Publication the civil war in 50 objects. In this program they discuss documents related to slavery, abolition and recruising freedman to the union army. So now i would like to turn our to some objects to help us describe the civil war. As a curator in the museum realm, particularly the history museum, i am always struck by how art objects, documents on display, have the power to stand in for larger historical narratives, than what they are structurally defined by in an object. For those of you who missed last weeks program, lets talk about this book. How did it come about and how effective do you think it is at the narrative suite of the civil war in only 50 objects . Well, it came about as i confess last week because louise mirror asked me to undertake the project for the Historical Society. And it was a lucky day for me. And you remember we got to see three times 50 objects, an array before us on some conference tables in the Historical Society so it was a matter of picturing representative objects, exciting objects, which, as you say, stand in for the big history of the civil war item by item, personal story by personal story. And it was remarkable at the end that we constructed the history of the war from the Abolitionist Movement to the 13th amendment which abolished slavery. And it was great fun to work with you on that project, too. I feel the same. Yeah. So our topic this evening is fighting slavery, the bumpy road to black freedom. We will be this evening looking at three objects that speak to the topic. And theyre all paperbased objects. An 1862 petition to Abraham Lincoln for the recruitment of troops and 1863 broadside by Frederick Douglas and a small sketch of the arrival of Jefferson Daviss slaves to chickasaw bayou. And to the slide above the first one. A petition to Abraham Lincoln for the recruitment of black troops. This is addressed to his excellency Abraham Lincoln. It does bear a number of signatures. Hundreds and hundreds of signatures. So it is a petition that was a brain child of someone named j. E. Gardner, we dont know much about j. E. Gardner except that he organized this effort to call on the president of the United States in july of 1862, to unleash the power of africanamericans who up until this point had not been permitted to volunteer for the union arms and constituted what some people call a sable arm that could help the union win the war by increasing its man power exponentially. Weve seen this object. It is a scroll. It is a big scroll. 25 feet or something. 25 feet long. It is never been exhibited altogether because you need two floors of the majestic galleries of the Historical Society to give it the full justice. It is signed by an Amazing Group of supporters of black enlistment for the time. It was signed by clearly irish americans, by jewish americans, by german americans, people from all walks of life. And could you tell from their addresses, which are inserted as if it is a nominating petition for Public Office and it runs the gamut and has quite a few famous names, important names, vanderbilt and whitney and dodges and phelps, all signing on to this idea that the union should accept black troops which it had not done for the first year of the civil war. There was also one john brown who signed it too, right. Yes. I think it has a few fake names in there. Who could resist a little graffiti. So john brown, whom we discussed last week, with an authentic object, even though he had been dead for three years, he signed the petition. If it said john brown of Harpers Ferry that is very funny. We have a question about lincoln. This is your subject area for sure. Why was he reluctant to accept blacks into service . So. It is hard to imagine but the notion of africanamericans bearing arms was frightening to many white americans. Especially in the border states like kentucky and maryland and delaware that had not succeeded from the union where slavery was legal throughout the civil war. Lincoln thought if he encouraged africanamericans to join the service that those border states would leave the union and join the confederacy. This petition is dated july 20th, so lets assume the best of circumstances it got to the white house or a version of it when we went to discuss got to the white house two days later. On that very day, lincoln told his cabinet that he wanted to issue an emancipation proclamation and ready to free the enslaved people in the Confederate States and that day, even with the petition in the white house, his cabinet almost advised him that it was too soon to issue an emancipation proclamation. So these new yorkers were ahead of the curve and ahead of public money in the white house, in the cabinet, and the congress and accept for the really advanced abolitionists. New york is always first. But they didnt send the whole scroll to the white house. They sent a wheel, which is good because you want to get the president s attention. So the short version exists in the lincoln papers, meaning it was preserved by his staff. But he never relied and put it aside because he knew he was about to embark his own journey toward freedom and ultimately within six months toward exactly. Georgias howl cobb predicted that the idea of black recruitment was destined to fail and warned if slaves will good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong and of course you say that three years later Jefferson Davis in a desperate move to save the founder, he would offer freedom to enslaved people who took up arms against the union. So not surprisingly he got no takers because his war had been predicated on ideas that africanamericans deserved to remain enslaved people forever. Right. So in the story of this petition, our object, Frederick Douglas makes an appearance in the summer of 1862, as using blacks for laborers and he called out lincoln from suffering from a fatal incapacity to do better which is very interesting. Very forceful in that regard. Yeah. But as you said, on january 1st, 1863, lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation