All About

or k ou
His wine! Plust
rout er things
oth
9 to know
NIXON’S S.O.B.
H.R. Haldeman,
Pioneering Staff Chief
TRACKS OF A TRAITOR
The Chase For Benedict Arnold
TWAIN vs. TEDDY
The Fierce Debate Over
America as Empire
October 2017
HistoryNet.com
 MIAMI, FL/EAST COAST JEWELRY · BOCA RATON, FL/ECJ LUXE · CHARLOTTE, NC/DIAMOND DIRECT · BEVERLY HILLS, CA/DAVID ORGELL · SAN FRANCISCO, CA/SHAPUR
MENLO PARK, CA/CECI WONG JEWELERS · LOS ANGELES, CA/FELDMAR · COSTA MESA, CA/WATCH CONNECTION · NEW YORK NY/KENJO · COLTS NECK, NJ/J. VINCENT
ENGLEWOOD, NJ/TIMEPIECE COLLECTION · GAMBRILLS, MD/LITTLE TREASURE · CHICAGO, IL/NEW YORK JEWELERS · DENVER, CO/RIGHT TIME · HOUSTON, TX/STYLE JEWELERS
TORONTO, ON/MYLES MINDHAM · VANCOUVER, BC/TIME & GOLD · ST THOMAS, USVI/TRIDENT · JAMAICA, WI/HOUSE OF DIAMONDS · ST MARTEEN, DWI/BALLERINA

34 AMERICAN HISTORY
 TURBINE PILOT
Manufacture caliber. Turbine Technology.
48 mm stainless steel case. Screw-down crown at 3 o’clock.
Bidirectional inner dial ring, circular aviation slide rule.
Black 12-blades revolving Turbine. Black calfskin strap.

Ref. A1085/1A

APRIL 2017 35
 40

48
2 AMERICAN HISTORY
October 2017

FEATURES
34 All About the Benjamin
Long before his face decorated the C-note, this
Founding Father was making a name for himself in a
variety of ways By Victor M. Parachin

40 Titan on Titan Tumult

As America pondered adventures abroad, two famous
figures fell to fighting over whether a republic ought to
aspire to empirehood By Stephen Kinzer

48 Haldeman’s Hellish Fall

Four decades ago, Richard Nixon’s White House chief
of staff slid into a dark morass of treachery, scandal,
and crime By Christopher Whipple

56 Chasing Benedict Arnold

34 The Continental Army general whose name became a

synonym for disloyalty led his former commander and
allies on a bitter, lengthy chase By Norm Goldstein

DEPARTMENTS

56 6 Mosaic
14 Letters
16 Interview
Caroline E. Light on
“stand your ground” laws
18 American
Schemers
Texas Guinan never met a joint
she couldn’t get jumping
20 Déjà Vu
Relative discomfort: First Families
72The green sea turtle is
24 SCOTUS 101 a species familiar in
the Dry Tortugas
William Marbury had company
when his case immortalized him
26 Cameo
Explorer John Ledyard: always looking ahead
28 Style
A fresh look at life and fashion, American-style
66 Reviews
72 An American Place
Fort Jefferson, historic heart of the Dry Tortugas
ON THE COVER: Benjamin Franklin caused a stir in CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: EVERETT COLLECTION INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ISTOCK; ROBERTHARDING/ALAMY
Paris by dressing simply and eschewing a wig. Artist Joseph STOCK PHOTO; GRANGER, NYC; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO BY BILL PIERCE//TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY
IMAGES; COVER: IAN DAGNALL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Siffred Duplessis played up that unadorned style.
American
History
ONLINE
Visit HistoryNet.com/American-
History and search our archive
for great stories like these:
Fame Wore on Beret-
Wearing Balladeer
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
lived to regret creating his Top 40 hit,
“The Ballad of the Green Berets.”
Swamp Fight, 1948
In a fractious postwar DC, the Alger
Hiss/Whittaker Chambers case was a
“litmus test of politics and loyalties.”
Of Batting Practice
and Battlefields
During World War II, baseball was
more than a font for GI passwords.
To boost morale, Big Leaguers toured
bases, and even near combat zones
ballfields were recreational fixtures.
FOLLOW US AT
facebook.com/American
HistoryMag
4 AMERICAN HISTORY
MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER
DAVID STEINHAFEL ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF
OCTOBER 2017 VOL. 52, NO. 4
MICHAEL DOLAN EDITOR
NANCY TAPPAN SENIOR EDITOR
SARAH RICHARDSON SENIOR EDITOR
RASHEEDA SMITH ASSOCIATE EDITOR
STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR
BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR
PAUL FISHER ART DIRECTOR
MELISSA WINN SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR
CORPORATE
ROB WILKINS DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIP MARKETING
ROXANNA SASSANIAN FINANCE
TOM GRIFFITHS CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
GRAYDON SHEINBERG CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
ADVERTISING
COURTNEY FORTUNE Advertising Services cfortune@historynet.com
TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com
RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com
RICHARD VINCENT Regional Sales Manager rvincent@historynet.com
DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING
RUSSELL JOHNS ASSOCIATES 800-649-9800 AMH@russelljohns.com
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM or 800-435-0715
YEARLY SUBSCRIPTIONS IN U.S.: $39.95
American History (ISSN 1076-8866) is published bimonthly by HistoryNet, LLC
1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA, 22182-4038, 703-771-9400
Periodical postage paid at Vienna, VA and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER, send address changes to American History,
P.O. Box 422224, Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224
List Rental Inquiries: Belkys Reyes, Lake Group Media, Inc.
914-925-2406; belkys.reyes@lakegroupmedia.com
Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519,
PHOTO BY BLANK ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001
© 2017 HistoryNet, LLC
The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced
in whole or in part without the written consent of HistoryNet LLC.
PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA
 1-877-813-3329 X 511 | WWW.WW2CONFERENCE.COM

