By coincidence, Whitcomb was in Keene during these days of heightened community mobilizing, but it was because of the Cheshire County Teachers’ Institute, in which she was ‘considerably interested.’ Yet even the educational assembly, while ‘not wholly neglected’ was ‘seriously affect[ed]’ by the war excitement. Mr. Titus, the Cheshire County School Commissioner, who had evaluated Whitcomb’s school three months earlier and whom she liked ‘very much,’ stepped away from the Institute to not only speak at the rally on the 22nd, but to put his name first on the list of volunteer recruits, thus beginning his ‘gallant and meritorious services during the war’ that won him a series of promotions from private to his eventual commissioning as Brigadier General in 1865 upon the war’s close. Though it did not launch a military career for him, Professor Bailey of New Haven, whose lectures Whitcomb had been attending at the Teachers’ Institute, also took a break from the Institute to ascend the podium, addressing those concerned with fighting a ‘fratricidal war,’ rebuffing them with, ‘Traitors are not our brothers, nor cousins.’
Whether watching the companies drilling or departing, or attending the ceremonial burials of soldiers, Mary Whitcomb included herself in the supportive community upon which the enlistees relied. She did not attend Union War-Clubs, but neither does she seem to be among those who would demand of an enlistee, ‘why he was fighting in this “black Republican” war.’ To her diary, however, she does not hide her consternation at the voluntary service of her neighbors. ‘It is strange how they can go so willingly. I cannot make it seem that it is their duty to go.’
We are all somewhat excited. It is apprehended that drafting will be resorted to in less than two weeks.
Whitcomb’s diary, 7 August 1862
Whatever community enthusiasm had existed in Swanzey for suppressing the Southern rebellion had exhausted the town’s supply of voluntary recruits after the fifth federal call for troops. The sixth call on 4 August 1862 for an additional 300,000 troops came with an attached provision to draft whichever men and boys could not be enlisted voluntarily. Whitcomb was nineteen, she had marked the twenty-first birthday of her brother George a month earlier, confident that she will, ‘always be proud of him as now.’ George Edwin Whitcomb was now in the pool of boys and men called out to Keene to enroll themselves for the draft on 8 August 1862.
By this time, Whitcomb’s experience of the Civil War included attending three military funerals, with two of the soldiers dead from disease and the third killed in Williamsburg. Another one of her acquaintances was discharged with disability after coming down sick during Bull Run. It is unlikely that Whitcomb failed to absorb the contents of local newspapers, whether by reading them or hearing them read or retold, which carried letters from soldiers on the front lines and reprinted lists of the sick and wounded New Hampshire soldiers in distant hospitals, frequently quite grisly in nature.
With George’s fate uncertain, Whitcomb wrote of ‘the suffering of the last three days. We have hardly slept or tasted food.’ She does not ascribe cowardice to her brother, or to the thirty some ‘lost boys’ missing from the town in the wake of the draft announcement—‘nearly a thousand cowardly copperheads,’ if the New Hampshire Sentinel is to be believed. Instead, of the young man who once spent three hours and twelve miles searching for a girl’s lost bracelet, Whitcomb finds it ‘terrible to think that he was taken and to be pressed into service. Almost like death.’ Whether out of paternal concern for his young son, economic investment in the promising young worker, political disdain against the reigning Republican Party, or a combination of factors, the open actions of her father Roswell, being ‘upon the go all of the time trying what could be done,’ seem to belie a masculine culture of bellicosity. The appearance at the Whitcomb home the following day of ‘many sympathizers’ further impugns the town’s overall investment in and sense of obligation toward the War of the Rebellion. Whitcomb’s derision is saved for young men who are ‘so enthusiastic about this glorious cause.’
While the casualties piled up, the supply of volunteer soldiers dried up, and the demand for troops led to the call for drafting on 4 August 1862. Towns were desperate to avoid the stigma attached to conscription and began offering bounties, or monetary enticements, to enlistees. Following the 1 July 1862 call for 300,000 troops, New Hampshire started by offering $10, but when it failed to attract the requisite numbers, they doubled it to $20, then $50 soon thereafter. Men willing to enlist could examine their options and search around for the highest bounties, with the National Eagle’s grumbling that New Hampshire men ‘swelled the ranks of Vermont,’ which had consistently been offering higher rewards. Following the 4 August threat of the draft, the Northern Advocate noted with ‘surprise’ the ‘alacrity of our smaller and purely agricultural towns in adopting measures to fill their quotas.’ Claremont and Newport, New Hampshire were each offering $50 bounty to enlistees. Chelsea, Maine was offering $125. As Mary Whitcomb in Swanzey wrote on 11 August 1862, ‘They think there will be no drafting at present as they voted at Town meeting to day to pay $200 bounty from the town and many stand ready to enlist.’
