Episode 38: The Less-Than-Dashing Abner Doubleday, Part III

So I am going to be perfectly honest, I failed to get ahead of the ball and put together a good blog post for today's episode so I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants. Plus, this episode turned into a real battlelogue so if you want to learn more about specific battles, I highly recommend Rich and Tracey Youngdahl's "The Civil War (1861-1865): A History Podcast" which just finished its 65 (!) episode series on Gettysburg. 

It took Doubleday about a a year to get back into the fight after Fort Sumter and he provided one of the few bright spots for the Union at Second Manassas. After that, he was a filed commander and found himself on campaign for the next year. After Manassas, he successfully commanded at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville (kind of) at higher and higher levels - brigade, division, and corps

Most of these fights were absolute disasters for the Union, but even still, Doubleday and his troops acquitted themselves well, even frustrating the vaunted Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, who had grown to assume that the Yankees didn't have the fortitude to stand and fight with his experienced troops.

Despite his success in the field, he took a lot of gruff from his detractors - namely he's a little chubby and isn't dashing while riding a horse, qualities that were often considered more important than battlefield success in the 19th century.

Episode 37: The Less-Than-Dashing Abner Doubleday, Part II

Abner and Mary Doubleday were quite the team, both ardent abolitionists and supporters of the Union. Mary's support and council helped Abner stick to his beliefs and values when it would have been easier - and possibly more beneficial to his career - to be less vocal about the beliefs he held so dear.

Mary accompanied her husband to all of his pre-Civil War postings and when the garrison at Fort Moultrie had to flee to the relative safety of Fort Sumpter in the Harbor, she remained in Charleston and continued to row out to bring information to Doubleday and the others, news about negotiations between the north and south. When it became clear that a compromise was unlikely, the southern soldiers obliged the families of the northern troops to leave. Only then was Mary separated from her husband.

This painting, titled The Bombardment of Fort Sumpter, by the iconic American duo Currier & Ives, depicts the 36-hours period between April 12 - 14, 1861, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumpter and started the Civil War. Captain Doubleday, the commander of one of two artillery batteries station in the harbor, commanded the first guns that returned fire but when the Yankee's shot, shell, and food were all but diminished, with no hope of resupply, the valiant defenders had no choice but to negotiate an end to the cannonade.

The Federal soldiers were allowed to remove their flag and return north, sailing to New York City, where they received a hero's welcome. After the Union troops abandoned Fort Sumpter, Confederate forces moved in. The below photo shows some of the damage inside the fort, including many burned out brick storage areas.

For recognition of the important role he played in the first battle of the Civil War, Doubleday was promoted to major and given command of Fort Hamilton in New York City, which, as a bonus, allowed him to be reunited with Mary once more.

Doubleday did not see combat again for more than a year. He was primarily assigned to supporting roles during that time but did find himself promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and put in command of a brigade. But in mid-April 1862, his brigade marched as part of a much larger force toward Manassas, VA, where the Confederates had defeated Union troops in the first major battle of the war the summer before. 

On April 28, the day before the battle officially began, Doubleday's sister brigade, commanded by Brigadier General John Gibbon found itself in contact with Stonewall Jackson's much larger force. Gibbon's soldier were known as the Black Hat Brigade for the Model 1858 dress hat, aka the Hardee Hat, they wore into combat.

The Black Hats were on the verge of falling back in the face of a superior force, as just about every Union unit had done since the start of the war, when Doubleday heard heady fire and rushed his brigade to reinforce the Black Hats. Thanks to Doubleday's initiative, both his and Gibbon's forces were able to fight Jackson to a draw until nightfall. Only after sunset did the Yankee perform a textbook orderly withdrawal from the battlefield - it was the first time the mythic Jackson was unable to drive his enemy from the field. 

In true less-than-dashing fashion, Gibbon's brigade got the recognition for the stand and their nickname was changed from the Black Hats to the Iron Brigade, by which they were known for the rest of the war. Doubleday didn't need the recognition. He and his boys knew what they had done.

