Robert E. Lee – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Presidential elections routinely deliver twists of fate

This Martin Van Buren rectangular sulfide sold for $11,250 at a February 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Republic of Texas became an independent sovereign state on March 3, 1836. The United States recognized the legitimacy of the republic, but declined to annex the territory until Dec. 29, 1845, when it also became the 28th state. However, after the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, the state of Texas, with a population that was about 30 percent Blacks (predominantly slaves), seceded from the Union. In 1861, Texas joined the Confederate States of America.

The well-known slogan “Six Flags over Texas” refers to the nations that governed Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States and the Southern Confederacy. Some historians claim that the last battle of the Civil War was fought in Texas at the Battle of Palmito Ranch on May 12-13, 1865. This may be technically correct, but it was after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox (April 9) and President Jefferson Finis Davis dissolved the Confederacy (May 9). They also point out that the battle was a Confederate victory, which seems irrelevant.

Today, Texas is the second-largest state by area (Alaska is No. 1) and second largest in population (No. 1 is California).

The annexation of Texas occurred during the time the United States was rapidly expanding into the geographic area that would become the “Lower 48,” but deeply divided over the slavery issue that would plague national politics. The two-party system was still in an embryonic stage and hybrid political affiliations would result in unusual national elections.

A prime example is Martin Van Buren, vice president for Andrew Jackson from 1833-37 and the eighth man to serve in that position. In the election of 1836, he became the eighth president of the United States and the first to have been born (1782) after the American Revolution.

The election of 1836 was unusual since the recently formed Whig party was still sufficiently disorganized to the point they couldn’t agree on a single candidate to oppose Van Buren. In a highly questionable gamble, they decided to run four strong regional candidates with the hope they could deny Van Buren the opportunity to win a majority of the electoral votes and force the election into the House of Representatives. Despite having to run against four strong regional candidates, Van Buren won a majority of the electoral votes after winning a majority of the popular votes in both the North and South.

However, in a twist of fate, Van Buren’s vice president running mate, Richard M. Johnson, fell one electoral vote short when 23 Unfaithful Electors from Virginia refused to vote for Johnson due to their objections over his biracial marriage. So, for the first and only time (up till now), the United States Senate was required to hold a special election for the vice president. Johnson finally prevailed and served his four years as vice president for President Martin Van Buren. One could hope that this was an unfortunate anomaly, but they would be wrong.

When the Democrats met in Baltimore four years later in 1840 for their nominating convention, the incumbent president, Martin Van Buren, was renominated as expected. But VP Johnson ran into another political issue: the Democratic Party now considered him to be dead weight that would drag down the entire ticket. Even ex-President Andrew Jackson agreed and suggested they drop Johnson and replace him with a younger man … James K. Polk – the Speaker of the House. After the normal wrangling, they were still unable to agree and Martin Van Buren ran without a vice president!

This is only one of two elections (until 2020) where a major party did not have a vice presidential candidate on Election Day. The other was in 1912, when Vice President James S. Sherman (Republican) died six days before the election. You will not be surprised to learn that Martin Van Buren did not win the election and was replaced by William Henry Harrison as president and John Tyler, a Senator from Virginia, as vice president. Tyler took his oath of office on March 4, 1841. However, 30 days later, he was president of the United States when Harrison became the first president to die in office. Tyler was only 51 years old and the youngest president till that time.

Now skip forward 20 years to see how this sage evolved:

“At 4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861, a 10-inch mortar from Fort Johnson, on James Island, South Carolina, fired the first shot of the Civil War. Upon that signal, Confederate batteries from Sullivan’s Island, across Charleston Harbor, joined in. These were soon followed by a battery located at Cummings Point, which dominated Fort Sumpter from a distance of only a mile. The Civil War had begun.”

Epilogue: The hot heads in South Carolina were delirious with joy! They would chase these Yankees back North and whup their behinds in the process. President Jefferson Davis called up 100,000 troops to end this quickly. The old veterans yawned and predicted these cotton states would not last 30 days. Bull Run would demonstrate just how powerful the North was as they crushed these Southern rebels.

Welcome to your new job and shiny new home, Mr. Lincoln.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

‘Stonewall’ Jackson represents a great ‘what if’ of the American Civil War

An oil portrait of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson painted in 1862 sold for $23,302 at a December 2007 Heritage auction.

“Look! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Let us determine to die here today and we will conquer.” – General Barnard Bee, 1861, First Manassas/First Battle of Bull Run

By Jim O’Neal

Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (1824-1863) was born at Clarksburg, deep in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. He was only 2 years old when his sister and father died of typhoid fever. The Jacksons had been longtime residents, but his father was a lawyer struggling with growing debt. His mother and three children were forced to become wards of the small town. Even after she remarried, they were unable to support the family and the children were sent individually to various relatives. Jackson’s mother died barely a year after the family break-up.

