'Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colors wave!: Professor using fellowship to learn more about how Americans turned to Shakespeare to interpret the Civil War

1864 cartoon depicting George McClellan and Abraham Lincoln in a "Hamlet" scene

From the White House desk of President Abraham Lincoln to book shelves in homes across America, the works of William Shakespeare were omnipresent during the Civil War.

Lincoln favored “Macbeth,” soldiers staged Shakespearean plays and people in North and South used the bard’s writings to justify their cause and express their deepest emotions at a time of great sacrifice and loss.

Now, a Massachusetts Historical Society fellowship is helping a history professor conduct research for a book she’s writing about reading habits and practices during the Civil War, particularly in regard to the works of Shakespeare.

Dr. Sarah Gardner, distinguished professor of history at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., is the recipient of the Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellowship. The fellowship is entitled “Shakespeare Fights the American Civil War.”

Dr. Gardner has received more than 15 grants and fellowships (Mercer University)

She spent part of the summer at the historical society, which specializes in Union war efforts. Next June, she will travel to the Boston Athenaeum, which focuses on the Confederate side and has print materials, including newspapers, journal articles, books and poems.

“I became interested in Shakespeare because Shakespeare was popular with the Civil War generation,” the cultural historian told the Picket in an email. “He was evoked in speeches, he was popular on the lecture circuit, his plays were performed by amateur and by professional actors, allusions were deployed in magazines and in short and long fiction. I am largely interested in the ways soldiers and people on the home front used Shakespeare in their correspondence and diaries.”

Gardner, a cultural historian, has taught courses and written about the American South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. She gave three lectures in 2021 at Penn State University.

“Civil War-era Americans … turned to Shakespeare for universal truths,” said a preview of the series. “Shakespeare, they believed, spoke to abiding concerns, such as the soul of genius, the power of the imagination, and of the heroic individual’s ability to determine an event’s outcome.”

Both sides during the Civil War interpreted Shakespeare in a way advantageous to them.

“I haven't seen any meaningful difference between Unionists' and Confederates' uses of Shakespeare. And they don't always cite Shakespeare to defend a cause,” Gardner told the Picket.

Hamlet and Macbeth were especially popular with Civil War Americans.  

As Gardner and other scholars point out, Shakespeare had a lot to say about war. Two lines from  “Richard II” and “Macbeth” on the subject.

“He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war.”

And

“When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”

“Macbeth” apparently was Lincoln’s favorite. As an essay published on the National Endowment for the Humanities website says, the president did not suffer the weight of guilt and excesses as did Macbeth – who spoke of powerlessness.

“Instead, he got something far more abstract from Macbeth’s famous soliloquy. Throughout his life, Lincoln was deeply attracted to the idea of unchanging destiny, and used this ‘predestination’ mindset to help him survive even the most traumatic of events. In many ways, he saw his presidential legacy not as the result of well-ordered strategy and political planning, but as the sheer result of some higher order of which he was merely an often unwitting tool.” 

Ironically, Lincoln, a theatergoer, was assassinated by an actor who played Macbeth: John Wilkes Booth. (At right, Booth brothers, John at left, in 1864 for "Julius Caesar.")

One of the most-famous cartoons of the Civil War was the “Chicago Nominee,” drawn by Justin H. Howard. It shows Union Gen. George McClellan, who ran against Lincoln in 1864, depicted as Hamlet in the graveyard scene.

“Instead of the skull of court jester Yorick, McClellan addresses the head of President Abraham Lincoln, his Republican opponent. Governor Horatio Seymour of New York is cast as Hamlet’s friend Horatio, and the grave digger is a famished Irish immigrant,” says a description of the cartoon by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“In 1862 Lincoln removed General McClellan, who had been in command of the Union army, from active duty after he failed to achieve a decisive victory at Antietam -- the bloodiest battle in American military history. The caption at the bottom of the image alludes to false newspaper reports that Lincoln had acted with inappropriate levity while touring the Civil War battlefield at Antietam.

The caption borrows an Act IV line from “Hamlet”: “I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest. Where be your gibes now?”

Frederick Douglass was another big fan of Shakespeare. After the war, he was at a dinner with Powhatan Beaty, an African-American Medal of Honor recipient who became an actor, notably playing Macbeth.

