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On December 6, 2011, starting at 7 PM, Jill Lepore will join hundreds of students, faculty members, and university neighbors in the Villanova Room of the Connelly Center. I'm extremely proud that Dr. Lepore represents the third speaker in The Lore Kephart '86 Distinguished Historians Lecture Series, an annual event that my father created in memory of my mother, who graduated in the top of her Villanova University class following a college career that was not initiated until she had raised her three children.

Dr. Lepore's talk is titled "Poor Jane's Almanac: The Life and Opinions of Benjamin Franklin's Sister," with the further subtitle: "an 18th century tale of two Americas."  We get some hint of the fascinating content to come in this New York Times op-ed piece, which appeared on April 23, 2011.  I am excerpting at length, and I hope to be forgiven:

Franklin, who’s on the $100 bill, was the youngest of 10 sons. Nowhere on any legal tender is his sister Jane, the youngest of seven daughters; she never traveled the way to wealth. He was born in 1706, she in 1712. Their father was a Boston candle-maker, scraping by. Massachusetts’ Poor Law required teaching boys to write; the mandate for girls ended at reading. Benny went to school for just two years; Jenny never went at all.

Their lives tell an 18th-century tale of two Americas. Against poverty and ignorance, Franklin prevailed; his sister did not.

At 17, he ran away from home. At 15, she married: she was probably pregnant, as were, at the time, a third of all brides. She and her brother wrote to each other all their lives: they were each other’s dearest friends. (He wrote more letters to her than to anyone.) His letters are learned, warm, funny, delightful; hers are misspelled, fretful and full of sorrow. “Nothing but troble can you her from me,” she warned. It’s extraordinary that she could write at all.

“I have such a Poor Fackulty at making Leters,” she confessed.

He would have none of it. “Is there not a little Affectation in your Apology for the Incorrectness of your Writing?” he teased. “Perhaps it is rather fishing for commendation. You write better, in my Opinion, than most American Women.” He was, sadly, right.

She had one child after another; her husband, a saddler named Edward Mecom, grew ill, and may have lost his mind, as, most certainly, did two of her sons. She struggled, and failed, to keep them out of debtors’ prison, the almshouse, asylums. She took in boarders; she sewed bonnets. She had not a moment’s rest.

And still, she thirsted for knowledge. “I Read as much as I Dare,” she confided to her brother. She once asked him for a copy of “all the Political pieces” he had ever written. “I could as easily make a collection for you of all the past parings of my nails,” he joked. He sent her what he could; she read it all. But there was no way out. 

Dr. Lepore, whose work in The New Yorker always thrills me and whose mind seems to track one curiosity after the other—Charles Dickens, Planned Parenthood, the Tea Party, Stuart Little, (she's even got a co-authored novel to her name)—is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American history at Harvard University.  She follows Pulitzer Prize winning James McPherson and the utterly engag

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I'll be speaking tonight at the Presbyterian Children's Village about the writer's life, and as I've been finalizing the talk this morning, I've been remembering a moment in Prague, 1995, when the poet Carolyn Forche shifted the tone and urgency of my writerly desires. I thought I'd share the opening paragraphs of the talk here today as well as the poem (previously published in the early days of this blog) that emerged in the wake of that experience.

Before I get to that, though, a few seemingly unrelated things. Last night's lectureship in honor of my mother was, in a word, extraordinary. As a family we had dinner with Dr. James McPherson; we learned and we laughed. Afterward we joined as many as 600 others to hear Dr. McPherson speak of Lincoln's emergence as a military strategist and leader. The night was rich; my father was happy. When we returned from the event, we caught the final moments of the Ken Burns film, "America's Best Idea," that featured my great-grandfather, Horace Kephart—the touching, panning image of the 6,000-plus-foot Great Smoky Mountains peak named in his honor. I am amazed by and grateful to all those who have visited this blog in the aftermath of the segment's screening.

Finally, the image featured in this post today is of my classroom, for English 145 at Penn. I found the students' most recent work in my in-box last evening after all the other glories. They continue to make the teaching exhilarating.

I’ve been writing for most of my life at this point — something I seem not to be able to stop myself from doing (though I’ve tried, believe me, I have). I passionately believe in the promise of stories, I am endlessly seduced by the choreography of language, I don’t go a day without trying to discover or de-puzzle a metaphor. Writing is not just about making a record, or making a claim, or leaving a mark. It is, to begin with, about seeing. It is what forces me to stop and wait, to look and speculate, to inquire and to propose. Writing makes time liquid. It makes of the vague dream a pulsed-through what if?

