest marker.
According to Dave Tell, the University of
Kansas professor who wrote the marker’s
text, “The story of Emmett Till can’t be
confined to 1955.” Such memorials “have
become the new lunch counters,” Tell said,
alluding to struggles to put an end to
whites-only seating at drugstore eateries.

FEBRUARY 2020 7
 Tsunami Shadow
A 1964 quake that
wrecked Kodiak
Island, Alaska,
may have loosed a
modern-day fungal
outbreak.

In 1999, an airborne fungus implicated in outbreaks of

Pathogen Portal? infection around South America began sickening animals and
humans in the Pacific Northwest. The shift baffled research-
ers. Now two scholars say the tropical fungus, Cryptococcus gattii, may have arrived in the northern Pacific in ballast water
emptied there by vessels during the decades since 1914, when more ships began reaching the Pacific from the Southern
hemisphere through the Panama Canal. The scientists suspect the organism’s next advance came after a 9.2 Richter scale
earthquake in Alaska in 1964. After that quake a tsunami washed over many shores around the Pacific Northwest. In the suc-
ceeding half-century, the researchers posit, the fungus has mutated enough to thrive in these settings. As evidence, they note
that fungal outbreaks are occurring roughly where waves crashed ashore in 1964—a unique instance of tsunami-as-vector.
Microbiologist and study coauthor Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health specu-
lates that areas flooded by a 2004 tsunami hitting Indonesia and one in 2011 striking Japan could see similar phenomena.

Still a Strong Draw

Little Round Top at Gettysburg
and other National Park Service
Homing in
sites continue to be popular. on History
Visits to historic sites overall have declined
about 9 percent since 1980, according to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES; DBIMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

while National Park Service historic sites are

getting more visits than ever—112 million in
2018 versus 59.5 million in 1980. About a third
of all visits to Park Service sites involve his-
toric venues. The uptick may reflect latter-day
additions to Washington, DC’s National Mall,
such as memorials to Franklin Roosevelt, Mar-
tin Luther King Jr., and WWII military person-
nel. Battlefield memorial and military park
visits have remained flat.

8 AMERICAN HISTORY
This Is How You Walk the Walk
Comfort and class go hand in hand with our Walking Stick Collection. Yours for ONLY $59 each!

T hey call walking the “perfect exercise.” It gets

your heart pumping, clears your head and fills
your lungs with fresh air. Not bad, but we found
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Experience the
comfort and class of our exquisite Walking Sticks for 30 days.
If you’re not feeling the power and prestige, simply send it
a way to make it even better. Before you take your next back within 30 days for a refund of the item price. At Stauer,
10,000 steps, add a little strut to your stroll. Take a Stauer we walk the talk.
Walking Stick anywhere and I promise that you’ll feel like Limited Edition. Only 500 each PRAISE FOR STAUER
a conquering hero. Heads will turn. Doors will open. Its available for this ad only! These WALKING STICKS
powers will astound you. handcrafted beauties take months to “An excellent walking
What’s the secret? Pure class. Our Stauer Walking Sticks craft and are running (not walking) stick. Solid and elegant.
are a tip of the top hat to turn-of-the-century tradition. out the door. So, take a step in the Perfect for a night out.
Today these tributes to a gentleman’s power, prestige, and right direction. Call today! Well crafted.”
posture are fetching as much as $200,000 at auction. But – J. from
only Stauer can deliver a modern version of these vintage
1-800-333-2045
Pacific Grove, CA
classics that looks and feels as good as the original for only
$59 each!
Stauer Walking Stick Collection Your Insider Offer Code: WSC153-01
A. Derbyshire Save $20 You must use the insider offer code to get our special price.
m * $59 +S&P
B. Earlsford m * $59 +S&P
C. Knightsbridge m * $59 +S&P
Save $20
Save $20
Stauer ® 14101 Southcross Drive W., Ste 155, Dept. WSC153-01
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 www.stauer.com
*Discount is only for customers who use the offer
D. Hinwick Hare m * $59 +S&P Save $20 code versus the listed original Stauer.com price.
E. Gentleman’s m * $59 +S&P Save $20
Stauer… Afford the Extraordinary.®
• 36" long • Imported Eucalyptus wood
• Etched & sculpted solid brass handles with varying finishes
• Rubber tips • Supports up to 250 lbs. Rating of A+
• All models available in 40" height—call for details.

A.

D.

Exquisite B. C.
walking
sticks not
shown
actual size.

E.
 TOP BID
Riding
the Rails
An undated photo of fugitive slaves with
lifelong abolitionist and Underground Rail-
road conductor Levi Coffin sold at Cowan’s
Auctions on June 21, 2019, for $81,000, nearly
eight times the estimated price. Raised a
Quaker in Guilford County, North Carolina,
Coffin (top hat) grew up in a family commit-
ted to freeing the enslaved. In 1826, harassed
by slaveholders, Coffin and wife Catherine

Man on Horseback moved to Newport—now Fountain City—

Indiana, and then Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, where
Rumors of War, Kehinde Wiley’s new bronze, is on temporary display they helped people
at 46th Street and Broadway in New York City’s Times Square. The fleeing bondage
Nigerian-American artist, known for a 2017 painting of Barack Obama get to Canada.
and other portraits of African Americans, depicts a young black man, The couple’s
casually dressed and dreadlocked, astride a prancing horse. “Rumors of home in Indi-
War attempts to use the language of equestrian portraiture to both ana is some-
embrace and subsume the fetishization of state violence,” Wiley said. times referred
“New York and Times Square in particular sit at the crossroads of to as the “Grand
human movement on a global scale. To have the Rumors of War sculp- Central Station
ture presented in such a context lays bare the scope and scale of the of the Under-
project in its conceit to expose the beautiful and terrible potentiality of ground Railroad.”
art to sculpt the language of domination.” Wiley, who earlier used the The fugitives shown
equestrian form in paintings reacting to the Gulf and Iraq wars, said he have not been identified, nor has the white
found his inspiration on Richmond, Virginia’s Arthur Ashe—formerly woman, who strongly resembles Catherine

Monument—Avenue, along which four bronzes, three of them eques-
trian, show four Confederate leaders. Wiley’s work, commissioned by
the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, most resembles the J.E.B. Stuart
statue. “From the slave ship to the boardroom, we have made progress,”
museum trustee Monroe E. Harris said. “Look at this crowd. This is the
most important acquisition this museum has ever made.” The museum
plans to set Rumors of War permanently at its Ashe Avenue entrance.
FROM TOP: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES; COWAN’S AUCTIONS; NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE, FELTON BEQUEST, 1922
White Coffin. The other white man shown,
once thought to have been Henry Storrs, a
Cincinnati antislavery activist, is now
believed to be Jonathan Cable, a Connecticut
abolitionist who joined Coffin in Ohio and
with him helped execute a successful 1853
escape by 28 slaves from Kentucky.

Irish-born Richard St. George, an amateur painter who served in the British
Army 1776-78, is being featured at the Museum of the American Revolution in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. St George is notable not only for artistic inclinations
but for sharing details of his service with Italian painter Xavier Della Gatta. The
latter painted two
Revolutionary Vistas Pennsylvania scenes
of the war—one of a
battle at Paoli and the other at Germantown, where St. George incurred a head
wound. After the Revolution, St. George returned to Ireland. In 1798, as a rebel-
lion against English occupation was brewing, St. George, who opposed the rebels,
was killed in a fight with his tenants. The exhibition traces St. George’s career
with his own drawings and portraits of him, as well as Della Gatta’s images.
The exhibition runs through March 17, 2020.

10 AMERICAN HISTORY
 ONLY
Valued at
y
$99ea.
$250.00 b
PCG S

Actual size is 26.5 mm

STOLEN FROM THE U.S. MINT!

The Secret of the U.S. Dollar Valued at $250 Explained

I
n 2009, the United States Mint made history (but not in
the way they wanted) when they released the nation’s first
Native American Golden Dollar, featuring Sacagawea on
the obverse and one-year-only Native American reverse
designs.
Over the course of several years, a corrupt U.S. officer stole
and smuggled out an entire hoard’s worth of coins, each
taken before a crucial step in the minting process could be
completed—the addition of edge lettering.
Why Steal Unfinished Coins?
In the coin world, rarity means value. Not
only were the stolen coins highly coveted
first-year issues but, more importantly,
Edge Lettering
their missing edge lettering made them
“error coins,” increasing their scarcity even
more. The thief knew this would drive their Missing Edge Lettering
value up even further.
Just how rare are these coins? Only 1,118 of the 39,000,000
coins struck as part of the 2009 Golden Dollar mintage are
error dollars that bear the grade, designation and signature of
the coin we’re offering today. That’s less than 0.0029% of the
entire 2009 Golden Dollar mintage!
Officially Authenticated Error Dollars
Not only are these 2009 Golden Dollar error coins now legal
to own, but they’ve also been professionally authenticated as
error coins by Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and
certified as being in collector-grade Mint State-66 (MS66)
condition. In addition, each coin comes sealed in a protective
holder bearing the autograph of Edmund C. Moy, the former
Director of the U.S. Mint who held the office when the coins
were stolen.
Buy Now Before Our
Limited Supply Runs Out!
Due to the uniqueness of the error and the extremely small
number of Gold Error Dollars, the PCGS price guide
currently lists their value at a whopping $250 each. But
thanks to our eagle-eyed buyers, we secured a small number
of these coins for savvy customers. Secure your 2009 Golden
Error Dollars for just $99 each. Buy two or more and receive
FREE Shipping!
We have only a handful of these coins to go around. Don’t let
them escape your collection—secure yours now!
2009 Native American Error Dollar PCGS MS66 Signed by
Edmund Moy - $99 ea. + s/h
FREE SHIPPING on 2 or More!
Limited time only. Product total over $149 before taxes (if any).
Standard domestic shipping only. Not valid on previous purchases.
Call today toll-free for fastest service
1-888-201-7070
Offer Code NAD321-01
Please mention this code when you call.
GOVMINT.CoM•

GovMint.com • 14101 Southcross Dr. W., Suite 175, Dept. NAD321-01 • Burnsville, MN 55337
GovMint.com® is a retail distributor of coin and currency issues and is not affiliated with the U.S. government. The collectible coin market is unregulated, highly speculative and involves
risk. GovMint.com reserves the right to decline to consummate any sale, within its discretion, including due to pricing errors. Prices, facts, figures and populations deemed accurate as of
the date of publication but may change significantly over time. All purchases are expressly conditioned upon your acceptance of GovMint.com’s Terms and Conditions (www.govmint.com/
terms-conditions or call 1-800-721-0320); to decline, return your purchase pursuant to GovMint.com’s Return Policy. © 2019 GovMint.com. All rights reserved.

Connor Fielding
Bridgeford-Smith
Henriques O’Brien
“Hooray for…Ithaca?” (p. 50) marks Jan Bridgeford-Smith’s debut
in the magazine. She has contributed to History, Smithsonian Air &
Space, and other periodicals and is writing a book, scheduled for fall
2020 publication by Globe Pequot Press, chronicling events of mis-
appropriation, large and small, from America’s past. Jan lives and
writes in Freeville, New York.
Frequent contributor Joseph Connor (“Hard-Knock College,” p. 42)
most recently wrote “Give ’Em Healthcare, Harry!” (October 2019).
A former prosecutor, Joe has a particular interest in the intersection
of the U.S. Constitution and everyday life.
A.K. Fielding (trehanstreasures.com/) is a historian and artist.
“Talking Trumbull” (p. 58) is her first article for American History.
Fielding writes about early American topics so she can buy materials
with which to paint subjects from that period.
Peter R. Henriques (prhmeh@aol.com), professor emeritus from
George Mason University, has written extensively about George
Washington. He adapted “George: Jury and Executioner” (p. 26) from
his coming book, First and Always: A New Portrait of George
Washington, to be published by University of Virginia Press. Most
recently, he wrote “Don’t Print the Legend” (December 2018).
Phillips Payson O’Brien is professor of strategic studies at the Uni-
versity of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. Numerous institutions have
honored him with awards and fellowships. “Invisible Hand” (p. 34)
is excerpted from O’Brien’s latest book, The Second Most Powerful
Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt’s
Chief of Staff (Dutton, 2019).
12 AMERICAN HISTORY
Letters ·
Birth of a Beef
I found Daniel Immerwahr’s arguments
(“Echoes of Empire,” October 2019) intriguing
until he gratuitously inserted Donald Trump.
Assigning appropriation by Trump and others
of the Obama birther issue from the Clinton
campaign to “Obama’s Pacific birth and
upbringing, not just being black” is a tired
canard. Trump’s claim was not that Obama
was ineligible because he was born in Hawaii
but because he was NOT born in Hawaii. The
current craze to assign everything a racial
motive—in this case the “American Empire”—
seems like a theory desperately in search of
supporting evidence.
Scott Reid
Mooresville, North Carolina
Daniel Immerwahr replies: Brief interviews
sometimes favor conclusions over evidence.
In my book, How to Hide an Empire, I explain
at great length how, in 2007, Hillary Clinton
strategist Mark Penn posited that Hawai‘i-
born Barack Obama was not “fundamentally
American.”
Clinton declined to push this issue in 2008,
but after Obama won the nomination, her
supporters began claiming he was Kenyan,
and soon Republicans did, too. Penn’s charge
and the birther rumor, both of which target
Obama’s “American” status, are related.
Though anti-black racism fueled birtherism,
it was also, I argue, shaped by a sense that his
Hawai‘ian origins and mixed-race family (far
more typical of Hawai‘i than the mainland)
made him “foreign.” My book gives many more
examples of people thinking of U.S. spaces
beyond the mainland in this way, as not really
part of the country. A recent example is when
then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed
astonishment that a judge “on an island in the
Pacific”—a federal judge in Hawai‘i—could
block President Trump’s travel ban.
As to racism, my book does discuss it
\ (I would be wary of any book on colonialism
'J
that didn’t). Yet if you pick it up, I hope you’ll
l find a fair-minded treatment and apprecia-
tion of triumphs as well as tragedies. And I
hope you’ll agree that the book isn’t partisan.
Democrats come off no better than
Republicans.

TECHNOLOGY SIMPLIFIED – BIGGER AND BETTER
Wow! A Simple to Use Computer
Designed Especially for Seniors!
Easy to read. Easy to see. Easy to use. Just plug it in!
“I love this computer! It is easy to
read and to use! I get photo updates
from my children and grandchildren
all the time.”
– Janet F.
Have you ever said to yourself “I’d
love to get a computer, if only I could
figure out how to use it.” Well, you’re
not alone. Computers were supposed
to make our lives simpler, but they’ve
gotten so complicated that they are
not worth the trouble. With all of the
“pointing and clicking” and “dragging
and dropping” you’re lucky if you can
figure out where you are. Plus, you
are constantly worrying about viruses
and freeze-ups. If this sounds familiar,
we have great news for you. There
is finally a computer that’s designed
for simplicity and ease of use. It’s the
WOW Computer, and it was designed
with you in mind. This computer is
easy-to-use, worry-free and literally
ADVERTISMENT
puts the world at your fingertips.
From the moment you open the box,
you’ll realize how different the WOW
Computer is. The components are
all connected; all you do is plug it
into an outlet and your high-speed
Internet connection. Then you’ll see
the screen – it’s now 22 inches. This
is a completely new touch screen
system, without the cluttered look
of the normal computer screen. The
“buttons” on the screen are easy to
see and easy to understand. All you do
is touch one of them, from the Web,
Email, Calendar to Games– you name
it… and a new screen opens up. It’s so out how you can get the new
easy to use you won’t have to ask your
children or grandchildren for help. Until
now, the very people who could benefit Mention promotional code 112100
most from E-mail and the Internet are
the ones that have had the hardest time 1-888-857-0864
accessing it. Now, thanks to the WOW
Computer, countless older Americans
are discovering the wonderful world
NEW
Now comes with...
Larger 22-inch hi-resolution
screen – easier to see
16% more viewing area
Simple navigation – so you
never get lost
Intel® processor – lightning fast
Computer is in the monitor –
No bulky tower
Text to Speech translation –
it can even read your
emails to you!
U.S. Based Customer Service
FREE
Automatic
Software Updates
of the Internet every day. Isn’t it time
you took part? Call now, and you’ll
find out why tens of thousands of
satisfied seniors are now enjoying
their WOW Computers, emailing
their grandchildren, and experiencing
everything the Internet has to offer.
Call today!
• Send & Receive Emails
• Have video chats with family and friends
• Surf the Internet:
Get current weather and news
• Play games Online:
Hundreds to choose from!
Call now toll free and find
WOW! Computer.
for special introductory pricing.
T
hWOW.' C• rnputer
84105
© 2019 firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.
 Out of America’s Attic
The collection’s depth and
breadth combine with
curators’ diligence to
create a vivid mosaic.
FRONT AND
CENTER In February 2019, Anthea M. Hartig became
the Elizabeth MacMillan Director of the
Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of
American History in Washington, DC. A
third-generation Californian, Hartig previ-
ously was executive director and CEO of the
California Historical Society in San Francisco.
She holds a Ph.D. in public history from the
University of California, Riverside.
Why does the National Museum of Ameri-
can History matter? We help people under-
Making History stand the promise, the power, and the fragility
Hartig wants the of the American experiment. Our greatest task
museum to reach the is to make democracy relevant to the three to
broadest possible four million people who come here every year
audience in as many
and the eight or so million we reach online. I
ways as possible.
tell my staff we’re the temporary stewards of
some of the most important material objects
that tell the story of the United States.
What’s your background? I have been lucky
to become a public historian—learning conser- How will your preservation expertise inform
vation management, archival management, your work? As an architectural historian, I am
14 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY NANCY TAPPAN
oral history, interpretive public art. Those tools
coalesced in my two most recent positions, as
Western regional director for the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, and with the
California Historical Society, both based in
San Francisco. At the Historical Society, I had
a remarkable opportunity to reestablish the
organization’s museum component and to
begin to digitize the collection. We partnered
MIRA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
with the State of California to create a “Teach-
ing California” history curriculum and with
the city of San Francisco to restore the 1874
Old U.S. Mint to serve as the society’s home
and as a hub for community-based history
activities. After we got to drive around in 1930s
cars in conjunction with an exhibit on the 75th
anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge’s open-
ing, my sons told me, “Mom, you’ve got the
best job ever!” When the Smithsonian called, I
realized what an opportunity the National
Museum of American History would be.
 sensitive to complexities involved in preserv-
ing and re-enlivening the museum. My expe-
rience in cultural heritage provides me with a
deep and layered understanding of the nature
of our past as well as to the mid-century mod-
ernism of the museum’s physical building.
What exhibits evoke big responses? On our
second floor, several exhibitions and spaces
address the theme of “The Nation We Build
Together.” In our “Many Voices, One Nation”
exhibition, visitors find it compelling and very
meaningful to follow the 500-year journey of
how we became us, the United States. We see
that it is a journey involving those who were
here, those who came here, and those who
were forcibly brought here. Throughout the
exhibition, the symbol of Lady Liberty recurs,
especially in the sculpture made by the Coali-
tion of Immokalee Workers for a 2000 march
for fair wages. The sculpture represents more
than liberty. On her pedestal is a simple, pow-
erful message from poet Langston Hughes: “I
too, am America!”
The museum’s presentation on women’s his-
tory is dominated by Julia Child’s kitchen
and first ladies’ gowns. Is that enough? This
year we opened a petite but powerful exhibi-
tion called “All Work and No Pay,” which illu-
minates the truth that even if they didn’t hold
paying jobs, women have always worked. We
are working on two other women’s history
exhibitions as part of the Institution’s Ameri-
can Women’s History Initiative, marking the
centennial of the ratification in 1920 of the
19th Amendment granting women the vote.
Our signature exhibition that opens next year
and then travels around the nation is called
“Girlhood! It’s Complicated.” We think it’s the
first-ever in-depth exhibition about the trajec-
tory of girlhood through time. “Girlhood!” will
include artifacts ranging from Helen Keller’s
“touch” watch, given to her by a retired diplo-
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
mat, which allowed her to use her fingertip to
feel what time it was, to the scarf 11-year-old
Naomi Wadler wore when she spoke against
gun violence at the March for Our Lives in
March 2018. A third exhibition, “Creating
Icons: How We Remember Women’s Suffrage,”
will include objects related to leaders of the
National American Woman Suffrage Associa-
tion that were collected and brought to the
Smithsonian just weeks after the amendment
passed Congress. Susan B. Anthony’s shawl
will be featured along with her portrait, which “i want to
has not been on display here in over 50 years. make this
facility
Tell us about the Molina Family Latino Gal-
lery. I am thrilled that the museum will host the most
the Smithsonian’s first-ever large display space accessible,
dedicated to Latinx history. Just before I arrived inclusive,
at the Smithsonian, the Molina Family Foun-
dation donated $10 million to create this gal- and
lery, which will end up comprising almost relevant
5,000 square feet. It’s critical to understand history
that the histories of the first peoples of the
Americas, Europeans, and Africans have been museum in
complicatedly and inextricably intertwined the nation.”
since the early 16th century, when Spain estab-
lished St. Augustine, Florida,
and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The
Smithsonian Latino Center is
supporting a range of projects
including one that will bring
together artifacts and oral histo-
ries that are related to Span-
ish-language news media in the
post-WWII United States.
(During World War II, the Fed-
eral Communication Commis-
sion withheld licenses from
Spanish-language radio stations
licenses for fear that non-En-
glish programming could spread
anti-American propaganda). In
October 2020, a bilingual exhibi-
tion on Latinos in baseball—“Pleibol! In the Telling Tools
Barrios and the Big Leagues”—will open. Artifacts of life in
bondage are part of
a exhibit on the
What is your vision? I want this facility to be
debut in the 1800s of
the nation’s most accessible, inclusive, and West Indies-style rice
relevant history museum. I want to reach peo- plantations in South
ple who learn in different ways, including Carolina.
online. And I want public history to reach the
broadest possible audience. I am deeply heart-
ened by the appointment of Lonnie Bunch,
who was director of the National Museum of
African American History and Culture and
understands the importance of telling compli-
cated stories, as secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution. We have a phenomenal challenge
as we interweave stories with the broadest
scope possible, and through them teach
America’s past. As James Baldwin said in
1963, “American history is longer, larger, more
various, more beautiful and more terrible than
anything anyone has ever said about it.”. +
FEBRUARY 2020 15

