Honest Abe, Godey's Lady's Book and the Birth of Modern-day Thanksgiving

Sarah Josepha Hale

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we thought it would be fitting to explore the birth of the modern Thanksgiving Day holiday, as it involves two rather prominent Americans from the Gone with the Wind era--Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey's Lady's Book and President Abraham Lincoln, who of course needs no introduction. Those of you who are familiar with American Thanksgiving lore will perhaps already know this story, but since it's a lovely story, we hope you'll indulge us in sharing it for the benefit of all our readers. 

Anyways, let's get started. While Thanksgiving celebrations had been part of the American fabric since long before the War of Independence (thanks to that famous story about the Pilgrims and Indians), the holiday wasn't celebrated with any kind of uniformity. Some states and territories held independent Thanksgiving celebrations at different points throughout the autumn months, while others didn't recognize the holiday at all. For many years, Thanksgiving was celebrated only in New England. It was virtually unknown in other parts of the country, including the South. 

But Sarah Josepha Hale set out to change all that. Her mission was to make Thanksgiving Day a nationally recognized holiday, one that would be celebrated in every corner of the United States. A staunch believer in American unity, the cause of a national Thanksgiving resonated deeply with the patriotic Hale. And she had the perfect platform by which to begin her campaign: the venerable Godey's Lady's Book.

Hale had served as the editor of Godey's Lady's Book long before it was even known by the name that would make it famous. In 1828, she came on board as the editor of Ladies' Magazine, following literary success as a poet and novelist. In 1837, Louis Antoine Godey purchased Ladies' American Magazine (as it had been renamed) and merged it with his existing publication, Godey's Lady's Book. Under Hale's skillful leadership, Godey's Lady's Book flourished. By mid century, it had become not only a coveted resource for fashion, but a veritable force in American culture, literature, politics and etiquette.

Nowhere can this be seen more than in Hale's campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. January 1847 saw her first editorial in support of a unified Thanksgiving holiday:

"Our holidays. — We have but two that we can call entirely national. The New Year is a holiday to all the world, and Christmas to all Christians— but the 'Fourth of July' and 'Thanksgiving Day' can only be enjoyed by Americans. The annual observance of Thanksgiving Day was, to be sure, mostly confined to the New England States, till within a few years. We are glad to see that this good old puritan custom is becoming popular throughout the Union. The past year saw it celebrated in twenty-one or two of the States. It was holden on the same day, November 26th, in seventeen, we believe. Would that the next Thanksgiving might be observed in all the states on the same day. Then, though the members of time same family might be too far separated to meet around one festive board, they would have the gratification of knowing, that all were enjoying the blessings of the day."

--Godey's Lady's Book, January 1847

From there, she did not let up. Year after year, editorials penned by Hale in support of a unified and nationally celebrated Thanksgiving became common place in the pages of Godey's. She favored holding the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November, harkening back to George Washington's original proclamation that declared November 26, 1789 to be a national "day of publick thanksgiving and prayer."

Each fall season, Godey's would even list running tallies of which states held Thanksgiving celebrations and on which dates these celebrations were observed. The September 1856 issue, for instance, records with delight that 14 states, including Scarlett O'Hara's home state of Georgia, had celebrated the holiday on Thursday November 29th, 1855, while six other states had held celebrations earlier that month and several more earlier that fall.  As a result of Hale's dogged advocacy, the tally lists in Godey's continued to grow as more and states began to adopt Thanksgiving celebrations.

But this wasn't quite enough for Hale. She still wanted a recognized national holiday. So she flooded government officials with letters in support of a national Thanksgiving celebration, personally reaching out to state and territories governors, missionaries, military personnel, diplomats and numerous others. She also directly appealed to the highest official in the land, writing to no less than four Presidents--Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan--before she was finally successful in persuading the fifth: Abraham Lincoln.

On September 23, 1863, Hale wrote to President Lincoln to state the case for a national Thanksgiving holiday, which is excerpted below. (You can also check out the Library of Congress to see the complete letter text and an scanned copy of the original letter.)

"Sir.--

"Permit me, as Editress of the 'Lady's Book', to request a few minutes of your precious time, while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and -- as I trust -- even to the President of our Republic, of some importance. This subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.

"You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution...