TJT grew up working for an uncle who ran a lumber and grist mill. The absence of parents or a real family resulted in a hardy young man, withdrawn and shyly introspective. He relied on friendly tutors and a love of reading to attain a very limited education. His first bit of luck occurred when a nominee for the U.S. Military Academy changed his mind and Jackson took his place.

Few, if any cadets ever entered West Point with less scholastic preparation. Moreover, the mountain lad was naturally introverted and almost entirely devoid of basic social skills. Somehow, he used energy, determination and a passion for learning in lieu of formal preparation. Studying day and night helped him rise from near the bottom to graduate 17th out of 59 cadets in the class of 1846.

The War with Mexico had just started and Jackson entered the Army as a lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery and he was dispatched at once to Mexico. After a slow start, he participated in the Siege of Veracruz in March 1847. Then he was cited for gallantry at both Contreras and Chapultepec. By the end of the war, he was a brevet major and had outperformed all of his West Point classmates.

After the war, he returned with the Army, first to New York and then to Fort Meade, deep in the middle of Florida. It was here that he received an offer from the small Virginia Military Institute (VMI) to be Professor of Artillery Tactics and Optics in Lexington, Va. He was plagued with health issues to the point that many historians believe he was a hypochondriac. That aside, he became intensely interested in religion, which would play a major role in his personal and military activities. Eventually, he joined the Presbyterian church and was a highly devout Calvinist.

The signs of the coming civil war were growing rapidly and as early as Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown made an effort at Harpers Ferry to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the arsenal and arming slaves. Brown had 22 followers, but 88 Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee quelled the revolt. Stonewall Jackson was one of the troops guarding Brown until he was executed. By coincidence, John Wilkes Booth was one of the spectators at the hanging. Many refer to this incident as the “dress rehearsal for the Civil War.”

Stonewall Jackson remained a strong Unionist until he thought his beloved Virginia was threatened by federal coercion. When secession finally occurred, he offered his services to the Confederation. He left Lexington on April 21, 1861, never to see his adopted town again. Robert E. Lee, of course, was offered command of all Union forces, but like Jackson, his loyalty to Virginia was stronger than to the United States.

It was from here that Stonewall Jackson earned his reputation as one of the most brilliant commanders in American history. Even though his field services in the Civil War lasted but two years, his movements continue to be studied at every major military academy in the world. He was an artillerist who excelled in infantry tactics. He was a devout Christian but merciless in battle … paradoxical because of odd eccentricities, but an inflexible sense of duty, mixed with steel-cold tactics. One explanation offered was his belief that he was fighting on the order of Joshua, Gideon and other commanders of Old Testament fame. His credo was best summed up in a single statement: “My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that.”

Appointed a colonel of infantry on April 27, 1861, Jackson’s first orders were to return to the Shenandoah Valley and take command of an inexperienced militia and volunteers. This was a traumatic shock as the new commander assumed his duties with a stern regime. Units accustomed to parades underwent hours of daily drills, incompetents were quickly expunged and the town’s entire liquor supply was eliminated. The area was quickly ringed by armed pickets and artillery emplacements. Jackson taught the ignorant and punished the insubordinate.

It was such a rapid and dramatic transformation that Jackson was promoted to brigadier general on June 17 and given a brigade of five infantry regiments. The most famous nickname in American history came to Jackson just four weeks later at Manassas. His career proceeded at a dizzying pace and on Oct. 10, 1862, Jackson was appointed lieutenant general of half of General Lee’s forces. In spring 1863, Jackson performed his most spectacular flanking in the tangle of the Virginia Wilderness. He routed General Joe Hooker’s Army and for the first time rode to the front lines to personally assess the situation. He was returning when Confederates mistook the general and opened fire.

On May 2, three bullets struck Jackson, shattering his left arm below the shoulder. He died eight days later when pneumonia overtook him on May 10, 1863. His last words were “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” The South had lost the most famous martyr of the Confederacy. General Robert E. Lee had lost the equivalent of his right arm. He never recovered.

For many years after the war’s end, Lee would speak of General Jackson. The words would vary, but the sentiment remained the same. “If I had Stonewall Jackson with me, I should have won the Battle of Gettysburg.” He even imagined Stonewall beside him in later battles, facing Grant in the Wilderness. “If Jackson had been alive and there, he would have crushed the enemy!”

For General Lee and for Americans ever since, the untimely death of Stonewall Jackson is the great “what if” of Civil War history. Jackson shaped the war in the Eastern theater with his aggressive tactics. His absence not only changed Confederate operations and Southern morale, but the tactical methods of General Lee.