PARANOIA
PARADE
After convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
killed himself in a New York City jail cell, Presi-
dent Donald Trump retweeted right-wing
comic Terrence K. Williams’s suggestion that
Epstein’s death might have been a hit, ordered
by a former president no less: “#JefferyEpstein
had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s
dead.” (Williams’s tweet contained hashtags
#ClintonBodyCount and #ClintonCrimeFam-
ily.) The radioactive tweet presumed that Clin-
ton, an acquaintance of Epstein’s, had silenced
him to avoid being ratted out as a participant in
the financier’s abuse of underage girls.
After lighting this fuse, Trump backed away,
commenting “I have no idea” when a reporter
asked if the president thought Williams’s charge
might be true.
Trump had just emerged from a months-
long, multimillion-dollar federal investigation
into alleged ties between his 2016 campaign
and Russia. This retro Cold War scenario had
Trump doing Russia’s bidding because he loves
dictators, because he wanted to build a Trump
Tower in Moscow, or because Ivan had
16 AMERICAN HISTORY
Loon on the Loose
Lawrence failed to keep his
powder dry, and therein lay
all the difference in the world.
BY RICHARD BROOKHISER
blackmailable material—kompromat—on him. At the end of the day,
however, special counsel Robert Mueller wrote that he “did not find that
the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordi-
nated with the Russian government...”
The president repeats an accusation that one of his predecessors is a
killer sex criminal, and the president’s critics accuse him of being a trai-
tor. When did we take the crazy pills?
Long, long ago. Conspiracy theories involving, and propagated by,
eminent citizens—presidents included—are an old feature of American
life. One of the most lurid involved an attempt on Andrew Jackson’s life.
On January 30, 1835, the Capitol Rotunda was the scene of a South
Carolina congressman’s funeral. Harriet Martineau, an English blue-
stocking who watched from the gallery, was impressed by the spectacle
of political enemies sitting side by side, solemn in the presence of death.
“How out of place was hatred here!” she wrote.
Hatred appeared the moment the service ended. As President Jackson
was leaving the building, a man approached him, pulling the trigger of
one pistol, then another. Jackson was unhurt—both sidearms misfired—
and onlookers quickly subdued the attacker.
Would-be assassin Richard Lawrence was an unemployed house
painter. His pistols misfired because that morning’s mist had dampened
their percussion caps. Lawrence’s mind, it became obvious, was as cloudy
as the day’s weather. Explaining why he wanted to kill the president,
GRANGER, NYC
Lawrence sometimes said that Jackson was keeping him out of work,
 L I M I T E D -T I M E H O L I D AY O F F E R

TWO-FOR-ONE SPECIAL!
CHOOSE ANY TWO SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR ONLY $29.99
Jesuit Warriors
Italy’s U.S. Hero
Lake George Clash
Farragut at NOLA
HISTORYNET.COM
Battle of Three Kings

OMAHA 12unsung
D-DAY 75 TH ANNIVERSARY
Vatican Pimpernel
HistoryNet.com

heroes
of gettysburg
ALLIED TROOPS HAD ONLY ONE CHANCE
TO MAKE A FLAWED PLAN WORK
— page 38

Plus!
KANDAHAR
KILL ZONE
Berdan’s Deadly
Sharpshooters
Lee’s Maryland
Mistake
DIANS
DUSA: CANALIB
OPERATION ME TO THE TA AN
+I STORMED ASHORE WITH ROBERT CAPA TAKE THE FIGHT
WWII MAYHEM
+WHY A FAMED MYSTIC SPOOKED THE ROYAL NAVY Corporal Francis Wallar of the Iron
JUNE 2019 +PRE-INVASION MADNESS IN ENGLAND JULY 2019
Brigade’s 6th Wisconsin fights for the
2nd Mississippi’s flag on July 1, 1863. SEPTEMBER 2019
THE 2,000-YARD
STARE AT PELELIU
HISTORYNET.COM

American
Leo Fender’s ★ HIDDEN GETTYSBURG ★ SHERMAN’S SPY IN PLAIN SIGHT ★
Thump of Genius
Historical Hooch:
Tippler’s Catalog
Meteoric Start of
American Science
Granddaddy of
All Rockefellers
THE AMERICAN FRONTIER

BATTLE OF HUBBARDTON, 1777 PLUS

G OF
THE MAKIN N

Rebellion D.C.’S LINCOL

MEMORIAL

in Peril
How a little-known action may
have saved the Revolution
CHIEF BLACK
KETTLE’S SCALP
‘peg leg annie’s’
sorrowful saga
Dr. Coates and

HONOR
colonel Custer

wild bill’s IN DEFEAT

HOW ROBERT ANDERSON’S SURRENDER
assassin
JACK M CALL DID THE
c
OF FORT SUMTER MADE HIM A HERO IN THE NORTH
REIMAGINED, INTRIGUING, INCLUSIVE
RICHMOND’S NEW
DIRTY DEED IN DEADWOOD AUGUST 2019
HISTORYNET.COM
AUGUST 2019
HISTORYNET.COM
August 2019
HISTORYNET.com
CIVIL WAR MUSEUM
October 2019
HISTORYNET.com

The Official Guide to Rolling Thunder XXXII restored movie messerschmitts fly again

RIDING INTO D.C.

Bikers keep MIAs
in the spotlight

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL

50th ANNIVERSARY

Hamburger Hill
OF MILITARY HISTORY

The controversial Superiors branded

last great battle him “difficult.” Yet
of the war Percy Hobart was
the genius the Allies

D-DAY’S
desperately needed.
The North’s
Fake Aces
MiG victories

UNSUNG
exaggerated
Cessna Lands
on Carrier
Pilot risks all

HERO
to save family

night stalker
HOW THE ME-110 BECAME WWII’S
DEADLIEST MIDNIGHT MARAUDER
Asleep at the Gap HOLLYWOOD TAKES FLIGHT: HELL’S

JUNE 2019
Siege of Saint-Malo ANGELs, BATTLE OF BRITAIN & MORE

HistoryNet.com SEPTEMBER 2019

GENE RODDENBERRY: FROM PACIFIC
SUMMER 2019 B-17 PILOT TO STAR TREK creator

CALL NOW! 1.800.435.0715

OR VISIT SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM PLEASE MENTION CODE
HOLIDAY WHEN ORDERING
Order by December 6 and you’ll receive FREE gift announcement cards
that you can send out in time for the holidays!
*For each MHQ subscription add $15
Titles are published 6 times per year except Military History Quarterly, which is published 4 times per year
 sometimes that Jackson was keeping him from mind. The jury took five minutes to declare him not guilty by reason of
assuming the English throne. insanity. The national press, divided along party lines, kicked the story
It was hard to imagine so pathetic a nobody around like a football. Jacksonian mouthpieces speculated that Law-
nearly felling the indomitable Old Hickory, so a rence, if not commanded by Poindexter, might have found inspiration in
search began for the somebodies who had the anti-Jackson rhetoric of another rival, former Veep John Calhoun.
pulled Lawrence’s strings. Opposition rags hinted that Jackson had staged an attack on himself to
Jackson thought Lawrence’s controller had win public sympathy—one correspondent, anticipating today’s onliine
to be Senator George Poindexter (D-Missis- commenters with their displays of grassy-knoll know-how, hypothesized
sippi). Poindexter had backed Jackson in the that the percussion caps on Lawrence’s pistols had been greased before-
1828 race but then broke with him over eco- hand to ensure that they would malfunction. Summarizing in his diary
nomic and patronage matters. the miasma of hysteria and innuendo, former president John Quincy
In Jackson’s mind this constituted motive Adams called the whole affair “sickening…we were running into the
enough for murder and starting the afternoon manners of the Italian Republics”—the turbulent city-states that had
of the shooting he told all who called on him served Niccolò Machiavelli as case studies.
at the White House that Poindexter was out to Conspiracy theories may be an occupational hazard of democracies. In
get him. One visitor, Harriet Martin- top-down societies, it is clear who rules,
eau, endured a Jacksonian rant. “It Shooting at the President! and who wants to. However, when there
was painful to hear a chief ruler pub- are many politicians and many voters,
licly trying to persuade a foreigner responsibility is diffused—and some peo-
that any of his constituents hated him ple, to obtain clarity, imagine that hidden
to the death,” she wrote. “And I took forces are really in charge. Richard Hof-
the liberty of changing the subject as
~
~
!:
• ..
stadter’s classic 1964 essay, “The Paranoid
soon as I could.” s "
0

Style in American Politics,” understates

~ 11
~
Jackson’s suspicions seemed to be '
100
s-
•• the dimensions of his subject. Hofstadter
"
confirmed when Washington locals "'
" ..
~
= ..
examined only the John Birch Society and
0
Mordecai Foy and David Stewart sub- 4 "
:= money cranks of the late 19th century—
0

mitted affidavits to a justice of the "s. e conspiracy theorists he particularly dis-

peace. In the documents, the men " .. .r,
.
liked. Americans have poked under many
~

•~
~

asserted that they had seen Lawrence ., "..

<' beds chasing arms merchants, slaveown-
visit Poindexter’s house days before ers, abolitionists, Catholics, Masons, you
~

the shooting. roa ATTr""" • .,~s name it. The Revolution itself was an
Poindexter demanded the Senate
appoint a committee to investigate the
.fi.SS.rJ.SSL N .rJ.
PRESID£~T OJ' TilE t:NITF.O STA'rE!Io
TE
... armed conspiracy theory, inflamed by
fear that the king and a corrupt Parlia-
COIII'Jol..'i)..'ll., .U •.IIO,
An ~t¢itlg &j tlu Et.Utem P(lrtKo of u., Copilol,
charges against him. Foy and Stewart n.ocro,Uw ...a
<l....,l _...o...,,
j6o(&.., lbl _ . .
,__be- ment meant Americans no good.
_ . . , . "llll """ · - · " ' ......... ,_..,. •1M
w,llto_l ~

----e-
did not hold up well under questioning. Bl" A WA.SHJ.N(;TON R£POR1'l'.B. And—here is the kicker—sometimes
A~ ~:~~!..~ll£1~~
Foy did not know where Poindexter’s PJU.'lTfO ....
conspiracy theorists, firing at bumps in
80W'r.JI.T;

--------------~
house was; Stewart could not describe the dark, hit genuine conspirators. In the
what Lawrence looked like. Persons who knew 1760s and 1770s, London’s leadership
Doing It Paranoid Style
the two testified that Foy was a drunk and Stew- The Lawrence case flared class really was seeking to rationalize the
art a liar. Why had they spun such a tale? Foy, a into conspiracy theory of Empire’s finances without regard for
blacksmith, said that Charles Coltman, a gov- a spectacularly tentacular Americans’ rights or wishes. Brits in
ernment contractor, promised him work on a and prescient nature. power openly proclaimed this agenda,
new iron fence at the Treasury Department if he seeking to impose it by rounding up dissi-
would finger Poindexter. Coltman, questioned dents and suppressing public opinion. The colonists were free enough to
in turn, denied offering quid pro quo but admit- fear a hidden hand—and free enough to arrange an effective resistance.
ted that he had encouraged Foy and Stewart to The legal system and the Senate probably got the story of Andrew
tell their stories. The committee report, unani- Jackson’s 1835 brush with death right.
mously accepted by the Senate in early March, Richard Lawrence was a lunatic and lone gunman; capital busybodies,
cleared Poindexter, dismissed Foy as an alco- seeking to stoke Jackson’s wrath, suborned bogus testimony about a plot
holic, and expressed hope that Stewart and from obvious miscreants. The affair raged for a time, then faded into the
“SHOOTING AT THE PRESIDENT”

Coltman would be “held up to public odium.” din of the 1830s, a decade that began with the Nullification Crisis and
Lawrence came to trial in April. The pro- ended with the Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign. Whenever politics
ceedings, which he frequently disrupted, estab- is similarly fraught—that is, most of the time—fresh conspiracy theories,
lished that the hapless gunman was out of his and sometimes new conspirators, will debut. +

18 AMERICAN HISTORY
 ADVERTISMENT

“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair.

To me, it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.”
— J. Fitzgerald, VA

NEW
Footrest extension
for better support
head to toe

You can’t always lie down in bed and
sleep. Heartburn, cardiac problems,
hip or back aches – and dozens of other
ailments and worries. Those are the nights
you’d give anything for a comfortable chair to
sleep in: one that reclines to exactly the right
degree, raises your feet and legs just where you
want them, supports your head and shoulders
properly, and operates at the touch of a button.
Our Perfect Sleep Chair® does all that
and more. More than a chair or recliner,
it’s designed to provide total comfort.
Choose your preferred heat and
massage settings, for hours of soothing
relaxation. Reading or watching TV?
Our chair’s recline technology allows you
to pause the chair in an infinite number
of settings. And best of all, it features a
powerful lift mechanism that tilts the entire
chair forward, making it easy to stand. You’ll
REMOTE-CONTROLLED
EASILY SHIFTS FROM FLAT TO
A STAND-ASSIST POSITION
love the other benefits, too. It helps with
correct spinal alignment and promotes back
pressure relief, to prevent back and muscle
pain. The overstuffed, oversized biscuit style
back and unique seat design will cradle you
in comfort. Generously filled, wide armrests
provide enhanced arm support when sitting or
reclining. It even has a battery backup in
case of a power outage.
White glove delivery included in shipping
charge. Professionals will deliver the chair to
the exact spot in your home where you want
it, unpack it, inspect it, test it, position it, and
even carry the packaging away! You get your
choice of stain and water repellent synthetic
DuraLux with the classic leather look or plush
microfiber in a variety of colors to fit any
decor. Call now!
The Perfect Sleep Chair®
1-888-820-0071
Please mention code 112099 when ordering.
Long Lasting DuraLux
Tan Chocolate Burgundy Blue

DuraLux II Microfiber
Burgundy Cashmere Chocolate Indigo
46524

Because each Perfect Sleep Chair is a custom-made bedding product, we can only accept returns on chairs that are damaged or defective.
© 2019 firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.
AMERICAN SCHEMERS
BARBARIC YAWPERY
BUT IN A GOOD WAY
In the summer of 1855, an obscure 37-year-old
Brooklyn newspaperman named Walt Whit-
man self-published a book of 12 lengthy, unti-
tled, unrhymed poems. He called the volume
Leaves of Grass. Few people noticed; fewer
cared. But that September The United States
Review printed a long essay lauding Whitman.
“An American bard at last!” the article began,
unleashing a torrent of over-the-top praise.
“Assuming to himself all the attributes of the
country, steps Walt Whitman into literature,”
the reviewer effused. “No sniveler or tea-drink-
ing poet, no puny clawback or prude is Walt
Throwing Shade
Whitman, 37, posed Whitman. He will bring poems fit to fill the
as a working stiff for days and nights—fit for men and women with
the first edition of the attributes of throbbing blood and flesh…”
Leaves of Grass but The write-up was unsigned, but Whitman
closed out his life as knew the author’s identity—he’d written it
“the good gray poet.” himself. He also penned two more anonymous
20 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY PETER CARLSON
reviews. They, too, were raves. In the Brooklyn
Daily Times, Whitman touted Whitman as
America’s bold new voice.
“A rude child of the people!” he crowed from
the shadows. “No imitation—No foreigner—but
a growth and idiom of America.” In the Ameri-
can Phrenological Journal, Whitman touted
Leaves as “the most glorious of triumphs in the
known history of literature.”
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/GETTY IMAGES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Whitman was indeed a great poet, among
history’s most beloved and influential. A kindly
man, he spent hundreds of hours visiting
wounded soldiers recuperating in Washington,
DC, hospitals during the Civil War, bringing
them candy and tobacco and writing letters for
them. Great poet and great soul, Whitman also
possessed a less virtuous talent: He was a
genius of hype, a master at public relations,
and a peer of P.T. Barnum in advancing that
 AMERICAN SCHEMERS
great American art form—shameless self-promotion.
A hundred years before Muhammad Ali hollered “I am the greatest!”
and 150 before Donald Trump declared, “I alone can fix it,” Walt Whit-
man was proclaiming, “I celebrate myself and sing myself.” His bragga-
docio wasn’t mere narcissism. He believed he was America’s poetic voice,
so he schemed and scammed to make that voice heard. “Whitman was
' beyond scruples,” wrote biographer David S. Reynolds. “He felt his cause
was worthy, and he would do anything in his limited power to push it.”
Born in 1819 on Long Island, Whitman left school at 11 to work as an
office boy, printer, carpenter, and schoolteacher before becoming a writer
for New York newspapers and editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1842, he
attended a lecture by America’s most respected author, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, who challenged America to produce a poet worthy of its moun-
tains, forests and factories. Whitman decided to become that poet.
Thirteen years later, he produced Leaves of Grass and immediately
mailed Emerson a copy. Emerson responded by letter, calling the book
“the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet
contributed,” and adding, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”
Ecstatic, Whitman showed Emerson’s letter to his newspaper pals.
One, Charles Dana, ran the letter in the New York Tribune. Emerson was
irate—it was a private missive, not meant for publication—and he felt
exploited. But Emerson’s anger did not deter
Whitman from reprinting the letter in a sec- Forever Fresh
Central to his constant
ond edition of Leaves of Grass a year later,
reputation-making,
along with the cover blurb “I greet you at the Whitman never stopped
beginning of a great career—R.W. Emerson.” tweaking the book with
Ever ambitious, Whitman tried another which he gained fame.
trick. In the book, he quoted
reviews, some laudatory—includ-
ing those he wrote himself—and
some scathing, including a Boston
Intelligencer assessment mocking
his work as “bombast, egotism,
vulgarity and nonsense.”
“Whitman was testing out an
advertising idea then quite new:
controversy sells,” Reynolds wrote.
A century later, Norman Mailer
reprised Whitman’s tactic, buying a
full-page ad for his novel The Deer
Park, quoting the nastiest lines
from the most scathing reviews.
Whitman also pioneered the use
of the new medium of photography
to shape his public image. In the
first edition of Leaves, a photo
shows him in workman’s clothes,
hat tilted jauntily. He has one hand
in a pocket and the other cocked defiantly on his hip. In an era when
CULTURE CLUB/GETTY IMAGES
authors were invariably portrayed seated in libraries wearing their best
suits, Whitman’s picture was shocking. But it worked. Reviewers noted
that the poet looked like a “loafer” with an “air of mild defiance and an
expression of pensive insolence.” Which was exactly the image Whitman
wanted to convey: He was the poetic voice of the common man.
As he grew older and came to crave respect-
ability, Whitman let his white hair and white
beard grow shaggy, a look documented in pho-
tos meant to burnish his image as a saintly
“good gray poet.”
One photo portrayed him like Saint Francis
of Assisi, with a butterfly perched on his fin-
gertip. He swore the insect was real, bragging
that he possessed “the knack of attracting birds
and butterflies and other wild critters.” But the
thing with wings was a cardboard prop—it now
resides in the Library of Congress.
Like most self-promoters, Whitman wildly
exaggerated his popularity. To hype that sec-
ond edition of Leaves, he wrote that he’d
printed 1,000 copies of the first edition, and
“they readily sold.” Then he added this whop-
per: “…the average annual call for my Poems is
ten or twenty thousand.” In truth, as he com-
plained to friends, he doubted “if even ten
were sold.” As Whitman famously wrote, “Do I
contradict myself? Very well then I contradict
myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
In time, Whitman shifted from writing
anonymous reviews praising his own book to
churning out pseudonymous feature articles
praising himself. In 1872, he composed “Walt
Whitman in Europe,” an essay
extolling his alleged popularity on the
Continent—“radiating there in all
directions in the most amazing man-
ner.” He mailed the manuscript to his
friend Richard Hinton, a Kansan,
with instructions: “Sign this with your
name at the conclusion and send it at
once to the Kansas Magazine.” Hin-
ton obeyed. The article ran. Then
Whitman convinced two Eastern
newspapers to reprint it.
“Walt, some people think you blew
your own horn a lot,” his friend
Horace Traubel noted while inter-
viewing Whitman.
The poet grumbled, then said, “I
have merely looked myself over and
repeated candidly what I saw.”—a
great line from the font of so many
great lines. Later, he defended his
shameless self-celebration in a sentence that
could serve as a motto for America’s armies of
publicists and PR people. “The public is a
thick-skinned beast,” Walt Whitman said, “and
you have to keep whacking away on its hide to
let it know you’re there.” +
FEBRUARY 2020 21
SCOTUS 101
COURTING
CONTROVERSY Can a litigant haul a president of the United
MISSISSIPPI V. States into court? The Constitution is silent,
JOHNSON though the Framers did consider the issue,
71 U.S. 475 giving members of Congress protection from
(1867) prosecution for anything they say. But even
PRESIDENTIAL without express immunity, for 78 years after
the Constitution took effect nobody tried to
IMMUNITY sue a sitting president.
Not until 1867, in the Civil War’s bitter after-
math, did the U.S. Supreme Court face the issue.
In Mississippi v. Johnson, the justices gave the
president a substantial shield against legal
actions. However, the jurists strongly suggested
that under limited circumstances a party could
sue the country’s leader. The opinion in that
case remains central to continuing debates
regarding presidents’ legal vulnerability. But
Mississippi also remains, University of Texas law
professor Steve Vladeck wrote recently, “one of
Chasing Concord
Chief Justice Salmon the least-well-understood of [the Supreme
P. Chase found a way Court’s] major separation-of-powers decisions.”
to avoid potentially At the core of the controversy was the task
disastrous conflict of reintegrating into the Union the 11 states
among the branches that had seceded and fought the Civil War. In
of government. July 1866 Tennessee had accepted the 13th
22 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY DANIEL B. MOSKOWITZ
Amendment abolishing slavery and rejoined
the fold, but Northern politicians were split on
how tough to be with the other ten former
Confederate states. President Andrew John-
son, an upholder of states’ rights who had been
Tennessee’s military governor 1862-65, opted
for a lenient policy, giving returning states lat-
itude in reestablishing political structures.
But Southern states used that latitude to
pass laws restricting African Americans, out-
raging voters in the rest of the country. In
1866, Americans elected to Congress slates
pledged to tighten constraints on what were
still being called the Rebel States. Soon after
convening in 1867, those lawmakers passed a
quartet of measures. The four Military Recon-
struction Acts divided the former Confederacy
FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; NATIONAL ARCHIVES
into five regions, each with a military governor
and all overseen by military courts assigned to
handle civil matters. To get out from under
military control a state had to adopt a consti-
tution giving former slaves the right to vote.
Mississippi Governor Benjamin G. Hum-
phreys insisted that the Constitution allowed
Washington to penalize only individuals who