Iron Brigade reenactors at Brawner's Farm on the Manassas Battlefield in 2009 

Episode 36, The Less-Than-Dashing Abner Doubleday, Part I

One of the rarer photographs of Doubleday I was able to come across on the internet - according to reddit user chubachus, this is a postcard from 1847 showing Doubleday with Mexican youth during the Mexican American War. The image is rough but when you think I came from an itinerate photographer 175 years ago, that fact that it exists at all is amazing. I'll also post a digitally cleaned up (apparently mirror image) version of the original:

The only other thing I really wanted to post was an artist's rendition of the Battle of Monterrey which is almost assuredly an inaccurate stylized account of things but I find it interesting to remember in an era when urban warfare is more and more common - particularly which what is happening in Ukraine right now - it isn't a new concept of the last few decades. This type of warfare has been around for centuries and centuries and I can only image that it was just as devastating for all involved then (soldiers, civilians, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire), as it is today.

Episode 35: Abner Doubleday and the American Pastime

Union General Abner Doubleday invented baseball, right? No. But since he was named the father of baseball by a commission lead by the fourth commissioner of the National League he must have done a lot to popularize the sport, right? Also no. In fact, he had absolutely nothing the do with the game and never mentioned it in the mountains of writings he left behind after his death. So where did the story that Doubleday invented baseball come from?

Sports equipment magnate Albert Spalding, a former major league pitcher who would be elected to the hall of fame in 1939, published the most widely read baseball periodical in the late 19th and early 20th century, and when it was suggested, by this own editor, that the game of baseball evolved from the British bat and ball sports cricket and rounders he was outraged and formed a commission to investigate the origins of baseball. Spalding said that whatever the commission found, he would support. He then appointed a commission of like-minded individuals to make sure they came to the correct conclusion. 

In 1905, the Mills Commission - lead by and named after AG Mills, the fourth president of the National League - put of a nation-wide call for any and everyone to send in any information they had about the creation of baseball.

The idea was for the commission to spend two years gathering evidence about the history of baseball, but what actually happened was they received hundreds of letters from dozens and dozens of former ball players who shared their memories of the game but not actual evidence.

One of the letters came from an unreliable source, a man named Abner Graves, who loved to see his name in print and he claimed that he was with Abner Doubleday in 1839 in Cooperstown, NY when the 20 year old Doubleday invented the baseball. There is a lot of evidence that point to this story being false - particularly the fact that Doubleday was a cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point in 1839, not in Cooperstown. Graves spent the last years of his life in an asylum after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial after fatally shooting his much younger second wife.

In 1907, Spalding pressured the Mills Commission to release its findings so they used the admittedly EXTREAMLY circumstantial evidence to name Union Major General Abner Doubleday the inventor of baseball. It probably helped that AG Mills and Doubleday had been close friends for the last 30 years of Doubleday's life - so much so that Mills organized Doubleday's funeral when he died about 15 years before the commission report's findings.

From the very beginning there was doubt in some circles that Doubleday actually created baseball, but the story gained traction in other circles. However, by in large, the commission report was filed away in a desk drawer and mostly forgotten until the 1930s when Cooperstown, NY resident and developer Stephen C. Clark rediscovered the story and approached Major League Baseball about establishing a Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown that would open in 1939, the supposed 100th anniversary of baseball itself.

The first commission of Major League Baseball, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, went all in promoting baseball's centennial and the opening of the museum, and he was highlighting Doubleday's role in everything when he received a received a letter from Bruce Cartwright - the grandson of Alexander Cartwright, Jr. The elder Cartwright had been a charter member of the New York Knickerbocker Club and the one who had actually come up with the diamond design of the baseball field, the player positions, and the rules of the game in 1845 - but too much money and prestige had been spent on the 1839 date to change things now. But what would happen when Cartwright took his grandfather's story to the press - well, he died just after sending Landis the letter so the commissioner didn't have to worry about it.