“I know not how to replace him,” Robert E. Lee said at Stonewall Jackson’s funeral.

Was Henry Ford right? Is history bunk?

A first edition of John F. Kennedy’s *Profiles in Courage*, inscribed by the author, realized $7,500 at a September 2018 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Among the towering figures of the Civil War, none is more enigmatic than General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Widely denounced as ruthlessly destructive for his infamous March to the Sea across Georgia, Sherman was a brilliant commander who helped bring the bloody war to a decisive end. His legacy of “total war” against anyone and everyone (even unarmed civilians) has haunted many Americans and military leaders. It has no parallel in U.S. military history in terms of ferocity or effectiveness.

Sherman (1820-1891) was massively paranoid due to a catastrophic event when he was 9 years old. His father, apparently very successful, suddenly went into bankruptcy and then died … leaving the family penniless and in chaos. His decision to do whatever necessary to restore order and harmony to the Union was rooted in his compulsion for normalcy.

Psychobabble aside, I tend to agree with the following: “The historians of the future will note his shortcomings. Not captiously, but in the kind spirit of impartial justice he will set them down to draw the perfect balance of his character. Let him deduct them from the qualities that mark his distinction, and we shall still see William Tecumseh Sherman looming up a superb and colossal figure in the generation in which he lived,” said General F.C. Winkler, addressing the Army of the Cumberland in the year Sherman died.

Edwin McMasters Stanton (1814-69) became Attorney General for President James Buchanan the day Major Robert Anderson moved his federal troops to Fort Sumter, S.C. This action was viewed as a quasi act-of-war and South Carolina issued an “ordinance of secession.” Later, Stanton would become Abraham Lincoln’s War Secretary and General-in-Chief, replacing General George McClellan due to “inaction.” After Lincoln’s assassination, he became the temporary de facto head of the government as Andrew Johnson was paralyzed in a state of inaction and Congress was not in session.

A man of action, Stanton mobilized the hunt for John Wilkes Booth and all suspected conspirators. All but three were hanged after a swift military tribunal found them guilty. The Stanton role was played by Kevin Kline in the 2010 movie The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford. Robin Wright played Mary Surratt, the first woman executed by the United States. After the trial, Stanton had a contentious role in President Johnson’s Cabinet, despite their intense mutual dislike.

Johnson (1808-1875) was the only member of the U.S. Senate from a seceding state (Tennessee) to remain loyal to the Union. Hoping to make an example to undermine the Confederacy, Lincoln designated him a brigadier general of volunteers and appointed him military governor of the state with instructions to form a government and return to the Union. The best Johnson could do was declare himself the leading Unionist of the South. Lincoln was expecting a difficult re-election in 1864 and Johnson was selected as vice president in the hope he could attract Southern Democratic votes. They were nominated in June and elected in November. Johnson botched his inauguration by getting drunk; his oath of office was a rambling, incoherent speech. It was so humiliating that he left town for a week. Upon his discreet return, accounts described him as the “invisible man.” Six short weeks later, he would be president of the United States.

The lives of these three men would become forever intertwined in a fascinating series of events.

On April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), who accepted the surrender under terms that were considered generous. President Lincoln accepted them since he was still apprehensive about the rest of the Southern troops.

Three Confederate generals – Joe Johnston, Edmund Kirby Smith and Nathan Bedford Forrest – were still on the loose. Lincoln and Grant feared they would form guerilla units. The war could then theoretically last several more years.

However, after Lincoln’s assassination on April 15, Johnston followed Lee’s action and surrendered his troops to General Sherman. Their first meeting was similar to Grant/Lee, except without aides and note-takers (and the eyes of history). Sherman offered to accept Johnston’s surrender on the same terms as those give to Lee. Surprisingly, Johnston demurred and countered with a stunning proposal to make it a “universal surrender” – thereby surrendering all Southern forces to the Rio Grande. In short, it would end the war once and for all.

When Sherman agreed and sent it forward, President Johnson and the entire Cabinet were furious. They suspected Sherman of a conspiracy to take over the entire country or, at a minimum, position himself for the 1868 presidential election. It took Grant 10 days of diplomacy to settle the issue, but exposed a deep rift between President Johnson and Secretary Stanton.

In the end, when Johnson tried to fire Stanton, the Republican Congress impeached the president for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” He was famously acquitted by one vote (twice) by Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas. Interestingly, Ross was among the eight men profiled in the 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage “by” John F. Kennedy.

