Echoes of Reconstruction: Equal Rights in New Hampshire Civil War Monument Dedication
ECW welcomes back Patrick Young, author of The Reconstruction Era blog
I was happy to be in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the 2024 New Hampshire Primary, less so for the politicians and more so to photograph the newly restored Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Monument in Veterans Memorial Park right across from the Doubletree Hotel where all the contenders for the office of President stay!
The monument was first unveiled in 1879. I have been coming up to the primary since 1980, the 100th Anniversary of the monument. It has been fairly well maintained over the years that I have been visiting, but a few years ago the fountain for the memorial stopped working and some of the granite stones for the fountain showed marked deterioration. For the last two years, the city has been in a major restoration for the edifice and in the Spring of 2023 the work was completed and a rededication was held.
I went to photograph the monument on a snowy, cold afternoon in which the temperature never got above 15 degrees, so of course the fountain was turned off, but I was really impressed by the tremendous work done on this relic from the age where most veterans of the Civil War were still alive.
Like many dedication days for many Union monuments across the North, J. W. Patterson’s speech gave honor to the soldiers who had fought for the Union and who had destroyed slavery in the United States. Patterson said that the North would seek the “cordial and conciliatory intercourse of kindred…” but he said, the North would insist on “all rights of citizenship” be maintained by a firm and impartial administration of law.” The Civil War was not, Patterson said, an “offspring” of the oppression of the white race of the South, it was the result of a deliberate effort “to withdraw the states “cultivated” by slave-labor from the jurisdiction of the national government and “to organize them into a separate confederation, based upon that institution for its protection.” The war’s emancipation lifted up from slavery a portion greater than the entire population of the United States at the time of the Revolutionary War. This then is what the deeds of the men who fought for the Union did, according to Patterson.
The dedication on the monument says: “In Honor of the Men of Manchester Who Gave Their Services In The War Which Preserved The Union Of The States And Secured Equal Rights To All Under The Constitution This Monument Is Built By A Grateful City.” The monument explicitly sets forth Equal Rights and Union as the goals of the war effort. It says that the war “secured” equal rights, something that was only achieved by the war. Just a decade and a half after Appomattox, this was a call for preserving the rights of former slaves, even as many parts of the old Confederacy saw White rule restored.
On May 30, 1878, the cornerstone was laid. During the ceremony of the cornerstone, it was noted that 1,584 Manchester men went into the Union Army and that 182 died during the war. The G. A. R. Post Commander James M. Cummings spoke saying that the war was to blot out a national “sin,” not just a sin of the South, but of the entire nation. He said, “The first gun fired on Fort Sumter was but the voice of God speaking to the American people. . .that the vengeance of heaven was about to fall on the heads of a nation that had for a century winked at human bondage.” The Civil War allowed America to “make freedom a fact to all men.” Cummings told his audience that “we must make permanent the victory won on the field of battle, in the building up and strengthening the principles of justice and human rights. . .”
Many people have, in the last few years, read the dedication speeches made at Confederate monuments. They often shock modern readers with their calls for White Supremacy. It is useful to become as familiar with those dedications of Union monuments put up by the people who supported Lincoln and the Union during the war. Many of them are equally expressive on the end of slavery and the desire for equality.
All color photos were taken by Pat Young. To see more sites Pat visited CLICK HERE for Google Earth view.
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Thanks for pointing out that we also need to examine the stated rationale behind post-war Union monuments as well as those honoring Confederate soldiers. The dedication speeches, so often published, give us important insight into the messaging behind the monument. Too often this was a blatant message of white supremacy in the former slave states. Surely some proponents of these monuments merely wanted to honor their dead soldiers, but we must also consider the justness of the cause each side fought for and the use of these monuments and dedication ceremonies by ambitious politicians eager to wave the bloody flag or stoke racial fear to suit their own day’s political agenda. In the case of the monument you highlight, it is clear that at least one of the speakers acknowledged that slavery was a national, not a sectional sin.
In this case, two of the speakers quoted talked about slavery and equal rights.
I really could not care less what was stated at the “dedication”, as long as my ancestors are being honored with statues. Let me ask you this– let’s say 1000 monuments to Confederate soldiers were suddenly proposed, and their “dedications” didn’t have a word of “white supremacy” in them. Would you be for them, and attend their dedications? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but somehow, I don’t think you would.