Feast of Frowns had fought for the South in the Civil War, not
In March 1867, artist secessionist states themselves. Mississippi
Thomas Nast drew sued President Johnson, asking the court to
President Andrew bar him from enforcing the four laws. Because
Johnson sneering as one state was suing a citizen of another, the
an African-American case went straight to the Supreme Court.
man cast his vote. Johnson himself opposed the reconstruc-
tion laws; Congress had passed all four over
his veto. But at an April 5, 1867, meeting hours before Mississippi was to
file suit at the Supreme Court, Johnson and his cabinet agreed on the
need to preserve future presidents’ constitutional powers by arguing
that courts could not mandate how a president does the job. Before lis-
tening to Mississippi’s arguments, the justices had to answer the vital
question of whether they could take the case. Johnson sent Attorney
General Henry Stanbery scurrying to the Court to argue that the answer
had to be no, the president cannot be sued.
The jurisdictional question was decided speedily: Mississippi tried to
file. Stanbery objected. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase decreed that in
seven days the Court would hear full arguments on whether the ques-
tion was one the justices could entertain. The opinion came on April 15.
Given justices’ political backgrounds, they likely would have split on
the Military Reconstruction Acts’ constitu-
tionality. Chase privately thought those stat-
utes far too punitive. Writing to influential
The chase
newspaper editor Horace Greeley eight court
months after the Mississippi decision, Chase walked a
said local private citizens who had been loyal
to the Union should have run Reconstruction
careful path
“without organizing a single military commis- in discerning
sion.” But during the debate over Mississippi, when a suit
Chase managed to avoid dissension and to
get everyone on board on the gatekeeping
could be
issue. The justices all agreed that they would brought and
not hear Mississippi’s case because in the when it
given situation they lacked authority to act
against the president.
could not.
The Chase Court’s decision not to take Mississippi included a big dose
of unvarnished pragmatism. “Understandably, the Supreme Court was
hesitant to wade into this political morass,” lawyer Owen Keiter wrote in
2018. “It worried quite reasonably that a ruling one way or the other
could set off unprecedented interbranch conflict between the South-
ern-leaning president and Northern-dominated Congress.”
The chief justice was quite frank about such worries. What would
happen, Chase asked in the opinion he wrote for the whole court, if the
justices did decide to weigh the underlying issues, did decide that Mis-
sissippi was right, and then ordered the president not to enforce the
Military Reconstruction Acts?
“If the president refuses obedience, it is needless to observe that the
court is without power to enforce its process,” Chase wrote.
However, the justices didn’t want an absolute ban on suing a presi-
dent. To draw the line between suits courts could consider and those
that were impermissible, Chase embraced a distinction first made by
Chief Justice John Marshall in the foundation case of Marbury v. Madi-
son: When an official fails to undertake a mandatory duty, Marshall
SCOTUS 101
wrote, the courts have the power to order him
to do so. But when a decision is up to that offi-
cial’s discretion, that decision becomes politi-
cal, and the courts must shy away from
deciding political policy.
Most presidential duties, it must be admit-
ted, are discretionary—a president has leave
to decide which national issues get attention,
as well as which laws get vigorous enforce-
ment and which get little. Ministerial duties—
that is, those directly commanded by a
law—are tasks the president or any other gov-
ernmental official must undertake, given cer-
tain facts. As an example, Chase cited an 1838
case in which a unanimous Court told the
postmaster general he had to pay a contractor
money a court had found due, even though
the postmaster general did not believe the
charge legitimate.
Chase wanted to make clear that not only did
the president not enjoy absolute immunity from
lawsuits but that the decision did not cut off an
avenue to court for those convinced a law is
unconstitutional. Chase’s assurance: Aggrieved
citizens cannot ask judges to stop the president
from enforcing the law, but if after the fact that
enforcement causes a party injury that party can
go to court to challenge its constitutionality.
Many praised the Chase Court for finding a
way to avoid a potentially disastrous conflict
among the three branches of government.
Others criticized the Court as too timid. Of the
decision the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote, “The
whole thing has about it an air of dodging and
pettifoggery.” In his decision, the chief justice
“is temporizing and procrastinating and
inventing reasons for delay, which is disrepu-
table to the Court, to the country and to him-
self,” the newspaper declared.
That criticism had some merit. While the
ministerial/discretionary division aims to
keep the judiciary out of political issues, the
“precise contours of the doctrine are murky
and unsettled,” analyst Jared P. Cole wrote in
2014 for the Congressional Research Service.
“Understanding exactly when the doctrine
applies can be difficult.”
Even today judges are steering through fog
in considering whether to accept or decline a
case because it hinges on a question the Con-
stitution intends the political branches—the
administration and Congress—to decide. The
very dilemma Mississippi v. Johnson was sup-
posed to settle still bedevils jurists. +
FEBRUARY 2020 23

SUFFRAGIST
SCIENTIST
Her name has been forgotten, and no photo exists of her, but Eunice
Newton Foote stands athwart two landmark events. Born in Goshen,
Connecticut, in 1819, roughly midway between the Revolution and the
Civil War, Eunice Newton was the youngest of Isaac and Thirza New-
ton’s 12 children. She earned a spot in history by signing the Declaration
of Sentiments put forth at the 1848 convention on women’s rights in
Seneca Falls, New York; she also was one of five women on the commit-
tee responsible for that document’s publication. And less than a decade
later, in 1856, 36-year-old Eunice Newton Foote, using basic apparatus
in a Seneca Falls home laboratory, tested this question: Does the pres-
ence of certain gases in air affect its temperature?
Among the gases Foote included in her simple experiment was car-
bonic acid gas, now called carbon dioxide. Using an air pump and two
4”x30” glass cylinders, she filled one cylinder with dry air and the other
with moist air. Sealing the tubes, Foote measured the cylinders’ respec-
tive interior temperatures in sun and shade. She compared those results
with those obtained when the experimenter filled cylinders with pure
oxygen or hydrogen or carbonic acid.
In “Circumstances affecting the heat of the Sun’s rays,” published
in November 1856 in the monthly American Journal of Science and
Arts, Foote characterized her findings. “The highest effect of the sun’s
rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas,” she wrote. “The receiver
24 AMERICAN HISTORY
Eunice Newton’s Launch Pad
At Troy Female Seminary, the
budding scientist got an education
to equal any available to young
American males of her era.
BY SARAH RICHARDSON
containing the gas became itself much heated—
very sensibly more so than the other—and on
being removed, it was many times as long in
cooling.…an atmosphere of that gas would give
our earth a high temperature... at one period of
its history the air had mixed with it a larger
proportion than at present, an increased tem-
perature from its own action as well as from
increased weight must have necessarily
resulted.” (bit.ly/FooteArticle)
Science now recognizes Eunice Foote as the
first experimenter to probe the relationship
between carbon dioxide and climate change.
EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
For nearly 150 years, title to that achieve-
ment had gone to Irish scientist John Tyndall,
a contemporary of Foote’s. Working with far
more precise lab gear in a university setting,
Tyndall, too, tested how solar radiation
affected gases’ temperature, and in much more
discriminating fashion. The academic estab-
lishment considers Tyndall’s 1859 paper on the
topic the first empirical demonstration of
 carbon dioxide’s heat-trapping ability. Tyndall may have read Foote’s
paper. Another of his papers—on color blindness—appeared in the same
issue of AJSA in which Foote’s appeared, and two European journals
carried summaries of her paper. What scholars do know is that Tyndall
never mentioned Foote’s findings, and it is customary for scientists to
cite the influence of experiments related to their own.
In the 1850s, some observers were speculating that heat loss from
within the Earth might provide an explanation as to why the planet was
cooler than it had been eons ago. No one was suggesting that carbon
dioxide might heat the atmosphere, but Foote’s training in experimental
science had prepared her to test ideas. Coming of age when formal edu-
cation for women was beginning to gain ground, she attended Troy
Female Seminary. In 1821, the city of Troy, New York, had advanced
Emma Hart Willard $4,000 to establish a school for “women of means”—
families able to afford the tuition could enroll their daughters. The
school was the first in the United States to offer women formal educa-
tions equivalent to those available to male students. The Seminary
brimmed with feminist energy, educating Elizabeth Cady, someday to
append “Stanton” to her name and gain fame as a suffragist, a few years
before welcoming Eunice Newton. Latter-day alumnae include Jane
Fonda and Kirsten Gillibrand. Eunice Newton attended the Seminary in
1836-38, at the formative ages of 17 through 19. For specialized science
courses, she went to nearby Rensselaer School, whose founder, Amos
Eaton, was committed to equality in education.
Eunice stood out not only for her bold challenges to the status quo
afforded women but also for pursuing experimental science at all. A
1992 study counted 22 women authoring and publishing papers before
the Civil War. Most focused on botany, natural history, entomology, or
astronomy. Those areas of study generally depend more on practi-
tioners’ curiosity and patient observation rather than technical training
and delicate instrumentation, whereas
Eunice Newton Foote alone among the 22 In Her Wheelhouse
An 1850-vintage physics
was doing technically demanding experi-
laboratory suggests the
ments in physics. American science was relatively unsophisticated
young, and its engagement with experi- conditions under which
mental physics particularly weak. The Newton worked.
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, founded in 1848, had only one
female member in 1850: astronomer Maria
Mitchell. The National Academy of Sciences
was years away from forming. In the entire 19th
century, American women published only 16
physics papers, and only two of those appeared
before 1889. Foote wrote both.
Foote’s 1856 paper was presented by Smithso-
nian Institution director and prominent scientist
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS
Joseph Henry. Henry was friendly with Eunice
and her husband Elisha, who in 1849 had served
as Seneca Falls’s meteorologist, according to UC
Santa Barbara physicist John Perlin, who is writ-
ing a biography of Eunice Foote. Although Joseph
Henry wrote in 1856 that he did not understand
the import of Eunice’s work, three years later he
predicted that accumulated carbon dioxide emis-
sions could lead to mass extinctions.
Foote was astute in her questioning, and her
relatives and descendants showed kindred
scholarly inclinations.
Daughter Augusta Foote Arnold published
in 1901 a 500-page work meticulously cata-
loguing and describing details of seaweed and
intertidal biology. Mary, Foote’s other daugh-
ter, married Missouri Senator John Hender-
son; got rich in Washington, DC, real estate;
championed temperance, women’s suffrage,
and vegetarianism; and published books on
health, diet, and cooking.
Elisha Foote, whom Newton wed in 1841,
was a scientist and mathematician—and judge,
inventor, and U.S. patents commissioner 1868-
69. His paper on temperature and solar radia-
tion preceded his wife’s brief 1856 treatise in
the journal issue carrying both tracts, but hers
addressed a more far-reaching question.
Foote’s work with gases began getting
renewed attention in 2011 when retired petro-
leum engineer Ray Sorenson stumbled upon
her study and publicized her experiment.
Other scientists have been working to make
Foote less of a footnote. Texas Tech climate
scientist Katharine Hayhoe has highlighted
her antecedent’s pioneering research, and
Foote biographer John Perlin calls his subject
the “mother of climate science.”
As prescient as her air temperature study
has proven to be, Eunice Foote also tinkered in
practical matters, receiving patents in the
1860s for a lining to squeak-proof leather
shoes and a technique for making paper. +
FEBRUARY 2020 25
 George:
Jury and
Executioner
That time General Washington
proposed to execute an innocent man
By Peter R. Henriques
PHOTO CREDIT

26 AMERICAN HISTORY
 T he conflict that rent the United States 1861-65 was not
America’s first civil war—the American Revolution
was. The fight for independence pitted neighbor
against neighbor and family member against family member, exemplified
by the split between Founding Father Benjamin Franklin and Tory son
William, the final royal governor of New Jersey. Violence arising from these
and countless other personal breaks rendered expanses of the former colo-
nies “danger land,” as one historian has called the impact of the internecine
warfare that raged between loyalists and patriots.
In one instance, Continental Army commander George Washington,
seeking to control a fractious military and political situation in the after-
math of the surrender at Yorktown, attempted to answer an act of loyalist
outlawry. Washington undertook a tenuously logical reprisal that in satis-
fying rebel militia anger stood to besmirch his own reputation and vastly
complicate reunification of former colonists at odds over the rebellion.
That neither eventuality occurred testifies to the practicality of which
Washington was capable, even in very personal circumstances.

The phrase “danger land” certainly defined northern New Jersey in 1782.
Following patriot victories at Trenton and at Princeton in 1776-77, militia
in New Jersey had driven hundreds of loyalists, including the younger
Franklin, to flee into British-held New York. Once Refugees—as loyalists
called themselves—had Crown protection, some returned to avenge them-
selves on those who had dispossessed them. In 1780, upon forming a Board

The Making of a Mess

Washington accepts his
troops’ salute after the
Battle of Trenton. Right,
loyalist militia kidnap
PHOTO CREDIT

New Jersey patriot mili-

tia leader John Huddy.

FEBRUARY 2020 27
Prisoners of War of Associated Loyalists headed by William
A fanciful post-facto Franklin, King George III created a Refugee
rendering imagines army under the Board’s control.
the scene as British Refugee militia attacks on New Jersey patriot
officers surrendered towns intensified, at times degenerating into
at Yorktown, vendetta. Both camps repeated stories of rape,
Virginia.
mutilation, and murder that, accurate or not,
inflamed deeply embittered animosities. These
emotions and the violence they engendered per-
sisted long after October 1781, when British
forces surrendered at Yorktown. The terms of
that capitulation, while not ending the war,
guaranteed that the hundreds of British officers
Loyalists yielding at Yorktown to American and French
lynched forces were safe from reprisal or retaliation.
John Huddy, But reprisal and retaliation had become a
steady diet for both loyalists and patriots. For
leaving his example, in 1780 a band of Associated Loyalists
corpse to that included one Philip White attacked the
dangle and Monmouth County, New Jersey, residence of
patriot John Russell. Raiders burned Russell’s
decorating home, wounded him, killed his father, and
it with slipped back to New York. Two years later, in late
placards; March 1782, Philip White left New York for Mon-
mouth to visit his wife or to undertake another
one read, raid—accounts vary. Patriot militiamen, includ-
“up went ing John Russell, caught him. Within hours,
huddy for White was dead, his mutilated corpse shoveled
into a makeshift grave. However, that militia’s
Philip commander, Captain John Huddy, did not par-
White.” ticipate in that action. Earlier that month, the
28 AMERICAN HISTORY
highly regarded Huddy had been trying to pro-
tect a blockhouse at the little town of Dover,
today known as Toms River, when he was taken
prisoner. At the time of White’s death, Huddy
was in British military custody in New York.
Deciding to avenge Philip White’s murder, the
Board of Associated Loyalists gulled British
commander-in-chief Sir Henry Clinton into
believing that the rebel Huddy was to be
PRECEDING PAGE: PORTRAIT OF GEOGRE WASHINGTON TAKING THE SALUTE AT TRENTON, FAED, JOHN/PRIVATE COLLECTION/PHOTO
exchanged for a captive Associated Loyalist. On
©CHRISTIE’S IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; DIGITALVISION VECTORS/GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: DE AGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES
April 2, 1782, loyalists led by Captain Richard
Lippencott—Philip White’s brother-in-law—took
custody of Huddy at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
Lippencott and company promptly lynched the
militiaman, leaving Huddy’s corpse to dangle
overnight plastered with placards, one reading,
“Up went Huddy for Philip White.”
Huddy’s men retrieved his remains, laid them
in state at Monmouth Courthouse, and swore
vengeance, declaring that if General Washington
did not respond to the slaying with a reprisal,
they would bring about “a scene at which
humanity itself may shudder.” The ultimatum
put Washington, stationed at Newburgh, New
York, in a fix. Under normal conditions, he was
not one for retaliation, but these were not nor-
mal conditions. Washington took Monmouth’s
dare, calling Huddy’s death “the most wanton,
unprecedented and inhuman Murder that ever
disgraced the Arms of a civilized people.”
 .. ...:

... :--· .
-·-~--

Hostage to Whim
A gruesome lottery had Captain Charles Asgill
.·....~ awaiting death at Monmouth, New Jersey.

Before his officers could discuss the lynching,
Washington individually polled them, seeking
each man’s written opinion on the matter. Reac-
tions were nearly unanimous: retaliation, one
officer wrote, was “justifiable and expedient,” not
only to discourage loyalist atrocities but to keep
New Jersey patriots from taking the law into
their own hands. Washington’s officers agreed
that the victim selected to die in retaliation
should be of Huddy’s rank—captain—and should
have surrendered at his own discretion and not
under terms of convention or capitulation that
guaranteed exemption from reprisal.
Washington notified the Continental Con-
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: SHUTTERSTOCK; MONMOUTH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY; GRANGER, NYC
American hands. “To save the innocent, I demand the guilty,” Washington
wrote. “In Failure of it, I shall hold myself justifiable in the Eyes of God and
Man, for the measure to which I shall resort.”
Washington’s sharp words stung Clinton. “I cannot conceal my surprise
and displeasure at the very improper language you have made use of,”
Clinton replied. He declared himself “greatly surprised and shocked” at the
news of Huddy’s death, which had come to him only four days before he
received Washington’s letter. Clinton already had ordered a “strict enquiry”
into the case, he told his counterpart. Based on the results of that inquiry,
which was under way, Clinton wrote, the perpetrators would be brought to
trial. However, he added, no matter what his staff learned about the Huddy
case he had no intention of giving Lippencott or anyone else into

gress of his decision to retaliate for Huddy. Early

in May he learned by letter that members unani-
mously approved his proposal.
Delegates were, they said, “deeply impressed
with the necessity of convincing the enemies of
the United States … that the repetition of their
unprecedented and inhuman cruelties … will no
longer be suffered with impunity.” They offered
“their firmest support.”
On April 21, 1782, Washington wrote to Clin-
ton, curtly demanding that the British army
deliver self-appointed hangman Lippencott into

Ben’s Son, Busted

Militiamen arrest loyalist New Jersey
Governor William Franklin in 1776.

