Read On Hallowed Ground Online
Authors: Robert M Poole
On Hallowed Ground (47 page)
16
. Wheeler, 13–38; Morris, 665–75; Azoy, 82–95.
17
. Azoy, 95. Wheeler’s war cry has been rendered several ways. The
Washington Post,
quoting him seven years after the event, has Wheeler saying: “Give the Yanks hell, boys! There they go!” The
New York Times
: “Give it to ’em boys! The Yankees are on the run!” Either way, the sentiment is the same.
18
. Morris, 668.
19
. Azoy, 139.
20
. Despite the gallantry of African American troops in the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War, the
armed forces remained determinedly segregated through World War II, reflecting the status of race relations in many parts
of the United States.
21
. John Hay to Theodore Roosevelt, July 27, 1898,
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
, 16th ed. ( Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992), 536.
22
. Ernest R. May,
Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power
(Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1991), 242–43.
23
. Erna Risch,
Quartermaster Support of the Army:
1775–1939 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1989), 465–67.
24
. Monro MacCloskey,
Hallowed Ground: Our National Cemeteries
(New York: Richards Rosen Press, Inc., 1968), 46.
25
. Under the congressional statute of July 8, 1898, the secretary of war was given discretionary authority to repatriate
the war dead from overseas; relatives could leave loved ones abroad, have them returned for private burial, or have them buried
in a national cemetery. About half of those repatriated from the Caribbean went to national cemeteries. Most received in
San Francisco were taken by friends and relatives for private interment.
26
. Edward Steere, “Shrines of the Honored Dead: A Study of the National Cemetery System,”
Quartermaster Review,
1954, 22–23.
27
.
Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1899
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899), 187. While Ludington was correct in suggesting that repatriation of
overseas war dead was unprece dented in U.S. history, the practice had antecedents in ancient Greece.
28
. Ibid.,184–85. It is likely that burial details provided the bottles with names inside, a means of identifying the dead
adapted from Civil War days. “Bringing Home The Heroic Dead,”
Boston Daily Globe,
May 28, 1899, 31.
29
. Ibid.
30
. Ibid.
31
. Steere, 24.
32
. Brig. Gen. M. I. Ludington,
Annual Report of the Quartermaster General to the Secretary of War, 1900
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), 40.
33
. Michael Sledge,
Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury & Honor Our Military Fallen
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 220.
34
. MacCloskey, 46; Steere, 24; Sledge, 36.
35
. The
New York Times
, Dec. 15, 1898.
36
. Ibid.; Leech, 349–50.
37
. Ibid.
38
. The
Atlanta Constitution,
Dec. 15, 1898.
39
. The
New York Times
, Dec. 15, 1898. Margaret Leech, 646, quoting correspondence between Clark Howell and H. Kohlsaat, credits Howell for McKinley’s
conciliatory gesture regarding Confederate graves. Howell was editor of The
Atlanta Constitution
at the time of McKinley’s visit.
40
. Leech, 353-360.
41
. “Soldier Dead At Rest,” The
New York Times
, April 7, 1899.
42
. William McKinley, Executive Order, April 3, 1899, from John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project,
University of California, Santa Barbara,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid&equals$69321;
“Soldier Dead At Rest,” The
New York Times
, April 7, 1899.
43
. Ludington,
Annual Reports of the War Department, 1899,
31; Annual
Report of the Quartermaster General, 1900, 40; “
Maine
Dead Receive The Nation’s Homage,” The
New York Times
, March 24, 1912.
44
. “
Maine
’s Dead At Rest,” The
Washington Post,
Dec. 29, 1899.
45
. Ibid. While most victims from the
Maine
eventually came to rest at Arlington, not all did. The two ship’s officers killed in the blast were sent to their hometowns
and buried in private cemeteries. Twenty-five injured men were shipped to Key West, where they died and were buried. The rest
were never found.