A Mercer University news release about the fellowship says Gardner is reading letters, diaries and books to learn more what they read, much of which was from Shakespeare. People often used the author’s words to describe their experiences during the Civil War.

“I’m really interested in how people think and how they make sense of the world,” the professor and author said in the release. “The history of emotions allows us to enter a world removed from us, either by time or place. Everyone experiences joy or pain, but they experience them differently. We can better understand our historical actors by appealing to the history of emotions.”

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John Brown wanted to arm slaves with pikes. The idea failed. These 3 sites may help you decide the radical abolitionist's legacy

Original John Brown Pike (Smithsonian)

John Brown (NY State Parks)

• Second of two parts
The story goes that a young John Brown witnessed an enslaved boy being beaten with a shovel. From then on, Brown was determined to put an end to the system of bondage.

Years later and while in his 50s, Brown and his family moved to “Bleeding Kansas," where they became engaged in the struggle over slavery. After an attack on abolitionists in Lawrence, Brown led an 1856 raid that left five men and boys believed to be slavery proponents dead.

Brown traveled to his native New England in 1857 to raise money for the cause. He carried a captured Bowie knife and contracted with Connecticut blacksmith Charles Blair to make 950 pikes for $1 each. At some point, Brown decided to use them in the South, rather than Kansas. He hatched a scheme for the weapons to be given to freed and escaped blacks, who would use them on anyone who dared to stop their rebellion.

“Give a slave a pike and you make him a man,” Brown said. “Deprive him of the means of resistance and you keep him down.”

We, of course, know what was to come. Brown, his sons and a small band of followers aimed to take the federal arsenal and armory in Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. From there, they would fan the flames of a slave revolt.

It did not come to be. The October 1859 raid ended in failure and deaths, and Brown was convicted of murder, treason and inciting a slave insurrection, among other charges. The pikes, about 7 feet long and featuring a 10-inch blade, never saw service. There's some question whether the intended recipients would have welcomed them, given the odds against success.

Brown with slave mother and child (Library of Congress)

But Brown was resolute to the end. Upon hearing of his death sentence, Brown said: “if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments -- I submit; so let it be done!”

He was hanged that December. The Civil War would begin less than two years later.

To this day, Brown remains a controversial figure. Was he a patriot or heroic revolutionary? A terrorist? A 2011 article by historian Paul Finkelman argues that the definition of terrorism has changed over time and examines how the term may or may not be applied to Brown.

The Picket talked with officials at three Brown-associated sites about his legacy and the primitive pikes, which themselves strengthened the South’s resolve to preserve slavery.  Several of the rare items are in museums and others occasionally come up for auction.

HARPERS FERRY NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, West Virginia

The federal site has what are believed to be two original pikes and four replicas made for commemorative purposes.

Museum curator Michael Hosking said Brown was determined to be a martyr when he and his followers arrived in town. They brought their load of pikes and kept most at a nearby farm.

Asked why the abolitionist chose to arm slaves with pikes rather than guns, Hosking said the arsenal and armory “had guns but we didn’t necessarily have ammunition. You didn’t have to worry about ammunition if you had the pike.”

John Brown pike, other items in museum (NPS)

Brown believed the assault would be conducted quickly and that his scheme would spread among slaves in Virginia and elsewhere. “The dream was the rumor would spread through the countryside and they would see it as a chance and run for it, to safety,” Hosking said.

“He had this vision that all these slaves would come flocking to him,” said Hosking, adding the group was only able to briefly arm three or four hesitant slaves during the hostage-taking and brief clash.

Hosking told the Picket that the idea was for more slaves to obtain firearm training for weapons to be taken at Harpers Ferry. “Not having the weapons at the beginning of the raid was another reason to have the pikes.”

The discovery of the pikes whipped up anti-North sentiment across the South.

Georgia pike (Old Governor's Mansion)

Edmund Ruffin, a pro-slavery and secession extremist, obtained several pikes and sent them to governors with the message, "Sample of the favors designed for us by our Northern Brethren.” In response, governors across the South had thousands of pikes made for white civilians. (right)

Now, as then, there are different perspectives on Brown’s actions.