Critics have claimed Ross was bribed for his vote to acquit … and that Kennedy’s speechwriter and close adviser Ted Sorensen had ghostwritten the JFK book. Even Eleanor Roosevelt weighed in, famously quipping, “I wish that Kennedy had a little less profile and more courage.”

Perhaps Henry Ford was right. History is bunk!

Civil War question: What were these men thinking?

This albumen print of a Union encampment, most likely of the 110th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, sold for $2,868 at a November 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The last truly great Civil War book I read was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005). The award-winning book focuses on the 1860 presidential election and how underdog Lincoln was able to secure the Republican nomination against three formidable opponents, and then win the presidency without a single Southern vote (he was not on any Southern ballot).

Then, it deftly explains how President Lincoln was able to recruit all three Republican opponents to serve as key members of his Cabinet: New York Senator William H. Seward (Secretary of State), Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase (Treasury Secretary), and Missouri’s favorite son Edward Bates (Attorney General). Next was the brilliant way he managed to leverage each man’s strength and weakness into a form of political-enemy synergy.

Steven Spielberg secured the film rights before the book was written and his 2012 movie Lincoln was highly acclaimed. Out of 14 Oscar nominations, Daniel-Day Lewis won for Best Actor. But the movie was really only about the last four months of Lincoln’s life when he maneuvered to get the 14th Amendment approved. Neither the book nor film spends much time on the Confederacy or the underlying circumstances that made the Civil War inevitable.

This is not unusual, since books about Lincoln, his Cabinet and the generals of the war pop up with regularity. Relatively little has been written about the Confederacy per se (i.e. the formal government of the South). The primary focus seems confined to biographies of Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson or the famous battles between the North and South (such as Gettysburg).

Sure, people might know that Jefferson Davis was president of the CSA or that Alexander H. Stephens was vice president. But these two men were in office the entire war, from April 1861 to May 1865. Perhaps interest in individuals is limited because, as some historians argue, the Confederate States of America represented an entire people’s effort to cling to their past. They feared after the 1860 election that Lincoln and the now-dominant Republicans would simply force them to abandon the practice of slavery. So they naively decided to secede from the Union and start their own country.

They started with seven secessionist slave-holding states and in February 1861 established a new Confederacy in Montgomery, Ala., before Lincoln even took office. After Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in April, four more states seceded and joined the Confederacy (now based in Richmond, Va.). Missouri and Kentucky were later accepted but did not secede. Two seats in the Confederate Congress were given to Southern California.

Organizationally, the Southern government was much like the North. They had a Constitution and a Cabinet with six departments that composed the executive branch. With few exceptions, they replicated their counterparts in the Union. A prominent exception: the Attorney General was elevated to Cabinet status. It grew in importance since the Confederacy had no Supreme Court; the Department of Justice arbitrated any legislation or constitutional disputes.

However, most departments discovered their limitations once the War started. The Navy began the war without a single major vessel and soon lost easy access to international sea-lanes from Southern ports. The Treasury and War departments did not have the resources of their Union counterparts, little things like enough money or an army and a non-industrial economy. Here, one must ask: Who were these men and what were they thinking?

Some deep thinkers sincerely believe it was an honest attempt to build a New South with 11 individual states forging a future based on prosperity from land and slaves. After all, only 4 percent to 5 percent had direct involvement with the institution of slavery. The majority considered their way of life inviolate enough to defend it by force of arms. However, despite obvious mismatches from virtually every aspect, that did not deter its political leaders. They assured the Southern people that courage and determination could substitute for limited resources, limited manpower and lack of foreign aid.

The South’s goal of independence was as absolute as the North’s determination to maintain the Union. Hence, the objectives of the opposing governments could be neither compromised nor harmonized. The Civil War would have to be a fight to the finish.

For four long years, against impossible odds, the South persevered and suffered. It accepted honorable defeat and then wrapped itself in nostalgia. The South’s postwar vision of “The Lost Cause” – fighting and surrendering with honor – became a soothing balm for the sores of war.

However, President Jefferson Davis would admit much later, “The simple fact was the people had gone to war without considering the cost.”

Case closed.

Union general had no patience with those who complained about war

William Tecumseh Sherman’s dress uniform as general of the Union Army sold for $62,500 at a June 2018 Heritage auction.

“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.” – Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Dec. 22, 1864, telegram to President Lincoln

By Jim O’Neal

From mid-November 1864, there had been no word from William Tecumseh Sherman or his Union Army. President Lincoln, anxious about the fate of 60,000 soldiers, tried to conceal his concern, telling one crowd, “We all know where he went in, but I can’t tell where he will come out.”