In the mid-1990s, after I’d published three dozen or so short stories and essays, but before I’d ever published a book, I had the privilege of traveling to Prague and seeing the poet Carolyn Forche read from her work in the dim light of a smoky bar. She was reading, among other things, about Terrence Des Pres, the great essayist and holocaust scholar who had recently died quiet tragically. She was reading, above all else, with conviction, and looking back, I recognize that it was her reading that night that most firmly settled in me the desire to craft work of enduring strength and meaning. This poem captures that shift in my own soul:

On Listening to Carolyn Forche Read Poetry in a Bar in Prague, 1995

Because in Prague I was nothing but wanting

with words and still recovering from new sin,

and because the bar was also dark and lamped

by the yellow of your hair, you made me believe

in the running for the heart of a poem,

the superceded shush between memory and maw.

It was how you read, how you resurrected

Terrence, how the sand in the wind of your words

caught knots into my hair and chafed my skin.

It was how you riddled me almost

clean with possibility.

I was sitting with my son.

I was sitting beside my husband.

You were — may I use the word? — explicit.

In the same way that a stone wall falls

more sensationally than it stands,

in the same way that a rescued love

is made more tender by its damage,

in the same way that women understand beauty

only in its passing, you in the bar in Prague

blew smoke up through the crevices of language.

Smoke the color of angel wings.

Poetry as salvation.

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My mother went to college after she had raised the three of us—choosing Villanova as her academic home and remaining an essential fixture on the campus long after she had graduated in the top of her class. She and my father sponsored aspiring historians and contributed to funds. They befriended Villanova scholars and dreams.

Shortly after my mother passed away, my father decided to make her presence at Villanova a permanent one by creating and endowing The Lore Kephart, '86, Distinguished Historians Lecture Series. Working with a team of historians and administrators (including my own dear friend Paul Steege), he has, in her honor, launched what will be an extraordinary yearly lecture, open to the entire community.

Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson, Ph.D. will give the inaugural lecture—"Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief"�on September 30, 7 PM, in the Villanova Room of the Connelly Center. The George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Princeton, Dr. McPherson won his Pulitzer for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, a book that went on to sell some 600,000 copies and precipitated a renewed interest in the Civil War. In 1998, Dr. McPherson won the Lincoln Prize for his book, For Cause and Comrades: When Men Fought in the Civil War.

My father, I, and all of the Kepharts hope those of you who live near enough will join us for this evening of celebration and learning. Registration for the free event happens here.

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It is not everyday you get two Lincoln Prize winners together to ask each other questions, but lucky us, we had that very honor.  Below is a conversation between James M. McPherson, most recently the author of Abraham Lincoln, and Craig L. Symonds, most recently the author of Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War.

James M. McPherson: We know from John Hay that Lincoln put himself through a cram course of readings in military history and strategy during the fall and winter of 1861-62, mainly so he could deal more intelligently and forcefully with such generals as McClellan, Halleck, and Buell. Did Lincoln do anything comparable to overcome his admission that he knew “little about ships”?

Craig L. Symonds: Not really. A lifelong autodidact, Lincoln focused on learning as much as he could about war in the first months of the conflict, but he saw from the beginning that the land war was far more important than the naval war. While he read all that he could about the theories of war, he did not undertake a similar regimen concerning naval strategy, in part because there were fewer such books. He was fascinated by new weaponry, played a role in getting the Navy to adopt Ericsson’s Monitor, and he consulted both Seward and Bates on the legality of the blockade, but for the most part, he relied on Gideon Welles, and especially the Assistant Navy Secretary, Gustavus Fox, to provide him with whatever professional knowledge or technical information he needed.

McPherson: Historians hold a wide range of opinions about the effectiveness of the blockade and how important a role it played in ultimate Union victory. Where do you stand on this question?

Symonds: I guess it depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty. The blockade was never impervious, and at times seemed quite porous. As many have argued, the South was able to import through the blockade the weapons and supplies it needed to sustain its armies in the field for four years, though it did encounter serious shortages in specific areas such as steam engines, engine parts, and railroad rails. Exports were a different story. Cotton exports plunged from 2.8 million bales in the last year of peace to only 55,000 bales in the first year of war. That undercut the Confederacy’s ability to establish credit overseas, contributed to inflation and civilian unrest at home, and generally undermined the Confederate economy. The loss of southern revenue from cotton exports was greater than the amount the North spent to establish and maintain the blockade. Given that, I think the blockade was worth the investment. If it succeeded in shortening the war by, say, six month, it probably saved many thousands of lives.

McPherson: Along with Gideon Welles and Gustavus Fox, Lincoln was critical of Samuel Francis Du Pont for lack of aggressiveness and pertinacity in the failed attack on the defenses of Charleston on April 7, 1863, and compared Du Pont to McClellan. Was this fair?