On 30 August the New Hampshire Statesman printed the quotas of soldiers required from each town, with Swanzey bearing the burden of providing 115 men and boys for service, ‘but we trust now that George will not be one of them.’
Who is there so base, amongst the sons of New Hampshire as to hesitate in duty? We trust, not one.
The New Hampshire Sentinel, 18 April 1861
As Whitcomb’s journal concluded, more men and boys continued to die of disease and in battle. Out-of-towners from as nearby as Boston and Lawrence, Massachusetts, others from as far away as England and Ireland came to collect Swanzey’s generous bounty and credit their names to the town’s quota. Some of these enlistees went on to receive wounds in battle, some would die from disease, but a great many grabbed the bounty money and deserted at the nearest opportunity. Nor was desertion limited only to the substitutes and bounty-seekers. Despite the lack of anonymity that came with fighting alongside one’s neighbors, friends and families, and despite harsh punishments threatened against and occasionally doled out to deserters, at least five local men and boys, longtime residents of Swanzey, deserted before the war’s close. Indeed, for every thousand New Hampshire enlistees, 112 would desert.
An option for draftees with financial resources was to hire a substitute to fight in their place. Among the names of Swanzey men who, in 1865, ‘voluntarily obtained substitutes to fill the town’s quota,’ is not only Mary Whitcomb’s brother George Edwin, but the man whom she would marry in 1869, Orlow E. Parsons. George Whitcomb and Orlow Parsons would later become business partners, elected representatives, and respected members of their communities.
I have been reading most of the time since then.
Whitcomb’s diary, 10 May 1863
Whitcomb’s diary entries did not extensively catalogue her reading selections, as did some of her contemporary New England diarists, as studied by Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray. Seeking insight on civilian literary culture, the Zborays consulted over 4,800 items written by New Englanders and focused on 430 manuscript letters and diary volumes written by those who wrote extensively on their own literary practices. A highly literate individual, Whitcomb was very much a part of the social literary culture that pervaded white New England, irrespective of gender and class. Frequently recording large portions of her day spent reading, Whitcomb also borrowed and lent out books, read out loud in public and private settings, did domestic work as others read out loud, and shared letters addressed to her as she partook in letters shared by others. But once the war broke out, the similarities between her journaling practices and those of her contemporaries are fewer. The Zborays’ subjects found that the war pervaded their social life and their reading habits, disrupting their ability to continue reading and recording life as it had been before the outbreak of hostilities. Whitcomb recorded a total of nine titles, only one of which can be plausibly tied to concurrent national affairs.
While it would be understandable for pro-war diarists to become so distracted by war events, even a Maine anti-war Democrat, Persis Black, once a very social character and an ‘eloquent diarist,’ ceased almost all entries on social life and reading, writing instead on the pages of her journal complaints about sermons and war news. ‘The war is terrible, but I cannot write of it,’ she wrote in July 1863. ‘It is history & will be written by others.’ No more did she transcribe poems, quote authors, or insert clippings into her diary.
Another pattern the Zborays found was the keeping of a war timeline, with most to all of the diarists mentioning Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s replacement of General McClellan, General Pope’s campaign, a number of battles in 1863, and the draft riots. From this list, Whitcomb mentioned only Sumter in 1861.Continued on Next Page »
1860 United States Federal Census, Swanzey, Cheshire, New Hampshire
Ayling, Augustus D. Revised Register of Soldiers and Sailors of New Hampshire in the War of the Rebellion. Concord: I.C. Evans, public printer, 1895.
Cashin, Joan E. ‘Deserters, Civilians, and Draft Resistance in the North,’ The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002.
Child, Hamilton. Gazetteer of Cheshire County, N.H., 1736-1885. Syracuse: Printed at the Journal Office, 1885.
Fahs, Alice. The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Faust, Drew Gilpin This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Keene History Committee. Upper Ashuelot: A History of Keene, New Hampshire. Keene, 1968.