Cartwright did get a plaque in the museum when it opened and he is now considered the Father of Modern Baseball, but old stories die hard and the Abner Doubleday myth persists today.

The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opened on June 12, 1939 but the first Hall of Fame class was elected in 1936 and included: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, and Babe Ruth.

In 1920, a baseball field opened in downtown Cooperstown. The field expanded over time and got the name Doubleday Field. Seating nearly 10,000 fans, Major League Baseball played a regular season game, called the Hall of Fame game from 1940 - 2008. The Hall of Fame game was replaced with the Hall of Fame classic, an exhibition game of hall of famers and other former major league players.

Abner Doubleday may be the only Ghost of Arlington with a mascot caricature of himself. In 1996, Auburn, NY, the city where Doubleday grew up, renamed its minor league baseball team after its famous son and named the mascot Abner.

Episode 34: From Harlem to Tuskegee - Like Father, Like Son, Part II

 

Inspired by his eponymous father, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. became what his father tried to be but was rejected because of his race - he became just the fourth African American cadet accepted to the US Military Academy and the fourth black graduate of that academy.

During his time at West Point, Davis was an invisible man. He roomed alone, ate alone, and endured four years where his fellow cadet refused to speak to him unless necessary to perform official duties. In later years, Davis was vocal about his fellow cadets' lack of leadership, specifically calling out William Westmoreland, a member of Davis' class of 1936, who was First Captain (the senior ranking cadet their final year at the academy), about 35 years before he became the senior US commander in Vietnam.

Already a certified pilot, Davis wanted to be an Army aviator after graduating from West Point but at that time, black officers were not allowed to join the air corps. After World War II kicked off in Europe, US officials became less picky and decided to stand up a few segregated aviation squadrons. The first of these units, filled by pilots who would become known as Tuskegee Airmen, was given to Davis to command.

Davis and his Tuskegee Airmen went on to become some of the most decorated and famous flyers of World War II. After the war, Davis left the Army for the Air Force when that service was created in 1947 and shortly thereafter, the US military was integrated. When the Korean War began in 1950, Colonel Davis was given another field field command - this time F-86 Sabres, America's first jet fighters. He is piloting the nearest jet in this above picture.

In 1954, Davis followed his father again, this time by becoming the first African American general officer in the US Air Force when he was promoted to brigadier general.

By 1965, he had received two more promotions and when he retired in 1970, he entered the retired rolls as a lieutenant general. Little did he know, there was one more promotion in his future.

In 1998, Davis' groundbreaking service was recognized by President Bill Clinton who took the rare step to honor Davis with a rare promotion to full general. President Clinton and Davis' wife Agatha pined on Davis' fourth star at a special ceremony.

General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. died a few months shy of his 90th birthday on July 4, 2002. Honors continued to come his way after his death. In 2017, construction was completed on the first new barracks building at West Point in 50 years and the academy choose to name it in honor of the cadet who was treated as a second class citizen during his time there.

In 2019, the airfield at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado was renamed in honor of General Davis.

As I was finishing up this episode I learned that one of the last Tuskegee Airmen, 102 year-old Brigadier General Charles McGee, a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, has died. Like Davis, he started his thirty year career in the US Army and transferred to the Air Force when that service was stood up. He retired as a colonel but was honored at the 2019 State of the Union address and promoted the next day by President Trump to Brigadier General in the Oval Office. Details for his funeral are still being worked out but he will be laid to rest at Arlington.

Episode 33: From Harlem to Tuskegee - Like Father, Like Son, Part I

After the 369th Infantry Regiment returned home from World War I, a terrible summer of racial violence spread across the South and into the Midwest. Several lynchings and riots broke out before something resembling peace - or at least a reduction in violence - was reestablished. At the same time, a cultural movement of African American literature, music, art, and entertainment took the United States by storm. Centered in Harlem, the movement - known as the Harlem Renaissance - was the first taste of African American culture for many everyday Americans

Langston Hughes was one of the big authors and political figures to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance that produced twenty six novels, ten books of poetry, and hundreds of short stories.