"But I find there are obstacles not possible to be overcome without legislative aid -- that each State should, by statute, make it obligatory on the Governor to appoint the last Thursday of November, annually, as Thanksgiving Day; -- or, as this way would require years to be realized, it has ocurred to me that a proclamation from the President of the United States would be the best, surest and most fitting method of National appointment."

--Letter of Sarah Josepha Hale to President Abraham Lincoln, Sept. 23, 1863

Lincoln readily agreed, recognizing that a national holiday of Thanksgiving would serve as a way to rejuvenate and rally the spirits of a nation torn asunder by the protracted Civil War. And so on Oct. 3, 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale's long-held dream was at last realized as President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the fourth Thursday in November to henceforth become a day of thanksgiving, giving rise to the modern Thanksgiving holiday that's been observed for close to 150 years now.   

And if you're looking for more Thanksgiving insights, be sure to check out this tremendous video from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities about Sarah Josepha Hale's role in shaping Thanksgiving traditions, including a special mention about Thanksgiving in the South. 

Dolls, Drug Smuggling, and Civil War Blockade Runners

There's a blog post title I never thought I'd type. But check out the link below for a fascinating look at a clever way in which the Confederacy smuggled in contraband drugs for medicine. Doesn't this sound like a sly trick that Rhett would think up?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101027/ap_on_re_us/us_civil_war_dolls_2

Father Abram Joseph Ryan, Poet-Priest

"Until Scarlett was able to furnish Aunt Pitty’s house as it had been before the war…she had no intention of having guests in her home—especially prominent guests, such as Melly had.

General John B. Gordon, Georgia's great hero, was frequently there with his family. Father Ryan, the poet-priest of the Confederacy, never failed to call when passing through Atlanta. He charmed gatherings there with his wit and seldom needed much urging to recite his 'Sword of Lee' or his deathless 'Conquered Banner,' which never failed to make the ladies cry."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XLI 

Father Abram Joseph Ryan

To list the things that make Margaret Mitchell a great writer is a pretty futile endeavor as it's best just to say "Everything" and move on to more mysterious matters... like do Rhett and Scarlett reconcile, what's so special about Marietta anyway, or just how much gaudy jewelry can you fit in one jewelry box?  But as I never let reason get in the way of a chance to talk about GWTW or praise its author, I have an item to add to the "What makes MM so gifted?" list.

And here it is: as we've seen in her references to the Leyden House, the Governor's Mansion, and elsewhere, MM was especially adept at blending historical reality into the fictional narrative of Gone with the Wind, embedding her characters firmly and  convincingly within a very unique moment in American history.  Yet another nice example of this lies in the quote above, where the quite real Father Ryan attends the gatherings of the charming (but of course fictional) Melanie Wilkes.  And thus today we're naturally looking into this Father Ryan character because a) he actually was a rather important figure in the Reconstruction-era South, b) he has a pretty sweet title going on with his Poet-Priest moniker and c) anyone who knowingly sports a hairstyle like this has got to have led an interesting life, right?

Born in 1838 to Irish immigrants, Abram Joseph Ryan spent his early years in Hagerstown, Maryland before moving with his family to Norfolk, Virginia and then St. Louis, Missouri. After completing his religious studies, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on September 12, 1860. Yet the decision to dedicate his life to the service of God was not without heartache for young Abram, as he had fallen in love with a devout Catholic girl, mysteriously known  to the history books only as "Ethel." Despite their affection for each other, Abram and Ethel felt called to different paths and went their separate ways--he became a priest, she a nun. Yet Father Ryan would never forget her and references to Ethel, sometimes mournful, sometimes idealistic, appeared regularly in his later poetry.

Father Ryan then began his career in ministry, serving a number of short stints between 1861 and 1863 in Perryville, Missouri, Lewiston, New York and LaSalle, Illinois. Why the short stays? Some scholars believe Ryan, a Southerner by background and personal sympathy, had started to sneak off from his clerical duties to provide chaplain services on the sly to the Confederacy as early as 1862, hence causing the Catholic Church to reassign him multiple times in retribution.

Ryan was reassigned (yet again) to religious service in Tennessee in late 1863 or early 1864--an arrangement that at last seemed to suit him just fine, as he continued to provide chaplain services to the Confederate army at battles nearby, including at the Battle of Franklin (oh yes- Father Ryan could have met Rhett Butler too!). 