FEBRUARY 2020 29
 Washington’s charge. “Violators of
the Laws of War” are best “pun-
ished by the Generals under
whose Powers they act,” the
British general wrote.
If the British refused to hand
over Lippencott, Washington
concluded, he was “under the
disagreeable necessity of retali-
ating, as the only means left to
put a stop to such inhuman pro-
ceedings.” The sacrificial captain was
to be chosen from among peers. Wash-
ington assigned General Moses Hazen to
Shocked, Shocked find a cadre of POW captains who had surren-
British commander dered on their own, Hazen’s search for a proper
Sir Henry Clinton target of reprisal foundered. Inexplicably, when
startled at counter- he could not find unconditional prisoners of
part George Wash- war, Washington decided to make the fatal
ington’s harsh selection from a group of 13 British captains who
language over the had surrendered with Cornwallis at Yorktown in
Huddy affair.
October 1781 and were being held near Lan-
caster, Pennsylvania. Under the terms of their
surrender, they were guaranteed haven from
reprisal.
“It was much my Wish to have taken for the
purpose of Retaliation, an Officer who was an
unconditional prisoner of War—I am just
informed by the Secty at War, that no one of that
Description is in our power,” Washington wrote
Hazen. “I am therefore under the disagreeable
necessity to Direct that you immediately select,
in the Manner before presented, from among all
Charles the British Captains who are prisoners either
asgill’s under Capitulation or Convention One, who is
to be sent on as soon as possible, under the Reg-
rebel ulations & Restrictions contained in my former
captors Instructions to you.” This directive to Hazen
delighted in calls into question Washington’s grasp of the
surrender agreement with Cornwallis. Article 14
reminding of the capitulation terms protected those surren-
him that dering against retaliation or reprisal. Was His
a gibbet, Excellency unaware or forgetful of the terms, or
was he ignoring them? For a man regarded as
bearing a having astute judgment, Washington was mak-
sign that ing one of his poorest decisions ever.
read, “uP The mechanism for choosing the sacrificial
victim was a macabre lottery. On Monday May
goes asgill 27, 1782, with the 13 captains and other British
for huddy,” POWs present at the Black Bear Inn in Lan-
was waiting caster, two sets of paper slips were put into sepa-
rate baskets. Slips in the first basket bore the
for him. names of the 13 captains. The second basket also
30 AMERICAN HISTORY
held 13 slips—12 blank, one bearing the chilling
message “unfortunate.” A drummer boy drew a
slip from the first basket, called the name, and
then took a slip from the second basket. Ten
times he called names and ten times he drew
blanks. The 11th name called was that of Captain
Charles Asgill, 19. A soldier with the First British
Regiment of Foot since enlisting at 16 against his
father’s wishes, Asgill was his parents’ only son.
His pro-American father, also Charles, had been
lord mayor of London. Mother Sarah Theresa,
Lady Asgill, was of a wealthy Huguenot émigré
family. The drummer boy now reached into the
second basket. The slip he selected read “unfor-
tunate.” The sight of his fate nearly unmanned
Asgill. His commanding officer, Major James
Gordon, steadied him, saying, “For God’s sake,
don’t disgrace your colors.”
Gordon accompanied Asgill to confinement
at Monmouth, New Jersey, where execution
awaited, and remained as a companion through
the younger man’s captivity. Among Asgill’s
tasks was composing a letter to his ill father, ask-
ing forgiveness for joining the army. Asgill
expected that by the time his father read his let-
ter he would be dead. His jailers took delight in
reminding him that a gibbet had been built in
Monmouth and a sign attached to it reading,
“Up Goes Asgill for Huddy.”
General Washington felt empathy for the
young soldier, but also wanted to make sure he
was held securely, which at first appeared not to
be the case. “I am informed that Capt. Asgill is at
Chatham, without Guard, & under no con-
straint,” the General wrote in orders to the troops
at Monmouth. “This if true is certainly wrong—
I wish to have the young Gentleman treated
with all the Tenderness possible, consistent with
his present Situation—But until his Fate is deter-
mined, he must be considered as a close prisoner
& be kept in the greatest Security.”
Washington’s retaliatory gesture outraged the
British, who immediately upon learning of Hud-
dy’s murder had condemned it. “Washington
had determined to revenge upon some innocent
man the guilt of a set of lawless banditti,” a
Briton said. Some Americans agreed. Alexander
DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES
Hamilton, who had resigned from the army after
Yorktown and at the moment on the outs with
Washington, forcefully critiqued the situation to
General Henry Knox, an intimate of the com-
mander-in-chief. Hamilton had sternly opposed
the “rigid justice” of Washington’s decision to
 execute Major John André on October 2, 1780, for espionage in the Bene-
dict Arnold treason plot, although Hamilton recognized that André had to
die. The Asgill affair was of a different nature, Hamilton explained to Knox.
“A sacrifice of this sort is entirely repugnant to the genius of the age we live
in and is without example in modern history nor can it fail to be consid-
ered in Europe as wanton and unnecessary,” Hamilton said. “If we wreak
our resentment on an innocent person, it will be suspected that we are too
fond of executions. I am persuaded it will have an influence peculiarly
unfavorable to the General’s character.”
Washington, never known for backing down, clutched hard at his deci-
sion. “My Resolutions have been grounded on so mature Deliberation, that
they must remain unalterably fixed,” he said. “The Enemy ought to have
learnt before this that my Resolutions are not to be trifled with.” Invoking
the backing he had received from Congress and his officers, he said his
position “cannot be receded from; Justice to the Army & the Public, my
own honor, & I think I may venture to say, universal benevolence, require
them to be carried into full execution.”
Washington’s claim that “universal benevolence” demanded he execute
an officer protected under a surrender agreement clearly shows how far he
was willing to contort logic to avoid losing face. Hamilton argued for
“inconsistency” over “consistency,” but although Washington was hoping
in some way to avoid executing Asgill, he had convinced himself that he
could not retreat publicly. He was trapped by an inability to backtrack.
In August a British court martial exonerated Lippencott, accepting his
counsel’s hoary argument that he merely had been a soldier following
orders—in this case, from the Board of Directors of Associated Loyalists.
Given that ruling, British revulsion at Huddy’s
murder, and the fact that their leadership had
disbanded the Board of Directors of Associated
Loyalists while promising further investigation,
Washington bumped Asgill’s fate to Congress.
The case, the General declared, had become “a
great national concern, upon which an individ-
ual ought not to decide.” He requested that Con-
gress “chalk a line for me to walk.”
If Captain Asgill was to die, it would be on
Congress, not on George Washington.
Lady Asgill made an ally of French foreign
minister Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes,
with a single powerful letter. “My son, my only
son, dear to me as he is brave, amiable as he is
beloved, only nineteen years of age, a prisoner of
war, in consequence of the capitulation of York-
town, is at present confined in America as an
object of reprisal,” she wrote. “Let your sensibil-
ity, sir, paint to you my profound, my inexpress-
ible misery, and plead in my favor; a word, a
word from you, like a voice from Heaven, would
liberate us from desolation, from the last degree
of misfortune. I know how far General Washing-
ton reveres your character. Tell him only that
you wish my son restored to liberty, and he will
restore him to his desponding family; he will
restore him to happiness. The virtue and courage
of my son will justify this act of clemency.”
Vergennes, who had the ear of King Louis
XVI, took up the cause. France had reasons
other than his mother’s peace of mind to tilt
Asgill’s way. Insofar as that nation was a signa-
tory to the surrender Washington had accepted,
the young captain was France’s prisoner as well
as America’s. In a related effort to save Asgill,
French General Jean Baptiste Donatien de

The matter indeed was expanding beyond “a

great national concern” into an international
cause célèbre, thanks in part to Lady Asgill and
the headlines she was making on the Continent
with her pleading for her son’s life. “The public
prints all over Europe resounded with the
unhappy catastrophe,” the Baron von Grimm
recorded in his memoirs. The topic “interested
every feeling mind … and the first question
asked of all vessels that arrived from any port in
North America, was always an inquiry into the
fate of that young man, ‘Does Asgill still live?’”
MPI/GETTY IMAGES

Friend in Need
French foreign minister Charles Gravier,
Comte de Vergennes, took up Asgill’s case.

FEBRUARY 2020 31

Another Ally
The Comte de
Rochambeau was
a close ally of the Viemur, Comte de Rochambeau, unburdened
beleaguered captain himself to Chevalier de la Lazerne, France’s
and of the man minister to the United States, in a letter Rocham-
controlling his fate. beau instructed the minister to share with but
not give to Washington lest the document land
in the official record. In his communique,
Rochambeau explained that he was sure Wash-
ington would not want to soil Cornwallis’s hon-
Washington orable capitulation by a deed of reprisal that the
privately Americans had absolutely no right to commit,
and which Europeans would regard as a barba-
told rous injustice. Rochambeau said later that Wash-
Rochambeau ington, while unwilling to recant publicly,
that Asgill assured him in private that Asgill would not per-
ish by his order. That exchange may have figured
would not in Washington’s decision to now extend a very
dilemmas. If so, he was disappointed.
Vergennes sent Lady Asgill’s letter to Wash-
ington, along with a letter of his own stating that
King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette would
be very grateful if the general could see his way
to mercy. Washington, perceiving a solution,
immediately sent a courier to Congress carrying
Lady Asgill’s letter. Finally debating the matter,
Congress had decided to call the question the
morning of October 30, 1782. Members were
expecting to vote to execute Asgill. Before that
vote could be taken, however, Washington’s cou-
rier arrived, upending expectations. Upon
reviewing the Asgill letter and one from Ver-
gennes, Congress voted unanimously that
Asgill’s life “should be given as a compliment to
the King of France,” ordering the young captain
freed and sent home. “We got clear of shedding
innocent blood by a wonderful interposition of
Providence,” Elias Boudinot, representative from
New Jersey and later president of the Continen-
tal Congress, wrote in his journal. Washington
happily wrote Asgill with the good news. The
captain decamped for home, paying a crew to
row him to the departing British ship Shallow,
whose call to board before casting off from a
New York wharf he narrowly had missed.
Within a few years, word began to come from
London that Asgill was complaining about the
“peculiar hardships” he had endured for six
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; GRANGER, NYC

perish by generous parole to Captain Asgill and Major

his order, Gordon, allowing them proximity to the British
lines in New York. Perhaps Washington was
but in hoping Asgill would escape and solve both their
public he
remained Brothers in Arms
Rochambeau, left, meets Washington at
resolute. Wethersfield, Connecticut, in May 1781.

32 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Royal Fans
French King Louis
XVI and Queen
Marie Antoinette
were apprised of
the Asgill Affair by
foreign minister
Charles Gravier.

months in a New Jersey prison. Tench Tilghman Sr., whose son had been an
aide to Washington, told the general in 1786 that among other allegations
Asgill apparently was telling people his captors had erected a gibbet outside
his prison window as a taunt, that Washington countenanced such abusive
behavior, and that only Rochambeau’s intervention had saved his life.
George Washington was notoriously thin-skinned, especially on matters
involving personal honor. The general angrily responded that Asgill’s state-
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
control by committing to a dangerous course
from which his personality would not allow him
to deviate. Needing a sacrificial victim, he some-
how justified executing a convention prisoner
even as he agonized over that path. Moved to
seek a way out, he bought time, consulted Con-
gress, and gratefully took the escape Vergennes

ments were baseless calumnies. He described in considerable detail a gen- proffered, avoiding a self-inflicted and perma-
erous parole he had extended Asgill and Gordon, forgetting that earlier he nent stain on his reputation. +
had tightly limited Asgill’s movements. Calling his former captive “defect-
ing in politeness,” he observed that Asgill, upon being repatriated, had
lacked the grace to write and thank him.
Washington ordered aides to publish his letters regarding the affair.
The New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine carried the correspon-
dence in their editions of November 1786. In December, Asgill, reading the
American newspapers, composed and sent an angry retort that went
unpublished. No gibbet was placed outside his cell, he acknowledged in his
letter, but he heard often about those Monmouth gallows labeled “Up Goes
Asgill for Huddy.” It had deeply distressed him during his captivity to be
denied delivery of mail from his family, a hurt he traced directly to George
Washington. As for not thanking Washington for not hanging him, Asgill
wrote, “My judgement told me I could not with sincerity return thanks
[which] my feelings would not allow me to give vent to.”
Following his release, Captain Asgill rose to the rank of general. Serv-
ing in Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798, he was to oversee the execution
of a rebel named William Farrell. However, his wife, Lady Sophia Asgill,
argued that since Queen Marie Antoinette’s petition to General George
Washington had saved Asgill’s life, he was duty bound to do the same at
her request. He did as she asked. Asgill was 60 when he died in 1823, 40
years after his near-execution.
Captain John Huddy’s brutal lynching strenu- O Lucky Man
ously taxed George Washington’s logic and ethics. Charles Asgill lived
Public opinion on the slaying overwhelmingly to save the life of
favored a tough response. Had Washington not an Irish rebel in
threatened retaliation, he might not have been 1798 at the request
able to retrieve the situation. He maintained of his wife, Sophia.

FEBRUARY 2020 33
 /

34 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Invisible
Hand
In the latter days of World War II,
a career Navy man was America’s
acting commander in chief
By Phillips Payson O’Brien

“
B ill, I’m going to promote you to a higher rank.”
In early January 1944, an increasingly weak President Franklin Roos-
evelt turned to William Leahy in the White House and told his longtime
friend that he wanted to make Leahy, since 1942 the president’s chief of staff, America’s only serving
five-star military officer. FDR said nothing about promoting Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Chief
of Naval Operations Ernest King, or General of the Air Force Henry Arnold, but Leahy was adamant
that the other Joint Chiefs of Staff be advanced as well, and the president relented. Leahy quickly moved
on Roosevelt’s plan, meeting with Representative Carl Vinson (D-Georgia), chairman of the House
Naval Affairs Committee and a longtime Leahy friend. The plan entered the congressional pipeline.
THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES, PHOTO COLORIZATION BY BRIAN WALKER

Roosevelt and Leahy went back more than 30 years. In 1912, Roosevelt, 30, was a rising
Democratic politician and assistant secretary of the Navy. Leahy, 39, was a U.S. Navy captain. His
specialty was gunnery, a skill he had brought to bear on a recent American incursion into Nicaragua.
His performance there, and his reputation for political savvy, had led to Leahy’s appointment as the
Navy’s assistant director of target practice, bringing him into Roosevelt’s orbit. Each enjoyed the
other’s company, and the men became friends, fixtures in their respective Washington circles, and
powerful figures. In 1937 President Roosevelt named Admiral Leahy U.S. chief of naval operations.
The two collaborated to enlarge the Navy for what seemed destined to be a two-ocean war. Upon
The Man to See Leahy’s retirement from the Navy in 1939, Roosevelt named him governor of Puerto Rico, a civilian
Leahy and FDR
position with a strong martial component. In 1940, he made Leahy ambassador to Vichy France. In
became friends
starting when April 1942, an embolism claimed Louise Leahy. That June, accompanying her coffin, William Leahy
Roosevelt was sailed home. He buried his wife at Arlington National Cemetery. His president had a new job for him:
assistant secre- he was to be the first chief of staff to the commander in chief, Army and Navy of the United States,
tary of the presiding over the Joint Chiefs of Staff and serving as FDR’s most senior military adviser. William
Navy. Leahy was to have, as the saying goes, a very good war.

FEBRUARY 2020 35
Warlords Leahy was at the height of his power when he
Leahy, with cup, got those five stars. He was FDR’s most import-
chaired the Joint ant strategic advisor and more than comfortable
Chiefs of Staff: as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He had grafted
from left, Admiral his vision of how the war would be won in both
Ernest King and Europe and the Pacific onto the American war
Generals George effort. The Allies would invade France in the
Marshall and
spring, with the Italian campaign resuming sec-
Henry Arnold.
ondary status, and, for all the fine words about
Germany-first, the war in the Pacific would
receive a huge American effort. The war was
progressing well, Leahy thought; he hoped the
Leahy Allies might beat Germany by the end of 1944
grafted his and, by the end of 1945, force the Japanese to
personal capitulate. Leahy’s biggest worry was not the
war—it was Roosevelt’s health. The president
vision of had returned from a December 1943 conference
how the with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in
second Tehran, Iran, in a state of exhaustion. Roosevelt
and Leahy continued their daily briefings when
world war the president was well enough, but as Roosevelt
would be slept more the start times were pushed later and
won in both later into the morning.
In his 1950 memoir, I Was There, Leahy trod a
Europe and fine line in discussing Roosevelt’s decline. “The
the Pacific terrific burden of being in effect Command-
onto the er-in-Chief of the greatest war yet recorded in
global history began to tell on Franklin Roosevelt
American in 1944,” he wrote. “He required more rest and it
war effort. took him longer to shake off the effect of a
36 AMERICAN HISTORY
simple cold or of the bronchitis to which he was
vulnerable.” In truth, Roosevelt was dying. His
heart was deteriorating, and his arteries were
narrowing; his blood pressure could soar, put-
ting him at constant risk of heart failure or
stroke. His appearance could shock those who
had not seen him for a while. He steadily lost
weight, his cheeks hollowing and his skin taking
on a grayish hue. His hands shook, and he often
slumped back in his wheelchair, seeming
exhausted or disinterested. He barely was able to
work. In January he took two weeks completely
off, and more than a week each in February and
March, spending much of the time at his home
in Hyde Park, New York. Americans, however,
were being deceived. FDR’s personal physician,
Admiral Ross McIntire, stated that Roosevelt,
who was only 62, was in fine condition for his
age. McIntire later destroyed some of Roosevelt’s
medical files to keep the truth from emerging.
Leahy knew the truth, but never said any-
thing. At the time and later, he was torn between
EVERETT COLLECTION INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
writing about what he was seeing in his friend
and his desire to protect first the man and then
the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.
Worried constantly about Roosevelt’s health,
he was covering for the president, who was skip-
ping whole workdays and -weeks. When these
absences came up, Leahy usually described the
president’s health issues through outward

Vulnerable
A series of serious illnesses gradually
pulled FDR aide Harry Hopkins out
of the president’s innermost circle.
explanations such as bronchitis or influenza,
never admitting the underlying concerns, such
as hypertension or heart failure.
To make matters worse, Harry Hopkins’s
health was even worse. On New Year’s Day,
Hopkins, Roosevelt’s longtime political coun-
selor, collapsed. His health had been precarious
for years, and recently he had undergone cancer
surgery to remove 75 percent of his stomach.
Three days later he checked himself into the
hospital for emergency care. His weight had
dropped to 126 lbs., and the malnutrition brought
on by his compromised digestive system had left
him perilously weak. Hopkins began months of
shuttling in and out of treatment, including
more surgeries, often at the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minnesota. His physical separation
from Roosevelt accentuated an emotional dis-
tance growing between him and the president.
These developments meant that in the period
between January 1944 and Roosevelt’s death in
April 1945 Leahy was controlling much of Ameri-
can strategic and foreign policy. FDR, under-
standing the extent to which he had grown to
rely on the admiral, began involving Leahy even
more in his political and private life. Leahy
became more forward with his own policy pref-
CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
erences—a noticeable shift, as if he was aware
that his influence was growing.
Leahy, who always was protective of Roos-
evelt, started acting even more ruthlessly as a
gatekeeper. A range of people, from the other Joint Chiefs to industrialists
to representatives of Allied nations and even major American political fig-
ures, had to go through Leahy to get issues brought to the president’s atten-
tion. Leahy often became the voice of the president. He drafted many,
maybe even most, of the telegrams transmitted that year to Winston Chur-
chill and to Josef Stalin, one of the reasons that Roosevelt’s messages
during this period were particularly dull.
In Roosevelt’s stead, Leahy also became the court of appeals on even the
most sensitive policy questions. On January 22, when Roosevelt was in
Hyde Park, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy came to Leahy to get
approval, following D-Day, for General Dwight Eisenhower to turn over to
the Gaullist French Committee of National Liberation civil administration
of areas of liberated France. Leahy replied that if it was all right with the
State Department, it was all right with him. On February 4, determined to
see the British live up to their end of agreements, he drafted and sent to
Churchill a formal telegram urging the British to turn over some captured
Italian naval assets to the Soviets. On February 23, with Roosevelt again
resting at Hyde Park, Leahy worked with the new undersecretary of state,
Edward Stettinius Jr., to clarify U.S. policy toward oil-producing regions of
the Middle East. Leahy spent much of March on economic issues, such as
efforts by Electric Boat Company, the largest American submarine manu-
facturer, to protect the draft deferments of 300 of its specialists in Groton,
Connecticut. Also in March, with Roosevelt just back from yet another
Hyde Park stay, Leahy lunched with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgen-
thau to discuss when the U.S. should offer its allies a new wartime loan—
the beginning of regular lunchtime meetings between the men.
Roosevelt’s health did not improve. In late March, Leahy admitted that
even after a week of total rest the president’s “bronchitis” was persisting.
FDR needed a long break, somewhere warm and completely isolated.
Point Man
In Hawaii in January 1944,
Leahy, center, listens with Gener-
al Douglas MacArthur and FDR
as Admiral Chester Nimitz,
standing, directs their gaze to a
map of the Pacific theater.
FEBRUARY 2020 37
Men of Means
Above at Warm
Springs, Georgia,
On April 8, the president’s train again pulled
out of Washington late at night, this time head- ' ..
~ --..

ing south for Hobcaw Barony, an estate in

FDR and Bernard
coastal South Carolina owned by financier Ber-
Baruch had a
close social rela- nard Baruch. There is something touching, if
thionship. Trea- melancholy, about Leahy and Roosevelt during
sury chief Henry this holiday. For a month, Leahy had to be both
Morgenthau, right, the president’s close friend and his sole link to
was a close ally of serious war work. Hobcaw’s 20,000 acres of pine
Leahy’s in the forest, streams, and swamps was a perfect place
cabinet.
TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

for a “recuperative vacation” during which Roos-

evelt planned to sleep 12 hours a day. Except for
the incessant insects, which particularly seemed
to irritate Leahy, the estate was an oasis of quiet
and privacy. Baruch’s daughter Belle, who
resided on a neighboring property, was a tall les-
bian who lived openly with a number of lovers—
or, as Leahy quaintly termed them, “women
friends.” He found Belle educated and entertain-
ing and marveled in his diary that on one after-
noon hunt she had been the only one to shoot an

38 AMERICAN HISTORY

alligator. A bond of friendship formed, and Belle
would even visit the admiral when she passed
through Washington.
At Hobcaw Leahy did everything possible to
protect Roosevelt. To those in the know, he was
practically running the war. White House naval
aide William Rigdon, who tracked all the in- and
outgoing information from the White House
Map Room, noted how Leahy was in control:
“My Hobcaw log, and all other logs, show
that Admiral Leahy was always close to the
President. He was not only the President’s chief
planning officer, head of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and the highest-ranking American officer
on military duty—he held ‘five-star’ commis-
sion number one—but he was also the Presi-
dent’s confidant and adviser on matters other
than the military. FDR trusted him completely.”
The routine at Hobcaw showed how weak
Roosevelt had become and how much he had
grown to rely on Leahy. After an early breakfast,
Leahy would review all top-secret dispatches
sent to the president. He would answer some on
his own, disregard others, and decide which
needed to be discussed personally with Roos-
evelt. The president rose late and was unable to
work until noon, at which point he and Leahy
went through the messages Leahy had selected.
For about an hour they would make decisions
and plan responses before Roosevelt’s workday
was done and lunch was served.
FROM TOP: GEORGETOWN COUNTY LIBRARY/BELLE W. BARUCH FOUNDATION; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
Lady Caller
At Hobcaw Barony, FDR’s favorite visitor
was friend and sometime paramour Lucy
Mercer Rutherfurd, shown in 1930.
Ladies’ Lady
Out of time spent
hunting and fishing
together in South
Carolina, Leahy
formed a friendship
with Belle Baruch,
his host’s sporty
daughter.
The president rested again until about four
o’clock when his party—including presidential
appointments secretary Edwin “Pa” Watson and
other intimates—usually went for an excursion.
Car rides and alligator hunts were options, but
mostly the choice was a fishing trip along a
snakelike system of creeks and inlets that carved
up marshland or led into the Atlantic. The fish-
ing was terrible, mostly slow trolling as the presi-
dent let his line dangle limply in the water.
Leahy usually sat next to Roosevelt, at the presi-
dent’s insistence. Back on land, they would
enjoy an early dinner, sometimes with jokes at
Pa Watson’s expense, followed by a movie or a
game of cards. Roosevelt typically retired to bed
not long after dinner.
Slowly Roosevelt’s health began to improve,
albeit marginally. More than a week after they during
arrived, Leahy wrote to his aide in Washington those weeks
that he still had no idea when the party would
return to the capital. On April 28, Navy Secre-
at hobcaw,
tary Frank Knox died suddenly of a heart attack. leahy
The president, keeping Leahy beside him, sent rigorously
Watson to attend the funeral in his place.
Official visitors were kept to an absolute mini-
controlled
mum; Roosevelt wanted only trusted friends material
around. Perhaps Roosevelt’s favorite visitor was shown to
the woman who had once nearly ended his mar-
riage. Lucy Mercer had been serving as Eleanor
fdr, lest the
Roosevelt’s social secretary in 1916 when she volume of
embarked on an affair with her boss’s husband. business
When Eleanor discovered the relationship in
1918, Franklin almost left her, but was forcefully
overpower
persuaded by his mother to stay married and and tire the
avoid scandal. He continued to have contact president.
FEBRUARY 2020 39
with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd for decades, and during World War II began
to spend time with her when he and Eleanor were apart. During his stay at
Hobcaw, Eleanor was allowed to visit only once.