PRESENTED BY

THE 10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

ON WORLD WAR II
NOVEMBER 16-18, 2017 | NEW ORLEANS

WWII SCHOLARS, AUTHORS & HISTORIANS FULL ACCESS TO THE MUSEUM ENGAGING LECTURES & BOOK SIGNINGS

Announcing the 10th International Conference on World War II—bringing the best and brightest scholars, authors,
and historians from around the globe to discuss key battles, personalities, strategies, issues, and controversies of
the war that changed the world.
Joining our featured speakers are hundreds of attendees who travel from all over the world
to learn more about the event that shaped the 20th century. By emphasizing nonacademic
presentations and encouraging presenters to be conversation leaders rather than lecturers,
the Conference strives to connect with its audience through engaging discussions,
question-and-answer sessions, book signings, and receptions throughout the weekend.

Book now and save over $200 on our new

PT-305 Boat Experience. Space is limited.
When booked by 9/1/17. Terms and conditions apply. For a full list of terms and conditions, contact
The National WWII Museum at 1-877-813-3329 x 511. Rides provided by PT-305 Excursions LLC.

Decalifornication
Since 2013, residents of 21 northern
California counties have voted to
withdraw from that state and form
a new jurisdiction: The State of Jef-
ferson. On May 8, 2017, activists
supporting the idea sued the Cali-
fornia secretary of state, contend-
ing that the legislature inadequately
represents Californians. Under an
1862 cap, each assembly member rep-
resents about 490,000 state residents; each
senator, approximately 980,000.
“Static apportionment since 1862 coupled
with an exploding population invidiously
devalues and abridges the value of each per-
son’s vote and interferes with self-gover-
nance,” the suit—soj51.org—claims. This is
only the latest such campaign to peel off
counties bordering Oregon to form an entity
variously named State of Siskiyou, State of
Klamath, Territory of Jackson, State of
Let Me See Your ID Shasta, the proslavery Pacific Republic, and
At an improvised now State of Jefferson. Historian Jeff
checkpoint, State
Lalande recently profiled the secessionist
of Jefferson border
guards question a movement in the Quarterly of the Oregon
motorist, November Historical Society (ohs.org/research-and-li-
1941. Inset: 20th-cen- brary/oregon-historical-quarterly/).
tury separatists' gold Between 1850 and 1860, the separatist
mining pan emblem. notion excited Californians living along the
6 AMERICAN HISTORY
by Sarah Richardson
border with the then-Oregon Territory. Some
in adjoining counties of the territory felt like-
wise. According to Lalande, residents saw a
chance to establish, amid a fluid frontier cul-
ture, an identity untrammeled in distant
state capitals. With the Civil War and subse-
quent federal support for telegraph and rail-
roads, the impulse waned. From 1900 to
1950, sentiment on behalf of independence
rose occasionally, driven by desire for more
roads, bridges, and other infrastructure.
Advocates designed an emblem: two X's
emblazoned on a goldminer’s pan, represent-
TOP: SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/POLARIS; NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
ing double-crossing Oregon and California.
When timbering on the region’s federal lands
boosted the local economy, the secessionist
yen waned—until the lumber money ran out.
Today's revival, Lalande said, springs from
pervasive anxiety over regional cultural
shifts and rival visions for the area’s future.
Some residents have called for an indepen-
dent Pacific Northwest, positing the region
as having a distinct ecology and exceptional-
ism worth protecting with sovereign rights.
Other secessionists of the State of Jefferson
variety simply feel unrepresented and over-
taxed—though, Lalande noted, state and fed-
eral funding directed to the region far
exceeds its residents’ tax payments.
 Two Bits’
Worth of
Trouble
A 25-cent piece
in an old file
Farmer's son

Way, Ho and
intrigued New-
John Martin York Historical
left his native Society archivist

Up She Rises
Pennsylvania to Samantha
go to sea in his Brown. A city
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM; PHOTO BY HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; GRANGER, NYC

teens and spent detective in the

eight years as a whaler—including 31 months aboard the Lucy Ann Bronx likely had
from 1841 until 1844. As many whalers did, Martin kept a journal, but used the quarter
set his musings apart by illustrating them—lavishly. He punctuated to buy a copy of
observations of daily life aboard ship and in port with depictions of the April 11,
whales and hunts for them, as well as his drawings of fish, squid, and 1938, Life maga-
exotic cultures around the world. Martin’s Lucy Ann journal, pur- zine to use as
chased in 2001 by the New Bedford Whaling Museum in that Mas- evidence for a criminal prosecution,
sachusetts city, has been reproduced as a book, including 125 color Brown wrote on the society’s blog. That
illustrations spread across 236 pages ($39.95; whalingmuseum.org). Life issue’s contents included a story
depicting the arc of a pregnancy in 35

Deep Roots Documented photographs.