In addition to the literature boom, Bill "Bojangels" Robinson, the Nicholas Brothers (above), and others put on five black written, produced, directed, and starring Broadway plays and dozens, if not hundreds, of off-Broadway plays. For the first time, African Americans began appearing on stage and on the silver screen without black face makeup and ridiculous accents.

Arguably the most famous artists to come out of the Harlem Renaissance were musicians like Dizzy Gillespie (above), Harlem Hellfighter Nobel Sissle, Eubie Blake, Cab Calloway, Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday, just to name a few, who were emblematic of the mixture of high class society, popular art, and virtuosity of jazz. The invention of the radio brought these performers into the homes of millions of Americans on a daily basis.

In addition to the fame and recognition that came with the Harlem Renaissance, the Roaring Twenties brought an era of prosperity and an increased standard of living to many Americans across many racial and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, the movement was unable to survive the Great Depression and many scholars mark the 1935 Harlem Riot as its demise.

It took several years but eventually the Harlem Hellfighters first commander, Colonel William Hayward's vision for the segregated unit was finally achieved when, on the eve of World War II, it became the first National Guard unit with an all-African American officer corps. The man who was the first black regimental commander in the 369th's storied history was Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.

Though his parents wanted him to attend Howard University in Washington, DC after high school, Davis instead enlisted in the army in 1898 at the outbreak of the Spanish American War and may have lied about his age to do so. He was made a temporary Lieutenant in the 9th Cavalry - the historic Buffalo Soldiers - but would not make it to Cuba before the war ended. 

After the war he was mustered out of service and applied to West Point, hoping to become just the fourth officer in the Military Academy's history. He was not admitted. Instead, he enlisted as a private in the army and within a year had risen to the rank of sergeant major... promotions worked a little different then than they do now! While a sergeant major, Davis served under Charles Young, the third black graduate of West Point. Young tutored Davis on everything he needed to know to become an officer and in 1901, just two years after enlisting as a private, Davis was commissioned a second lieutenant and sent to the Philippines during the Philippines insurrection.

Racial politics of the day not only kept Davis out of combat in World War I, but out of Europe all together. Despite this, and other policies that saw him and other minority officers treated differently, Davis continued to serve proudly. After his promotion to colonel, Davis was made the first African American commander of the Harlem Hellfighters regiment, and it was while serving in that capacity that he was promoted to brigadier general, becoming not only the first African American general officer in the history of the US Army, but the first African American flag officer in the history of the US military.

During World War II, Davis served as a special advisor for African American solders affairs and toured many segregated units in the US and in Europe, doing everything he could to ensure fair treatment of black soldiers. It was during this time that he also became a vocal proponent of full integration in the US military. This policy change wouldn't come until 1948 - six days after he retired.

Though he was out of uniform when the military was integrated, his advocacy and example helped a great many African American service members, including his own son, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr (right), who would be the fourth black graduate in West Point's history and the first general officer in the US Air Force, but that is a story for another day (next week to be exact).

Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. died on November 26, 1970 in the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 2, Grave 478-B.

Episode 32: The Harlem Hellfighters, Part II (Jim Europe & The Black Death)

 

When the Harlem Hellfighters returned from the Great War the two most famous members of the acclaimed regiment were band leader First Lieutenant Jim Europe and Sergeant Henry Johnson who would receive the Medal of Honor for his heroics on the battlefield, but not for nearly a century.