Yet Father Ryan's fame and literary significance would only came after the war. Following the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, he wrote what would become his most famous poem, "The Conquered Banner": 

“I wrote 'The Conquered Banner' at Nashville, Tennessee one evening soon after Lee’s surrender, when my mind was engrossed with the thought of our dead soldiers and our dead Cause. It was first published in the New York Freeman’s Journal. I never had any idea that the poem, written in less than an hour, would attain celebrity status. No doubt the circumstances of its appearance lent it much of its fame. In expressing my own emotions at the time, I echoed the unuttered feelings of the Southern people; and so 'The Conquered Banner' became the requiem of the Lost Cause."

--Father Ryan's recollections, excerpted from  Furl That Banner: The life of Abram J. Ryan, Poet-Priest of the South

"The Conquered Banner" was published on June 24th 1865 and Father Ryan does not exaggerate when he speaks of its (and his, it should be added) instantaneous popularity. The poem was immediately embraced as, well, the banner of the fallen Southern war effort and catapulted him into prominence in the Southern post-war society.

In fact, Father Ryan is often credited with a significant role in establishing the cult of the Lost Cause, through his prolific outpouring of poetry filled with passionate and elegiac descriptions of the Confederacy and the South.  He was one of the earliest adopters of the "Lost Cause" phrase, first using it in an address (ironically and probably intentionally) on July 4 in Nashville, Tennessee. Known for his charisma, his deep mysticism, and his white-hot fervor for all things Southern, he was (no surprise) a passionate opponent of Reconstruction--a theme he explored in depth through his journal The Banner of the South, first published in 1868 from his new home in Augusta, Georgia, where he had relocated after a relatively long stay (for him, anyway) in Tennessee between 1864-1867. 

The journal was ostensibly a Church periodical, but it operated with a strong pro-Southern, anti-Reconstruction stance, typical of Father Ryan's sensibilities. Yet it never pays to pigeonhole someone. For although Father Ryan was one of the fiercest critics of Reconstruction and the North, he eventually put aside his sectional bias (long before, it should be added, many of his equally fervent Southerner compatriots did) and welcomed reconciliation with the North. The turning point for Father Ryan was the epidemic of yellow fever in 1878, when he was moved by the North's spirit of generosity in assisting the South with the sick. His changed opinions are on display in his poem "Reunited":  

Purer than thy own white snow,
   Nobler than thy mountains' height;
Deeper than the ocean's flow,
   Stronger than thy own proud might;
O Northland! to thy sister's land
Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand.

We close our discussion of Father Ryan where we began it--in the context of MM's reference to him in GWTW. Following the jump, you'll find complete lyrics for his two poems mentioned in the book, "The Conquered Banner" and "The Sword of Robert Lee."  Of course, it must be noted that MM's allusion to Father Ryan attending Melanie Wilkes' gatherings does more than just offer a hint of historical accuracy--it works as yet another way to tie Melanie Wilkes to the values of the Old South. For if "The Conquered Banner" was the South's emblem of its lost way of life, Melanie herself is that very emblem within Gone with the Wind. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Mitchell, in her final reference to Melanie and all she stood for employs a mournful nostalgic tone that would be right at home in the writings of Father Ryan:

"She could not wholly understand or analyze what he was feeling, but it seemed almost as if she too had been brushed by whispering skirts, touching her softly in a last caress.  She was seeing through Rhett's eyes the passing, not of a woman but of a legend—the gentle, self-effacing but steel-spined women on whom the South had builded its house in war and to whose proud and loving arms it had returned in defeat."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter LXII

Late Update: Be sure to check out the comments to find some additional insights on Father Ryan from Donald Beagle, author of Poet of the Lost Cause: A Life of Father Ryan. 

The Years Creep Slowly By, Lorena...

*Warning: vile mood blogging ahead* 

Internets, three things stand at the forefront: 

1. Blogger should have something like those mood icons on LiveJournal. (If it already does, don't tell me. I enjoy being wrong.)
2. This is a crappy melancholy Sunday.
3. It is generally unwise to tackle depressing Civil War songs on crappy melancholy Sundays, but that's precisely what I am going to do. 