Tribes of the northern Pacific Northwest—below, a Lummi family
circa 1915—descend from Native Americans who inhabited the region
more than 10,000 years ago. Researchers established kinship by com-
paring DNA from ancient skeletons to that of contemporary resi-
dents. Tribal members consented to the study of remains in hopes of
confirming oral histories recounting their longtime presence in the
area. In February, Native Americans privately interred a set of re-
mains that came to be known as Kennewick Man. The 1995 discovery
of the bones on the banks of the Columbia River led to a protracted
tussle between indigenous people and scientists over rights to the
skeleton. DNA data supported assertions that the 9,000-year-old
bones were related to modern Native Americans.
“The Birth of a Baby” was based on a
movie produced by the American Com-
mittee on Maternal Welfare to help
combat deaths of women in childbirth.
In 1938, those hovered around 200 per
100,000 live births; today’s rate is about
15 per 100,000. Editors at Life, eager to
promote “Birth” but, knowing the top-
ic’s sensitivity, alerted health care pro-
viders, subscribers, and Protestant
clergy about the provocative material.
The U.S. Post Office officially cleared
mailings of the issue. Still, when that
week’s Life hit newsstands, some fig-
ures in authority had the magazine
seized as obscene. Bronx district attor-
ney Samuel J. Foley not only ordered
seizures but also ordered police to
arrest anyone selling the issue—hence
that quarter’s worth of evidence. In
time, courts ruled that the pictures were
not obscene. A Life reader wrote in to
report that recalling the disputed
images enabled him to assist his wife
with an emergency home delivery.

2017 77
AUGUST 2017
OCTOBER
 Getting
the Point
Clovis spear points—sometimes four
inches long and excruciatingly diffi-
cult to fashion—are named for Clovis,
New Mexico, where they first turned
up in 1929. Later studies found the
design to be so widespread throughout
A Spanish musket North America that the society pro-
I See Your

LEFT: TRAVIS HEYING/WICHITA EAGLE/TNS/ALAMY LIVE NEWS/TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; RIGHT: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS
ball found outside ducing the point, emerging about
Arkansas City, Arkan- 13,500 years ago, came to be called

Cahokia and sas, burnishes a local

academic’s claim that
the area was the site
Clovis culture. Some researchers spec-
ulate that Clovis spear points, recog-
nizable by a central groove carefully
Raise You of Quivira, a fabled
Native American me-
chipped into the base, were status
symbols, chick magnets of yore. Writer

My Quivira tropolis (“Losing the

West,” August 2017),
reports the Wichita
Charles Mann sees the Clovis point as
perhaps the first American invention.
Now researchers publishing in the
Eagle. In 1539, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and May 2017 Journal of Archaeological
troops marched north from Mexico seeking cities of wealth; the force Science explain the point’s ubiquity as
found indigenous farm communities, including a thriving village Coro- a matter of durability. By testing how
nado called Quivira. In 1601, Juan de Oñate, governor of Spanish territo- points fared on impact, they found
ry New Mexico, undertook to find Quivira again. Oñate described farm that the distinctively thinned Clovis
settlements, found no gold or silver, and recounted a battle his men base spreads shock, reducing chances
fought with locals. Forebears of the Wichita Indians lived at the conflu- of a point shattering. Laboriously
ence of the Arkansas and Walnut Rivers, now Arkansas City. Archaeo- tooled chip by chip, a point repre-
logical researcher Donald Blakeslee of Wichita State University, above, sented a great deal of time and effort.
studying a retranslation of Spanish colonial documents, concludes that Fragile points would have tethered
in its prime the Quivira site could have rivaled Cahokia, a settlement in hunters to sources of raw material due
what is now southern Illinois that may have been home to 20,000 resi- to fear of running out of projectiles.
dents around 1100 A.D. Juan de Oñate’s personal story further animates The design’s sturdiness, compared to
the staga. He wed a granddaughter of Spanish conquistador Hernán that of other shapes, would explain
Cortés who also was a great-granddaughter of Aztec leader Montezuma. how the style spread so widely.

8 AMERICAN HISTORY
 “When I opened the
Hunter back and
saw the reproduced
words scrawled on the
watch mechanism by
Jonathan Dillon I
was totally amazed.”
Praise for the
Lincoln Watch
from R.A.,
Milwaukee, WI

Mystery of the Lincoln Watch Solved!

Master watchmaker reveals the 150-year-old secret hidden inside
a rare Civil War treasure.
D id a watch repairman really engrave
a secret message on Abraham
Lincoln's watch on the day the
Reserve your piece of American
history. The original has been in safe
custody for years, but you can own your
Civil War began? For decades, own Lincoln’s watch reproduction with the
President Lincoln's pocket- secret inscription from the 19th-century. The
watch was rumored to carry a George Chatterton™ Watch Company has set a
secret message written by strict limited edition and Stauer is the only
Jonathan Dillon. One man was place that you can find this important piece
invited to Washington D.C. to of American history.
find out. In front of bright Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed.
lights, cameras, and the attention If for any reason you aren’t captivated by
of the world, master watchmaker the George Chatterton™ Lincoln Pocket Watch,
George Thomas twisted a few tiny simply return it within 30 days of purchase for
screws and finally put the mystery to rest An exact reproduction a full refund of the purchase price.
of Dillon’s inscription
after almost 150 years. is found inside the WATCH SPECS: - Water resistant to 3 ATM
“The moment of truth has come,” he said. hunter’s back. - 14k gold-fused case with manual wind movement
- Hunter’s back with inside inscription
“Is there or is there not an inscription?”
It was there! George removed his jeweler’s Lincoln Pocket Watch. Bring one of history’s
Exclusively Through Stauer
goggles and handed the watch to the great- greatest mysteries to life. George Chatterton™ Lincoln Pocket
great grandson of Dillon to do the honors. Watch—$299 Now only 3 credit
Expert watchmakers have painstakingly
The inscription read, "Jonathan Dillon April
recreated the design of the dial and position
card payments of $49 each +S&P
13 -1861 Fort Sumpter [sic] was attacked by Call now to take advantage of this limited offer.
of the small second hand and they have
the rebels on the above date J Dillon April
13-1861 Washington thank God we have a
even replicated the mysterious engraving
on the back of the movement. The design
1-800-333-2045
government Jonth Dillon." Promotional Code LPW13-01
of the hands is especially rare. The move- Please mention this code when you call.
Buried Civil War treasure returns. ment employs vintage-styled manual
Today, as our nation observes the Civil War’s
150th Anniversary, the George Chatterton™
winding with 20 jewels and the case is
fused in 14K gold to perfectly match the
Stauer ®
14101 Southcross Drive W.,
Dept. LPW13-01
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337
Watch Company announces the release of the color of the original. www.stauer.com
Rating of A+
Smar t Luxuries—Surprising Prices