I love the earlier monuments, they have a great immediacy about them. I would suggest that n this modern age we can always “recontextualize” the Confederate monuments as grief columns for the tens of thousands of widows and orphans left behind by the war. As adults in 2023, we are in no way bound by the racist sentiments expressed by some dedicators in the past. Nor should we fail to note the irony of the triumphalism in the New Hampshire monument, which occurred hard upon the collapse of the short lived Reconstruction regimes. To adapt the language of Animal Farm some “equal rights” were obviously more equal than others.
No, statues to soldiers are meant to honor them specifically, not to be “grief columns”.
Considering the many letters proving that the majority Union soldiers had no interest in African-American rights before, during or after the War, it seems like this monument is just as dishonest as anything Lost Cause.
Can you point me to any sources of letters after the Emancipation Proclamation showing, as you said, “that the majority Union soldiers had no interest in African-American rights …, during or after the War…”? I have seen quite a few showing support for Emancipation, the 13th Amendment and the 14th. Please provide a source I can consult.
“I have seen quite a few showing support.” Well, there were, how many, at least several hundred thousands Union troops in service? Therefore for the phrase” quite a few” to have any useful meaning, they would have to number at least HALF of those hundreds of thousands of troops. Can you produce that many letters or documents from several hundred thousand individual troops? I don’t think so either. Especially considering huge numbers of troops on both sides were illiterate. This is a futile discussion.
Pete Hale wrote: that “letters proving that the majority Union soldiers had no interest in African-American rights before, during or after the War,” and I asked him for his source on those after Emancipation.
My source is What They Fought For by James McPherson. They are to long to quote here, but consult pgs 60-64. I must say that even those who supported emancipation was for pragmatic reasons, as stated in Decision in the West by Albert Castel, pgs 5-6. It would also be a historical anomaly to have an army made up of egalitarians.
Throughout the Civil War, slavery remained legal in the US Constitution and in six states that remained in the Union. As well, during and after the war, the “Black Codes” were in force throughout the North – in the South, they were called “Jim Crow.” Following the war, the North did little to nothing for the emancipated slaves. Schools, hotels, restaurants and public transport were segregated, and the worst race riots in American history took place in the North. In the 20th Century, the Ku Klux Klan boasted far more members in its ranks in the North than in the South. To thus claim that the North fought a war against slavery and white supremacy is a joke.
Did you not study the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment when you were in school?
Did you not study the Civil Rights movement in school? Nearly 100 years after the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were ignored, North and South, this had to happen in order to ensure they’d be obeyed.
You wrote: “Nearly 100 years after the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were ignored,” So you don’t think that the 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th Amendment recognized Blacks as citizens, and the 15th removed the color bar on voting? In fact, in the immediate decade after the Civil War these rights were available to African Americans. However, there was a never-ending effort by the “Redeemers” of the South to bypass these protections, which temporarily succeeded in the 1890s. The fact that these Reconstruction Amendments were the prime tool in the 1950s and 1960s to undo the Jim Crowe laws shows how effective they were.
“Many people have, in the last few years, read the dedication speeches made at Confederate monuments. They often shock modern readers with their calls for White Supremacy.”
There are, or were, THOUSANDS of Confederate monuments. Are you trying to argue that ALL of them, or even MOST of them, involved “calls for White Supremacy”?
I’m very sorry but I cannot celebrate nor honor any monuments to Union soldiers, as long as Confederate monuments are being torn down. As a Virginian myself, it would make zero sense for me to do so.
If you would read what I said, you would agree with my description of how modern readers react to many of those dedications. I also note that most Confederate monuments are being taken down by Southerners, since very few exist in the North.
“you would agree with my description of how modern readers react to many of those dedications”
I don’t. For at least 2 reasons: A) I’m a modern reader, and I’m not reacting that way, nor is anyone else I know. I think by “modern reader” you mean you personally. And B) Again, there were THOUSANDS of “dedications”. Just how many are “many”, that you’re referring to? What percentage, exactly? If for you, “many” is 10… or even 100… or even 200, those are certainly not anywhere even near half, much less a majority of them. That would be like me saying “many roses are black”…. when, in fact, the only black roses are the 20 or so in my yard that I painted black, as opposed to the countless roses elsewhere int he world.