“During the time, I would consider him a terrorist,” said Hosking.

Fast forward to the early 21^st century. “Most of us feel he is a patriot and did a great thing. We are talking 150 years different from the event.”

“He was a fascinating individual. Very driven, and he is one of those in modern terminology who became radicalized and used the Bible to defend his actions.”

(New York State Parks)

JOHN BROWN FARM STATE HISTORIC SITE, Lake Placid, New York

Brown and his family lived for a time in the village of North Elba, where they supported a farming community for freed blacks, who were able to vote. Brown, two sons and a few Harpers Ferry raiders are buried on the grounds near a large rock. The home is near ski jump towers used at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. 

Site manager Brendan Mills said the residence, which does not have any pikes in its collection, was the second homestead in the area for the Browns. He told a local newspaper a few years ago, “On a nice day, (Brown) would put a chair up here and look out at the mountains, so he asked to buried up here (the rock) if possible or have his ashes spread here if it was possible.”

After failing in his wool buying business, the Connecticut-born Brown and other relatives eventually returned to Ohio and then on to Kansas. “He got word from his sons they were being harassed by pro-slavery men in Kansas.”

Interior of Brown home (New York State Parks)

In Kansas, Mills told the Picket, there is some evidence that Brown’s family might have been killed if he did not act. “It was the worst thing he could do for his reputation.”

The abolitionist, Mills said, did not favor a “violent free for all.” As his work moved toward a slave insurrection, Brown wanted an organized army with white and black officers and did not want his followers to kill unnecessarily, he said.

Mills acknowledges some portray the small park as a cheerleader for Brown. The key, he said, is for people to make up their own minds.

“There is a lot of disinformation about him.”

The Adair cabin (Courtesy of John Brown Museum)

JOHN BROWN MUSEUM STATE HISTORIC SITE, Osawatomie, Ks.

The Rev. Samuel and Florella Adair settled near Osawatomie, an abolitionist community and center of conflict during "Bleeding Kansas." The log cabin – now surrounded by a pergola -- was a station on the Underground Railroad and Brown, Florella's half brother, used this cabin as his headquarters. 

“The Adairs were very peaceful abolitionists,” says volunteer Phyllis Sharp. “They did not believe in the harsher ways.”

The sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery activists enraged Brown, who took a band of men to Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856.

“The men dragged five unarmed men and boys, believed to be slavery proponents, from their homes and brutally murdered them. Afterward, Brown raided Missouri -- freeing 11 slaves and killing the slave owner,” according to the American Battlefield Trust.

Site manager Grady Atwater wrote a 2017 article that argues Brown was not as violent as he is often portrayed and that he did not seek revenge on a man who killed one of Brown’s sons in Kansas.

Cabin is covered by a protective pergola (John Brown Museum)

“John Brown did not commit random acts of violence for personal gratification, but only fought militant proslavery men who were either fighting Free State forces in Kansas or actively supplying and supporting the militant proslavery forces,” Atwater wrote in the Miami County Republic.

Sharp said the cabin has one original John Brown pike and several swords. It features Adair family furnishings and objects that tell the story of Brown, the guerrilla violence in Kansas and the Civil War.

Sharp said there were ruffians on both sides fighting over the future of slavery.

“We try to be indifferent.”

****

So, how to judge Brown? For one view, we’ll close with these paragraphs from Finkelman’s 2011 essay in Prologue magazine:

“In the end, we properly view Brown with mixed emotions: admiring him for his dedication to the cause of human freedom, marveling at his willingness to die for the liberty of others, yet uncertain about his methods, and certainly troubled by his incompetent tactics at Harpers Ferry.

“Perhaps we end up accepting the argument of the abolitionist lawyer and later governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, who declared ‘whether the enterprise of John Brown and his associates in Virginia was wise or foolish, right or wrong; I only know that, whether the enterprise itself was the one or the other, John Brown himself is right.’"

• Part one: Southern states made their own pikes in response

What if there had been connecting trains?

H. Roger Grant, a Clemson University historian, wonders whether a railroad linking Ohio and South Carolina — a railroad proposed in the 1830s but never built — might have helped stave off the Civil War. Not everyone is convinced. • Article