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was far less concerned as he followed his lieutenants’ progress in the Southern press and assembled supplies to send to Savannah, along with the Union Army’s mail. In early December, his reports indicated that Sherman had arrived in Savannah on Dec. 10. Eleven days later, Sherman occupied the mostly evacuated city, but once again, they had failed to cut off the retreat of the Rebel Garrison. With this communication, Sherman brought to a conclusion his famous March to the Sea.

Arguments still flare up over the destruction that occurred during this critical episode of the Civil War, but Sherman’s primary target was property, not people, and his troops were not alone in terrorizing the countryside. The Confederate Cavalry, deserters from both sides, and bands of “bummers” both black and white contributed their share to the chaos. As Sherman observed, “Sweeping around generally through Georgia for the purpose of inflicting damage would not be good generalship.”

Rather, what he aimed to do was intimidate and terrorize Southerners to break their will to continue fighting. It was psychological warfare. “These people made war upon us, defied and dared us to come South to their country where they boasted they would kill us.” He had no patience with those who protested or complained. The strategy worked where there was total destruction and there was no means to fight on, but pride and ignorance kept the war alive in other places where leaders refused to accept the inevitable.

Critics of Sherman’s March that complain about his scorched-earth policy typically overlook his occupation of Savannah. He basically left it alone after the inhabitants accepted defeat, except when merchants tried to reclaim the cotton he had captured. Sherman was far more interested in their return to the Union than continual martial law that would only result in further alienation.

By conventional strategy, Sherman’s next move should have been the immediate transfer of his Army by water to Virginia, where Grant had Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia bottled up behind fortifications at Petersburg. The Federal Navy had the ships available. Both Lincoln and Grant supported this plan, but Sherman disagreed. Instead, he wanted to apply total war – as he had in Georgia – to the Carolinas.

He especially wanted to punish South Carolina, “the Palmetto State,” for its role in starting the war. He was convinced that by bringing the war to the Carolinas’ home front, his operations would have a direct bearing on the struggle in Virginia. Even the people in Georgia prodded him to pay their neighbors a visit. As Sherman later observed, “My aim then was to whip the rebels, humble their pride, to follow them to their innermost recesses and make them fear and dread us.”

By late January 1865, Sherman’s 60,000 veterans commenced the march into South Carolina and he stopped his communications. It would be late March before he commented on the most controversial issue of the campaign – the burning of Columbia, the state capital. His instructions to the commander of the Army of Georgia, Maj. Gen. Henry Warner Slocum, were direct: “The more of it you destroy, the better it will be. The people of South Carolina should be made to feel the war, for they brought it on and are responsible for our presence here. Now it is time to punish them.”

By the end of the month, he was on his way to North Carolina, with the end of the war coming into sight. “It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks of the wounded,” Sherman said, “who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

Notorious traitors? Let’s look at Benedict Arnold

A May 24, 1776, letter by Benedict Arnold, signed, to Gen. William Thompson, realized $23,750 at an April 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Vidkun Quisling is an obscure name from World War II. To those unfamiliar with some of the lesser-known details, “Quisling” has become a synonym for a traitor or collaborator. From 1942 to 1945, he was Prime Minister of Norway, heading a pro-Nazi puppet government after Germany invaded. For his role, Quisling was put on trial for high treason and executed by firing squad on Oct. 24, 1945.

Obviously better known are Judas Iscariot of Last Supper fame (30 pieces of silver); Guy Fawkes, who tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up Parliament (the Gunpowder Plot); and Marcus Junius Brutus, who stabbed Julius Caesar (“Et tu, Brute?”). In American history, it’s a close call between John Wilkes Booth and Benedict Arnold.

The irony concerning Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) is that his early wartime exploits had made him a legendary figure, but Arnold never forgot the sleight he received in February 1777 when Congress bypassed him while naming five new major generals … all of them junior to him. Afterward, George Washington pledged to help Arnold “with opportunities to regain the esteem of your country,” a promise he would live to regret.

Unknown to Washington, Arnold had already agreed to sell secret maps and plans of West Point to the British via British Maj. John André. There have always been honest debates over Arnold’s real motives for this treacherous act, but it seems clear that purely personal gain was the primary objective. Heavily in debt, Arnold had brokered a deal that included having the British pay him 6,000 pound sterling and award him a British Army commission for his treason. There is also little doubt that his wife Peggy was a full accomplice, despite a dramatic performance pretending to have lost her mind rather than her loyalty.

The history of West Point can be traced back to when it was occupied by the Continental Army after the Second Continental Congress (1775-1781) was designated to manage the Colonial war effort. West Point – first known as Fort Arnold and renamed Fort Clinton – was strategically located on high ground overlooking the Hudson River, with panoramic views extending all the way to New York City, ideal for military purposes. Later, in 1801, President Jefferson ordered plans to establish the U.S. Marine Corps there, and West Point has since churned out many distinguished military leaders … first for the Mexican-American War and then for the Civil War, including both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. It is the oldest continuously operating Army post in U.S. history.