and how does this change the narrative as africanamericans in military service . It changes it with the sentences in the proclamation. One of the sentences said i admonition all enslaved people not to turn to violence against their masters. And in the very next sentence lincoln said i encourage africanamericans to join the military service. So, i mean, if you do join the military service youre going to take up arms against your former owners, but that was the prevailing message. So it encouraged and then within a month or two Congress Passed a law authorizing the military services to accept africanamericans in service. Africanamericans had been in the navy for decades as laborers and they, as you mentioned, some had been employed in the union army as teamsters. But the idea of them bearing arms was new. And not only themi not all o the military leaders embraced the idea. For those of you watching history tv, in episode two, ulysses s. Grant watches an africanamerican laborer shoot a confederate where his owner is shoot and they say this is the way of the future. Graham did not think it was a great idea at first to welcome africanamericans into his army. His chief lieutenant William Sherman didnt like the idea. General burnside wasnt taken as seriously as those two did not like the idea. And general mcclennan, who we saw in a tent with lincoln in october of 62, so four months after that petition, basically told lincoln my soldiers are going to fight to restore the union but dont expect us to fight for black freedom because it is not going to happen. Which shows you how long of a road had to be marched to get the country and the military, the racist military, they were pretty racist too, to that point. Absolutely. And Frederick Douglas helps. And here he is very much a part of our second object. A recruitment broadside written by douglas. Could we see the image of that, please. So what was this significance of this broadside and where did it first appear . So douglas had a monthly newspaper. Douglass monthly which is always a little bit behind the times. Hes admonishing lincoln in the september 62 issue even as he delivered the emancipation proclamation. It is hard to have a monthly paper. I used to edit a weekly paper and it is hard to keep up with to be current. Really tough. So he wrote an editorial around the same time as the petition, in time for africanamerican troops to be recruited into the union army. When the proclamation comes out and congress does the authorizing for black enlisting, douglas is encouraged by several to really hit the road and only as he could persuasively and magnificently to get africanamericans to enlist. So he turned his editorial into a broadside, which is a onepage sheet. Most of them were just pasted to walls or distributed to people. So it is kind of a remarkable thing for the new york Historical Society to own such a copy. And when we wrote the book, i dont know if you remember, we dated the acquisition to just about the time it was issued. Exactly. Yes. Yes, which is typical of new york historical. It is typical, if the same way we had objects relating to 9 11 and objects relating to the pandemic now. The new york Historical Society is a temporary museum to keep the record of what will be history down the road. So this document, you know, it has got some great lines in it as only douglas could write. Liberty won by white men alone would lack half its luster. Who would be free themselves must strike alone. Better even to die free than to live as slaves. And did it have an impact . Absolutely. By wars end, almost 200,000 men of color had joined the union army. And it was not easy. They were not treated as equal soldiers at the beginning. They were relegated to all black units. Their officers were almost to a person white, and yet it is important to note and also by the way they were not treated as prisoners of war when captured. The confederacy threatens and did put them back into slavery or execute them after they found out. So it is a miserable service and not surprisingly the casualty rate among africanamerican soldiers was higher than that among white soldiers. Can we just see the image of Frederick Douglas, the front of the great books just to get a sense of the towering presence of this great intellectual. He was just unprecedentedly important africanamerican or abolitionist, reformer, statesman and else. So having his opinion on this matter is extremely valuable to the recruitment cause. And what an imposing guy. And by the way, as historians have proved he was just about the most photographed american of his time. He was photographed almost every time he hit the circuit. And you could see what a great looking man he was. So this is eight years before the broadside. But too often we see him portrayed as an old man but in fact he was still a vigorous youngish man during the civil war. And soon after that he had his first visit to the white house and spent his time with lincoln imploring him to equalize the pay between white and black soldiers. White soldiers not only earned more money but they got a bonus to buy uniforms whereas soldiers got money docked from their pay to buy uniforms. And lincoln was very cautious and worried about white Public Opinion with the recruitment of africanamericans and he simply told douglas that the day will come but please be patient. And it was the beginning of their, what became a very close relationship between Abraham Lincoln and douglas. So, rounding out, we have maybe 10 more in the of this conversation before we open it to q a. Rounding out our trio of object this is evening is a very small, it is like 9 inches by 13 inches on the spot sketch by one frederick b. Shell, a special artist for Frank Leslies illustrated paper. Do you see that object, please. It is coming. There it is. So there it is. It inspired no major headlines at the time but it is historically important and enough to be one of the 50 objects in the book. Why . Tell us about this. Okay. And i will just