GAMBIER — Schedulers of any event must always fret about the old saw, “What if I throw a party and no one comes?” Kenyon College had the opposite problem Monday evening when Higley Auditorium was filled to overflowing with the crowd that showed up to listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson talk about Ohio and abolition during the Civil War. McPherson, Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, author of 18 books and editor of 16 more, was introduced by the college’s president, Georgia S. Nugent.
McPherson spoke for a little over an hour, lecturing about Ohio’s role in the abolition movement as well as on the military roles of black soldiers and emancipated slaves. McPherson pointed out that while Kenyon College had some strong connections to the Republican Party and was the school of several people involved with Lincoln and his administration, it was also a microcosm of Ohio in general, which played a focal role during the Civil War. He said that 141 Kenyon College alumni served in the war, 17 of whom died. Several went on to become generals, including Rutherford B. Hayes, who was later to become president of the United States. Three out of the four top Union generals during the war were Ohioans.
“Lest your heart swell with too much pride about the state’s record, let me note also that Gen. George B. McClellan, who probably did more than any other military figure to slow the drive to Union victory and the abolition of slavery, began his Civil War career in Ohio,” McPherson said, adding that some of the foremost anti-war, anti-emancipation Democrats were also Ohioans. He cited in particular Rep. Clement Vallandigham, describing him as “the foremost Copperhead” in the country. The term “Copperhead” was used for anti-war protesters, and Vallandigham’s status as their leader was indicated when Abraham Lincoln had him arrested for a speech Vallandigham gave on the public square in Mount Vernon in 1863, a fact that McPherson surprisingly did not reference during his lecture.
Indeed, McPherson’s address remained mostly focused on the national picture. He said that the abolitionists’ moral goal of freeing slaves was for a portion of the war subsumed into an ethic, or at least a slogan, of “war necessity,” which was how Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was initially billed to non-abolitionist audiences. The historian emphasized that Lincoln’s actual order was written well in advance of its release, but was held back so that it could be declared in the wake of a Union victory, which finally came at Antietam in September of 1863. The move back towards defining emancipation as a moral issue began with Salmon P. Chase’s suggestion to Lincoln that the phrase “an act of justice” be added to the phrase about the order’s military necessity, McPherson said.
The most engaging part of the address was McPherson’s description of soldiers’ personal letters he had read in his research. He cited in particular the case of Pvt. Chauncey Welton of the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, whose letters home in the winter of 1863 complained about fighting in order to free African-Americans. Though Welton started the war as a Democrat, by the summer of 1863, he was becoming convinced that Lincoln had indeed done the right thing, and by 1865 the soldier was actively describing himself as an abolitionist. The further into the South the armies pushed, and the more the soldiers experienced of both slavery and of black soldiers fighting along side them in the field, McPherson said, the more supportive they became of the abolition of slavery. The historian cited the importance of the Fifth U.S. Colored Infantry in helping this change of opinion. The regiment was formed in central Ohio, and went on to have four Medal of Honor winners.
At the conclusion of his lecture, McPherson took several questions on a range of various Civil War issues, including one query which cited John Brown’s dealings with escaped slaves in Canada and wondered how many returned to fight. McPherson said that one of his graduate students had once addressed that issue and determined that there was a sizable “reverse migration” of ex-slaves who returned to fight, regarding their Canadian sojourn as temporary.
McPherson remained afterward to sign copies of his books, including his Pulitzer Prize-winner, “Battle Cry of Freedom.”
