'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.”

At Pea Ridge battlefield, students search for structures, evidence of a hamlet's culture

Student Madison Atchley and archaeologist Jerry Hilliard (U. of Ark.)

University of Arkansas archaeology students learning excavation techniques have identified the remains of at least four structures in a hamlet that was transformed into a Federal field hospital during the Battle of Pea Ridge.

“There is a whole lot more to discover,” said Jamie Brandon, a professor and an Arkansas Archeological Survey archaeologist.

Brandon, working with staff and faculty, supervised 10 students in this summer’s field school, which concludes Friday.

Excavation of a Leetown kitchen cellar (U. of Ark.)

“We are trying to reconstruct the best we can the footprint of Leetown, this mid-19^th century hamlet,” he told the Picket by phone this week.

Leetown was only a half mile from the pitched fighting of March 7, 1862. Homes were used for hospitals, woods and fields were filled with battle debris, and the stench of death permeated the air, according to the National Park Service.

Two Confederate generals died near Leetown during assaults after their units were separated during a flanking movement. The Confederates were forced to withdraw.

Unlike the famous Elkhorn Tavern some 2 miles to the east, what’s left of Leetown is buried.

Jamie Brandon (second from left) supervises field work. (U. of Ark.)

The Arkansas Archeological Survey, a part of the University of Arkansas system, is in a four-year project examining up to nine areas in Pea Ridge National Military Park. The park, Brandon noted, wants to better interpret to visitors what the village meant to the battle, perhaps through shadow buildings or signs.

Archaeologists want to reconstruct past cultures. “We are interested in how (the fighting) impacted the civilian landscape.” The hamlet was largely unoccupied by the early 1880s.

Brandon said students conducted excavations and were washing artifacts this week. They did find evidence of a Union presence (it is unlawful for the public to dig for artifacts on federal property).

Another view of the kitchen cellar

Maps of the area are not exact, but there could be the remnants of eight to 12 buildings, including farmsteads, a store and Masonic lodge. One that was noted this year was a detached kitchen to the Mayfield log cabin.

The Picket has published posts about spring 2016 excavations in Ruddick’s Field, a couple miles to the east of Leetown. Archaeologists recovered 540 artifacts – the largest a 6-pound solid artillery shot – from the cornfield and in wooded areas. They will be used to plot locations of artillery pieces.

Foundations are all that remain in Leetown (NPS photo)

Brandon said a report on Ruddick’s Field is being prepared for submission in 2019. Archaeologists will return to Leetown next year and a survey of areas on the eastern side of the battlefield – site of an artillery duel -- is planned, Brandon said.

He said this year’s exploration at Leetown was an “initial foray.” Officials hope they can lead a larger volunteer dig, perhaps as soon as next summer.

Work at Pea Ridge is believed to be the first time large-scale remote sensing has been used on such a battlefield, archaeologists told the Picket.

A workshop put on this year for the National Park Service drew expects from all over the world wanting to know more about the mix of technology, said Brandon.

(University of Arkansas)