Symonds: There are many things in war that are not fair. Du Pont was very likely correct in asserting that Charleston could not be taken by a purely naval attack, as Gideon Welles repeatedly encouraged him to do, and he was effectively fired for demonstrating that his view was correct. Kevin Weddle calls Du Pont “Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral,” a victim of Welles’ determination to protect the reputation of his beloved monitors. But Du Pont’s fall from grace was due not merely to his failure to capture Charleston. It was also due to two other factors: One was that Lincoln had become scarred by his lengthy and frustrating relationship with McClellan during the 1862 campaign, and by 1863 he had began to view Du Pont through a prism defined by that experience. When Du Pont called for reinforcements, or bemoaned the obstacles in front of him, it was McClellans’ voice that Lincoln heard.

The other reason for Du Pont’s fall is that he never fully explained to the President precisely why he objected to a navy-only attack. Instead he only hinted at it by detailing how strong the enemy defenses were and how limited his own forces were. He never clearly laid out an alternative with the kind of strong advocacy that showed his willingness to carry it out. Even then, I think Lincoln would have stood by Du Pont but for Du Pont’s own foolish behavior when he insisted that the Government must publish his official reports (including compromising information about the vulnerabilities of the monitors) in order to counter hostile newspaper articles about him. In the end, Du Pont’s reticence and touchiness were responsible for his tragedy.

McPherson: Did Lincoln show unjustified favoritism toward John A. Dahlgren when he promoted him to rear admiral and gave him command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron even though Dahlgren had limited experience in seagoing command?

Symonds: Dahlgren was unquestionably Lincoln’s favorite admiral. He much appreciated Farragut’s success, but he liked Dahlgren, often went to the Washington Navy Yard to visit with him, and eventually he asked Welles to promote him to admiral, even though Dahlgren had virtually no important sea service. Most of the navy looked upon Lincoln’s decision to promote his friend from commander to Rear Admiral in one step as personal favoritism. It was favoritism, but whether it was unjustified depends on how well Dahlgren performed in command. Though Charleston never fell, Dahlgren was an active and effective commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and despite suffering poor health that might have ended the career of a less determined man, Dahlgren worked hard and earned the confidence of his officers throughout the long and wasting siege.

McPherson: From 1862 on, Acting Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee wanted to attack the defenses of Wilmington to shut down the port to blockade runners. When the time came in 1864 to carry out the attack, however, Welles, Fox, and Grant convinced Lincoln that Lee was not the man to command it, and replaced him with Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. Was this treatment of Lee justified?

Symonds: Like Du Pont, Phillips Lee was a competent officer who was at his best managing the multivariate activities of a far-flung squadron. Unlike Du Pont, he never had the chance to prove himself in a major battle and thereby win promotion to the permanent rank of Rear Admiral. Because the authorizing legislation stipulated that promotions to admiral must be won in battle, Lee repeatedly asked Welles for permission to attack Wilmington, North Carolina. Not until 1864 did Welles accede, and when he did he sent Lee off to the backwater of the Mississippi Squadron and brought in the brash David Dixon Porter to carry it out. Lee felt himself a victim of Welles’ favoritism for others. But in this case, it was U. S. Grant as much as Gideon Welles who was responsible. In Grant’s view, Lee had not been sufficiently aggressive during the move up the James River, and he wanted someone else to command of the attack on Wilmington. When Farragut declined the command, Welles gave it to Porter. Lee’s anger at this treatment is understandable, but Welles and Grant had concluded that while Lee was an effective manager, he was not the man for a full-scale attack. In the end, Lee never did get a chance to prove himself in the kind of engagement that might have won him the promotion he sought.

Symonds: George McClellan is clearly a central character in this story. In your view, was Lincoln too patient with Little Mac, not patient enough, or just about right? Would the Lincoln of 1864 have tolerated McClellan as long as the Lincoln of 1862 did?

McPherson: In one sense, he was too patient. McClellan deserved to be fired after his failure to reinforce Pope at Second Bull Run, as a majority of the Cabinet wanted Lincoln to do. But in another sense, Lincoln was absolutely right that only McClellan could reorganize the army and restore its morale, and if the president had fired him then, the army might have broken down. In the end, Lincoln’s timing on removing Mac from command–just after the fall elections in 1862–was just right.

Symonds: What about the so-called political generals: Did Lincoln appoint and tolerate them out of perceived political necessity, or because he believed that some of them, at least, had genuine merit? And, for that matter, did any of them have genuine merit?

McPherson: Lincoln appointed the political generals in order to mobilize their constituencies for the war effort. Northern mobilization for the war in 1861-62 was a from-the-bottom-up process, with important local and state political leaders playing a key part in persuading men to enlist in this all-volunteer army, and political generals were a key part in this process, which increased an army of 16,000 men in April 1861 to an army of 637,000 men in April 1862. And while we are all familiar with the military incompetents among the political generals, some of them were actually pretty good–John Logan and Frank Blair, for example.