To understand this period in American history, it helps to start at the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), which was really a global conflict that included every major European power and spanned five continents. Many historians consider it “World War Zero,” and on the same scale as the two 20th century wars. In North America, the skirmishes started two years earlier in the French and Indian War, with Great Britain an active participant.

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the conflict, with the British winning a stunning series of battles, France surrendering its Canadian holdings, and the Spanish ceding its Florida territories in exchange for Cuba. Consequently, the British Empire emerged as the most powerful political force in the world. The only issue was that these conflicts had nearly doubled England’s debt from 75 million to 130 million sterling.

A young King George III and his Parliament quietly noted that the Colonies were nearly debt free and decided it was time for them to pay for the 8,000-10,000 Redcoat peacetime militia stationed in North America. In April 1864, they passed legislation via the Currency Act and the Sugar Act. This limited inflationary Colonial currency and cut the trade duty on foreign molasses. In 1765, they struck again. Twice. The Quartering Act forced the Colonists to pay for billeting the king’s troops. Then the infamous Stamp Act placed direct taxes on Americans for the first time.

This was one step too far and inevitably led to the Revolutionary War, with armed conflict that involved hot-blooded, tempestuous individuals like Benedict Arnold. A brilliant military leader of uncommon bravery, Arnold poured his life into the Revolutionary cause, sacrificing his family life, health and financial well-being for a conflict that left him physically crippled. Sullied with false accusations, he became profoundly alienated from the American cause for liberty. His bitterness unknown to Washington, on Aug. 3, 1780, the future first president announced Arnold would take command of the garrison at West Point.

The appointed commander calculated that turning West Point over to the British, perhaps along with Washington as well, would end the war in a single stroke by giving the British control over the Hudson River. The conspiracy failed when André was captured with incriminating documents. Arnold fled to a British warship and they refused to trade him for André, who was hanged as a spy after pleading to be shot by a firing squad. Arnold went on to lead British troops in Virginia, survived the war, and eventually settled in London. He quickly became the most vilified figure in American history and remains the symbol of treason yet today.

Gen. Nathanael Greene, often called Washington’s most gifted and dependable officer, summed it up after the war most succinctly: “Since the fall of Lucifer, nothing has equaled the fall of Arnold.”

JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Telegram Pushed War-Weary America into World War I

A British recruiting poster issued in the wake of the sinking of the ocean liner *Lusitania* by a German U-boat in 1915 was offered in a December 2016 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

World War I officially began in Europe on July 28, 1914, but the strong isolationist sentiment in the United States prevented our involvement for nearly three years. The U.S. economy was booming and the tragic events in Europe were broadly viewed as a “foreign affair,” 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean and something to be avoided. Further, it had only been 51 years since our Civil War had ended, with General Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. The United States had not fully recovered from a military readiness standpoint and another war would be hard to sustain. The rebuilding of the South simply added to the problem.

Then there were the American bankers, who would make massive loans to Great Britain and France that would produce a nice, steady stream of profits. They were more than content to stay on the sidelines as long as their capital seemed secure. Show me a war and I will bet there are always groups profiting from making the bullets and bombs that create jobs. Other industries like steel or food production generally end up on the positive side of the export equation. Twenty-five years later, gearing up for World War II would help the country break the grip of the Great Depression. (Our military budget is currently over $700 billion … and growing.)

Another important factor were the immigrants in the United States, whose support was dependent on their country of origin. Most had left behind family and friends who would end up in harm’s way if America escalated the war. Naturally, there were also the permanent peaceniks like the Quakers and other religious groups who were simply pacifists by virtue of their beliefs. Two million socialists could be lumped into this group, as well as numerous women’s organizations.

The 8 million German-Americans had little loyalty to Germany, and were surprisingly neutral in addition to being strongly against any war, especially if it involved Germany. Their primary concern if the United States entered the war revolved around the reprisals against them as questions about their allegiance to America were already at a simmering level. This apprehension had been growing since the sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania and German U-boats sank six American merchant ships, including the Housatonic – all without any warning.

On Nov. 7, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on an anti-war platform and a campaign slogan of “He kept us out of war” (note the past tense). He had defeated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes Sr. by dominating the Southern vote and in the run-up to the election knew it would be a competitive battle. With a war raging in Europe, Wilson was concerned that if he lost, he would be a lame-duck president for four long months. He devised a clever plan that involved making Hughes the Secretary of State and then he and Vice President Thomas R. Marshall would immediately resign and Hughes would become president, as the rules of succession applied at that time.