Still Standing
in Alabama
Following contentious removals of
Confederate monuments in New Orleans
and elsewhere, Alabama legislators voted
May 19 to bar municipalities in the state
from removing from public property
monuments in place more than 40 years.
Nor can an Alabama city or town rename
a school or street whose official designa-
tion predates 1977. State Senator Gerald
Allen, who introduced the bill, said the
intent is “to preserve all of Alabama’s
history—so our children and grandchil-
dren can learn from the past for a better
future.” Violators risk $25,000 fines.
Pro-removalists label the monuments
emblems of white supremacy. In 2015,
after avowed white supremacist Dylann
Roof, once photographed holding a Con-
federate flag, murdered nine black wor-
shippers at a historic African-American
church in Charleston, South Carolina,
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley
removed the Confederate flag from
the state capitol in Montgomery.
10 AMERICAN HISTORY
Woodstock
in Amber
The upstate New York site
of the August 1969 music
festival has been named to
the National Register of
Historic Places by New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Preservation will include
recognition of a “Message
Tree” where concertgoers
left notes, recreation of
trails “High Way,” “Groovy
Path,” and “Gentle Path,”
and an overlook onto the
hollow in which 400,000
fans witnessed 72 hours of
performances nearly
around the clock. The site
is the home of performance venue Bethel
Woods Center, which applied for the historic designation.
From the Birds
Early Southwest cultures so revered macaws for a
supposed ability to summon rain and the beauty of
their plumage that a trade in the colorful species
emerged. A new profile of three pueblos at Chaco
Canyon in New Mexico reports that between 300
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ANDRE JENNY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; BLANK ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCK; SOTHEBY'S
and 1450 A.D. residents of those settlements likely
were keeping live macaws. Researchers found macaw
skeletons showing signs of birds having been plucked re-
peatedly of their wing feathers. At Pueblo Bonito, a guano
deposit 10 inches thick hints at the existence of an aviary
around 1100 A.D. Researchers think macaws were transport-
ed to Pueblo Bonito from their native Mexico.
Top Bid
A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat last sold in 1984
for $19,000 commanded $110 million at a Sotheby’s
auction in May. Untitled 1982 set a record for the most
paid for a painting by an American artist, eclipsing Andy
Warhol’s Silver Car Crash, at $105.4 million. Basquiat,
initially notorious as Manhattan graffiti artist “Samo”
but later a prince of the New York demimonde, was 27
when he fatally overdosed on heroin in 1988.
Immerse yourself in America’s Civil War with a visit to
Tupelo, MS. The Battle of Brice’s Crossroads, the Battle of
Tupelo/Harrisburg, and the Battle of Old Town Creek were
the last stands of the Confederate cavalry in Northeast
Mississippi, during the summer of 1864. Today, visitors can
walk in the footsteps of soldiers who defended this land
and delve deeper into these decisive battles that occurred
in and around Tupelo.
The Mississippi’s Final Stands Interpretive Center serves as
a guide to enthusiasts interested in Mississippi’s place in
the Civil War. The center’s many interpretive exhibits ex-
plain the state’s role in the Civil War and how the battles
fought here were significant to the progress of the war. A
film also chronicles the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads and its
significance to the war and military history.
Located just minutes from the center is Brice’s Crossroads
National Battlefield where guests can walk the1,600-acre
hallowed ground. A one-acre site maintained by the Na-
tional Park Service at the site of the Brice house contains
a monument and two cannons which commemorate the
Battle of Brice’s Crossroads. Adjacent to the monument is
Bethany Historic Cemetery which contains a mass grave of
Confederate soldiers and markers for ninety-six Confeder-
ate soldiers who were known to have been killed during the
Battle of Brice’s Crossroads.
The Tupelo National Battlefield site is marked in the heart
of town. The first day of the Battle of Tupelo/Harrisburg
was fought here with over 20,000 soldiers and was the last
time that Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s
renowned cavalry fought Union infantry during the Civil
War. Across town, the Battle of Town Creek interprets the
second day of fighting during the Battle of Tupelo/Harris-
burg.
Tupelo’s Civil War history is further preserved through the
Heritage Trails Enrichment Program, marking significant
sites throughout town. From makeshift hospitals and pris-
ons to homes where famous generals stayed, visitors can
gain a deeper understanding of what life was like for sol-
diers and residents of Northeast Mississippi during the war.
Paid Advertorial by Tupelo Convention and Visitors Bureau
 Re-Remembering
Montpelier
“Mere Distinction of Color,” a new exhibit
at Montpelier, James Madison’s 2,650-acre
estate in Orange, Virginia, addresses the
experiences of that plantation’s enslaved
workers and their descendants. The title is
from Madison’s 1787 remark at the Consti-
tutional Con-
vention that
“We’ve seen the
Mere Distinc-
tion of Colour
made in the
Constitution most enlight-
ened period of
Working Drafts time, a ground
for the most