Symonds: Why did Lincoln put up with Henry Halleck?

McPherson: Lincoln used Halleck to translate presidential orders and wishes into language that military commanders could understand, and to translate their reports and requests and explanations into language that Lincoln understood. That was what Lincoln meant when he called Halleck a “first-rate clerk.” Of course he had wanted him to be more than a clerk, and that is why Lincoln finally appointed Grant as general in chief and booted Halleck upstairs into the new office of “chief of staff,” where his clerkly qualities were needed.

Symonds: Lincoln was clearly relieved to turn over military operations to Grant in 1864, but did he also fear Grant as a potential political rival?

McPherson: He had been concerned about Grant as a potential political rival, until Grant let it be known throughout intermediaries that he unequivocally and absolutely had no political ambitions in 1864 and strongly supported Lincoln’s reelection. After that, Lincoln had no more concerns.

Symonds: Now that you will be the owner of two busts of Lincoln by Augustus St. Gaudens, along with your many other prizes, isn’t your house getting pretty full?

McPherson: There is still room in the house, but since my grandchildren are interested in Mr. Lincoln in bronze, I may deposit this bust in their house, where I can visit it whenever I want (they live ten miles away).

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All week on the OUPblog we will be celebrating the Lincoln Bicentennial.  Be sure to check in daily for original posts from Allen C. Guelzo, author of Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, Jennifer Weber, author of Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, and Craig L. Symonds, author of Lincoln and His Admirals.  To start things off we have excerpted from Abraham Lincoln by James M. McPherson.  This short book is the perfect biography to kickstart our Lincoln celebrations.  The excerpt below begins with Lincoln’s birth, on February 12, 1809.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky, about fifty miles south of Louisville. His father, Thomas Lincoln, had come as a child with his family from Virginia in 1782. Thomas acquired only enough literacy to sign his name but gained modest prosperity as a carpenter and farmer on the Kentucky frontier. He married Nancy Hanks, also illiterate, in 1806. Abraham was born in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm three miles south of Hodgenville. When he was two years old the family moved to another farm on Knob Creek about seven miles northeast of Hodgenville. On this farm of 230 acres (only thirty of which were tillable), young Abraham lived for five years, helped his parents with chores, and learned his ABCs by attending school for a few weeks with his older sister, Sarah.

In December 1816 the Lincolns moved again, this time to Indiana, which had just been admitted to the Union as a state. The traditional notion that the Lincolns moved because of a dislike of slavery may have some truth; they belonged to a Baptist denomination that broke from the parent church on the slavery issue. The main reason for the move, however, was the uncertainty of the land titles in Kentucky, which caused Thomas to lose much of his property. Indiana offered secure titles surveyed under the Northwest Ordinance. There Abraham learned the use of axe and plow as he helped his father carve a house and farm out of the hardwood forest. The growing youth also snatched a few more months of education in the typical one-room schoolhouses of the frontier. In late 1817 or early 1818 the Lincolns were joined by Nancy’s aunt Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow and her husband, Thomas Sparrow, and Abraham’s cousin Dennis Hanks. Soon thereafter, in the fall of 1818 the Sparrows and Nancy Hanks Lincoln all died of “milk sick,” probably caused by drinking the milk of cows that had grazed on poisonous white snakeroot.

After a year of trying to keep house and raise the children by himself, Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky to seek a wife. On December 2, 1819, he married the widow Sarah Bush Johnston and brought her and her three children to his farm on Pigeon Creek, Indiana. His stepmother provided Abraham with affection and guidance. With a desire for learning and an ambition for self-improvement, he devoured every book he could borrow from the meager libraries of friends and neighbors. The King James Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress offered him maxims for life as well as a model for the poetic prose that characterized the best of his later writings. Thomas Lincoln neither encouraged nor understood his son’s intellectual ambition; quite the contrary, he chastised Abraham’s “lazy” preference for the reading over working.

The teenaged Abraham’s thinly veiled disdain for life of a backwoods farmer doubtless irritated his father. Abraham in turn resented the requirement of law and custom that any wages he earned before he reached the age of twenty-one—by hiring out to neighbors to split rails, for example—must be turned over to his father. Abraham Lincoln’s hatred of slavery, which denied to slaves the “fruits of their labor,” may have been influenced by Thomas Lincoln’s expropriation of Abraham’s earnings. In any event, relations between Abraham and his father grew increasingly strained. When Thomas lay dying in January 1851, he sent word that he wanted to say goodbye to his son. Abraham refused to make the eighty-mile trip, stating that “If we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant.” He did not attend his father’s funeral.

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