Ringing in 1864 with a Rebel Prisoner of War

Unidentified Confederate Prisoner of War - image credit: LOC

Years ago I transcribed and podcasted a series of Civil War letters written by one Henry A. Allen - a young Confederate officer in the 9th Virginia Regiment, I Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, who was captured at Gettysburg at the culmination of the ineffectual Pickett-Pettigrew Assault, and spent the rest of the war in Union prisoner of war camps. The letters to his wife while incarcerated are fascinating, to say the least, and offer a number of insights into the realities of life for a POW.

I thumbed back on these letters in the hope that Allen might reveal something concerning his thoughts on a new year - so I turned to his January 5, 1864 letter:

Johnsons Island Sandusky Ohio

Tuesday Jan. 5th 1864

Dear Dear Sarah

Your kind and affectionate letter dated 1st came to hand this afternoon I was indeed pleased to hear from you all. you ask how I spent Christmas. I must answer as well as could be expected situated as I am. Jno Vermillion received a box with something good in the christmas line and we had a very good dinner. but it was not spent as I would have wished it. and so Ida wishes often to see her Pa. bless her dear little heart tell her her Pa often wishes to see his little girl, but cannot yet. it was a sad christmas to us all dear Sarah but I trust the next will be better. I suppose you did not know whither Augustine Moore had received my letter as you did not make mention of it in yours I hope Mary Dodd will be able to do as she told you. it may be that out of all I will be able to get one after a while. I would like to have a little smoking tobacco if it could be sent. try and find out if Augustine Mo received my letter. Emmanona is kinder than I expected she would be, I believe she thinks much of the children. what is Bowers doing remember me to him and family also to Aunt Mary. I must write to her my thanks to Mary D. for the good wishes, Ma & Shell both owe me a letter my love to them all, I heard through John Lewis by a letter from his wife Laura Russ was going to Richmond remember me to her and her Ma. thank you for the money you will not do as I ask you my love to your Ma, and all home good bye dear Sarah from your Affectionate Husband Henry

So…nothing profound about the passing of another year, nor the expectations for the next. He did mention Christmas and the hope that the next time the holiday rolled around it would be a happier one, and as such - there was an element of sadness coupled with some optimism. Unfortunately for him, however, he was still in prison the following year and would remain so until the end of the war. The tone of the letter? Well, he clearly misses his family, especially his young daughter, Ida, and he is curious about the goings on of other friends and relations. And of course, as was typical of many soldiers - he desires the luxuries of home: some tobacco in particular.

Battle Flag of the 9th Virginia Infantry Regiment - image credit

Though I went looking for one thing I wound up reflecting on another. Henry Allen, the Confederate soldier, is an altogether decent guy, one with whom I can empathize, even “like” in the sense that one can like a person who has been dead for over a century.

Now, take a deep breath friends, because this may not be the most popular take. What really struck me was the simple humanity of the letter. Henry A. Allen was a man with hopes, desires, and love in his heart for those close to him. In these times of vehement animosity directed toward all things Confederate, I get why people might recoil from the idea that this Rebel might indeed have been a honorable human being. But…I think we owe it to the discipline to try and figure out historical actors on their own terms, in contexts that they would understand. Now this is not always the easiest thing to do. In fact, I have grappled with this issue in the past, and my work in the classroom guides my students to do the same. In the end, I think we have to admit that regardless of the individual Confederate’s virtues or shortcomings, they all fought under the flag of a nation established to preserve the institution of slavery - in fact and deed. But can we simply leave it there? Hmmmmmm.

Back in 2021, writer, poet, and scholar Clint Smith wrote an illuminating piece for The Atlantic about his observations at a Confederate cemetery in Virginia, and I have since assigned it to my students as part of an ongoing class discussion on Civil War memory. If you do not subscribe, here’s the gist: Confederate commemoration and memorialization bears little resemblance to the history of the Civil War, rather, it serves a purpose in the present. “For so many of them,” Smith argues, “history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom, that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth.”

I tend to agree with Smith on this one, especially as he observes the painfully obvious ways in which Confederate symbols, iconography, and the memories of Rebel soldiers in the present work in tandem with a postwar history written to distance the Confederate cause from slavery.

The validity of this argument, in my estimation anyway (and of course based on the evidence and enormous literature on the subject…) is sound. Many former Confederates, both reconciled and those of the unreconstructed stripe, did all they could to write slavery out of the equation, and their efforts reverberate today. Undeniably, the symbols they enshrined in the Confederate pantheon in many ways have supported and continue to inform racially motivated violence.

So what does this mean in regard to thinking about Confederate soldiers? Smith notes the position of the descendants of those who fought for the Confederacy, when challenged to think about the legacies of the Confederate cause in the wake of tragedy: “After the 2015 massacre of Black churchgoers in Charleston led to renewed questions about the memory and iconography of the Confederacy, Greg Stewart, another member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told The New York Times, ‘You’re asking me to agree that my greatgrandparent and great-great-grandparents were monsters.’”

I get Stewart’s point. No one wants to paint their ancestors in such negative hues. Individual Rebels fought for all sorts of reasons, and unless they tell us specifically, we can’t be sure exactly why any particular Confederate did any partially thing.

And so I question, is it up to us to judge individual historical actors when we don’t know the whole story? Allen’s letters do not mention slavery, though he almost certainly understood the issues at stake in the war - and my guess is that he was perfectly comfortable with the so-called “peculiar institution.” Yet, as far as I can tell from the collection, he was not a monster. He was an ordinary man who lived within a certain context and saw the world from a particular perspective. How might this change how we read his letters? I am interested in your thoughts…

With compliments,

Keith