He was already a world famous band leader before joining what would become the 369th Infantry Regiment so after he joined, his commander gave him a simple order, "put together the best damn band in the Army." Johnson did just that, recruiting from the concert halls of New York City for the best talent available, and when he couldn't find enough woodwind players, he went to Puerto Rico where he knew many could be found. After arriving in France, Lieutenant Europe and his band introduced the continent to jazz and the French quickly fell in love with its syncopated sounds. 

Sure he was a band leader, but his primary job in the infantry regiment was to command a machine gun company. He and his musicians were not shielded from time at the front and Jim served on multiple trips into No Mans Land where he routinely came under enemy fire. His first such foray inspired a hit song called On Patrol in No Mans Land which was sung by Nobel Sissle, Europe's assistant director.

While at the front, Europe was gasses and during his recovery - and following the armistice - he took his band to tour Europe where they entertain allied troops and war weary civilians, all while growing their acclaim and popularity.

 After the war, most of the 369th Band stayed with Europe and embarked on a 10-city US tour, with plans to return to Europe for an overseas tour, beginning in England where the Prince of Wales had personally invited them to play. But tragically, Jim would never make it back to Europe. During the intermission at a concert in Boston, Jim Europe was stabbed in the neck with a pin knife by a disgruntled drummer in the band who felt his director had disrespected him. Europe died at a hospital later that night, depriving the African American community one of its most vocal and effective leaders.

Europe received the first public funeral for a black man in New York City history and after the ceremonies ended in Gotham, James Reese Europe was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 2, Grave 3576. His government issue headstone was replace in the 1940s with the marker there today.

Unlike Jim Europe, Henry Johnson was not a household name before shipping out to Europe. That all changed while he was standing watch near a bridge protected by the Hellfighters one a warm summer night. Johnson and his watch partner Needham Roberts heard an unknown number of Germans approaching their outpost. Hoping to take the offensive, Johnson fired a flare, but the Germans responded with several grenades. Roberts was severely injured and Johnson found himself fending off what evidence later showed was likely two to three dozen Germans.

Johnson killed four of his attackers, three of them with his bolo knife, prevented his comrade Roberts from being taken prisoner, and stopped the German raiders from surprising the Hellfighters along their section of the line. For his efforts, Johnson was shot four times and received 17 additional shrapnel wounds. After they realized they were facing an absolute man man the Germans withdrew. When reinforcements finally reached where all the commotion was coming from, they found Johnson on the verge of death, but he miraculously pulled through and was promoted to sergeant.

When the media got a hold of Johnson's story, they quickly dubbed him the Black Death, and soon every American knew the name of this African American hero. While his own government did not immediately recognize his actions, he become the first American to receive the Croix de Guerre from the French government and one of the few to receive it with a gold palm frond indicating exceptional valor. 

When the Hellfighters returned to New York, Johnson road in an open car along the parade route. A random admirer ran out and gave him the flowers in the picture and all along the route, fans of all colors and backgrounds called out his name and nickname as he road by. But after he was mustered out of the Army, a clerical error denied his disability claim. His injuries made it impossible for him to hold a steady job and he began to drink heavily. His alcoholism destroyed his marriage and he died in 1929 at age 32. 

Johnson was mostly forgotten and in time the location of his burial was lost - it was assumed that he was in a pauper's grave in Albany, NY. In the 1990s a New York historical society discovered the truth, he had been interred at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 25, Grave 64 under the name William Henry Johnson. In 1996, a military records review of several minority service members lead to Sergeant Johnson being awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. An additional review saw the Silver Star upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross, which in time was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Henry Johnson has no known living relatives so in 2015, President Barak Obama posthumously presented Henry Johnson's Medal of Honor to Sergeant Major Louis Wilson of Johnson's own New York National Guard. The next day he was also inducted into the Pentagon's Hall of Honor.

In the years following the Great War, both Jim Europe and Henry Johnson and their contributions to the country, but fortunately he have been recognized by an entirely new generation of Americans. After his Medal of Honor was awarded, Albany, NY installed a belated monument to their now-honored adopted son - but better late than never.