So, if this is your shiny happy day, wait till the Monday blues hit to read. If not, join me for a blog post discussing Lorena, one of Civil War's saddest and most popular songs. I'll try to keep it reasonably short (famous last words).

Lorena was an antebellum song, but there is not much to say about its history before the war. The lyrics were written in 1857 by a Northern reverend for a real sweetheart who chose to marry another. She was nicknamed Lorena in the poem, presumably as an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe's much quoted The Raven ("sorrow for the lost Lenore" vs. "a hundred months have passed, Lorena, since last I held your hand in mine." It's pretty obvious which one was written by a literary genius, but other than that, the connection is not that far-fetched, I guess). The music was written by Joseph Philbrick Webster, a songwriter and composer famous at the time.

During the war, the ballad became wildly popular in both the Confederate and the Union camps. What's more interesting, and a testament to its popularity, is that a few years after its publication a version with altered lyrics, known as Lorena's Answer, A Sequel to Lorena or Paul Vane, became available. In this new version, written by the same reverend, now happily married himself, Lorena pledged she hadn't forgotten her lover. (Someone call Andrew Cohen! We just found the perfect idea for his next passive-aggressive rant article.) You can read those lyrics as well as a nice though somewhat poetically  embellished history of the song on the Ohio Historical Society site. 

Joseph Webster

Lorena was perhaps the best-known love-song of its time, and as such, a reference to it couldn't be missing from Gone with the Wind. Besides being the inspiration behind Ella's middle name, the ballad is mentioned directly in the bazaar scene: 

"Then the fiddles, bull fiddles, accordions, banjos and knuckle-bones broke into a slow rendition of 'Lorena'--too slow for dancing, the dancing would come later when the booths were emptied of their wares. Scarlett felt her heart beat faster as the sweet melancholy of the waltz came to her: 

'The years creep slowly by, Lorena! 

The snow is on the grass again. 

The sun's far down the sky, Lorena . . .'

One-two-three, one-two-three, dip-sway--three, turn--two-three. What a beautiful waltz! She extended her hands slightly, closed her eyes and swayed with the sad haunting rhythm. There was something about the tragic melody and Lorena's lost love that mingled with her own excitement and brought a lump into her throat." 

--excerpted from Gone with the Wind, Chapter IX

When I was little and openly inclined to cheesiness, I was convinced that the only reason Margaret Mitchell chose this song was because its lyrics, melodramatic as they are, bear some resemblance to lines from Rhett's final speech. Now that I am older and only secretly inclined to cheesiness, I still think it could have been one of the reasons for her using it, besides how well it spoke for the period of course. It just works so well within the theme of lost love and missed chances. What do you think?

You'll find the lyrics after the jump if you're interested in making that comparison. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go fix myself up with some chocolate and Jane Austen (Crappy Sundays Remedy™). I am your typical girl, what do you know?

The Rock Island Prison

"Ashley was not dead! He had been wounded and taken prisoner, and the records showed that he was at Rock Island, a prison camp in Illinois. In their first joy, they could think of nothing except that he was alive. But, when calmness began to return, they looked at one another and said 'Rock Island!' in the same voice they would have said 'In Hell!' For even as Andersonville was a name that stank in the North, so was Rock Island one to bring terror to the heart of any Southerner who had relatives imprisoned there."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVI

While the above-quoted paragraph may not be the absolute truth in what concerns the Illinois Rock Island Prison, it does sum up the general attitude towards prisoner-of-war camps at the time, on both sides. And it was not an unjustified attitude either. Due to poor organization, lack of resources and sometimes just vindictive measures, military prisons during the Civil War were, as one author calls them, true "portals to Hell." The Rock Island Prison, where Ashley Wilkes was held, was no exception, though the conditions there were by no means comparable to the ones at the Confederate Andersonville or the Union Elmira prisons.

Bell tower outside entrance at Rock Island Prison

The camp at Rock Island was built during the summer and autumn of 1863. The number of Confederate prisoners of war had steadily increased with the collapse of the prisoner exchange system and after the Union's victory at Gettysburg, and the existing facilities were proving insufficient, so new prisons had to be added. One of the Union's westernmost, the Rock Island Prison was located on a government-owned island in the Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, to which it was connected by 3 bridges. The island, as you can see in the image below, was not big--only half a mile wide and about 3 miles long. From 1862, it also hosted an arsenal for the Union (hence its modern name--Arsenal Island).