Kemp, Thomas R. ‘Community and War: The Civil War Experience of Two New Hampshire Towns,’ Vinovskis, Maris A., ed. Toward a Social History of the Civil War: Exploratory Essays. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
New Hampshire Registrar of Vital Statistics, Index to Marriages, early to 1900, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Geneaological Society of Utah, 1975-1976) reel 1001293.
Read, Benjamin. The History of Swanzey, New Hampshire, from 1734-1890. Salem, MA: Salem Press, 1892.
Reynolds, David S. John Brown, Abolitionist: the Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
Vinovskis, Maris A. ‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’ Toward a Social History of the Civil War: Exploratory Essays. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Whitcomb, Charlotte. The Whitcomb Family in America: A Biographical Genealogy with a Chapter on Our English Forbears “by the Name of Whetcombe.” Minneapolis, 1904.
Whitcomb, Mary Seline. Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library
White, Richard Grant. National Hymns: How They Are Written and How They Are Not Written. A Lyrics and National Study for the Times. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1861.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org.
Zboray, Ronald J. and Mary Saracino Zboray. ‘Cannonballs and Books: Reading and the Disruption of Social Ties on the New England Home Front,‘ Joan Cashin, ed. The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002.
Newspapers I have used: the New Hampshire Sentinel, the New Hampshire Argus and Spectator, New Hampshire Statesman, National Eagle, Northern Advocate.
Endnotes
1.) Before I began this work, the diary at the Boston Public Library was previously unexplored and its author unidentified beyond ‘teenage girl in Swanzey, New Hampshire.’
2.) Depending on the source, I am still undecided as to whether to fault certain authors for this. While the authors in question were not examining pervasive desertion and negativity, the narratives they construct on war culture reveal not even a hint at dissent.
3.) Alice Fahs, The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
4.) Joan E. Cashin, ‘Deserters, Civilians, and Draft Resistance in the North,’ The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002), 278-9. Also Maris A. Vinovskis, ‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’ and Thomas R. Kemp, ‘Community and War: The Civil War Experience of Two New Hampshire Towns,’ Vinovskis, Maris A., ed. Toward a Social History of the Civil War: Exploratory Essays (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 10.
5.) Mary Seline Whitcomb, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library, 21 April 1861, henceforth MSW, BPL. Greenwood quoted by Alice Fahs, The Imagined Civil War, 68. Startled loyal Americans from Richard Grant White, National Hymns: How They Are Written and How They Are Not Written. A Lyrics and National Study for the Times (New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1861), 14, 17.
6.) Eileen Wheelock of the Swanzey Historical Museum told me that this was the newspaper read in Swanzey during this period, but Whitcomb never mentions it by name and only refers once to reading a newspaper at all, and there she was relating her discovery of a friend’s obituary. Two other references to ‘paper’ may or may not refer to newspapers. But, considering the shared literary culture of New England and the social information circulating practices she relates, the news at any given moment may well have come from the pages of the Sentinel. Besides, its post-1861 pages are digitized and searchable on America’s Historical Newspapers.
7.) The New Hampshire Sentinel, 18 April 1861. The New Hampshire Argus and Spectator, 19 April 1861 and 13 September 1861 quoted in Thomas R. Kemp, ‘Community and War: the Civil War Experience of Two New Hampshire Towns,’ Vinovskis, Maris, ed. Toward a Social History of the Civil War: Exploratory Essays (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 41, 36.
8.) MSW, BPL, October and 2 December 1859. David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: the Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 406. MSW, BPL, 10 March 1863. The happenings of the Town Meeting as well as the reference to Swanzey as ‘this important Democratic town’ are from VAN, ‘Swanzey Town Meeting,’ The New Hampshire Sentinel, 2 April 1863.
9.) ‘Natural History—The Copperhead,’ The New Hampshire Sentinel, 9 March 1865.
10.) MSW, BPL, 20 March 1861. 1860 United States Federal Census, Swanzey, Cheshire, New Hampshire. MSW, BPL, 17 August 1862.
11.) MSW, BPL, 25 March 1863. Hentz Homepage, ‘The Negroes of the South are the Happiest Labouring Class on the face of the Globe,’ University of Virginia, http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/proslav/hentzhp.html (accessed 11 December 2009). Wikipedia contributors, "The Planter's Northern Bride," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Planter%27s_Northern_Bride&oldid=292377361 (accessed December 11, 2009).