When it came to Lucy Rutherfurd, Leahy was at his most discreet.

During the Hobcaw stay, she lodged in a nearby house and visited Roos-
evelt frequently. Elliott Roosevelt, the president’s son, claimed she came by
almost daily. Given Leahy’s near-constant presence with the president, he
would have regularly dined and chatted with Rutherfurd, yet he never
mentioned it in his diary or to interviewers.
Another favored visitor was Margaret Suckley, an old confidante and
distant cousin of Roosevelt’s. She arrived in May and found him still “thin
& drawn & not a bit well.” “Everyone conspires to keep the atmosphere
light,” she wrote. Suckley found that Roosevelt, having sensed that his doc-
tors were not being honest with him, was now better informed about the
seriousness of his medical condition.” Roosevelt must have been aware at
times that his health was failing. At other times, he undoubtedly tried to
forget this reality and press on.
Leahy, long comfortable with Suckley, confided in her that, to protect the
president’s health, he had been rigorously controlling the information Thanks but No Thanks
shown to FDR and described his dilemma, inadvertently admitting to the Leahy eschewed the limelight accorded
immense power he was wielding. Every morning, he confessed, he had to Roosevelt intimates like Office of War
sort through a pile of the president’s confidential correspondence, “analyze Mobilization head Jimmy Byrnes.
it, pass judgment,” and make a recommendation to the Pres. [sic] Half the
time it is almost a question of ‘tossing a coin’ to decide one way or the other.”
On May 6 the president finally returned to the to discuss politics—specifically, the vice presi-
White House, his health only marginally better. dency. Vice President Henry Wallace was at the
Leahy wrote optimistically to an aide that “the Boss far left of the Democratic Party, and no favorite
is in good shape at the end of his vacation.” Admi- of Leahy’s. Hopkins felt he could use Leahy to
ral McIntire reported to Leahy that the president influence the president and push Jimmy Byrnes,
had returned to his “normal condition” of health. a Roosevelt ally who had represented South Car-
Yet McIntire understood just how weak Roosevelt olina in the U.S. Senate and served on the U.S.
was; “normal” was hardly a ringing endorsement. Supreme Court, a sinecure he had given up at
FDR’s request to head the Office of War Mobili-
On his first two days back in Washington, Leahy zation, for the second spot. Leahy also thought
chaired a meeting of the Joint Chiefs, met with Byrnes the best person to be vice president.
Excerpted from The newspaper columnist Constantine Brown for the Leahy had worked closely with Byrnes on war
Second Most Powerful
latest Washington gossip, and conferred or dined production and manpower policy, and subtly
Man in the World: The
Life of Admiral Wil- with a wide variety of influential men, including had been lobbying Roosevelt to put him on the
liam D. Leahy, Roos- diplomats Stettinius and Averell Harriman, Navy ticket in 1944. But the more closely Roosevelt
evelt’s Chief of Staff by Undersecretary James Forrestal, War Department worked with Byrnes the more he soured on the
Phillips Payson Undersecretary Robert Patterson, and Admiral South Carolinian, recognizing in him a streak of
O’Brien. Published by
Ernest King. He also hosted the naval representa- extreme self-importance.
Dutton, an imprint of
Penguin Random tives of the Dutch and Free French governments. That Harry Hopkins now needed Leahy’s
Spring 1944 marked the start of one of the most support on issues like Roosevelt’s VP had,
MYRON DAVIS/THE LIFE PREMIUM COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

House LLC, May 7,

2019. Copyright @ 2019 intensely political periods in Leahy’s life. With a
by by Phillips Payson wartime election fast approaching, he had constant
O’Brien. All rights
reserved.
opportunities to dabble in the political and public
side of Roosevelt’s existence. Within days of return-
ing, the president confided, “Bill, I just hate to run again for election. Per-
haps the war will by that time have progressed to a point that it will make it
unnecessary for me to be a candidate.” Yet when Roosevelt announced a
few weeks later that he was running, Leahy was not surprised.
The day after Roosevelt’s announcement, Harry Hopkins, just back to
work after another long break at the Mayo Clinic, stopped by Leahy’s office
perhaps strangely, led to Hopkins’s relationship
with Leahy arriving at its most trusting point.
When Hopkins was well enough to work, he and
Leahy together drafted important telegrams,
particularly on politically sensitive topics. At
other times they collaborated to control the Joint
Chiefs. One, when Hopkins felt Ernest King, a
committed Anglophobe, had given a deliberately
antagonistic order to the American naval
commander in the Mediterranean to forbid the

40 AMERICAN HISTORY
 use of American equipment to a British-led
operation, he hurried to Leahy to get the order
countermanded. Leahy agreed with Hopkins
and advised the chief of naval operations that it
would be sensible if he backed down—which
King dutifully did.
Even vital questions such as aid to the Soviet
Union, which were extremely important to Hop-
kins and which he had tried to dominate earlier
in the war, now often were referred to Leahy in
the hope that the admiral would obtain the pre-
ferred decision from the president.
Some of the most powerful people in the
United States wanted to take advantage of Lea-
hy’s influence with Roosevelt.
Not long after Roosevelt and Leahy left Hob-
caw, their host, Bernard Baruch, hoping for a
position in government, wrote to the admiral,
“You are just tops. You are a good sailor, a fine
statesman, and a splendid friend.”
Leahy kept a copy of the letter in his diary, but
he was one of the least self-interested people
among the powerful names of American history.
He never used his post for financial gain and
had little in the way of possessions or property.
He was scrupulous about not using his influence
to benefit himself or his family.
In early 1944, one of his brothers asked if
Leahy could prevent the transfer of his son, a
Navy man based in Chicago, Illinois, but recently
ordered to Newport, Rhode Island—and pre-
sumably from there into action.
Leahy refused. In the only example that can
be found of Leahy asking a favor for a relative,
he wrote in late 1944 to David Sarnoff, boss of
RCA and NBC, with a “personal request” that
Sarnoff employ his niece in NBC’s new televi-
sion division. Sarnoff immediately sent back a
handwritten note saying he would be delighted
to help in any way that he could.
provide both Britain and the Soviet Union with massive economic and
military support. Leahy, by nature inclined to isolationism, wanted lend-
lease to end when the war was over. Learning that Roosevelt was going to
appoint Morgenthau chairman of a committee to oversee the future of
lend-lease, Leahy scheduled a lunch with the Treasury secretary to get a
full update on his plans.
Leahy’s already strong links with the State Department became more
intimate, partly for institutional reasons and partly for personal reasons.
In late 1943, after Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles’s forced resigna-
tion resulting from his scandalous behavior involving solicitation of men
for sex, the State Department started addressing formal inquiries for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff directly to Leahy, who scrutinized and signed the
responses to those queries. In 1944, H. Freeman Matthews, who had
worked for Leahy when he was ambassador to Vichy, became State’s dep-
uty director for the Office of European Affairs, working with the admiral
to improve the flow of crucial documents between the military and the
diplomats. Matthews would call Leahy if he needed special information
or to get the Joint Chiefs’ approval for State Department directives. Secre-
tary of State Cordell Hull’s declining health made him an even more
peripheral figure in Leahy’s life. In the summer of 1944 Hull was such an
outsider that he often was left to communicate with Roosevelt through
Leahy, and even then could not be sure of getting an answer. By Novem-
ber, Hull was in such poor condition that he had to resign and was
replaced by Stettinius. +
Dead Man Sitting
FDR had six weeks to live when he met
at Yalta with Churchill and Stalin.

Leahy’s increased authority after Hobcaw also

shows in his direct dealing with cabinet mem-
bers. One of the first things that Leahy asked
Roosevelt to do after they returned from the
South was to appoint James Forrestal secretary
of the Navy. Leahy had excellent relations with
Forrestal and believed that they could work
closely together. Roosevelt quickly made the
TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

appointment.
Leahy began lunching with Morgenthau even
more regularly; he used the Treasury secretary to
keep tabs on issues that mattered to him. One
was lend-lease, announced by FDR in 1940 as a
way to aid Britain after the fall of France and to

FEBRUARY 2020 41
 Hard-Knock
College
Among ways to pick a president, the U.S.
Electoral College may be the least worst
By Joseph Connor

42 AMERICAN HISTORY

Blame It on the Founders
The Constitutional Convention
of 1787 is the font from which
flows Electoral College discord.
I t’s an institution many Americans
love to hate. Its name suggests the
groves of academe, but it has no
physical campus. It convenes quadrennially with-
out actually meeting. Members vote decisively
but do not choose. And despite more than 750
attempts at reform or extirpation, this historic
entity staggers on, strong as ever, a central com-
ponent in American politics. Designed by the
Founding Fathers with the best of intentions, it
has become something they would not recognize.
It’s the U.S. Electoral College.
The 55 delegates gathering in Philadelphia in
May 1787 for the Constitutional Convention—“an
assembly of demigods,” in Thomas Jefferson’s
words—had as their mission the creation of a sys-
tem of government. Among their many tough
calls, the delegates had to determine the process
by which the new nation would be choosing its
chief executive—“the most difficult of all on
which we have had to decide,” delegate James
Wilson of Pennsylvania said.
The Convention considered 11 methods of
presidential selection. An early favorite was hav-
ing Congress do the electing.
This approach found favor with delegates of
like mind with Roger Sherman of Connecticut,
who declared that he saw the presidency as
“nothing more than an institution for carrying the
will of the Legislature into effect.”
Not everyone involved agreed. “If the Legisla-
ture elect, it will be the work of intrigue, of cabal,
of faction,” Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania
said. James Madison of Virginia feared that taking
the congressional path would make the chief
executive a slave to Congress.
An obvious alternative was direct election by
popular vote, with candidates’ state tallies aggre-
gated into national totals. Morris thought this fit
best. “[T]he Executive Magistrate should be the
guardian of the people, even of the lower classes,
[against] Legislative tyranny,” he said. “If he is
to be the Guardian of the people let him be
appointed by the people.” Wilson agreed, calling
direct election “both a convenient & successful
mode.” However, this was a minority position;
many delegates simply did not trust the voting
public—which in many states was limited to
white males who owned significant property.
George Mason of Virginia derided as “unnatural”
FEBRUARY 2020 43
 Heat-struck
and weary, handing that choice to voters, which he likened
delegates to asking a blind man to choose a color. Elbridge
knew very Gerry of Massachusetts worried that “pretended
well that patriots” would dupe the masses.
Mason’s and Gerry’s elitism had a practical
they were aspect. The only semblance of mass communi-
devising not cation was print, and literacy was not a given.
a perfect The average voter would not be “sufficiently
informed of [national] characters” to make intel-
system but ligent choices, Sherman said. Mason did not
one that want to entrust “an act which ought to be per-
would draw formed by those who know most of Eminent
characters & qualifications” to “those who know
the fewest least.” Direct election was ruled out.
objections. The delegates also rejected selection by state
legislatures or governors. A proposal to have 15
congressmen picked by lot choose the president failed because “[i]f the lot
should fall on a sett [sic] of unworthy men, an unworthy Executive must be
saddled on the Country,” Gerry said. On August 31, 1787, after more than
three months of deliberations, delegates referred the question of how to
pick a president to the Convention’s Committee of Eleven on Postponed
Matters, to which fell such other knotty decisions as the precise power of
Congress to levy taxes and the length of a president’s term of office.
In only four days, the Committee of Eleven came up with a recommenda-
tion to have a select group of appointed individuals make the choice of chief
executive. The delegates called these individuals “electors,” perhaps a refer-
ence to medieval princes who selected the Holy Roman Empire’s leader.
Under this plan, reflecting efforts to balance the interests of small and large
states, each state would be assigned a number of electors equal to the sum of
its senators and representatives. Each state’s legislature would decide how
that state would appoint electors. The candidate winning a majority of the
electoral votes cast would become chief executive. If no candidate received a
majority or if candidates tied, the House of Representatives would choose
Dueling Aristos
In 1800 Thomas Jefferson
and Aaron Burr, right,
faced off.
44 AMERICAN HISTORY
from among the top vote-getters in a “contingent
election.” On September 7, 1787, the delegates
adopted this plan.
The Framers envisioned that the electors who
would make this momentous decision every four
years would be nonpartisan free agents acting
with an eye toward nothing except the public
weal. The electors were to be the nation’s best and
brightest, individuals “most likely to possess the
information and discernment requisite to such
complicated investigations,” Alexander Hamilton
of New York said. While the Framers gave each
state legislature unfettered discretion in deciding
how to choose that state’s electors, they envi-
sioned each state being divided into as many dis-
tricts as it had electoral votes, Madison wrote in
1823. The popular vote in each district would
determine which candidate got that district’s vote.
To discourage conflicts of interest, the Framers
barred from electors’ ranks any senator, congress-
man, or “Person holding an Office of Trust or
Profit under the United States.” Nor were electors
allowed to meet as a national body. Rather, each
state’s electors would convene. The ban on a
national conclave sought to discourage political
horse-trading and “the great evil of cabal.”
Constitutional Convention delegates, worn
out from meeting six days a week in stifling heat
for three months, knew they had not devised a
perfect system but, as Morris put it, they had
gone for the least objectionable choice. Noting
the “objections [against] every mode that has
been, or perhaps can be proposed,” Madison
explained that the delegates had found “no better
way…than that delineated in the plan of the con-
PRECEDING PAGE: IAN DAGNALL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; VCG WILSON/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; GRANGER, NYC
vention…” Madison also admitted his colleagues
were not “exempt from a degree of the hurrying
influence produced by fatigue & impatience…”
Only Hamilton brimmed with optimism, calling
the system chosen “at least excellent.”
Neither the Convention nor the Constitution
collectively called electors a “college.” Newspa-
pers first used the term “Electoral College” in the
early 1800s, perhaps invoking Roman Catholi-
cism’s term for the conclave of cardinals assem-
bled in order to choose a pope. Congress made
the designation official in 1845.
Reality briskly intruded on the dream of apo-
litical beneficence. In the first presidential elec-
tion, a squabble deadlocked New York legislators
over how to select that state’s electors, and New
York’s 12 electoral votes went uncast. When
George Washington left office after electors
 twice had voted unanimously to make him pres-
ident, political parties emerged, and with them,
party loyalty. Party sachems took care to nomi-
nate electors guaranteed to toe the party line,
some going as far as to require would-be electors
to pledge formally to vote as the party dictated.
The public-spirited free agents the Framers had
envisioned devolved into “party lackeys and
intellectual nonentities,” Supreme Court Justice
Robert H. Jackson wrote in 1952. This pattern
consigned the Electoral College to
“atrophy almost indistinguishable Rush to Judgment The general ticket and selection by the legislature were
from rigor mortis,” Jackson wrote. “A Foot Race” shows winner-take-all systems.
1824 candidates Adams,
Electors became useless, Senator Method could swing an election. In 1796, John Adams
Crawford, and Jackson
Thomas Hart Benton (Democratic- puzzling Henry Clay. (Federalist-Massachusetts) defeated Jefferson (Demo-
Republican-Missouri) said in 1824, cratic-Republican-Virginia), 71 electoral votes to 68. Jef-
because they lost “power over their own vote.” ferson strongholds North Carolina and Virginia—the latter, at 21 electoral
Chosen not for knowledge or judgment, they votes, the largest bloc in the country—used districts and split their votes,
were picked “for their devotion to a party, their with one district in each state going for Adams. Had those states had gen-
popular manners, and a supposed talent at elec- eral tickets, Jefferson would have been the second president.
tioneering,” a Senate committee noted in 1826. Because splitting electoral votes lessened a state’s influence on the
Voters, too, came to expect electors to do only national election, winner-take-all arrangements favored the majority party
as they were told. In 1796, Pennsylvania elector in a given state while disadvantaging states using the district system. Out
Samuel Miles, pledged to John Adams, instead of self-defense, Virginia switched to a general ticket before the 1800 elec-
cast his ballot for Jefferson. An angry Adams tion. “[A]n election by districts would be best,” Jefferson wrote to Madison
supporter wrote to the United States Gazette, in 1800, but because 10 of the 16 states already used winner-take-all sys-
“[D]o I chuse Samuel Miles to determine for me tems, “it is folly & worse than folly for the other 6 not to do it.”
whether John Adams or Thomas Jefferson is the
fittest man for President of the United States? System-switching, even between winner-take-all methods, was a clever
No—I chuse him to act, not to think.” Reduction way to lend muscle to a state’s controlling party amid shifting political
of electors to party pawns saddened Senator winds. In 1812, New Jersey’s Federalist-controlled legislature favored Fed-
Rufus King (Federalist-New York), who had eralist-backed presidential candidate DeWitt Clinton. Jersey legislators
been a Constitutional Convention delegate and feared that their state’s popular vote would go to Democratic-Republican
was defeated for the presidency in 1816 by Sec- James Madison. Three days before the election took place, the New Jersey
retary of State James Monroe (Democratic-Re- legislature switched from a general ticket to selection by the legislature, a
publican-Virginia). “The election of a President shift that guaranteed Clinton would receive the state’s eight electoral votes.
of the United States is no longer that process “What will the People say to this high handed, this outrageous proceed-
which the Constitution contemplated,” King ing?” a Newark newspaper asked. New Jersey reverted to the general ticket
lamented in March 1816, before the election.. in time for the next election.
Another factor twisting the elector system Massachusetts changed systems in every election between 1796 and
was the latitude granted state legislatures in 1820. Other states switched periodically, too. These shenanigans caused
choosing electors. In some states, the legislature Senator Mahlon Dickerson (Democratic-Republican-New Jersey) to com-
itself picked electors, inherently guaranteeing a plain in 1818 of the “constant fluctuation and change—of frequent, hasty,
state’s electoral votes to the party controlling the and rash experiment—established, altered, abolished, re-established,
statehouse. Other legislatures based electoral according to the dictates of the interest, the ambition, the whim or caprice,
voting on the popular vote under one of two sys- of party and faction.” By 1836, winner-take-all had become the rule. Today,
tems. With the district system, each jurisdic- 48 states and the District of Columbia use the general ticket. Only Maine
tion’s popular vote determined which candidate and Nebraska have reverted to district systems, Maine before the 1972
got that district’s electoral vote. District system election and Nebraska in time for the 1992 contest.
states could and often did split electoral votes.
The other method was the “general ticket,” in Nearly since Day One, reformers have been going after the Electoral Col-
which the candidate winning the statewide pop- lege. As of 2017, advocates had floated 752 bills, ranging from sensible to
GRANGER, NYC

ular vote got all that state’s electoral votes, screwball, to recast or end the system.
whether he won by a slim margin or a landslide. In January 1797, less than a decade after the Constitutional Convention,