on Digital View oppressive

dominion ever
exercised by
Visitors to Philadelphia can zoom in on the nation’s founding legal
document at the National Constitution Center, where the only two man over man.”
handwritten drafts of the historic 1787 declaration are now on per- A multimedia
manent display. Highlights include rewrites: first drafts read “We presentation of
the People of the States of….” followed by the names of the 13 colo- slaves’ images
nies. The original word was that Congress could “make” war; editing and words aug-
swapped in “declare,” a lesser power. The president initially was to ments displays
be called “His Excellency,” and serve six or seven years, with no of artifacts from the grounds, such as a clay
option for reelection. The documents were donated to the Historical pipe carved with the word “Liberty.”
Society of Pennsylvania by a descendant of Scotsman James Wil- Descendants of enslaved workers helped
shape the permanent exhibition, including

son, who penned them. A distinguished Pennsylvania lawyer
turned land speculator, Wilson championed popular sovereignty
and is known for devising the three-fifths constitutional compro-
mise defining enslaved persons as non-voting residents for tallies
related to tax and Electoral College purposes. Wilson, who served in
the Continental Congress, later was appointed to the Supreme
Court by President George Washington.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK; PAM SOORENKO/COURTESY MONTPELIER; COURTESY BRAVO
Rebecca Gilmore Coleman, granddaughter
of former Montpelier slave George Gilmore,
who in 1873 built a nearby cabin that is one
of the few restored freedmen’s residences
still standing in Virginia. (montpelier.org)

Bayonet Cache at Valley Forge

On the last day of a dig at Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge National Historical Park, an archaeol-
ogist’s metal detector chirped. Excavation uncovered a trove: 30 rusty 18th-century bayonets.
According to Sarah Laskow at atlasobscura.com, the cache’s variety of blade designs may reflect
rebel troops’ difficulty obtaining quality weaponry. Continental Army troops spent the bitter
winter of 1778 at Valley Forge, short of supplies and gear. Soldiers may have discarded their
bayonets when a new treaty with France delivered superior implements of destruction.

12 AMERICAN HISTORY
FIRST EVER SILVER KRUGERRAND

YE
FI IS
OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT RELEASE

AR
RS S
T UE
Actual size is 38.725 mm

How Can a Silver Coin be

Over 60 Times Rarer than a Gold Coin?
JUST RELEASED: The Silver Krugerrand
The South African Gold Krugerrand
is the most famous gold coin in the world.
That’s because it was the very FIRST
modern gold bullion coin—and is still
the most widely traded gold coin on the
planet. The Gold Krugerrand is the model
for every other gold coin that followed it,
including the American Eagle.
Now, to mark the 50th anniversary
of the first Gold Krugerrand, you can
help us celebrate another landmark
FIRST...the first ever SILVER Krugerrand!
World’s Most Famous Gold
Coin Now Shines in Silver!
Krugerrands have never been struck in
silver before—making this first-ever
release a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
you won’t want to miss! Issued by South
Africa, the Silver Krugerrand is an official
legal-tender coin, struck in a full ounce of
99.9% pure silver in stunning Premium
Uncirculated collector condition. This Krugerrand. Don’t
stunning silver coin bears the classic miss out on this
original design: former South African once-in-a-lifetime
President, Paul Kruger on one side, and opportunity!
the symbolic South African Springbok
antelope on the other. In addition, each
one-ounce silver coin features a special 2017 One-Ounce Silver
50th anniversary mint mark. Krugerrand
1-4 Coins - $49.95 each
Over 60 TIMES More Scarce 5-9 Coins - $49.50 each
10-19 Coins - $49.00 each
Over 60 million Gold Krugerrand have 20-49 Coins - $47.95 each
been issued in the past 50 years. But 50+ Coins - Call for pricing
the first and only 2017 Premium FREE SHIPPING on any order over $149*
Uncirculated Silver Krugerrand is strictly
limited to only one million for the entire Visit www.GovMint.com or CALL NOW!
world. This means you can buy a Gold For fastest service, call toll-free
Krugerrand that numbers over 60 million
(and spend up to $1300 each) OR you can 1-888-870-9476
secure the first ever Silver Krugerrand for Offer Code: SKG169-04
Please mention this code when you call.
as low as $47.95!
Official Release
GovMint.com is the exclusive North
American distributor for the 2017 Silver

GovMint.com "

 


 
 




"
!



Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Facts and figures deemed accurate as of June 2017. NOTE: GovMint.com® is a private distributor of worldwide government coin and currency
issues and privately issued and licensed collectibles, and is not affiliated with the United States government. GovMint.com is not an investment company and does not offer financial advice or sell items
as an investment. The collectible coin market is speculative, and coin values may rise or fall over time. All rights reserved. © 2017 GovMint.com. *Limited time only. Product total over $149 before
taxes (if any). Standard domestic shipping only. Not valid on previous purchases.