Rock Island and its prison in 1864. Iowa to the right.

What did the prison look like?

The Quotable Rhett Butler: Old Joe at Thermopylae

I can write short posts. Or at least that's my goal for today, to deliver a short and concise post, quite in contrast with my usual rambling. So, cutting to the chase, our Rhett quote for this week is:

"'They died to the last man at Thermopylae, didn't they, Doctor?' Rhett asked, and his lips twitched with suppressed laughter."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVII

At the beginning of Part Three in the book, where this line is uttered, Margaret Mitchell describes Sherman's troops advance into Georgia in the late spring of 1864. In November of 1863, the Union army won the Battle for Chattanooga, which opened their way to Georgia (Chattanooga, Tennessee was one of the dozen places that claimed the honor to be the "Gateway to the South"). They would be opposed by the Army of Tennessee, under the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, fondly nicknamed Old Joe, and the series of battles that ensued would eventually lead to Atlanta's siege and fall.

General Joseph E. Johnson

But at the time Rhett expresses disbelief at Old Joe's capacity to resist the Yankee attack, in a conversation with Doctor Meade, things were not so grim yet. We can actually date their exchange with a fair degree of precision, for MM mentions that Aunt Pity's party took place in May and Doctor Meade is still convinced that "General Johnston was standing in the mountains like an iron rampart." Those mountains would be the Rocky Face Ridge, that Johnston was forced to abandon on May 12. So, considering that the Spring Campaign started on May 4, that leaves us with a window of one week.

Doctor Meade's reference, picked up by Rhett, is quite obviously one to the Battle of Thermopylae fought by Leonidas' Spartans against the invading Persian army, that greatly outnumbered them. The Spartans resisted for a few days at the mountain pass of Thermopylae, but eventually, as Rhett so graciously points out, they were killed to the last man.

"'Our men have fought without shoes before and without food and won victories. And they will fight again and win! I tell you General Johnston cannot be dislodged! The mountain fastnesses have always been the refuge and the strong forts of invaded peoples from ancient times. Think of--think of Thermopylae!'

Scarlett thought hard but Thermopylae meant nothing to her. 

'They died to the last man at Thermopylae, didn't they, Doctor?' Rhett asked, and his lips twitched with suppressed laughter. 

'Are you being insulting, young man?' 

'Doctor! I beg of you! You misunderstood me! I merely asked for information. My memory of ancient history is poor.'"

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVII

There are many things to admire in the scene above. First of all, of course, Rhett's wit and skillful use of ancient history, which allows him to point out the self-defeating character and the irony of Doctor Meade's analogy. But, as usual with Margaret Mitchell's scenes, there is more than one layer to this. 

With historical hindsight, there is actually one resemblance between the two battles. Unlike Leonidas, Old Joe retreated from Rocky Face Ridge, but in both cases the reason why the mountain position was not impregnable, as it should have been, was that the enemy outflanked the resisting armies. Under cover of night, both Sherman and Xerxes, the Persian king (who had been alerted to the existence of a mountain path by a traitor), managed to get their troops behind the enemy lines, avoiding the deadly frontal attack. For Leonidas that spelled the end of his life and the beginning of a heroic  and military legend like few others in history. 

The Battle of Thermopylae is perhaps one of the most often quoted events in ancient history, but it is a particularly nice touch that Doctor Meade, as a Southerner, chose this particular battle. Not only because Sparta, who was ruled by a strict honor code, could to an extent appeal to the Southern ideals of chivalry, but also because this was a battle the Greeks fought against their invaders, which emphasizes the way Doctor Meade and his fellowmen saw their own war--as a war of Northern aggression. By contrast, Sherman referred to Etowah, the river he crossed in his Spring Campaign as "the Rubicon of Georgia," which, alluding to  the famous river Caesar crossed in his march against his own capital, stresses the idea of it being a civil war.

Oh, and that thing about me writing short posts? Obviously a lie. Maybe next time. 

A Place for Scarlett O'Hara's Confessions

The first Catholic Church of Atlanta--what a better topic for a lovely Sunday afternoon? Now, we're well aware that this is one building Scarlett didn't get to see that much, despite what our title might suggest, but this church's history, through all its metamorphoses, ties in so nicely with Atlanta's own history that we figured it deserves a post.