FEBRUARY 2020 45
 In 1846, Rep. Samuel F. Vinton (Whig-Ohio)
pushed for a variation on the presidential lottery
rejected in 1816. Balls would be inscribed with
each state’s name. Each state would get as many
balls as it had electoral votes. The balls would go
into an urn and be stirred. One ball would be
picked. The presidency would go to the candi-
date who had won the popular vote in the state
whose ball was drawn. In 1848, Representative
William T. Lawrence (Whig-New York) intro-
duced a bill to award each state’s electoral votes
in proportion to that state’s popular
Representative William L. Smith (Federalist-South Run-Off Run Down vote. Neither bill survived.
Carolina) recommended amending the Constitution so In 1876, Samuel Tilden, In the first such breakdowns since
left, lost on electoral votes
that electors would have to distinguish between votes 1824, the winners of the popular vote
to Rutherford Hayes, with
cast for president and for vice president. Congress let disastrous effects on lost in the Electoral College in 1876
Smith’s idea lie until after the 1800 election, when the Reconstruction. and 1888. State officials continued to
two-ballot system led to an electoral college tie seek advantage by toying with elector
between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, and required a con- selection. In 1890, when Democrats took control
tingent election in the House that took 36 ballots to resolve. Smith’s sug- of Michigan’s statehouse in that usually Repub-
gestion became the 12th Amendment in 1804. lican state, they traded a general ticket for a dis-
In 1808, Senator James Hillhouse (Federalist-Connecticut) proposed an trict system, hoping to see at least a few districts
elaborate fix featuring a one-year term for the president. Senators would be go Democrat. Less than a month before the 1892
limited to one three-year term, with a third of the Senate retiring each year. election, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the
Annually, balls in the number of retiring senators would be placed in a box. switch, and five of Michigan’s 14 electoral votes
Every ball but one would be white. Retiring senators, blindfolded and in went to the winner, Democrat Grover Cleveland.
alphabetical order, each would draw a ball. The lame-duck senator drawing Republicans retook control before the next elec-
the colored ball would be president of the United States for the next year. tion and went back to a general ticket.
Hillhouse’s goal was to remove partisanship from presidential campaigns. Another Electoral College misfire nearly
“Whenever a free people become so divided into parties… all elections and occurred in 1916, when Democrat Woodrow Wil-
appointments to office become a struggle between the ins and the outs,” he son beat Republican Charles Evans Hughes by
said. Future president John Quincy Adams was not persuaded, observing 500,000 votes nationwide. A shift of only 4,000
that “serious discussion” of Hillhouse’s plan “would be ridiculous.” votes in California would have made Hughes
In 1816, in the first of many such attempts, Senator Abner Lacock (Dem- president, thanks to the Electoral College.
ocratic-Republican-Pennsylvania) introduced a bill calling for choosing The issue of Electoral College reform lost heat
the president according to the nationwide popular vote. “What could make until after the 1948 election, which President
us so much one people, as to give to all the people this general equal privi- Harry Truman narrowly won in a startling
lege?” Lacock asked. The 14th Congress trusted the people no more than comeback that could have resulted in another
the Convention had and rejected that plan the day Lacock introduced it. Electoral College stumble. A shift of a few thou-
In the 1824 election, Andrew Jackson (Democratic-Republican-Tennes- sand votes in Ohio, Illinois, and California would
see) won both the popular vote and the electoral vote but lost to John have made Republican Thomas Dewey, who
Quincy Adams, who had abandoned his father’s Federalists for the Demo- trailed Democrat Truman by more than 2 million
cratic-Republican Party—because two lesser candidates siphoned off votes votes, the Electoral College winner and presi-
that cost Jackson a majority of the electoral votes cast. The contest went to dent. The following year Senator Henry Cabot
the House, which chose Adams, allegedly amid shady dealings. This epi- Lodge Jr. (R-Massachusetts) and Representative
sode sparked a host of reform proposals. In 1825, Representative Romulus Ed Gossett (D-Texas), reviving an idea from the
M. Saunders (Democratic-Republican-North Carolina) suggested making late 1840s, introduced bills to award each state’s
the candidate with the most electoral votes president even without a electoral votes in proportion to its popular vote.
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

majority. In 1826, Representative William McManus (National Republi- For example, a candidate winning 52.5 percent
can-New York) pushed replacing the Electoral College with the national of a state’s popular vote would receive 52.5 per-
popular vote. Representative Joseph Hemphill (Jacksonian-Pennsylvania) cent of that state’s electoral votes. Electoral votes
urged that contingent elections become popular vote runoffs between the could be split to the third decimal place. This,
top two vote-getters. When, after an 1828 rematch with Adams, Jackson Lodge said, would bring the electoral vote more
took the White House, he backed the popular vote. “So far, therefore, as the into line with the popular vote.
people can with convenience speak, it is safer for them to express their On February 1, 1950, the Senate passed the
own will,” Jackson said. None of these ideas became law. Lodge-Gossett bill 64-27. Backers promised all

46 AMERICAN HISTORY
 a few
thousand
votes in
Illinois,
Ohio, and
California
could have
given
Thomas
Dewey an
Happily Harry electoral
In 1948 Democrat Harry
Truman made liars of
win in 1948.
certain headline writers.

hands—Democrats and Republicans, liberals votes shaved Nixon’s tally of 301 to a scant 31 above the 270-vote majority.
and conservatives—that proportionality would But for that narrow margin, a so-called contingent election, in which each
benefit them. “Just how all these highly contra- House delegation casts a vote for one of three top contenders, would have
dictory things can happen I fail to see,” House occurred. The two contingent elections, in 1800 and 1824, had been embar-
Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-Massa- rassingly messy.
chusetts) said. Liberals warned that proportional In 1969, Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) and Representative Emanuel
electoral voting would enlarge the influence of Celler (D-New York) proposed bills to eliminate the Electoral College.
the conservative South. Conservatives feared Under this proposal, the national popular vote would choose the president,
northern industrial states would wind up with provided the leading candidate had at least 40 percent of the vote. If no
more clout. No one knew for sure. The House one reached 40 percent, a run-off election would match the top two
killed the amendment 210-134. vote-getters against one another. Bayh insisted direct election would give
voters “a more meaningful exercise of their franchise” and was the only
Since the early 1800s, political parties have way to avoid contingent elections.
sought to ensure that their electors vote for the On September 18, 1969, the House passed the Bayh-Celler amendment
party’s nominee; some states allow parties to 339-70. At least 30 states already had committed to ratifying the bill, which
require delegates to pledge this support. In 1952, also had President Nixon’s support. In the Senate, Southerners Sam Ervin
Edmund Blair, a would-be Democratic elector (D-North Carolina) and Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) argued that
UNDERWOOD ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; CONSOLIDATED NEWS PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

from Alabama, balked at pledging. He refused to the bill threatened federalism by removing states from the electoral equa-
agree in advance to cast his electoral vote for tion, but their real fear may have been loss of regional power. Thirty-six
any Democrat, lest that candidate support senators, mostly from the South and from smaller
civil rights for African Americans. The Spoilsports states, engaged in a successful filibuster that New
state party refused to allow Blair to serve. As third-party candidates York Times columnist Tom Wicker called “a bla-
George Wallace, left, in
Blair sued, and the case went to the U.S. ’68 and Ross Perot in ’92 tant case of a little band of willful men who fear,
Supreme Court, which upheld a political and ’96 grabbed votes. and are therefore thwarting, both popular will and
party’s right to disqualify any prospective
elector refusing to pledge party loyalty.
In 1966, Delaware sued the other 49 states in
the U.S. Supreme Court. Delaware, which at
three electoral votes ranked last among states in
sway, claimed the general ticket robbed voters of
their full voice in choosing a president. The
Court refused to hear the case.
The 1968 election resuscitated calls for Elec-
toral College reform. Richard Nixon defeated
Hubert Humphrey at the ballot box and in the
Electoral College. George Wallace’s 46 electoral Pl.ROT
FEBRUARY 2020 47
the political process that they extol.” The Senate Out by a Chad
shelved the measure on October 5, 1970. Democrat Al Gore
barely lost to Re-
In 2000, Republican George W. Bush won the elec- publican George
toral vote despite trailing Democrat Al Gore by W. Bush in 2000.
500,000 popular votes. In 2016, Republican Donald
Trump gained the presidency with more than 2 million fewer votes than
Democrat Hillary Clinton. These Electoral College jolts, the first such since
1888, fueled enthusiasm for the National Popular Vote Compact, which
would bypass Congress and the process for amending the Constitution.
Under their authority to appoint electors, legislatures in each state would
agree to award its state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popu-
lar vote, regardless of that state’s popular vote. If states controlling a major-
ity of the country’s 538 electoral votes adopted the compact, the winner of
the popular vote automatically would win the Electoral College. In fact, if all
50 states and the District of Columbia adopted the compact, each election compact doesn’t require a popular-vote major-
would result in a unanimous 538-0 electoral-college vote. The system ity, they argue, so a candidate in a three-way
would take effect only if states controlling a majority of electoral votes race could win the presidency even if 66 per-
enacted it. To date, 15 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the cent of voters cast ballots for other candidates.
compact, putting the notion 74 electoral votes short of a majority. They also question whether the mechanism
Proponents call the compact an expression of pure democracy. amounts to an unlawful end-run around Con-
Embracing the compact, they claim, would eliminate Electoral College gress and constitutional process. The Wall
contretemps and contingent elections. The New York Times endorses the Street Journal derides the compact as “a too-
compact as an “ingenious” idea whose time has come. Opponents main- clever-by-half attempt to circumvent America’s
tain that making this change would generate splinter parties. The constitutional structure.”

Hits and 12 3
4
4
Misses, 7
3 3
10 29
11
10 4
Electorally 4
3
3
6
16
20 14 7
Speaking 6
6
5
20 11 18 5 3
9 13 10
1800 55 6

7
10
11
8
15
9
3

In 1800 Thomas Jefferson 11 5 6

9 16
and Aaron Burr prevailed
6 3 - Alaska
over John Adams and Charles
C. Pinckney in both the pop- 38 8 4- Hawaii
ular and electoral vote—with 2016 Electoral 29
a catch. The Constitution Vote Distribution
then required electors to cast
two ballots but barred them
AP PHOTO/ED REINKE; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: JON BOCK

from distinguishing between
votes for president and those
for vice president. To keep
running mates from tying,
parties usually told one of
their electors to cast his sec-
ond ballot for anyone other
than the party’s vice-presi-
dential nominee. Jefferson’s
electors didn’t get the word.
All cast their second ballots
for Burr, who tied with Jeffer-
son, throwing the choice of a
president to the outgoing
House of Representatives in
the nation’s first contingent
election.
The departing Congress,
dominated by Federalists,
faced a Hobson’s choice.
Federalists feared Jefferson
as a radical but loathed Burr.
After 36 ballots and much
political maneuvering, the
House elected Jefferson on
February 17, 1801. To address
this kink, Congress enacted
the 12th Amendment, requir-
ing electors to distinguish
their presidential and
vice-presidential votes.
1824
In 1824, the main event was
Andrew Jackson, hero of the
battle of New Orleans,

48 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Upset Victory
Though millions of popular votes be-
hind Hillary Clinton, in 2016 Donald
Trump took the White House on elec-
toral votes, 304-227. Left, 19th century
cartoonist Thomas Nast had timeless
fun with the vexatious institution.
'!'liD .ELDCTORAL VOTD.
x.. kt • look ., it r,.. • • • ...,..- .r •....,

The Electoral College endures. Amending the
Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in
the House and Senate and ratification by three
quarters of the states. Few issues command
that degree of consensus and changing the
presidential-selection process isn’t one of them.
Despite a continual barrage of criticism, the
Electoral College retains significant public sup-
port. Immediately after the 2016 election, a Gal-
lup poll showed that 47 percent of the public
wanted to keep the Electoral College. A 2019 NBC News/Wall Street Jour-
nal poll showed 43 percent of respondents in favor.
Defenders insist the system fosters moderation and stability by forcing
candidates and parties to forge broad coalitions having wide voter appeal.
In 58 American presidential elections, only five winners of the popular
vote have been denied the White House, they note.
Many in Congress and in party leadership distrust change in this
arena because it is hard to predict winners and losers. Better the devilish
system you know, they say, even if it is best described as the least worst
of its ilk. +

versus John Quincy Adams, state in return for Clay’s sup- disqualified because as a end Reconstruction and
son of the second president. port. On February 9, 1825, postmaster, he held “an U.S. Army occupation of
However, there were other the House chose Adams, and Office of Trust or Profit the South.
significant presidential can- Clay did become his secre- under the United States.” Tilden accepted defeat
didates: Treasury Secretary tary of state. Jackson was Gaining one of the disputed with grace. “Be of good
William H. Crawford and livid. “Was there ever wit- electoral votes would win cheer,” he told supporters.
House Speaker Henry Clay. nessed such a bare faced Tilden the presidency. To “The Republic will live.”
Jackson won the electoral corruption in any country win, Hayes needed all 20. However, in the South, the
and popular votes, but four before?” he asked. Congress had no prece- end of Reconstruction led
candidates won electoral dent for resolving disputed to nearly a century of Jim
votes, leaving Jackson with 1876 state elections, so on January Crow oppression and racial
99—32 shy of a majority of The race between Republi- 29, 1877, members voted segregation, scars of
the electoral votes cast. The can Rutherford B. Hayes and to appoint a 15-member which linger.
House had to choose among Democrat Samuel J. Tilden Electoral Commission—five
top three finishers Jackson, caused an electoral convul- senators, five congress- 1888, 2000,
Adams, and Crawford. sion that still reverberates. men, five Supreme Court and 2016
Clay scorned Jackson, Tilden won the popular vote justices—to decide the elec- The general ticket’s preva-
scoffing that “killing 2500 and the electoral vote. How- tion. On February 27, 1877, lence can translate into
Englishmen at N. Orleans” ever, his 184 electoral votes the commission voted 8-7 elections in which the win-
did not qualify a man for were one short of a majority. along party lines to award ner of the popular vote loses
GRANGER, NYC: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

“the various, difficult and Nineteen electoral votes Hayes all 20 disputed elec- in the Electoral College.
complicated duties of the from South Carolina, Florida, toral votes, giving him 185, That happened in in 1888,
Chief Magistracy.” Clay and Louisiana were in limbo one more than Tilden. To get when Benjamin Harrison
backed Adams in what Jack- because each party claimed Democrats, many represent- defeated Grover Cleveland,
son supporters called a “cor- victory in those states amid ing the states of the in 2000, when George W.
rupt bargain,” claiming complaints of voting fraud former Confederacy, to Bush beat Al Gore, and in
Adams had promised to by both sides. In addition, an acquiesce in electing Hayes, 2016, when Donald Trump
make Clay his secretary of Oregon elector was the Republicans promised to defeated Hillary Clinton.

FEBRUARY 2020 49
Making Movies
From left, director Leo
Wharton, actor Margue-
rite Snow, and producer
Ted Wharton on the set
of 1917’s The Eagle’s Eye.

50 AMERICAN HISTORY
Hooray
for...
Ithaca?
An upstate New York town
famed for football and freezing
cold had a cinematic moment
By Jan Bridgeford-Smith

H arry Isaacs, dressed as an Aztec chieftain,

teetered on the cliff edge, staring down at
Triphammer Falls. The cascading waters
filled a pool 50 feet below, creating clouds of vapor. The compact man of
70 bent his knees, clapped his hands together over his head, and executed
a flawless dive. The Shanghai Man, a film being produced by Leopold and
Theodore Wharton, centered around Aztecs, but the nearest Indians to
Ithaca, New York, the producers could find were on the Onondaga reserva-
tion, Harry’s home, near Syracuse. In July 1914, 40 men and ten women
from the reservation traveled 60 miles by special train to the Wharton stu-
dios in Ithaca where, their ranks augmented by a few rouged Cornell boys,
they played angry Mesoamericans.
Harry’s gambit paled next to another stunt staged that summer for The
Prince of India, originally titled Kiss of Blood. This time, the Wharton crew
jettisoned a trolley car off Ithaca’s Stewart Avenue bridge. The rig plunged
100 feet before smashing against the rocks of Fall Creek gorge. Nearly 1,000
onlookers watched in delighted horror. The dive and the crash illustrate
why the Wharton brothers came to Ithaca to make movies. Rife with stun-
ning topography—dozens of gorges and hundreds of waterfalls, cascades,

FEBRUARY 2020 51
Sinister Doings
Cliffhanger queen Pearl
White and unidentified col-
leagues in a still from The
Romance of Elaine, 1915.

From and cataracts—Ithaca lent itself to the “cliff-

hanger” genre popular at the time. Ted and Leo
writing “scenarios,” as early screenplays were
called. After buying 28 of his first 30 scripts, Edi-
“Football

wove a glamorous tapestry around the town of
days at 16,000 residents.
CorneLL” The brothers convinced themselves Ithaca
had a cinematic date with destiny. Beguiled
Sprouted locals responded by providing props, back-
an unlikeLY ground actors, craftsmen, credit, and enthusi-
upstate asm. The spell worked—for a while.
outpost of Show-biz journeymen who started in live the-
cliffhanger ater in the 1890s, Leopold and Theodore Whar-
cinema made ton could do it all: act, direct, write, produce,
build sets, stage-manage. Leo was born in Man-
possible by chester, England, in 1870. When Ted arrived in
the region’s 1875, the family had moved to Milwaukee, Wis-
topography consin. The Whartons went on to Texas, where
the boys spent their youth. Like so many men in
and local the fledgling cinema trade, Ted and Leo began
cooperation. their careers in live-theater companies. After 15
years, Ted migrated into motion pictures in 1907
PRECEDING PAGE: COURTESY OF ITHACA MADE MOVIES; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF THE WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM
son Studios hired him as a scenario editor and
studio supervisor.
When Pathé Freres assembled an American
venture in Jersey City, New Jersey, that studio’s
first director was Ted Wharton. He moved on to
Chicago-based Essanay Film Manufacturing in
1911. Essanay gave Ted his first opportunity to
film in Ithaca. It was love at first sight.
On the southern edge of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca
then, as now, was known as the home of Cornell
University, the Ivy League institution on the east
side of town. Cornell’s football team, the Big Red,
first lured Ted and his camera. In October 1912,
he filmed a Big Red home game against Penn
State. Essanay marketed the footage as a one-
reeler, Football Days at Cornell, touted as the
first-ever live-action motion picture of an Amer-
ican college sports event. Ted Wharton saw in
Ithaca a wealth of locations suited to nail-biting

52 AMERICAN HISTORY
 serial “photoplays” gaining popularity—not only
natural settings but 19th-century streets and
storefronts, for backgrounds and b-roll, as well
as a supply of agreeable extras. Wharton pitched
the town to his boss, George K. Spoor, who
agreed to send him back with a field production
unit the following spring.
The Ithaca Journal reported on May 15, 1913,
that matinee idol and Essanay star Francis X.
Bushman, he of 61 film credits, had registered at
the Ithaca Hotel. Bushman’s hotel stay was brief;
Spoor rented his star a large, two-story house
just off the Cornell campus. Bushman, with his
wife and children, occupied the first floor. The
upper story was converted into dressing rooms
for cast members.
Ted Wharton checked in June 1. Handsome,
lean, and energetic, with dark hair and piercing
eyes to match, mustachioed Ted brimmed with
story and staging ideas for Bushman and fellow
actors William Bailey, Frank Dayton, John Bres-
lin, Helen Dunbar, Juanita Delmorez, and Bev-
erly Bayne—Bushman’s preferred leading lady
and rumored paramour. Wharton’s assistant
producer and director was Archer MacMacken.
David Hargen handled camerawork. Essanay
East was in business. For a studio, Wharton
COURTESY OF THE WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM
constructed a roofless outdoor stage in the rented residence’s side yard.
Muslin above the platform filtered sunlight to create a set on which to
stage and shoot “exterior-interiors” without artificial lighting. To process
dailies, Wharton had to ship canisters of exposed film to Chicago. Once
back in Ithaca, reels were screened and cut apart for editing.
That June 5, the Journal reported that Wharton’s scenic carpenters had
built a “picturesque cabin…below the [lower Fall Creek] falls” on a small
island at the foot of the cascade. The “picturesque cabin” starred in Whar-
ton’s first Ithaca project, The Hermit of Lonely Gulch, a two-reeler starring
Bushman and Bayne. Shooting began on July 11 and wrapped in four days.
Essanay East ground out “photoplays” at a frenetic pace. By July, The
Way Perilous, directed by MacMacken—and set in Fall Creek gorge—was
finished. Despite the gorge’s visual allure, Wharton cut away to other loca-
tions. His script For Old Times’ Sake had Hargen hand-cranking the cam-
era inside a Cornell fraternity house.
Townspeople found it mesmerizing to sit in Ithaca theaters and recog-
nize landscapes, structures, faces, even particular pieces of furniture.
Equally enthralled, the local press covered everything remotely cinematic.
A July 1913 Ithaca Journal story began, “C.J. Evans, an Ithaca young man…
working with the Essanay Motion Picture Company had a narrow escape
from death on the rocks of Taughannock Gorge…following the scene of an
automobile dropped down a cliff.” Evans’s brush
with mortality was a rope burn from rappelling No CGI Need Apply
the ravine wall to the vehicle’s remains. In When a Wharton
mid-August, Pearl White, queen of the cliff-hang- script said to wreck a
ers, arrived in a swirl of scandal. A Pathé crew trolley, the field crew
was to shoot footage of her for the wildly popular wrecked a trolley.
FEBRUARY 2020 53
 Perils of Pauline. The scenes run in Episode 13 of
When Spoor the serial in which White, with co-star Crane
pulled Wilbur, leaps from a ledge into a deep pool at the
Essanay out base of Ithaca Falls. Gossip and news reports chit-
tered that White not only wore trousers but
of movie smoked, drank, swore, and zipped around so fast
making, Ted in a canary-yellow Stutz Bearcat that she landed
Wharton in court. Apprehended for speeding in Trumans-
burg, a few miles north of Ithaca, White allegedly
went out stared at the elderly magistrate as he fined her $5.
on his own, She whipped out a $10 bill. “Keep the change,”
returning White said. “I’m going out of this town a darn
sight faster than I came in.”
that he is going to buy a lot and build a $20,000
studio and produce plays here the year round.”
But moneyman Spoor’s interest in making
movies waned. Essanay was getting out of cin-
ema. Only Ted Wharton returned to Ithaca in
spring 1914—as an independent producer. He
convinced brother Leo, on contract as a film-
maker with Pathé, to join him. Ted also recruited
his brother-in-law, J. Whitworth Buck, to work
the books. Wharton Inc. formed, leased a build-
ing on State Street, signed a deal with distributor
Pathé Freres, acquired gear, hired crews, wooed

to Ithaca in
1914 as an By late August, the Essanay team had returned
independent to Chicago, having, in less than three months,
shot 11 features: The Hermit of Lonely Gulch,
producer. The Whip Hand, Sunlight, The Way Perilous, For
Old Times’ Sake, Little Ned, A Woman Scorned,
The Right of Way, Antoine the Fiddler, The Love
Lute of Romany, and Dear Old Girl. Highlights
included dropping an auto containing two dum-
mies into a gorge; torching an abandoned sanitar-
ium; filming a local gypsy encampment; and
staging a stagecoach robbery. Shortly before film-
ing wrapped up, George Spoor had toured the
Ithaca operation, a visit Ithacans interpreted as a
sign Essanay would return. This was bolstered
when Cornell Alumni News reported that Whar-
ton found “Ithaca is so good a field for production

Actors at Semi-Leisure
From left, Creighton Hale, Pearl White, and
Lionel Barrymore at Wharton Studios in 1915.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM; EVERETT COLLECTION; COURTESY WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM (2)

Above and Below the Line

Wharton cast stars like Francis X. Bushman,
top left, Pearl White, center, and a neophyte
named Oliver Hardy, bottom left.