46
. After the Confederate section was established at Arlington, Sen. John B. Foraker, a Union veteran from Ohio, delivered
on President McKinley’s pledge to assume the care of other Confederate graves. Foraker introduced legislation in 1903 to locate
all Confederate graves in the North and mark them with new headstones like those authorized for Arlington. The bill was finally
enacted in 1906. Six years later, a federally appointed commissioner had placed new headstones at 30,000 Confederate graves
around the country. Michelle A. Krowl, “In the Spirit of Fraternity: The United States Government and the Burial of the Confederate
Dead at Arlington National Cemetery, 1864–1914,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,
111, 2, (2003): 171–73.
47
. Confederate Memorial Associations from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina had previously won permission to disinter
and rebury several hundred soldiers from Arlington National Cemetery; nonetheless, some were overlooked at Arlington and elsewhere.
AHA.
48
. Krowl,161–63.
49
. Ibid.
50
. Although Marcus Wright was well known for spearheading the drive to rebury Confederates at Arlington National Cemetery,
his contribution as a Civil War historian earned him wide respect in his lifetime. Appointed by the War Department to gather
official Confederate records from the Civil War, Wright spent decades on the project, which provided thousands of pages of
authentic documentary material for
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion,
the 128-volume history published by the federal government from 1880 through 1901.
51
. Krowl, 163–65.
52
. “Letter from the Acting Secretary of War Transmitting A Report of the Commissioner for Marking Confederate Graves, Together
with Recommendation for Further Continuance of Said Act, and Reasons Therefor,” 64th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives
Document No. 795,” 2–3; Krowl, 164–66.
53
. Krowl,170–71.
54
. “Tribute Paid in New York,” The
Washington Post
, Jan. 29, 1906; “Gen. Wheeler’s Coffin Passes ‘Mid Thousands,” The
New York Times
, Jan. 29, 1906; “President to Attend Gen. Wheeler’s Funeral,” The
New York Times
, Jan. 27, 1906.
55
. Ibid.
56
. “Dead Lying in State,” The
Washington Post
, Jan. 29, 1906; “Home to South They Brought Joe Wheeler,” The
Atlanta Constitution,
Jan. 30, 1906; “Gen. Joseph Wheeler Buried in Arlington,” The
New York Times
, Jan. 30, 1906; “Atlanta Vets Go To Funeral,” The
Atlanta Constitution,
Jan. 28, 1906.
57
. “Sleeps in Arlington,” The
Washington Post,
Jan. 30, 1906.
58
. “Ex-Confederates Angry,” The
New York Times
, Jan. 29, 1906. Wheeler’s obelisk, a copy of the Washington Monument, is forty five-feet tall.
7: L’ENFANT’S GRAND VIEW
1
. James Dudley Morgan, “Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the Unhonored and Unrewarded Engineer,”
Records of the Columbia Historical Society of
Washington
, D.C., 2
(1899): 118–157; see also Wilhelme B. Bryan,
Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 2
(1899): 111–117; and Arthur H. Codington, “Major Charles Pierre L’Enfant at Last Honored by Republic,” The
Atlanta Constitution
, April 26, 1909.
2
. Ibid.
3
. Washington concluded that L’Enfant had an “untoward disposition.” Report No. 4595 to accompany S. 7081, “Grave of Maj.
Pierre Charles L’Enfant,” 58th Congress, 3rd Session, House of Representatives, Feb. 11, 1905.
4
. Richard W. Stephenson,
A Plan Whol[l]y New: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Planning the City of
Washington
(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1993), 34.
5
. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds.,
Dictionary of American Biography
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), 11: 169.
6
. Codington.
7
. Codington; Johnson and Malone, eds.,
Dictionary of American Biography
11:169; Scott W. Berg,
Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary who designed
Washington
, D.C.
(New York: Pantheon, 2007), 244. Berg writes that L’Enfant had claims pending against the federal government at the time
of his death; sixteen years later, the War Department awarded L’Enfant’s estate $92.80 for his work on Fort Warburton, later
called Fort Washington; see also Jean Jules Jusserand,
With Americans of Past and Present Days
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), 190.