“Most Confederate monuments are being taken down by Southerners”… if by “southerners” you mean persons currently residing in the South… regardless of whether they just moved to the South last year, or 10 years back, etc. Nowadays, many people born, say, in New York, move to Virginia (in fact Northern Virginia is populated by persons who just moved there for work, or just only recently moved there generationally), and are now “southerners” in that their legal residence is Virginia and they have a Virginia drivers license. That doesn’t make them “Southerners”. I think a better definition of a Southernor is someone whose family was living in the south during the time of the Civil War and whose ancestors fought in the CSA, as mine did. I don’t consider someone who moved to Virginia from Iowa in circa 1991 or whose parents moved from Nicaragua to the US in the 1920s to be “southerners”— unless they have ancestors who were here at the time. Let’s not get cute with the definitions.
historyandhorseplaying, you may disagree with the reaction to those dedication speeches, but you can’t dispute that many people are shocked.
Also, you said that “I think a better definition of a Southernor is someone whose family was living in the south during the time of the Civil War and whose ancestors fought in the CSA, as mine did. I don’t consider someone who moved to Virginia from Iowa in circa 1991 or whose parents moved from Nicaragua to the US in the 1920s to be “southerners”— unless they have ancestors who were here at the time.”
Nearly a third of Southerners during the Civil War were held as slaves. Do you not consider them “Southerners”? Also, to consider a Hispanic who have been in the South for more than a hundred years not to be a “Southerner” speaks to your white nationalism more than it does to a regional identity.
“but you can’t dispute that many people are shocked.”
Actually, I can. Because I don’t know of anyone who IS shocked. Who, specifically, are these specific people who are “shocked”? Can you name them? Or do they more than likely only exist in your head?
“to consider a Hispanic who have been in the South for more than a hundred years not to be a “Southerner” speaks to your white nationalism more than it does to a regional identity.”
LOL this is the part where you guys are shown to be way too easy. One of the things I love to do is make statements, leave just enough bait for the gullible, and then spring the “gotcha” when the gullible take the bait– otherwise known as trolling. I’m LATINO myself, genius. So much for “white nationalism”. That’s why it’s never smart to make comments about people you don’t know (though you should have known better– I’ve signed my posts before with my actual name), particularly assuming their race. I’m browner than Nikki Haley, and according to AncestryDNA I’m 25% Indian (i.e. “native”, which is not a surprise, as my grandfather was 100% Inca/Quechua). And no, I do not consider anyone whose family have only been in a geographical location for 2 or 3 or 4 generations to be “southerners”. And it makes little sense for you to make your racial comment, when I even said that an IOWAN who just moved to Virginia, I don’t consider a southerner either. I don’t care if you’re a Norwegian from Norway, if you just moved to Virginia you’re not a southerner. And in the context of the Civil War, if you’re descended from carpet-baggers who arrived in the South after the Civil War, you’re not nearly as much a Southerner as those of us whose ancestors fought in the CSA, 1861-1865. So it would sound a little silly to claim to be a “southerner”, in the context of pulling down statues to men who fought long before one’s ancestors even arrived in the state. Pretty easy concept. And wow, I can almost hear your mind blowing from here, thinking “wow, there is a Latino who exists in this world whose ancestors fought for Virginia in the Civil War!” Amazing how intermarriage works. Wild concept for the small-minded, I know.
historyandhaorseplaying I think everyone knows exactly what you are. Still, you have not justified why Blacks whose families lived in the South during slavery times and still live there or the descendants of Nicaraguan immigrants whose family have lived in the South for one hundred years are not Southerners.
@patyoungcarecen2019 Ah, the old “white nationalist” strawman.
How would you characterize someone who says that Blacks and Nicaraguans Americans who have lived in the South are not Southerners?
Looks like these comments are more about grievances concerning confederate monuments, then about the monument in question. Confederate monuments don’t need to contextualized as “grief columns” any more than they need to contextualized as “treason columns” or “white supremacy columns.” If any context is added, it should simply be facts… of the war and the factors surrounding the erection of the monument. We don’t need new spin to replace the old spin. Just the facts please.
The essence of the monuments debate is who has the power to decide what monuments can stand in their communities? One would think those communities should be able to decide what their own public spaces should look like. Instead we have a lot of argle bargle that the people who live in these communities shouldn’t be able to because somehow they don’t count. Because of reasons. But the real reason is: they don’t agree with me on monuments. If they did, the previously disqualifying factors suddenly evaporate.