54 AMERICAN HISTORY
 investors—including Ithacans—and got the cameras rolling. Ted and Leo Banging the Drum
produced, wrote, directed and occasionally acted. The Whartons relentlessly flogged their
The Whartons had accounted for nearly everything but climate. Ithaca services and locations in movie industry
shares a latitude with Detroit and Boston. Half the year the ambient tem- trade publication advertisements.
perature is cool, if not frigid. The town averages 64 inches of snow annu-
ally—more than twice the national norm—and 154 days of sunshine. “In
Ithaca,” the saying goes, “summers are warm and partly cloudy. Winters
are freezing and mostly cloudy.” Shooting around the sunlight and tem-
perature deficits was a challenge.
However, Ted Wharton looked past reality, emphasizing that his favor-
ite location had magic. “Ithaca is…a great place and the citizens…cannot
do enough for us,” he said in a 1914 interview. “Their good will is a tangible
asset…they look upon our company as their own…a rainy day, the busi-
nesspeople worry about us. It is…a splendid town.”
Wharton Inc. tore through the 1914 filming season, churning out three-
and four-reelers like The Boundary Rider, A Pawn of Fortune, The Stolen
TOP: THE WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM; COURTESY OF ITHACA MADE MOVIES

Birthright, and The Fireman & the Girl. In New Jersey, the brothers filmed
the first 26 episodes of a lucrative serial, The Exploits of Elaine, and its
sequel, The New Exploits of Elaine. Pearl White played the heroine.
A spring 1915 Ithaca Journal story reported that Wharton Inc., had relo-
cated all operations to Ithaca’s Renwick Park. The 45-acre expanse, a rec-
reational area and bird sanctuary on the Cayuga Street trolley line,
included buildings, forested areas, and 1,200 feet of frontage on Cayuga
Serial Shooter
Lake. The Whartons kept the park, including a miniature train, powered by Multi-episode series like
the world’s smallest steam engine, open to the public. The Romance of Elaine
A more thrilling notice in the paper came that May when Wharton called on actors like
announced the 10-episode finale of the Elaine saga, The Romance of Barrymore to develop
Elaine, would be filming in Ithaca. That summer actors Pearl White, Lionel and maintain their
characters at length.
55
 Barrymore, Creighton Hale, and Paul Everton
“Patria” arrived. Barrymore proved to be a curmudgeon.
tried for Spouting dislike for the producers and the loca-
an epic feel, tion, he holed up in his hotel and left Ithaca as
soon as he could.
full of The Elaine series was popular and profitable.
stars and In June 1915, Motion Picture World wrote that
big-ticket Exploits had made Ted Wharton “known in
every hamlet in the land…as ’The Man who dis-
stunts. covered Ithaca’…through his pictures that beau-
irene Castle tiful little city has received the finest kind of
drew raves, publicity.” Wharton also hit in 1915 with The New
Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford, a serial
but the film whose first five episodes included Oliver Hardy
Just for Kicks
became a making his uncredited serial debut. He came
Patria traded on Irene Castle’s worldwide rep-
utation as an innovative professional dancer.
political back in 1916 for another anonymous cameo as
chubby maid “Maggie Murphy” in The Lottery
football. Man. That year Wharton released two more Patria had a solid cast—Warner Oland, adept
popular serials, The Mysteries of Myra and at playing a variety of ethnic types, Milton Sills,
Beatrice Fairfax. The company was on a roll. George Majeroni, Dorothy Green, and the
well-regarded Castle—and a big price tag. The
In July 1916, Irene Castle waltzed into Ithaca to producers filmed on location in Hollywood, Cal-
film the serial Patria. The jingoistic tale of ifornia. Crews built and burned a village of 20
intrigue starred Castle, a famous dancer, as buildings outside Ithaca. The production team
Patricia Channing, heiress turned secret agent, staged expensive, crowd-pleasing stunts like
foiling Japanese and other foreign operatives Castle speeding across railroad tracks just ahead
bent on wrecking the American munitions of an oncoming freight train and dumping a car
industry. Patria was a coproduction with Hearst off a boat into Cayuga Lake. To build audience
International Film Services. With the United interest, Hearst newspapers serialized the story
Setting His Style States threatening to join the Allies in World War in print. But Patria drew mixed reviews and soft
Mustache in place, I, pro-German IFS owner and press lord William box office. “The role which [Castle] plays is a

THIS PAGE: WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM (2); OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP: DEWITT HISTORICAL SOCIETY/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF ITHACA MADE MOVIES
Hardy, rear center in Randolph Hearst saw in Japan a suitably foreign Pearl White part with Douglas Fairbanks trim-
1915, is solidifying his object for American ire that could take the heat mings, and she plays it with a mixture of dainti-
trademark bearing. off the Kaiser. ness and fearlessness which is fascinating,” the
New York Telegraph wrote.
Japanese diplomats complained to President
Woodrow Wilson about the picture’s racist skew.
Wilson wanted to keep Japan from allying with
Germany. After screening a few episodes, he
demanded Hearst pull Patria from theaters.
Hearst complied. Patria underwent doctoring.
The villains became Mexicans. But Hearst
walked out, stymieing hopes for a much-needed
re-release. Wharton Inc. was stuck. In January
1917, business manager J. Whitworth Buck quit
and left Ithaca. Wharton Inc., its agreements
with IFS and Pathé unraveling, announced it
would start its own film distribution service.
In April 1917, as the United States was enter-
ing the Great War, Wharton Inc. was readying
productions for summer and fall, including
another serial, The Eagle’s Eye. Filmed in Ithaca
and completed that November, the 20-episode
series—each episode a two-reeler—was based on
the true story of a German spy ring in the United
States. Crime expert Courtney Riley Cooper

56 AMERICAN HISTORY
 On the Rails
The cliffhanger genre had many varia-
tions, such as rail tracks, straddled
here by Castle’s roadster in Patria.
wrote the script and a print serialization for Pho-
toplay magazine. The Eagle’s Eye, starring the
well-known King Baggot and Marguerite Snow,
showcased everything Ted Wharton loved about
Ithaca. Locals Ray June and Levi Bacon did the
camera work. Ithacans stepped up as extras.
Cayuga Lake masqueraded as the Atlantic
Ocean for a re-enactment of the Lusitania sink-
ing. Wharton even capitalized on the weather,
staging skating and tobogganing scenes at Cor-
nell. But at $400,000, the true-life spy story was a very costly venture.
Eagle’s Eye premiered in March 1918 as a global flu pandemic was emp-
tying theaters. With the war’s November 1918 end, martial themes were
passé. A major theater chain with multiple screens around the country,
claiming the film demonized German Americans, refused to show it.
Between Patria and The Eagle’s Eye, Wharton, Inc. was mired in debt.
Ithaca’s Wharton story came to a muddled close. Ted returned to town in
1919. Leo went to Texas and stayed. A news squib claimed, “Whartons
Form New Company in San Antonio,” and a notice ballyhooed a new head-
quarters in Galveston, Texas, but the company made no movies in the
Lone Star State. Wharton Inc. subleased its Renwick Park facilities to
Grossman Pictures. Ted said he would open a new Wharton studio in
Ithaca poised for a “full season of motion picture production.” He rented
and renovated a building. He completed several episodes of a new serial,
The Crooked Dagger. Pathé agreed to pick up the series—and then backed
out. The Crooked Dagger was never released. Wharton Studios was fin-
ished. In March 1920, a court issued a $6,000 foreclosure judgment against
Theodore Wharton. Forced sale of his gear netted $12,000. Ted pulled up
stakes for California. He and Leo stayed in movies although they never
collaborated again, and neither matched the success of their Ithaca years.
Ithaca’s time as a movie hub ended in 1920, the town remained home to
an archive of Wharton movies. The prints, on
Exercise in Terror volatile nitrate-based film, were stored in a shed
Actors playing sailors owned by a local lawyer.
aboard a German In 1929, the cache of film spontaneously com-
U-boat pose with a busted, consuming the oeuvre of the Wharton
prop torpedo for a brothers, who had created a world of cinematic
scene in Eagle’s Eye. dreams beside Cayuga’s waters. +
FEBRUARY 2020 57
Picturing History
Though not present at the
Battle of Bunker Hill, the
artist was near enough to
hear the guns and to conjure
Joseph Warren’s death on
Breed’s Hill.

58 AMERICAN HISTORY
Talking
Trumbull
The painter of great American
themes had to struggle for his art
By A. K. Fielding

FEBRUARY 2020 59
 Portrait of the Artist
From childhood Trumbull displayed a keen
interest in making art, to his father’s dismay.

namesake hung the daughter’s works in the

parlor. John, seeing those canvases, attempted
to reproduce them in pencil on the “nicely
sanded floors” soon to be “constantly scrawled”
upon with his childish drawings. The boy was
around 10 when business reversals upended
the family’s comfortable life. John became a
loner, immersed in drawing. In 1771, besotted
by John Singleton Copley’s English-style por-
traits of members of the American elite, he
begged his father to let him study under Copley.
Trumbull senior refused, sending his youngest
to Harvard accompanied by older brother Jona-
than, a 1759 Harvard alumnus. A mutual friend
of Jonathan’s and Copley’s brought the brothers
to the painter’s Beacon Hill house. Meeting his
idol and seeing his work reinforced the youth’s
desire to paint.
In addition to his coursework at Harvard,
which owned and displayed many Copleys,
John Trumbull, seeking to develop his tech-
nique, copied those canvases. He studied math-
ematician Brooke Taylor’s and artist Joshua

PRECEDING PAGE: WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: GL ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; SEPIA TIMES/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Kirby’s theories on perspective and artist Wil-
liam Hogarth’s 1753 book Analysis of Beauty.

I
Strongly interested in historical themes, at 18
he attempted his first original work, Death of

The Apprentice Master

n 1780, John Trumbull arrived in London. He had left King George III’s official painter, Benjamin
Connecticut for a business venture in France that failed. West, exerted great influence on Trumbull.
Now, fresh from that Parisian debacle, he meant to do
what he had wanted since childhood: become an artist. A
veteran of the rebellion still raging between the Empire and its American
colonies, Trumbull had the political connections, the money, and the
brass to set about buttonholing another American, Benjamin West, court
painter to King George III, to take him on as a student. At West’s studio,
Trumbull explained that he had obtained permission from Britain’s secre-
tary of state for America, Lord George Germain, to study in London as
long as he stayed out of politics. Wanting to test his visitor’s skills, West
asked Trumbull to pick a painting from among those at hand and repro-
duce it as a drawing. Trumbull chose another artist’s copy of Raphael’s
Madonna della Seggiola and set to work freehand. His dreams hung in the
balance.

John Trumbull, youngest of six children, was born on June 6, 1756, in

Lebanon, Connecticut. Father Jonathan, a prominent merchant, was
Connecticut’s colonial governor. Mother Faith traced her New World
roots to Mayflower passengers John and Priscilla Alden. The Trumbulls
were a powerful Connecticut mercantile and political family whose chil-
dren enjoyed fine educations in religion, business, politics, and classical
studies. Older sister Faith had taken up oil painting. Her mother and

60 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Paulus Emilius at the Battle of Cannae, a com-
position he peopled with figures borrowed from
engravings.
War interrupted Trumbull’s education. His
oldest brother Joseph, thanks to their father’s
sway, was a colonel in the Continental Army, in
charge of commissaries. John joined up too,
expecting Congress to issue him a formal com-
mission reflecting his June 1776 enlistment. At
Joseph’s urging, John, concealing himself in
undergrowth at a point overlooking Boston,
sketched British troop formations and bastions.
Joseph saw that the sketches reached General
YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
George Washington. The general already had in
hand British plans for those positions, but
Trumbull’s enterprise and artistry earned him
reassignment as an aide to Washington.
Although stationed in Roxbury during the
Early Offering
A 1777 Trumbull family portrait shows
promise but also flawed proportions.
Battle of Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, Trumbull
was near enough to hear the cannonades and
congress
see the burning buildings; later he heard details dated his
of the fight from veterans. When Congress commission
issued him a commission, it was dated months
later than his actual enlistment, infuriating him.
months
In February 1777 he resigned from the army. later than
his actual
Returning to the family home in Lebanon,
Trumbull had family and friends sit for him and
enlistment,
also painted scenes from the Bible, antiquity, infuriating
and mythology. His work was amateurish. In trumbull.
1777’s Jonathan Trumbull Jr. with Mrs. Trumbull
and Faith Trumbull, his subjects’ heads are woe-
fully out of proportion, his rendering of fabric
appears stiff, and his use of space is flat. How-
ever, the composition itself is strong and evoca-
tive. He moved to Boston, renting a room in a
FEBRUARY 2020 61
house once occupied by John Smibert, the first American artist to train in
Britain. Smibert, a noted portraitist of the 1730s who designed the city’s
first public market, Faneuil Hall, had died in 1751. Some of his work still
hung in the house, and Trumbull soaked up those paintings’ details.
Entering the commodities trade in 1779, Trumbull headed to Paris. That
venture failed, propelling him a year later to London and his pursuit of
West as a teacher, largely for the other man’s expertise in historical paint-
ing. However, as King George III’s official painter West had to stay away
from certain subject areas, like the American rebellion.
At their first meeting, Trumbull amazed West. Traditionally, artists used
squares to achieve perspective, but West’s visitor, working freehand, was
reproducing the Raphael copy with accuracy and vivacity. West agreed to
take Trumbull on as an apprentice. The arrangement progressed until
autumn 1780, during which time Trumbull painted, from memory, his
first portrait of George Washington. The general stands on a hill above the
Hudson River, flanked by his personal slave Billy Lee on horseback, with
West Point off at a distance. On October 2, as a partial coda to the Bene-
dict Arnold affair, the Americans hanged Major John André (“Tracks of a
Traitor,” October 2017). In retaliation, British authorities arrested Trumbull
62 AMERICAN HISTORY
on charges of espionage.
West’s patronage served him well; he was
allowed to spend his seven-month term in rela-
tive comfort at Tothillfields-Bridewell prison,
where by the time he was released in June 1781
he had completed a copy of Antonio Correggio’s
St. Jerome’s of Parma.
Returning home, Trumbull declined offers to
go into business and continued to resist his
father’s urgings that he become a lawyer, pro-
testing that he wished to emulate the great art-
ists of olden times. “Connecticut is not Athens,”
Trumbull senior answered. The two never dis-
cussed the subject again.
In 1783, with peace impending, Trumbull
returned to London. His hero, Copley, had been
living and working in London since 1774, exhib-
iting such paintings as Watson and the Shark,
which had led him to be accepted for member-
ship in the Royal Academy. Trumbull took eve-
ning classes at the academy and spent his days
painting in West’s studio, where he, William
Dunlap, and other students absorbed lessons
from the master on technique and the “great
style,” a neoclassicist school emphasizing clarity
and harmonious proportions. Copley and West
encouraged Trumbull to take on American his-
torical subjects. Amid their urging and rampant
examples in London galleries of heroic paint-
ings on British themes, Trumbull found his call-
ing and began working on what would become
his oeuvre. West’s Death of General Wolfe influ-
enced Trumbull’s The Death of General Warren
at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17, 1775, and
The Death of General Montgomery in The Attack
on Quebec, December 31, 1775. Copley’s much-
praised The Death of Major Pierson also exerted
OPPOSITE PAGE: PICTURES NOW/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: CULTURAL ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
influence on the younger man. Trumbull under-
took Warren in 1785 and Montgomery in 1786.
In commemorating those early revolutionary
moments using the “great style” he portrayed
Warren and Montgomery as martyrs expiring in
their comrades’ arms.
Visiting London from Paris in 1785, American
Minister to France Thomas Jefferson met Trum-
bull, admired his work, and invited the artist to
call on him in Paris. Trumbull did, taking up
residence in Jefferson’s home at the Grille de
Chaillot. The men developed a close friendship
and with Jefferson’s invaluable but fanciful
Hero
John Singleton Copley, shown
in a self-portrait, was an early
beacon of inspiration.
Remarkable Rendering
A 1780 Washington
portrait overlooking the
Hudson at West Point
featured a rare pictorial
element: his groom, the
enslaved Billy Lee.

FEBRUARY 2020 63
washington feedback, Trumbull sketched The Declaration of
Independence, a crowded scene that would have
dedicated 48 human subjects in the initial version. By
as much as 1787, Trumbull had completed the composition
six hours in London, shelving the canvas to go to America
and chase down the men whose faces he now
a week to had to incorporate into the work.
sitting for Arriving in New York in 1789, he visited Pres-
a Trumbull ident George Washington at his Manhattan res-
idence. Washington agreed to sit for a portrait,
portrait, dedicating one or two hours three times a week
even to the process and even exercising on horseback
exercising for his artist friend’s benefit. In 1790, commis-
sioned by Martha Washington, Trumbull com-
on pleted a full length portrait, George Washington
horseback at Verplanck’s Point, New York, 1782, Reviewing
for his the French Troops After the Victory at Yorktown.
The painting and Washington’s endorsement
friend’s earned Trumbull his first large public commis-
benefit. sion, a 108”x72” painting to hang in New York’s
City Hall. He completed Washington and the
Departure of the British Garrison from New
York City the same year.
From 1789 to 1793, Trumbull also traveled the
East Coast painting 48 individual portraits—36
from life, the rest from existing works or by sub-
stituting deceased subjects’ sons. He painted
some portraits onto the original canvas and
made copies of the rest to be added later,
completing Declaration in 1817. Trumbull gave
Jefferson, primary drafter of the Declaration,
pride of compositional place.
His intended wife’s death and the resulting
grief kept Trumbull out of the studio for almost
seven years. He extended that break 1794-97,
working abroad as a diplomat—first as secretary
to John Jay in England until the signing of the
Jay Treaty in November 1794 and then as a
minor character in the fractious Franco-Ameri-
can episode now known as the XYZ Affair.
In 1800, he married Sarah Hope Harvey in
London, moved his bride to America, and
resumed painting. He showed Bunker’s Hill in
New York and became a member and then vice
president of the American Academy of the Fine
Arts. His career proceeded until imposition of
the Embargo Act of 1807 destroyed the Ameri-
can economy. Trumbull’s commissions dried up.
In 1808, in a flourish of bad timing, Trumbull
returned to England, where tension over con-
flicts with the United States prevented him from
landing assignments. He fell into debt, executing
only a few religious paintings such as 1811’s The
Woman Taken in Adultery and Our Savior and
Little Children in 1812. West, now president of the
Royal Academy, saw to it that Trumbull’s works
were displayed there. With war impending in

Magnum Opus
Trumbull’s evocation of the
signing of the Declaration
involved scores of
individual portraits.

64 AMERICAN HISTORY
 World Turned Upside Down
“Surrender of Lord Cornwallis”
captures the majesty and melancholy
of a profoundly historical moment.

1812, Trumbull tried to return home to the United States but was only
allowed to relocate from London to the city of Bath, 115 miles west.
When Trumbull did get back to the United States in 1815, his country-
men were more receptive to his work. An 1817 showing of Declaration at
OPPOSITE PAGE: YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY; THIS PAGE: PICTORIAL PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY

the U.S. House of Representatives earned him a $32,000 commission

from Congress to execute four 12’x18’ oils, one an enlargement of Declara-
tion, to hang in the Capitol Rotunda. He completed the larger Declaration
in 1818, followed by Surrender of Lord Cornwallis in 1819; Surrender of
General Burgoyne, in 1821; and General George Washington Resigning His
Commission to Congress, in 1824. To mark the 50th anniversary of the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, the four canvases were
installed in the Rotunda on July 4, 1826.
Art is fashion, and fashion changes.
By the 1830s, art critic William Dunlap, a rival since their days as West’s
students, was lambasting Trumbull’s historical paintings as inaccurate
and lacking credibility—“among the greatest and unaccountable failures
of the age,” he called them, impugning Trumbull for quitting the Army in
the middle of the Revolution and spending much of that war and all of the
War of 1812 living abroad.
Strapped, Trumbull sold his stock of existing paintings to Yale, creating
the first American gallery associated with a university, in exchange for an
annuity of $1,000 yearly for life. He wrote and published an autobiogra-
phy defending his work; the book sold badly. Portrait of the Artist’s Spouse
Trumbull was 87 when he died on November 10, 1843. He is appreciated Two years after marrying Sarah Hope Harvey
today for his focus on American subjects, which helped establish a new in London, Trumbull had his wife sit for a por-
genre, American art, and idealistically imagining the nation’s origins. + trait with the family’s spaniel.