Goldstein
Kinzer
Parachin
Whipple
Norm Goldstein (“Tracks of a Traitor,” p. 56)
wrote “A Spy in Brooklyn” (June 2016). Retired
after 44 years with the Associated Press,
where he primarily was editor of the AP
Stylebook, he writes on topics ranging from
military and American history to travel. He
lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Stephen Kinzer (“Teddy vs. Twain,” p. 40)
is the author of The Brothers, Reset, Over-
throw, All the Shah’s Men, and other books.
He was The New York Times bureau chief in
Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and The
Boston Globe’s Latin America correspon-
dent. He is a senior fellow at the Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs
at Brown University and writes a column for
The Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.
Victor M. Parachin (“The Franklin File,”
p. 34) is the author of a dozen books, includ-
ing Eastern Wisdom for Western Minds. He
lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Christopher Whipple (“Nixon’s S.O.B.,”
p. 48) wrote “We Can’t Kill Our Way Out of
This” (June 2016). A Peabody- and Emmy
Award-winning producer at CBS’s 60 Min-
utes and ABC’s Primetime, Whipple also has
published articles in many print and online
outlets. He lives in New York City.
14 AMERICAN HISTORY
Not Washington—Wytheville
Future first lady Edith Bolling (“Big Lie,” June 2017) was born not in
Washington, DC, but in Wytheville, Virginia. The Edith Bolling
Wilson Birthplace Foundation and Museum—edithbollingwilson.
org—occupies the building on Main Street in which she grew up.
American History is my favorite subscription. I enjoy the magazine
and look forward to receiving it.
Donald R. Williams
Goodland, Kansas
Next Time, Read the Date
“Big Lie” (June 2017), about Woodrow Wilson’s health, shows the
newspaper headline “PRESIDENT DANGEROUSLY ILL.” The article
says Wilson had a stroke in October 1919. However, the newspaper front
page is dated April 5, 1919. What illness is the headline referring to?
Dan Van Eycke
Poulsbo, Washington
Editor Michael Dolan replies: I plead guilty to ignoring a key detail.
The Bisbee Daily Review was referring to influenza striking President
Wilson that April in Paris during the Versailles peace talks.
The Other Jefferson
It is encouraging that Harriet Tubman will be honored on the $20 bill.
Another black woman should be similarly honored for her strength and
determination. Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first African-American
woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, accomplished much
and inspired many. Jefferson, as president 1975 to 1978 of the National
Right to Life Committee, fought for those at the margin: the unborn, the
elderly, and the disabled. She died in 2010 at age 84.
Tim Donovan
Prospect Park, Pennsylvania
Who Did Sam Cooke Dirty?
Fred Goodman’s piece (“Sam Cooke Had a Hammer,” June 2017) is a
good one, but let’s delve deeper. Yes, the hotel clerk shot Cooke, but
what kind of woman would “meet up” with a known singer at a
party and go with him to a fleabag, then take the man’s pants to the
desk to complain? Somebody set Sam Cooke up for a fall!
Barbara Thomas
Houston, Texas
Memories Are Made of This
As a native of Albany, New York—in Dutch times, “Beverwyck”—
I very much enjoyed Ann Morrow’s article (“What’s in a Name?”
August 2017). My parents took the now-defunct Knickerbocker
News, and I recall childhood visits to historic sites like Philip
Schuyler’s mansion and Abraham Ten Broeck’s house. Though the
English renamed the city, Dutch influence still permeates Albany.
Bruce Venter
Goochland, Virginia
 AMERICA’S STAND ON
SELF-DEFENSE In Stand Your Ground: A History of Ameri-
can’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense
(2017), Caroline E. Light chronicles the Ameri-
can attachment to the virtue of self-defense,
the evolution of law regarding private use
of force, and a present-day atmosphere in
which it often is seen as reasonable to shoot
first and ask questions later.
Explain the “duty to retreat.” Under English
common law, only the king or his officers
had authority to use lethal violence to avenge
a wrong or to protect citizens from danger.
DIYing Security The saying “A man’s house is his castle” orig-
Caroline E. Light inated in a 1604 case: a person threatened in
directs under- his home could fight back without retreating.
graduate studies
in the Program How did the United States handle this? In
in Women, Gen- 1806, Thomas Selfridge of Boston argued
der, and Sexuality with a fellow merchant over an unpaid bill.
Studies at Harvard Each considered his honor at stake. Self-
University. She is ridge, slight and infirm, learned that his foe
the author of That had sent a hulking youth to settle the score
Pride of Race and with a cane. Selfridge armed himself with a
Character: The pistol. It is unclear whether he shot before his
Roots of Jewish opponent swung the cane, but the younger
Benevolence in the man fell dead. At Selfridge’s manslaughter
Jim Crow South. trial, the prosecution and judge argued that
the shooter had a duty to retreat “to the arms
of friends,” while the defense insisted on his
“natural right” to protect his safety and hon-
or. Selfridge was acquitted, setting a prece-
dent for cases involving claims of justifiable
homicide. The duty to retreat further eroded
16 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY NANCY TAPPAN
amid a general expectation that it was fitting
for white men to carry guns openly, in de-
fense against hostile Indians and to control
an enslaved workforce.
Explain the “true man” doctrine. After the
Civil War, state-level court decisions in Ohio,
Indiana, and Indian Territory—later Oklaho-
ma—invoked a 1736 English legal opinion that
lethal self-defense was the right of a “true
man”—one who was without fault. In practice,
this applied chiefly to white men owning
property. Erwin v. State (Ohio, 1876) centered
on the faultlessness of the defendant, a white
man who in defending his property killed his
son-in-law. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled
that the defendant had a “true man’s” right to
lethal self-defense and reduced his sec-
ond-degree murder conviction to manslaugh-
ter. In Runyan v. State (Indiana, 1877), the In-
STATE GOVERNORS’ NEGATIVE COLLECTION, 1949-1975, WASHINGTON STATE ARCHIVES
diana Supreme Court returned for retrial a
white defendant’s manslaughter conviction,
reasoning that in America’s frontier society,
the retreat doctrine was incompatible with a
man’s natural right to self-defense.
Did this change after Emancipation? Jim
Crow and refusal to enforce Reconstruction-
era constitutional amendments left blacks no
legal protection. The non-profit Equal Jus-
tice Initiative has documented more than
4,000 extrajudicial killings of black men,
women, and children between the end of
Reconstruction and the 1950s.
 Taking Up the Gun
Black Panthers make a point in Olympia,
Washington, on February 28, 1969.
When did “stand your ground” debut in le-
gal terms? In the Supreme Court’s 1921 Brown