When Atlanta was in its infancy, and still called Marthasville, all of its religious groups were united in the same building.  The settlement's population, though very small, comprised  Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, but, since there wasn't enough money to erect five separate churches, pragmatism triumphed over religious differences. They combined their resources and built a simple two-chimney clapboard structure on a triangular lot bounded by Peachtree, Pryor and Houston Streets. 

This  happy ecumenism born out of practicality would be short lived though. One by one, the congregations moved into their own buildings; the Catholic congregation in 1848. Its new church, on the corner of Loyd and Hunter streets, was still a plain wood frame structure, quite representative for the steady developing city's architecture at the time. The church didn't have a name yet and was simply known as "the Catholic Church," pertaining from 1850 to the diocese of Savannah.

The most heroic moment in the existence of this congregation came during Sherman's occupation of Atlanta, when Father Thomas O'Reilly saved the town's churches from being burned to the ground. His strategy? He simply announced that if his church was fired, then all the Roman Catholics in Sherman's army would leave their ranks. Between his popularity as a chaplain even among Federal troops and the fact that the regiment was composed largely of Catholics, the church and all its surroundings were spared.  That is not to say the church escaped the war intact, for its facade had already been affected by a shell during the siege.

As Atlanta rose from its ashes in the years after the war, it seemed that the passion for building, and building big, extended to churches as well. In 1869, the cornerstone was laid for a new building to replace the old simple edifice of the Catholic Church. It was an event altogether, having in attendance the famous Father Ryan, the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy, who even held a speech, much to Atlanta's pride. The commissioned architect was William H. Parkins, who would establish his reputation in Georgia through building this church. 

In 1873, the imposing cathedral-like building was ready for use, though work continued on portions of it till 1880. Unfortunately, by the time the church was inaugurated in 1873 and received its name, the Church of Immaculate Conception,  its hero and savior, Father O'Reilly, had already passed away.

That the edifice was grand you can see for yourselves in the picture above.  Made of painted red brick, it was of Gothic design, with its tall square tower and its three-arched main entrance.  We guess that if Scarlett ever wanted to turn religious after Rhett left her in 1873, she now had a stately enough church to go to. Unless of course you, like my co-blogger, are firm believers in the reconciliation scenario. In that case, I guess this was a good venue for them to renew their vows. Or something like that.

The Quotable Rhett Butler: Mrs. Bixby and Her Sons

This week, our Quotable Rhett Butler features the entry that originally gave me the idea for the series. Another line that I ignored for a long time, I actually remember the moment I googled for this one, and my slight dismay at finding it historically inaccurate.  Here it is:

"'Mr. Lincoln, the merciful and just, who cries large tears over Mrs. Bixby's five boys, hasn't any tears to shed about the thousands of Yankees dying at Andersonville,' said Rhett, his mouth twisting."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVI 

You can find this line at the end of Part Two in the book, when Rhett brings Melanie news about her missing husband. There are two main things to address in the quote above (besides the obvious anti-Lincoln feeling, of course).  

First of all, the allusion to the Bixby letter. Lydia Bixby was a widow from Boston who had allegedly lost her five sons in the Civil War (it will turn out three of them actually survived). At the urge of the Massachusetts governor, Lincoln sent her a condolence letter. Four days later, the letter would be published by The Boston Evening Transcript and become quite  famous. Here's what it said:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln

From The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

Can you see the problem there? November 1864. At the time this letter was written, Rhett was fighting in the Confederate Army and Scarlett starving at Tara. When Rhett utters this line, in April of 1864 most probably, only one of the Bixby sons was missing from the Union army--because he deserted.

The second interesting aspect of this quote is the reference to the prisoner exchange system or, rather, lack thereof.  Rhett is explaining to Melanie why her husband can't be exchanged out of prison and the blame for that fact is placed squarely on Lincoln. (An interesting tidbit: when that system was still working, Ashley, as a major, would have been worth eight privates. Ashley, worth eight men, I lived to see that day. I've yet to figure out what the status of blockade runners was.)
 

The prisoner exchange system between the Union and the Confederacy had collapsed in the summer of 1863, and though it was indeed suspended by the Lincoln administration, the Confederacy was largely to blame. The South would not recognize black Union soldiers as free men, and acted accordingly. They were sent back into slavery, which for the North was a clear violation of the initial deal. The exchange system was never reestablished, which, as the war progressed, proved to be to the Union's advantage, as the need for new troops was far greater in the South. 