Wilson was the first sitting Democratic president to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832. Six months later, we would be in World War I due to a quirk of fate or a German blunder: the Zimmermann Telegram.

In January 1917, a coded message was sent from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Germany’s Ambassador to Mexico that was to be relayed to Mexican President Venustiano Carranza. “We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor to keep the United States neutral … If not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal on the following basis; make war together, make peace together, generous financial support … Mexico is to re-conquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The settlement detail is left to you.”

On Feb. 1, 1917, Germany began unrestricted U-boat warfare in the Atlantic. U.S. ships came under attack and the USA broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.

March 1, President Wilson authorized the State Department publication of the Zimmermann Telegram in the press and, as intended, it inflamed American public opinion against Germany.

April 2: Wilson addressed a special session of Congress to declare war.

April 4: Senate approved 82-6 (the House concurred 373-50).

April 6: Wilson signed a formal declaration of war on Germany.

And so war came again to America despite the reluctance of many people.

BTW: On April 14, after the formal declaration of war, President Carranza formally declined the German proposal. It is interesting to speculate on the outcome if the decision had been in the affirmative. I suspect we might have ended up with a few more stars on the flag.

General Lee’s Decision Avoided the ‘Vietnamization of America’

Robert E. Lee declined President Lincoln’s offer to head up the Union Army since it would require him to bear arms against his home state of Virginia.

By Jim O’Neal

In late 1955, the Tappan Zee Bridge – spanning the Hudson River in New York – was opened with seven lanes for motor traffic. Two months ago, it was closed and is systematically being demolished. The deteriorating bridge, known in the governor’s office as the “hold-your-breath bridge,” was featured in the documentary The Crumbling of America, the story of the infrastructure crisis in the United States.

Also in this same category is the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which connects the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery and is metaphorically described as what rejoined the North and South after the Civil War. First proposed in 1886 as a memorial to General Ulysses S. Grant, it was blocked in Congress until President Warren G. Harding got snarled in a three-hour traffic jam in 1921 en route to the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Congress quickly approved his request for $25,000 to build the bridge and it finally opened in January 1932.

Nearby is Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. This was the home for the Lee family for 30 years and where R.E.L. made the fateful decision to resign his commission in the U.S. Army on April 21, 1861, and join the Confederate States. He had declined President Abraham Lincoln’s offer to head up the Union Army since it would require him to bear arms against his home state of Virginia.

In June 1862, Congress enacted a property tax on all “insurrectionary” land and added an amendment in 1863 requiring the tax to be paid in person. Ill and behind Confederate lines, Mary Lee was unable to comply and the Lees never slept there again. The property was auctioned off on Jan. 11, 1864, and the high bidder ($26,800) was the U.S. government.

Secretary of War William Stanton approved the conversion of the Lee estate to a military cemetery in 1864. On May 13, a Confederate POW was buried there (renamed Arlington National Cemetery) and more than 400,000 have joined him, including President Taft, President JFK and my dear friend Roger Enrico.

For 15 years, I passed a statue of Robert E. Lee driving to my Dallas office. It invariably invoked memories of the wisdom of this soldier who surrendered his army to General Grant at Appomattox in April 1865. Most of his top aides tried to dissuade Lee from surrendering, arguing they could disband into the familiar countryside and hold out indefinitely in a stalemate. Eventually, Northern soldiers would simply return to their homes and then the South could regroup.

Thus did Robert E. Lee, so revered for his leadership in war, make his most historic contribution – to peace! By this one momentous decision, he spared the country the divisive guerilla war that would have followed … a vile and poisonous conflict that would have fractured the country perhaps permanently. Or as newspaper columnist Tom Wicker deftly put it, “The Vietnamization of America.”

Alas, Dallas city leaders recently removed the Lee statue and I sincerely hope they find some relief from the anguish they have suffered from this piece of marble sequestered so long. However, I suspect they will just move on to some other injustice. It reminds me of feeding jellybeans to pacify a ravenous bear. When you (inevitably) run out of jellybeans, he eats you.

Henry Wirz Among Most Notorious Confederate Prison Officials

This Civil War-period unmounted albumen print of Andersonville Prison by A.J. Biddle went to auction in June 2012.

By Jim O’Neal

Henry Wirz (1823-65) was born in Zurich, Switzerland, the son of a tailor. He grew up with an abiding passion for medicine, however, his family had limited resources and his father insisted on a more pragmatic mercantile career. After migrating to America, he ultimately claimed to be a physician and successfully started assisting doctors, despite most certainly lacking any formal training or medical degrees.