8
. Burnham, who helped raise a new Chicago from the ashes of the 1871 fire, is often credited for saying, “Make no little
plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Whether Burnham actually said it has been disputed, but there is no doubt
that Burnham lived by the credo, which has been embraced by generations of architects since his time.
9
. After the British torched the White House in 1814, President James Madison and his family took refuge in the Octagon House
a few blocks away. It served as the White House until the president’s mansion could be restored.
10
. Sara A. Butler, “The Monument as Manifesto: The Pierre Charles L’Enfant Memorial, 1909–1911,”
Journal of Planning History
, 6, 4 (Nov. 2007): 283–310.
11
. Many of the architects and artists contributing to the McMillan Commission later served on the Council of Fine Arts, a
federal committee appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt’s order of January 19, 1909. The council was charged with reviewing
plans for buildings, statues, or parks in Washington to provide for orderly and aesthetic development. Although Roosevelt’s order was later revoked by President William Howard
Taft, Congress reestablished the panel in 1910 as the United States Commission on Fine Arts, which continues to pass judgment
on all plans for buildings and parks in the federal city to this day.
12
.
Report of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia on the Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia,
U.S. Senate Report No. 166, 57th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902).
13
. Ibid.
14
. Ibid.
15
. Butler, 293–94; see also Henry B. F. Macfarland to Luke E. White, Dec. 28, 1908, NARA RG 92, Office of the Quartermaster
General.
16
. Berg, 274; see also
Congressional Record—Senate,
61st Congress, 1st Session, March 25, 1909, 263–64; “Removal of the Remains of Pierre Charles L’Enfant,” House of Representatives
Document No. 214, Jan. 11, 1905, 58th Congress, 3rd Session;
Congressional Record—Senate,
Feb. 8, 1905, 58th Congress, 3rd Session, 2060.
17
. Macfarland to White, Dec. 28, 1908.
18
. Murray Nelligan,
Arlington House: The Story of the Lee Mansion Historical Monument
(Burke, VA: Chatelaine Press, 2005), 143. The quote is not direct but as related by G. W. P. Custis, who was standing with
Lafayette at Arlington when the Frenchman is supposed to have said it.
19
. Capt. E. H. Humphrey Jr. to D. H. Rhodes, April 11, 1909, NARA RG 92, Office of the Quartermaster General.
20
. D. H. Rhodes to Maj. F. W. Matteson, June 10, 1930, AHA. According to Rhodes’s account of L’Enfant’s reburial, the cedar
that had marked his grave did not go to waste. After the Frenchman’s disinterment, Rhodes wrote, the tree “turned out to be
a boon to those most interested, in that it furnished wood for souvenirs that were made into mallets, etc.”
21
. “L’Enfant Disinterred,” The
Washington Post,
April 23, 1909.
22
. Rhodes to Matteson, June 10, 1930.
23
. “L’Enfant Disinterred.”
24
. “Memorial or Funeral Services in the Capitol Rotunda,” U.S. Senate Historical Office, 2005.
25
. “Taps for L’Enfant,” The
Washington Post,
April 29, 1909
26
. Ibid.; see also “Bacon Placed Pin In L’Enfant Coffin,” The
Atlanta Constitution,
April 29, 1909.
27
. Ibid.
28
. According to Rebecca Cooper, manager of reader services in the library of the Society of the Cincinnati, L’Enfant misjudged
the market for the new medals. Having run through the funds provided him to commission medals, L’Enfant dipped into his own
pocket and ended up with more badges than he could sell—a precursor of the fiscal exuberance that would finally be his undoing.
Author interview, Washington, D.C., July 7, 2008.
29
. “Taps for L’Enfant.” As with other controversies in L’Enfant’s eventful life, there is confusion regarding his reburial
in 1909. The Washington Post account has Sen. Bacon giving his Cincinnati medal to L’Enfant at the Arlington graveside; an account from The
Atlanta Constitution,
also printed on April 29, 1908, has Bacon transferring the medal during ceremonies at the Capitol Rotunda. The Post’s account
contains more detail and seems more credible, but either version may be correct.