v. United States decision, Justice Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes wrote in the 7-2 majority opinion,
“If a man reasonably believes that he is in im-
minent danger of death or grievous bodily in-
jury from his assailant, he may stand his
ground and that if he kills him he has not ex-
ceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense.”
Does that right apply to all citizens? Abso-
lutely not. In Indian Territory in 1892, Alexan-
der Allen, a 14-year-old black youth, shot dead
an 18-year-old white youth who had threat-
ened to kill him. Allen’s case went to the U.S.
Circuit Court overseeing cases involving U.S.
citizens in the territory. Allen appealed his
conviction and death sentence. The U.S. Su-
preme Court twice remanded the case to the
circuit court for retrial. On the third appeal,
the high court upheld Allen’s murder convic-
tion, accepting a prosecution argument that
Allen had had no reasonable cause to fear his
attacker. Yet, within a few years, the Supreme
Court overturned white defendant Babe
Beard’s conviction for killing his nephew in an
altercation over a cow. Beard claimed self-de-
fense and the justices confirmed his right to
“meet force with force” without retreating.
Still, black people stood their ground. Non-
violent civil rights activists often relied on
supporters carrying guns for protection. In the
1950s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. kept guns in
his home and applied for but was denied a
concealed-carry permit. During the 1955
Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, carpool
drivers included armed black veterans. In
Louisiana in 1964, the Deacons of Defense
carried rifles to protect voting rights organiz-
ers from Klan violence. In Oakland, Califor-
nia, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense organized as a response to polit-
ical, economic, and social oppression. The
Panthers became experts on firearm laws and
openly carried guns, in a sharp departure
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
from mainstream civil rights technique. After
California Assemblyman Don Mulford intro-
duced a bill making it illegal to carry guns
openly—a measure aimed directly at the Pan-
thers—armed black men in berets and sun-
glasses strode into the visitors’ gallery of the
Martin
statehouse in Sacramento. The ensuing media Luther King
storm terrified whites, including California Jr. kept
Governor Ronald Reagan, who helped pass
Mulford’s bill. Reagan—in 1980 the first presi-
guns in his
dential candidate the National Rifle Associa- home. King
tion endorsed—favored gun control when it sought but
came to limiting black activists’ ability to carry
weapons in self-defense.
was denied a
concealed-
You call America a “do-it-yourself securi- carry
ty” society. I use the term to mean the belief
that good citizens must provide for their own
permit.
safety. This ideology has intensified since
September 11, 2001, and reflects a perception
of threat and a conviction that government
cannot keep us safe. It sounds constructive—
we should all be invested in our own safety—
but this perspective is fueled by racial preju-
dice and an exaggerated fear of crime.
Stand-your-ground laws invoke “reason-
able threat.” Is “reasonable” always reason-
able? Claims of self-defense are based on
whether a defendant was “reasonable” in
perceiving an imminent threat, and judges
and jurors inevitably assess this claim
through their own biases and world views. In
spite of the law’s claim to neutrality, the de- Defining Danger
fendant’s and the victim’s identities influ- In a 1921 opinion,
ence how courts determine whether a defen- Supreme Court
dant was “reasonably” afraid. Justice Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes upheld
What’s occurred since 2005, when the first the right to lethal
of 33 stand-your-ground laws took effect? self-defense.
Florida, which passed the first stand-your-
ground law, has seen a 30 percent increase in
homicides since then. That’s not to say all
homicides involve self-defense, but it does
suggest a growing attitude of “shoot first and
ask questions later.” Stand-your-ground pro-
ponents say these laws make innocent peo-
ple safer; instead, confrontations that could
be resolved peacefully escalate. Prejudice
makes it easier for white people to get away
with killing nonwhite people, especially when
a defendant convinces a judge or a jury his
fear was reasonable. In 2012, white neighbor-
hood watchman George Zimmerman killed
Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-
old. That case illustrates the miscarriage of
justice embodied by stand-your-ground laws
and the wider DIY security culture. +
O C T OB E R 2 0 1 7 17
AMERICAN SCHEMERS
T FOR TEXAS, G FOR
A GOOD TIME She seldom arrived before midnight. By
then, her Manhattan speakeasy was
jammed with fans, half-soused or fully
pickled, chanting “Texas! Texas! Texas!”
Texas Guinan let them beg until she
sashayed in, décolletage decorated with
pearls and a rose, diamond earrings and
bottle-blonde hair framing a wide white
grin. She’d perch atop the piano, pause,
then bellow, “Hello, suckers!”
The suckers cheered. It was fun to
be suckered by Texas Guinan. She was
famous for that phrase, for her wise-
cracks, and for Prohibition busts that
never led to convictions. The newspa-
Get Hot! pers adored the woman reporters dubbed
Guinan, with “Queen of the Nightclubs,” “mistress of Broad-
les gals and an way’s high revel,” and “the Flaming Mamie of
agent busting Gigglewater Gulch.” The sobriquet she coined
club owner was even better—“God’s Masterpiece.”
Larry Fay, in She was born in 1884 to Irish immigrants.
coat, mixed “My real name is Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan,”
charisma and she wrote in a semi-truthful memoir that
chutzpah. the New York Evening Journal presented in 27
18 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY PETER CARLSON
installments. “I was born on a ranch near Waco,
Texas, a sucker town, so many years ago that it’s
nobody’s business.”
She rode into showbiz in a Wild West show,
then sang her way into vaudeville. “Miss Gui-
nan has looks, and dresses well,” Variety noted
in 1909. “Her well-trained soprano does the
rest.” In 1917, Hollywood beckoned. She starred
in silent westerns—The Gun Woman and The
Girl Sheriff and She Wolf. “I could twirl a lariat,
rope a steer, ride and shoot to beat any tobac- BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; EVERETT COLLECTION INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
co-chewin’ cowpoke,” Guinan bragged. Tiring
of “kissing horses in horse operas,” she returned
to New York to sing again.
By then, Prohibition had dotted Manhattan
with illegal bars. One speakeasy, the El Fey,
at 105 West 45th St., belonged to gangster
Larry Fay. In 1924 Fay hired Texas Guinan as
the El Fey’s hostess and emcee. Soon, the joint
was jumping with show people, stockbrokers,
hoodlums, tourists, and the reporters who
made Guinan the It Girl of illegal fun.
Texas was 40, thrice married and thrice
divorced. She didn’t drink—she cranked up with