At the start of the Civil War, he was living in Louisiana. He enlisted as a private in the Fourth Louisiana Infantry and became a sergeant. At the important Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia in 1862, Wirz was wounded above his right wrist, which incapacitated him for life. Seven Pines was strategically important since it led to the appointment of Robert E. Lee as Confederate Commander, which had a profound effect on the duration of the war.

In April 1864, (now) Captain Wirz was ordered to Camp Sumter near Anderson in Georgia, where he was given command of the prison that would become known as the infamous Andersonville Prison. It was already crammed with war prisoners and low on critical supplies that would only worsen as the war dragged on. Wirz made a feeble attempt to reorganize, but he lacked the necessary authority and all attempts to gain a promotion were denied. He had the support of superior officers, who called him “major,” but it is not clear if he attained that rank.

As the war continued, conditions at Andersonville deteriorated and many prisoners blamed Wirz, describing him as a brutal tyrant. Observers were critical of his accent, excessive use of profanity and outbreaks of rage. By the end of the war, he was among the most notorious Confederate prison officials.

Perhaps because of naïveté or unaware of the North’s anger over prison conditions, he made a tactical blunder and did not join the other prison officials who fled. Instead, he stayed at Andersonville, where he was arrested, taken to Washington and tried on charges of murder and mistreatment of prisoners. A hostile military commission limited his defense against conflicting testimony, found him guilty, and hanged him on Nov. 10, 1865, in the yard of the Old Capitol Prison (near the site where the U.S. Supreme Court stands today).

It was a messy hanging since his neck did not break and he was strangled to death. The trial is controversial yet today. In 1909, the Georgia Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a memorial to him at Andersonville. It may be a while before monument protestors figure out who he was.

Webster Certainly Belongs on the List of Our Greatest Senators

This 1853-dated bronze statue of Daniel Webster, measuring 29.75 inches, sold for $11,950 at a March 2008 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

American poet Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) is perhaps best known for his book-length narrative poem “John Brown’s Body” (1928), about the Civil War abolitionist who raided the armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Brown and a group of 20-plus co-conspirators captured several buildings and weapons they hoped to use to start a slave uprising.

U.S. Army Lieutenant Robert E. Lee led a contingent of Marines to quell the insurgency. Brown was captured, tried for treason and hanged. Harpers Ferry was at a busy crossroads, at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and was the site of at least eight skirmishes while changing hands several times during the Civil War.

Benét also authored “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1936), a fictional story about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil (Mr. Scratch) and then refuses to pay up even after receiving a three-year extension on the agreement. Benét has Webster defend him in court due to his prodigious real-life record as a famous lawyer, statesman and orator. There are many other films, books and stories about similar Faustian-type bargains, but the use of Daniel Webster was a brilliant choice due to his superior debating skills and outstanding oratory.

In Benét’s trial, despite overwhelming evidence, the jury finds in favor of Mr. Webster’s client.

In virtually every aspect, the real-life Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was almost a true larger-than-life character, at least in American politics and especially in the formative era between 1812 and the Civil War. He played a critical role in virtually every significant issue confronting the new United States government.

Webster had no equal as an orator, either in those turbulent times or in the 200 years since then. Whether in the Supreme Court (240-plus cases), the U.S. Senate, or out on the political stump, he was simply the finest; a golden-tounged spellbinder. He enthralled audiences three to four hours at a time, always in defense of the Union and the sacred U.S. Constitution.

He generated almost god-like respect and was universally considered to be a cinch to be president; particularly in his own mind. His weakness was aligning with the Whigs and a seemingly improvident inability to manage personal finances (and alcohol, as usual). He was also an elitist at a time when Andrew Jackson’s brand of populism was growing, much like the present. He was often referred to as “Black Dan” because of his political conniving.

He missed a perfect chance to be president by refusing to run as vice president in 1840 with William Henry Harrison, who defeated Martin Van Buren but died 31 days after his inauguration.

1841 was the first “Year of Three Presidents.” It began with the defeated Van Buren, followed by Harrison, and then Vice President John Tyler, who had himself sworn in immediately as president after a brief Constitutional crisis following Harrison’s death.

This phenomenon occurred again in 1881. After Rutherford B. Hayes finished his term, new President James A. Garfield took over. When Garfield succumbed to an assassin’s bullet in September, VP Chester A. Arthur moved into the White House … this time with little controversy.

So Daniel Webster never realized his ambition to become president, but any time there is a discussion about our greatest senators, you may be assured that Daniel Webster will be on everyone’s Top 5, along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun … two more who never quite got to wear the Presidential Crown. Sadly, we do not have any actual recordings of these great orators, but it is tantalizing to think of them in today’s contemporary politics and to judge them in this age of new media.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].