12.) Mass meeting proceedings found in Keene History Committee, Upper Ashuelot: A History of Keene, New Hampshire (Keene, 1968), 107-109 as well as The New Hampshire Sentinel, 25 April 1861, which also addresses the Teachers’ Institute, as did the 18 April 1861 issue. Titus’ military career is recounted in Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Cheshire County, N.H., 1736-1885 (Syracuse: Printed at the Journal Office, 1885), 119. Whitcomb’s entries on Keene, the Teachers’ Institute, and war talk: 25-27 April 1861. On Titus’ visit to her school and lecture, 17 January 1861.
13.) MSW, BPL, drilling: 25 and 27 April 1861. Departure of troops: 6 May 1861. Burials: 15 December 1861, 25 May 1862, 2 November 1862, 9 December 1863. Consternation at voluntary enlistment: 17 August 1862. Existence of Swanzey’s War-Club reported in the New Hampshire Statesman, 25 January 1862. The officers of the War-Club appear mentioned in Whitcomb’s diary either briefly or not at all. Captain Barker of Keene related these negative reactions from ‘his democratic friends’ at a Union meeting in Keene, reported in Home and State Affairs, The New Hampshire Sentinel, 12 September 1861. The term ‘Black Republican,’ once widespread in national discourse, particularly among Democrats, refers to the alleged concern of Republicans for the dignity and wellbeing of Black people.
14.) MSW, BPL, 1 July 1862.
15.) Ibid, enrollment: 8 August 1862. Military funerals: 15 December 1861, 25 May 1862. Disease: 4 August 1861. Deaths and discharge recorded in and corroborated by Augustus D. Ayling, Revised Register of Soldiers and Sailors of New Hampshire in the War of the Rebellion (Concord: I.C. Evans, public printer, 1895).
16.) MSW, BPL, suffering: 11 August 1862. Lost boys: 12 and 16 August 1862. Emily’s bracelet: 15 August 1861. Almost like death, Roswell, 11 August 1862. Sympathizers: 12 August 1862. Glorious cause: 17 August 1862. ‘Home and State Affairs,’ The New Hampshire Sentinel, 2 April 1863.
17.) On stigma, Kemp, ‘Community and War,’ Toward a Social History of the Civil War, 47. On bounties, 44-47. National Eagle, 17 July 1862. Northern Advocate, 5 August 1862. MSW, 11 August 1862, corroborated by Benjamin Read, The History of Swanzey, New Hampshire, from 1734-1890 (Salem, MA: Salem Press, 1892), 126.
18.) MSW, 11 August 1862
19.) Augustus D. Ayling, Revised Register of Soldiers and Sailors of New Hampshire in the War of the Rebellion (Concord: I.C. Evans, public printer, 1895). Joan E. Cashin, ‘Deserters, Civilians, and Draft Resistance in the North, The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 266.
20.) List appears in Read, History of Swanzey, 131. New Hampshire Registrar of Vital Statistics, Index to Marriages, early to 1900, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Geneaological Society of Utah, 1975-1976) reel 1001293. Parsons’ & George E. Whitcomb’s success stories in Read on 210, 214, 225-226, 262, 539, 566 as well as in Charlotte Whitcomb, The Whitcomb Family in America: A Biographical Genealogy with a Chapter on Our English Forbears “by the Name of Whetcombe” (Minneapolis, 1904), 513.
21.) While they have written on the topic of New England literary culture more than a few times, I have consulted Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, ‘Cannonballs and Books: Reading and the Disruption of Social Ties on the New England Home Front,‘ Joan Cashin, ed. The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002).
22.) Zboray and Zboray, ‘Reading in New England,’ Civilians in the American Civil War, 244.
23.) Ibid, 252.
24.) Ibid, 245. MSW, BPL, 17 August 1862. I must leave of talking to you Journal and away to repose, 19 June 1863.
25.) Zboray and Zboray, ‘Reading in New England,’ Civilians in the American Civil War, 245. Alice Fahs, The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 17-20.
26.) Fahs, The Imagined Civil War, 130-131. ‘Natural History—The Copperhead,’ The New Hampshire Sentinel, 9 March 1865.
27.) 995 out of 1000 soldiers suffered diarrhea and dysentery. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 4. Reasons soldiers might not want to be soldiers anymore are well enumerated in Joan E. Cashin, Joan E. Cashin, ‘Deserters, Civilians, and Draft Resistance in the North,’ The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002) 1/6 Northern enlistees died, along with 1/4 enlistees. Maris A. Vinovskis, ‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’ Toward a Social History of the Civil War: Exploratory Essays (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 9.