The results of this were horrible--there is no other word no describe them. We will cover the Rock Island Prison in a post soon enough. In the meantime, you can google for the famous Andersonville Prison that Rhett refers to, but we must warn you, just in case you haven't seen them before, that the images are extremely unsettling.

The Daring Hoop Skirt Blockade Runner

Civil War blockade runner. While the phrase immediately brings to mind images of Rhett Butler (let's be honest), Rhett and his male counterparts weren't the only ones bringing in goods for the South. Southern women had an ingenious weapon at their immediate disposal to help them aid the war effort--the hoop skirt. 

And so without further ado we bring you the tale of a daring hoop skirt blockade runner, as remembered by Sara Pryor, a Virginian aristocrat and the wife of Confederate general Roger Pryor: 

"One day I was in an ambulance, driving on one of the interminable lanes of the region, the only incident being the watery crossing over the 'cosin,' as the driver called the swamps that had been 'Poquosin' in the Indian tongue. Behind me  came a jolting two-wheeled cart, drawn by a mule  and driven by a small negro boy, who stood in front with a foot planted firmly upon each of the shafts. Within, and completely filling the vehicle, which was nothing more than a box on wheels, sat a dignified-looking woman. The dame of the ambulance at once became fascinated by a small basket of sweet potatoes which the dame of the cart carried in her lap. 

"With a view to acquiring these treasures I essayed a tentative conversation upon the weather, the prospects of a late spring, and finally the scarcity of provisions and consequent suffering of the soldiers.

"After a keen glance of scrutiny the market woman exclaimed, 'Well, I am doing all I can for them! I know you won't speak of it! Look here!'

"Lifting the edge of her hooped petticoat, she revealed a roll of army cloth, several pairs of cavalry boots, a roll of crimson flannel, packages of gilt braid and sewing silk, cans of preserved meats, a bag of coffee! She was on her way to our own camp, right under the General's nose! Of course I should not betray her — I promised. I did more. Before we parted she had drawn forth a little memorandum book and had taken a list of my own necessities. She did not 'run the blockade' herself. She had an agent — 'a dear, good Suffolk man'— who would fill my order on his next trip.

"It isn't worth while to tell men everything. They are not supposed to be interested in the needle-and-thread ways of women!" 

--excerpted from Reminiscences of peace and war (1905)

So there you have the brave tale of subterfuge, goods smuggling--and crinoline and petticoats.  And just think: if some regular ole Southern lady could be so inventive with her hoop skirts, can you imagine what our own intrepid Scarlett would be able to do with them? If the girl could turn green curtains into the ultimate seduction weapon, I shudder to think what she would be able to accomplish with an especially voluminous hoop skirt in her arsenal.

Shakespeare in Gone with the Wind (also featuring, bills)

"'If you think Confederate money is cute, Will, I certainly don't,' said Scarlett, shortly, for the very sight of Confederate money made her mad. 'We've got three thousand dollars of it in Pa's trunk this minute, and Mammy's  after me to let her paste it over the holes in the attic walls so the draft won't get her. And I think I'll do it. Then it'll be good for something.'

'"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,'' said Melanie with a sad smile. 'Don't do that, Scarlett. Keep it for Wade. He'll be proud of it some day.'" --Gone with the Wind, Chapter XXX

I read Gone with the Wind before I read Shakespeare. I also read Gone with the Wind before the internet was readily available (at least for me). So the above quote didn't mean much to me until I read Hamlet and jumped out of my seat looking like an idiot uttered a small delighted gasp of surprise. Isn't that one of the nicest feelings in the world, to stumble across quotes used in Gone with the Wind in their natural habitat?

Melly's quote comes, of course, from the graveyard scene in Hamlet, in which Hamlet is moodily meditating on life, death and the human condition (what else is new?).  His speech is the typical example of the ubi sunt genre. Here are the quotes relevant for understanding Melly's line: 

          "Why may
          not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
          till he find it stopping a bung-hole?"
                                               (5.1. 186-88)

          "Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
          Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
          O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
          Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!"
                                               (5.1.195-98)

It's actually a very nice image, the one Melly is able to so briefly invoke, isn't it? I've always found it interesting that the two things that are compared to unfortunate Caesars in Gone with the Wind are the Confederacy and Rhett. In an admittedly very loose way, it seems to reinforce the idea that his connection to the Old South is deeper than he cares to acknowledge.