finish the douglas part by saying douglass encouragement for black recruitment included the raising of the 54th massachusetts regiment which achieved mortality in july and his own son joined that. And they were killed in horrendous numbers and folks will remember that story from the movie glory, it was an extraordinary civil war movies. So yes, there are some free africanamericans who join the army. But when the emancipation there are some still in servitude and dont know how to deal with their legal freedom or maybe not have heard about their legal freedom. One of the great mysteries of the civil war is how news of the proclamation spread to enslaved people. So for the most part, enslaved people freed themselves on the basis of their legal right to liberty through the proclamation, when union armies were near to which they could attach themselves. And if we go back to the drawing for a minute, ill tell the story that is slow in getting to it but i want to set the stage. Keep in mind, the culture of the day is that these artists are attached to union armies, covering the action. Well usually covering headlines because it the a great idea to look down at a sketch book while shells were coming. And one day, during the siege of vicksburg, which was also in the last episode of the grant mini series and this details was not shown, as grant is besieging the city of vicksburg on the mississippi river, for several months, more and more africanamericans in the region realize that there is a bombardment and the union army is near so they plea their plantations and attach themselves to grants army and that is how the dream of emancipation proclamation came through. And what was remarkable about them, until a day before, they were technically owned by Jefferson Davis at his briarfield plantation a few miles away. Little by little they had been peeling off from the plantation. But this group was captured as they marched into the army, now technically free. Not only were they legally free according to the proclamation, but they had freed themselves under their families sake. And here you see them to the left of the figure on horseback as other soldiers look on. Straggling into camp. By the way, i thought that the officer who sort of leading on a tree leaning on a freeway on the leaning on a tree looks too much like ulysses s. Grant as he looked as hi field cap. So maybe shell put that in as a little joke. An inside joke. But here they are. And when Jefferson Davis heard about this, he was furious. Why would my people leave the comforts of that wonderful planation and life that i provided for them, when they could labor seven days a week for no pay. And that was the astonishment moment in the history of the civil war. Could we see it just grant. Now i they hes leaning on a tree. With a hat, right. To the right is with that hat. He was an informal fellow. And there is Jefferson Davis who was abandoned his plantation for quote unquote Public Service to function as the president of the confederacy. And again, he believes that the slaves had no legal right to their freedom and he expected still that they would win independence and he would petition for ownership. As we know, that is not what happened. A few days after that incident in the drawing, maybe we could look next at the newspaper version. Yes. There it is. We have the adaptation of the drawing into a wood cut engraving for leslies paper august of 1863. And it earned a side bar, but not a big story as you say. And are substantial differences between the wood cut version and the sketch . Well i think, it is sort of a normal adaptation to the day. The sketches tended to be rather rough. And the engravers back in new york cleaned them up a little bit. They added details. I think what is lost here is the depiction of the africanamericans are a little more caricature. And as a fan of the impressionism, i like the original because of that dashed off impress theory of movement. This is a little bit more static but it has the virtue of being adapted so tens of thousands of readers could goggle at this remarkable incident, otherwise shells drawings remained his private property. But, again, remarkably, somehow all of those miraculous drawings came into the collection of the new york Historical Society, so the society has a trove of these original drawings. Truly there is an embarrassment for the collection. No. We have one last email that rounds out the narrative and please keep your questions coming. Well get to them in a minute. Here is a recruitment poster from 1863. Beautiful colors, as a matter of fact. Do you want to talk about this. This is not one of our official objects but it helps round out our story here. It is sort of the we put it last because it is so wonderful and an analog, the illustration. This is also a recruiting and douglas broadside. It is a lot more vivid. Africanamerican soldiers, i think the color is some faded, should be a little bluer, but there they are, early africanamerican recruits, posing with their white officer and the message is clear, come and join this great effort, fight for your freedom and be part of the story not only of the union but of wonderful. So we have time now for some questions. And the first is did lincoln ever see douglass newspaper piece and, if so, what was lincolns reaction . So, we had no evidence that lincoln subscribed to douglass newspaper. In those days, having a subscription to an ag abolitionist newspaper, much less published by an africanamerican, was like akin to subscribing to pornography by mail. Im not equating them but the reaction would have been one of shock. So lincoln, as far as i know, unless he saw newspapers that were subscribed to by his rather liberal law partner back in illinois, william herndon, did not see the liberator, did not see douglass papers in their various names, the north star. But he surely knew what douglas was like and he surely knew that douglas called him a slave catcher, attacked his first inaugurational address and he pushed him and he p