FEBRUARY 2020 65

NOJ
---
MY BOSS'S BUSINE-SS
That’s mister
Corporation, palIn 2010 and in 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court
WE THE headed by Chief Justice John Roberts handed
CORPORATIONS down a pair of eye-popping decisions. In the
first, the justices threw out all attempts to curb
business contributions to political campaigns
because, they held, corporations had a First
Amendment right to free speech, of which
spending money in support of a candidate was
simply an exercise. In the second, the same
five-justice majority ruled that a business cor-
poration can exercise a religious belief that
We the Corpora-
- shields that enterprise from having to cover
abortion in its employee health plan.
Those decisions in Citizens United v. Federal
tions: How Ameri-
Election Commission and in Burwell v. Hobby
can Businesses Won
Lobby seemed to be pushing the country into
Their Civil Rights
startling new territory, assigning corporations
By Adam Winkler
rights designed for real people, not fictitious
Liveright, paper
“persons” created by entrepreneurs structuring
2019; $19.95
a business entity. But, as UCLA law professor
66 AMERICAN HISTORY
A Judgment Too Far?
At the U.S. Supreme
Court, protesters
decry the 2014 Hobby
Lobby ruling.
Adam Winkler shows with exemplary clarity
in We the Corporations, the rulings “were in
fact the culmination of a two-hundred-year
struggle for constitutional rights for corpora-
tions.” Winkler makes his case so evenhand-
edly that We the Corporations neither laments
nor endorses the trend.
Corporations have piggybacked onto rights
secured by liberals representing aggrieved
individuals. In a 2005 case the court found
Flying B, an oil transport business owned by
Sikhs, to have a racial identity, entitling Flying
B to bring a civil rights law claim of discrimi-
nation. In 1976 consumerists seeking better
information on drug prices won a victory that
BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
led to overturning a slew of laws curbing busi-
ness advertising. On the other hand, Winkler
notes, numerous individual rights Americans
hold dear today trace to suits involving corpo-
rations. “Businesses being investigated or
 prosecuted for wrongdoing brought the earli-
est Supreme Court cases on the Fourth and
Fifth Amendments,” he writes. Those cases led
directly to today’s bar on warrantless searches
and requirements that accused persons be
informed of their rights. Similarly, corporate
legal victories in Bill of Rights cases have led
to victories for litigants seeking to put teeth
into promises of equal protection for minori-
ride ’em,
paniolo
Blame this fine book on a 13-foot statue of a
Hawaiian cowboy roping a bull outside a gro-
cery store in Waimea on the Big Island. The
statue, of Ikua Purdy (1873-1945) piqued the
curiosity of coauthors Julian Smith and David
Wolman. The result is a rollicking tale that
spans two centuries, a pair of empires, the
end of the Hawaiian monarchy and the onset
of independence, the closing of the American
West, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and the introduc-
tion into Hawaii of those Pacific isles’ most
invasive species—cattle.
Longhorns, a 1793 gift from the British,
soon overran the island, trampling crops and
terrorizing residents. Spanish vaqueros from
California, invited by the Hawaiian king,
trained native “paniolos”—from español—to
manage the interloping cattle with horse and
lariat. Wolman and Smith explain that
Hawaii’s steep terrain and a landscape of pit-
ted and sharp plains of volcanic rock drove
paniolos to extraordinary heights of skill.
Merely loading cattle into abattoir-bound
vessels was a feat: from ranchland, paniolos
forced the animals into the water of shallow
harbors to swim to anchored boats, then
DOUGLAS PEEBLES PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
hauled the beasts aboard using winches and
straps. Famed paniolo Eben Low lost his left
hand in a roping accident—and still was able
to outperform compatriots.
Rodeo charts cultures converging as the
1800s end. America deposes Hawaii’s queen
and annexes the islands as the continental
West, largely seized from American Indians,
is shifting from wide-open range to fenced-in
ties and freedom of the press.
We the Corporations provides a reality fix
on the history of the American judicial sys-
tem’s approach to corporate matters. A
National Book Award finalist in 2018, this
work, now in paperback, should reach more
readers. —Daniel B. Moskowitz, who writes
SCOTUS 101, for two decades covered the
Supreme Court for Business Week.
farms and ranches. Cheyenne, Wyoming,
launches Frontier Days, a sanitized celebra-
tion that enshrines Bill Cody as the embodi-
ment of days gone by. Taking in the 1907
event, the one-handed Low decides to use
Cheyenne’s fete to promote Hawaii and its
expert wranglers. The next year Low arranges
for Purdy and two other crack paniolos to
compete with mainlanders at steer roping.
The only flaw in this riveting book is that its
very existence telegraphs the outcome of the Aloha Rodeo: Three
Hawaiian riders’ 1908 performance. Hawaiian Cowboys,
Toggling eras and locales, the authors draw the World’s Greatest
on a wealth of contemporary sources, includ- Rodeo, and a Hid-
ing press accounts and some characters’ jour- den History of the
nals and recollections. The coverage includes American West
an interlude with today’s paniolos, who mainly By David Wolman
saddle up ATVs. Rodeos remain popular on the and Julian Smith
islands, as do paniolos, symbols of a small vic- William Morrow,
tory over an invading species and forced 2019; $27.99
annexation. —Glenn Fleishman, a writer in
Seattle, Washington, contributed “Colonial
Cryptographers Helped Patriots Win the
Revolution” (bit.ly/ColonialCryptographers).
Not His First Rodeo
At Parker Ranch Center, Waimea,
Hawaii, a sculpture honors
champion paniolo Ikua Purdy.
FEBRUARY 2020 67
 the Daughters underwrote “impartial” histo-

slavery?
ries espousing the Lost Cause. By collecting
printed materials, correspondence, and photo-
graphs, the organization helped establish state

what slavery?
In this reissue of a 2003 volume whose new
introduction reflects recent history, Karen Cox
argues that after Reconstruction women of the
white Southern elite organized to embrace and
perpetuate an “idealized portrait of the ante-
bellum history.” The “Lost Cause” campaign
explained secession as a matter of states’
rights, not slavery. Among other such entities,
the United Daughters of the Confederacy,
founded in 1894, achieved pre-eminence in its
effort to vindicate its namesake and “trans-
form military defeat into a political and cul-
Dixie’s Daughters; tural victory where states’ rights and white
The United supremacy remained intact,” Cox writes. The
Daughters of the Daughters, whose roster of chapters ballooned
Confederacy to 138 within three years, installed hundreds of
and the Preservation Confederate memorials, sponsored historio-
of Confederate graphical and educational programs, and cared
Culture for needy CSA veterans and their families.
By Karen L. Cox Membership in the group offered status as well
University Press of as outlets for matronly enterprise. Decrying
Florida, 2019; $24.95 pro-Union bias in textbooks by Northerners,
archives strong on benevolent reminiscences
of the Confederate home front. The influential
monthly Confederate Veteran provided a plat-
form for declarations on the need to exert “civ-
ilizing influence” on “darkies.”
Besides circulating lesson plans and speak-
ers working the same vein, the group’s public
school programs distributed Confederate flags
and hagiographical portraits of Robert E. Lee
and Jefferson Davis. A subordinate organiza-
tion, Children of the Confederacy, accultur-
ated the region’s youngsters in the parent
body’s outlook. During World War I’s latter
years, the Daughters, who had opposed Amer-
ican entry into that European conflict, backed
the American Expeditionary Forces, selling
Liberty Bonds and staffing Red Cross units.
Succeeding decades saw the organization fade
in influence and relevance, albeit with true
believers guarding the original mission and
outlook until the national pH shifted its way.
Though occasionally repetitious, Dixie’s
Daughters energetically fills a gap in the his-
tory of some white women in the United States
while explaining where all those Confederate
monuments came from. —Richard Culyer
writes in Hartsville, South Carolina.

Military strategy’s technical aspects are fascinating—how numerous minor skirmishes set
the stage for a major action, how a handful of supply depots determines who controls hundreds
of square miles of territory, how civilian attitudes aid or impede an army, how failure to exploit
battlefield victory or success at overcoming battlefield defeat can nullify a day’s combat. Pack
such information into a book combining good writing with good research and that volume’s
appeal is magnetic. The Road to

the hard way Charleston is such a book.

A sequel to 1997’s The Road to Guil-
ford Courthouse, John Buchanan’s new-
est recounts the Revolutionary War’s final two years in the Carolinas and Georgia, beginning
with British General Charles Cornwallis marching from North Carolina to Virginia and ending
The Road to with the British evacuation of their forces from Charleston, South Carolina, 14 months after
Charleston: Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown.
Nathanael Greene Buchanan’s chosen phase of the war is important, and that importance is overlooked too
and the American easily and too often. The withdrawal from the three southernmost colonies of that theater’s
Revolution main British field army, save for a few important garrisons, left much of the vicinity a no man’s
By John Buchanan land. Across that militarized zone loyalist and rebel guerrillas traded atrocity for atrocity. Not
University of Vir- even Cornwallis’s capitulation calmed the region. Despite mopping-up actions and the cer-
ginia, 2019; $29.95. tainty of American independence, details of what territory the new country would rule
remained elusive. Royal government had, for a time, been fully restored in Georgia. Like Can-
ada, that colony might have stayed within the empire had royal armies been more successful.

68 AMERICAN HISTORY
WHAT POKER
HAND WAS
WILD BILL
HICKOK
HOLDING
WHEN SHOT
DOWN IN A
DEADWOOD
SALOON?
Two pair (aces and
eights), four of a kind
(spades), a pair of aces,
or three jacks?

For more, visit

WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/
MAGAZINES/QUIZ

HISTORYNET.com
ANSWER: TWO PAIR (ACES AND EIGHTS).
GUNNED DOWN WHILE PLAYING FIVE-CARD
STUD IN A DEADWOOD SALOON BY JACK
MCCALL, HICKOK WAS HOLDING BLACK ACES
AND BLACK EIGHTS AS HIS “UP CARDS”, THE
IDENTITY OF THE FIFTH CARD, THE “HOLE
CARD” IS THE SUBJECT OF DEBATE. THE HAND
BECAME KNOWN AS “DEADMAN’S HAND”.

And, with British forces remaining entrenched from Savannah to New York, imperial
strategists were hoping to hang onto one or two coastal cities as naval bases.
No man did more to thwart those British ambitions than General Nathanael Greene.
He played an important role in the re-establishment, under American auspices, of
something like law, order, and civil government, an achievement as important to the
conflict’s outcome as was military victory. And Greene slowly but successfully whittled
British enclaves, showcasing his skill as a campaigner and a mediocrity as a combat
commander—exemplifying the phrase “lost the battle but won the war.” —James Bare-
sel is a freelance writer living in Front Royal, Virginia.
adoptive
nativist son
Rudyard Kipling is not much in favor, given his imperialist
HRI T0Pt1£R
I!!JEN,.EY tilt. But early in the 20th century, Kipling was a literary lion; he
won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907—at 41, the youngest
author so anointed and the first writing in English. Upon his
death in 1936 Kipling’s countrymen buried him beside Charles
Dickens in Westminster Abbey. Though the Nobel presentation
lauded Kipling as “a writer who belongs to Great Britain,” he
spent pivotal years in the United States. He deemed America
“the place in which to create” and was much affected by Amer-
ican writing and values; in return, he affected American for-
eign policy. Mount Holyoke professor Christopher Benfey in If
goes a long way to restore those facts to collective memory.
Kipling first visited the States on a three-month national
If: The Untold tour in 1889. Back in England, he married Carrie Balestier, an
Story of Kipling’s American. In 1892 the couple settled near Brattleboro, Ver-
American Years mont. From that home base the author and poet cultivated
by Christopher Benfey friendships with rising literary and political stars Theodore
Penguin, 2019; $28 Roosevelt, Henry Adams, Owen Wister, and others. The Brat-
tleboro years saw Kipling write some of his most famous
books, including his stab at “the great American novel”: Captains Courageous, about
heroic fishermen sailing out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Legal troubles drove him
reluctantly back to England in 1896.
In 1899 the Kiplings came back to the United States. That year eldest daughter Jose-
phine died suddenly of a lung condition. The loss propelled Kipling out of America for
good. His final sad sojourn engendered what may have been his most profound influ-
ence on the United States. Kipling fiercely believed that whites of the Northern Hemi-
sphere had a duty to dominate the races of the southern hemisphere, a worldview he
distilled into the poem, “The White Man’s Burden.” Widely reproduced in American
newspapers and sent by Kipling himself to Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, “Burden”
helped decide the fate of the Philippines, captured in the Spanish-American War and
initially promised independence. Instead, America made the Philippines a colony.
Regrettably padded with summaries of Kipling’s work and irrelevant anecdotes, If
nonetheless succeeds in conveying how, as Benfey writes, “Kipling became the writer we
know in large part because of his deep involvement with the United States.” —Daniel B.
Moskowitz writes the SCOTUS 101 column.
70 AMERICAN HISTORY
Alneriean
IJistor)r
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULA-
TION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title
39, United States Code). 1. American History 2. (ISSN: 1076-
8866) 3. Filing date: 10/1/19. 4. Issue frequency: Bi Monthly.
5. Number of issues published annually: 6. 6. The annual sub-
scription price is $39.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known
office of publication: HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400,
Vienna, VA 22182. Contact person: Kolin Rankin. 8. Complete
mailing address of headquarters or general business office
of publisher: HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna,
VA 22182. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of
publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, Michael A.
Reinstein, HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna,
VA 22182, Editor, Michael Dolan, HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows
Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182, Editor in Chief, Alex Neill,
HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182. 10.
Owner: HistoryNet; 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA
22182. 11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security
holders owning or holding 1 percent of more of total amount
of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status:
Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publisher
title: American History. 14. Issue date for circulation data below:
October 2019. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total
number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of
copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 37,315. Actual
number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing
date: 33,880. B. Paid circulation. 1. Mailed outside-county paid
subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the
preceding 12 months: 25,851. Actual number of copies of single
issue published nearest to filing date: 24,601. 2. Mailed in-coun-
ty paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue
during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of
single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 3. Sales through
dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales. Average
number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months:
1,465. Actual number of copies of single issue published
nearest to filing date: 900. 4. Paid distribution through other
classes mailed through the USPS. Average number of copies
each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. C.
Total paid distribution. Average number of copies each issue
during preceding 12 months: 27,316. Actual number of copies of
single issue published nearest to filing date; 25,501. D. Free or
nominal rate distribution (by mail and outside mail). 1. Free or
nominal Outside-County. Average number of copies each issue
during the preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single
issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 2. Free or nominal rate
in-county copies. Average number of copies each issue during
the preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date: 0. 3. Free or nominal rate copies
mailed at other Classes through the USPS. Average number of
copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Number of
copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 4. Free
or nominal rate distribution outside the mail. Average number
of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 592. Number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 588. E.
Total free or nominal rate distribution. Average number of cop-
ies each issue during preceding 12 months: 592. Actual number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 588. F.
Total free distribution (sum of 15c and 15e). Average number of
copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 27,908. Actual
number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date:
26,089. G. Copies not Distributed. Average number of copies
each issue during preceding 12 months: 9,407. Actual number
of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 7,791.
H. Total (sum of 15f and 15g). Average number of copies each
issue during preceding 12 months: 37,315. Actual number of
copies of single issue published nearest to filing: 33,880. I.
Percent paid. Average percent of copies paid for the preceding
12 months: 97.9% Actual percent of copies paid for the preced-
ing 12 months: 97.7% 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: A. Paid
Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during
preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date: 0. B. Total Paid Print Copies
(Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average num-
ber of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 27,316.
Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to
filing date: 25,501. C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid
Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each
issue during preceding 12 months: 27,908. Actual number of
copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 26,089.
D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by
16c x 100). Average number of copies each issue during preced-
ing 12 months: 97.9%. Actual number of copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date: 97.7%. I certify that 50% of all
distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above nominal
price: Yes. Report circulation on PS Form 3526-X worksheet 17.
Publication of statement of ownership will be printed in the Feb-
ruary 2020 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of ed-
itor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Shawn G. Byers, VP,
Audience Development & Circulation . I certify that all informa-
tion furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand
that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on
this form or who omits material or information requested on
the form may be subject to criminal sanction and civil actions.
 EXCLUSIVES
FROM - ·
GE'l"l'YSBURG!
Great
Holiday
Gift
Ideas!

Cigars & Coffee Just send $2.95 for shipping

and guaranteed delivery.

FREE Tribute Coin

George A. Custer
Home Decor & More
N ow you can own a FREE uncirculated US Half-Dollar enhanced with
vintage photos of one of the legends of the West.
This Historic Coin is Available Only from Mystic
The vintage Library of Congress portrait on this vibrant coin shows
'CÖWQ'C?PAMK Custer as a major general at the end of the Civil War.
Send today and you’ll also receive special collector’s information and
717-334-3747 other interesting coins on approval. Limit one. Satisfaction guaranteed.
George A. Custer Coin
Yes! Send me the George Custer coin. Enclosed is $2.95 for shipping and guaranteed
R
delivery. Limit of one coin.
Quick order at MysticAd.com/CZ115
Name _______________________________________________________________________________________
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL
OF MILITARY HISTORY

MARILYN
Address _____________________________________________________________________________________

IN KOREA
In 1954 she broke off
City/State/Zip ________________________________________________________________________________
R Check or money order NY State residents add sales tax.

her honeymoon to
entertain the troops. R Visa R MasterCard R American Express R Discover
She said it was the
first time she felt
“like a star.”
IIII IIIIIIIIIIIII
Please send to: Mystic, Dept. CZ115, 9700 Mill St., Camden, NY 13316-9111
Exp. Date ___/___

James M. Cain’s War Story

Battle of Blair Mountain
WINTER 2020
HISTORYNET.com

MHQP-200100-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1 10/2/19 10:15 AM

It’s not a Wheelchair...

It’s not a Power Chair...
It’s a Zinger Chair!
The Zinger features two steering levers, one on either side
of the seat. The user pushes both levers down to go forward,
pulls them both up to brake, and pushes one while pulling the
other to turn to either side. This enables great mobility, the
ability to turn on a dime and to pull right up to tables or desks.
Zinger Chair® Call now toll free and get a utility basket absolutely FREE
83974

1-888-671-9832 Please mention code 112101.

The Zinger Chair is a personal electric vehicle and is not a medical device nor a wheelchair, and has not been submitted
to the FDA for review or clearance. Zinger is not intended for medical purposes to provide mobility to persons restricted
to a sitting position. It is not covered by Medicare nor Medicaid. © 2019 first STREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.
 Peek at the Peak
Denali in autumn;
inset, Athabaskan
mountaineer Walter
Harper, center, and
companions in 1913.

Denali…
…at 20,310 feet, is North America’s highest peak. Two
million years ago, in what is now central Alaska, a volcanic plug began forming a huge vertical
mass that now covers more than 4,600 square miles. Conditions on the formation’s upper half, where winds can exceed
DESIGN PICS INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; INSET: WALTER DARAN/

150 mph, resemble the North Pole’s. As Russian explorer Andrei Glazunov was mapping the area in 1834, a native guide
said the mountain was called Tenada; another said Deenaalee, Kokuyon Athabaskan for “the High One.” Russians set-
tled on Bolshaya Gora—“Big Mountain”—but left the site off maps they provided when the United States bought Alaska
THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

in 1867. In 1889, from 65 miles away, prospector Frank Densmore spotted Bolshaya Gora, leading sourdoughs to call it
“Densmore’s Peak.” In 1896, another prospector renamed the mountain for a Republican presidential candidate. In 1910
four Alaskans, wearing bearskin coats and fueled by doughnuts and hot chocolate, scaled Mount McKinley’s lesser
North Peak. In 1913, Athabaskan mountaineer Walter Harper made the first summit of the higher South Peak. In 1917
President Woodrow Wilson created Mount McKinley National Park. The Obama administration renamed park and peak
Denali in 2015. Each year, the mountain sees about 1,200 climbers seek the summit; half succeed. Since 1932, 126 climb-
ers have died on Denali, most while descending. —Mike Coppock writes regularly for the magazine.

72 AMERICAN HISTORY
Dig deep into history
this holiday season
WITH OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

. - ~ --

f'AuiiES oF'l
DELIVERANCE

KILLE R S.

A NEW HISTOIY OF THE AZTEcs

Available Now Wherever Books Are Sold

global.oup.com/academic
 A SPECIAL OFFER FOR A
C HR ISTM AS GIFT TO R EMEM BER

BRINGING HISTORY TO LIFE

The greatest gifts in life are the moments cherished
with your loved ones. Create more memories
together with our special Christmas offer
on our history tours!

SEE OUR
Book a spot on any of our 2020 history tours until December 31
at the list price and get 50% off a second booking! CHRISTMAS
OFFER!
Contact us

Explore history 24/7 at www.bbob.com 1-888-335-1996

1-859-368-7292
BEYOND BAND OF BROTHERS TOURS
400 North Ashley Drive, Suite 1010 – Tampa, FL 33602 info@bbob.com