After the jump you have some images of Confederate money, that iso scanned from The Authentic South of Gone with the Wind: The Illustrated Guide to the Grandeur of a Lost Era. I figured you didn't have enough of Confederate bills this week.

Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note

“‘When I was over to Fayetteville today,’ said Will, ‘I found somethin’ right cute that I thought would interest you ladies and I brought it home.’ (...) He turned the bill over. On its back was pasted a strip of coarse brown wrapping paper, inscribed in pale homemade ink. Will cleared his throat and read slowly and with difficulty.

‘The name is ‘Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note,’’ he said.” --Gone with the Wind, Chapter XXX

So here’s something that used to really intrigue me. In the scene above, the poem Will Benteen brings home from Fayetteville is written on a piece of paper pasted on the back of the Confederate bill. I always assumed (correctly) that the poem was not just an anonymous creation that happened to fall into Will’s hands, but an existing piece someone pasted there in tribute to its title. And here rose the problem. To me the title seemed to suggest that the lines had been written directly on the back of a bill. But then, aren’t bills supposed to be printed on both sides?

Fortunately, history found a way to reconcile the truth of the title with my over analyzing tendencies the universally accepted truth about bills. Yes, bills are printed on both sides. However, a number of Confederate bills at the end of the war were not, because the Confederacy fell before the printing could be completed. And this was exactly the case with the $500 bill on which this poem was written.

But let’s hear the story from the author himself, a Major S.A. Jonas of Aberdeen, Mississippi. Originally a civil engineer working for the New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern Railroad, Jonas went on to fight in the Confederate army (and he really was with Johnston when he surrendered--sorry, couldn’t resist that one) and then, after the war, became editor of The Examiner in his native town. From this position, he wrote a letter to a journal in Louisville, Kentucky, claiming authorship for the poem Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note and detailing its history:

“Immediately after Johnston’s surrender at High Point, N.C., a number of us obtained transportation at Richmond, Va., where we awaited means to reach our homes. A little party of us, including Capt. A. B. Schell of your city, were quartered, thanks to the kindness of its proprietor, at the Powhatan Hotel. A Philadelphia comedy company was stopping there, and one of the lady performers, Miss Annie Ruch, requested that we would all furnish her with our autographs. It so happened that among the spoils of the Confederacy that were floating through the town were many $500 bills incomplete-- the reverse sides, or backs, had not been printed--and Miss Ruch furnished us each with one of these upon which to write. We all complied with her wishes, each writing a compliment or a sentiment, and my blank was filled in with the lines in question.”

              --In a letter to The Louisville Courier Journal

The poem was first published by The Metropolitan Record of New York, an official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Church, that appeared between 1859 and 1873. To give you an idea of the specific of this newspaper is to say that, besides Catholic, all the following descriptions apply: Irish, Democrat, Pro-Southern, Anti-abolitionism, Anti-Lincoln. It was... more than just a little vehement. This newspaper would publish Jonas’ poem under the heading, "Something too good to be lost.”

The piece was such a success that it quickly became part of the popular culture, as the Lost Cause legend started to grow. As such, it was attributed to a number of people, including Father Ryan and half a dozen Southern ladies. It was actually because The Louisville Courier Journal had claimed the honor for a Kentucky lady the week before that Jonas stepped in to clear the misunderstanding and claim his laurels. 
 

                                                          Image from the Library of Congress

 

Besides featuring some classic motifs of the Lost Cause mythology, Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note also inspired/was used in a large number of artifacts, from the plain bill Will shows Scarlett to more elaborate plaques and lithographs, like the one you can see above. (It's a good thing they changed the title to The Lost Cause, though, for otherwise I would have been sure to obsess over its inaccuracy all over again.)

You can find a review of that lithograph's cultural heritage here, though the poem is assigned to a different author and Jonas to legend. The Gone with the Wind scene is also mentioned (with one little inaccuracy).

After the jump you’ll find the poem in its entirety. The stanzas in italics are the ones Will reads aloud in Gone with the Wind.