Memorial Poems: Civil War Literature in Context

Although Walt Whitman famously claimed that “the real war will never get into the books,” the American Civil War did in fact call forth a vast range of literary responses, in genres as diverse as poetry, popular song, novels and other prose genres.  How does this literature depict the war, and how does it grapple with Whitman’s claim that there is something unrepresentable about the war’s carnage?  In Fall, 2008, we explored these questions in an upper-level seminar, English 71: The Civil War in Literature (Professor Colleen Boggs), which fulfilled the “culminating experience” requirement in the English major.  Students explored primary texts in the classroom and beyond: each student developed a research project that contextualized the literature we had studied by drawing on primary materials from special collections and the college archives.  The work of three students -- Virginia Deaton, Nicole LaBombard, and David Schmidt -- is displayed here; it represents their original research.

The exhibition was created and installed by Virginia Deaton '09, Nicole LaBombard '09, and David Schmidt '09 and was on display in the Class of 1965 Galleries in Rauner Special Collections Library from February 3 to March 31, 2009.

You may download a small, 8x10 version of the poster: MemorialPoems (2.4 MB) You may also download a handlist of the items in this exhibition: Memorial Poems.

Materials Included in the Exhibition

Case 1. The Home Front: The Dartmouth Experience In the War

1. A. S. Wheeler diary, April 14, 1865. Wheeler Family Papers. ML-86, Box 30, Folder 16.
   
   1. This diary carefully notes the death of Lincoln, as recorded by New Hampshire native A. S. Wheeler. Though much of the diary contains reminders, appointments, and addresses, the April 14 entry takes up the entire space for the day. Wheeler writes, "President Lincoln shot by an assassin at Ford's Theater in Washington at about 9:30 pm. -- Secy. Steward about the same hour stabbed in his home." It is interesting to note that this news could not have reached a rural New Hampshire newspaper on the evening of April 14, so Wheeler must have written this entry after the day had passed, and therefore after Lincoln's death.
2. Civil War Patriotic Envelopes. Iconography 1251.
   
   1. These envelopes, a precursor to the modern postcard, were a way for senders to express their political beliefs and patriotism through the mail. The top envelope envisions the demise of the South, with a drunken, tattered Confederate soldier floating down the river on a leaky CSA barrel, while a similar envelope depicts a hanged Jefferson Davis (J. D.) surrounded by starts labeled as Confederate states and titled, "The New Constellation." Another depicts a beautiful allegory of "Dixie," being strangled by the oppressive snake of "Secession." The last envelope depicts two children play-fighting, one holding a Confederate flag, the other a Union flag. In the bottom corner, these same children are tucked into bed together, covered with a Union flag and watched over by the allegory of Liberty. The captions read, "As it is," and "As it will be," indicating hope for a peaceful end to the war.
3. Mourning Notice for Lincoln, April 17, 1865, addressed to Daniel P. Wheeler. Wheeler Family Papers. ML-86.
4. Class Day Exercises Program, Tuesday, July 19, 1864.
   1. On July 11, 1864, a Confederate Army under Lieutenant General Jubal Early advanced inside the boundaries of the District of Columnia. Though they were repulsed on July 12, it was the closest the Confederates came during the war to taking the Federal capital. In Hanover, meanwhile, it was Senior Week for the outgoing Dartmouth Class of 1864. And on June 19, the College held its Class Day program. This pamphlet, in addition to outlining the exercises of that Class Day, includes "Bonny Doon," an ode delivered that day by its author William Harvey '64.
      1. But who'll forget those College Days,
      2. these scenes removed from world-turmoil,
      3. These moments crowned with pleasure's bays
      4. Those seasons of ennobling toil?
5. The Aegis. September 1862 and April 1863. Reference LD1447 .A2  1858-1866 
   
   1. The edition of The Aegis yearbook from September 1862 honors those of Dartmouth "who exchanged the quietness of the student's life for the perils of the battle-field." And yet the quietness of the student's life continues for those choosing to remain at the College on the Hill: the very next column reports fondly on the annual Sophomore-Freshman football game. To compound that point, the April 1863 edition lists members of Psi Upsilon and Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternities, among others. Thus while thousands died at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, the Dartmouth Bubble managed to preserve fraternity life.
   2. Though The Dartmouth, the College's student newspaper, ceased publication during the war, The Aegis went to press three times a year during the 1860s.
6. Herman Melville. "On the Slain Collegians." In Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866. Melville 25
7. William Tecumseh Sherman, Commencement Address, Dartmouth College, July 19, 1866. Manuscript 866419 
   
   1. A year after the war's conclusion, Dartmouth gave an honorary degree General William Tecumseh Sherman, the Union commander credited with taking Atlanta and, by extension, breaking the back of the Confederacy. In his speech to the Class of 1866, Sherman addresses how privileged the outgoing graduates were to be born with the advantages of wealth and education -- a position of favor that allowed them to escape the war. Sherman begs his audience to be aware of the advantages they have, that Sherman himself did not.
      1. Unfortunately, I was not so favored in my youth; and I regret now and always shall regret to the end of my life what I was compelled to pick up what little knowledge I possess by grasping it through brambles and pricking my hands pretty sharply too. You have had instructors here whose minds have been stored with all the knowledge of the past and present.
8. Asa D. Smith. "Supremacy of Righteousness," Baccalaureate Address, July 17, 1864. Alumni S6423su
   
   1. Asa Smith took over as the College's 7th president in 1863, after his predecessor Nathan Lord's pro-slavery leanings forced his resignation. Upon assuming the Presidency, Smith took on all the duties of the office, including addressing the graduating class in its Baccalaureate assembly. Unlike Lord, who made only overtly religious references without mentioning the war, Smith addressed the conflict and Dartmouth's role in it. The speech mentions by name the Class of 1864's five classmates slain in the war: Bacon, Rand, Starr, Ewins, and Breed.
   2. But ultimately the Baccalaureate Address is meant to be a Christian sermon. And Smith stays true to that notion in writing, "And can we fail to see in the events now passing, the tokens of his unswerving righteousness? Comes he not forward in these storms of war, as the avenger of the oppressed?"
9. David Boutelle '62 to his sister, May 19, 1861, and June 2, 1861. Manuscript 861257
   
   1. In the spring of 1861, David Boutelle's letters home to his sister comment on Dartmouth during the first few months of the war. The letters emphasize how isolated Hanover was from the war, particularly at its start. News of the new war brought initial excitement. In a letter dated May 19, Boutelle writes to his sister, the "2nd regiment of Vermont is inclined to rendezvous at Norwich." And Norwich, being just across the river fro Hanover, would give Boutelle and his classmates "a fine opportunity for seeing them drill."
   2. But by June 2, the initial enthusiasm on campus had waned. "The spirit of war and devastation has greatly subsided here in college," Boutelle writes, "Only one of our whole number is in the Army." Through a spring of War, Dartmouth escapes unharmed and unchanged.
10. William Greene to Dartmouth College President Asa Smith, September 8, 1864. Manuscript 864508 .1
    
    1. On his son's return to Dartmouth President Asa Smith asking that the faculty keep a close eye on his son's academics -- as though his marks were the only thing that mattered in 1864. Greene writes of his son: He goes back with the understanding between him and myself, that he must devote himself to his studies and duties of every kind--that if there be any neglect of them in any particular, I am to be informed at once by the Faculty.

Case 2. The Empty Sleeve: Post-Civil War Reconstruction

Case 3. Remembering a New Hampshire Soldier: Private Words for the Brother and Public Texts for the Hero He Was to Become