coffee and cigarettes—but she could keep a
party going and customers spending.
“Miss Guinan’s particular function was to
make whoopee,” one prosecutor told a jury. “She
made everybody feel at home in a jovial way.
There was entertainment, the silliest of songs
and jokes and the thumbing of noses at the law.”
Well put. Texas would vamp, blare her signa-
ture line, then tell a joke, sing a song, toss noise-
makers to the crowd. She’d introduce the band
and the dancers—long-stemmed, barely clad
beauties, many moonlighting from Broadway.
“Give the little girl a great big hand!” Texas
would yell as the ingénues shimmied about,
popping cherries into tipsy male mouths. If the
fun flagged, Guinan would bellow “Get hot!” or
start a round of leapfrog or induce a drunk to
embarrass himself. “There’d always be some
extrovert in the club who could do a special
trick like going down on his back with a glass of
water on his head,” dancer Ruby Keeler recalled.
Guinan made every night New Year’s Eve.
“You all feel good now,” she’d yell, “but wait `til
your check comes!” That was a surefire laugh
line. At El Fey, cigarettes cost ten times what
they did anywhere else, and “champagne” that
was really spiked cider was $25 a bottle. But the
suckers appreciated Guinan’s candor.
“Lesson number one in Professor Guinan’s
sucker psychology course is charge, charge, and
then charge some more,” Texas said. “Of course,
you’ve got to make ‘em like it.”
And they did. So many suckers jammed the
speak that the dance floor shrank to the size of a
welcome mat. The only wrinkle was John Law.
The Volstead Act outlawed alcohol, of which the
club sold plenty. Fay paid off the cops, but in
March 1925 federal Prohibition Bureau agents
raided and padlocked El Fey.
Within weeks, Fay opened the Del Fey, and
Tex was back at it—until authorities padlocked
that joint, too. Fay moved to 48th Street, uncork-
ing the Texas Guinan Club. Word spread and,
The New York Times reported, “her coterie will-
ingly followed.” So did the feds.
When agents raided, Tex had the band strike
PHOTO BY FPG/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
up “The Prisoner’s Song.” She swore she was
merely an entertainer and never sold, or drank,
a drop of booze. The club took a fall but Tex
skated—wearing, newspapers noted, a necklace
of tiny gold padlocks.
The crackdown drove Tex and Fay south to
Miami, but she missed Broadway and in 1926
returned to emcee the 300 Club on West 54th
AMERICAN SCHEMERS
Street. Secretly run by racketeer Owney Mad-
den—proprietor of the Cotton Club, Duke “You
Ellington’s home room—the Guinanized 300 didn’t
lured 500 suckers a night, mostly high rollers.
Texas was said to earn $2,500 a week.
think it
Inevitably, the feds invaded—on Indepen- was tea,
dence Day, as a great American golfer was cel- did you?”
ebrating his British Open victory.
“You’d be surprised if you knew the persons
the pros-
who were present,” Guinan told reporters at the ecutor
station house. “We had two United States sen- asked.
ators, a captain of a big British liner, and Bobby
Jones.” She reopened within days, packing the
room—until February 27, 1927. “I don’t
“What, again?” Tex said when the agents know—
intruded. “I hope I can ride in a taxi.” For her
sixth bust, she did cab it to the precinct, in a fur
I don’t
coat. At trial, Guinan swore she didn’t drink drink tea,
and had no idea that the club served hooch. either,”
“You didn’t think it was tea, did you?” the
prosecutor asked.
Texas
“I don’t know—I don’t drink tea, either,” Gui- Guinan
nan said. “I drink coffee.” said. “I
“Tex had a swell time,” the Chicago Tribune
reported. “The jury had an even better time.”
drink
Maybe that’s why jurors acquitted her. coffee.”
Now too notorious to work speakeasies,
Texas recreated the speakeasy experience in a
Broadway show, Padlocks of 1927. She por-
trayed herself in the 1929 talkie Queen of the
Nightclubs and 1933’s Broadway Through a
Keyhole. In 1931, she sailed to France with 33
lovelies eager to entertain Paris. The French No Regrets
turned them away, claiming too many native Guinan, 36,
dancers were idle. American papers played the at ease in one
episode big. So did Tex. Dubbing her show Too of her bootleg
Hot for Paris, she hit the road. Sometimes local boîtes in 1920.
censors banned Too Hot for its title alone,
insuring boffo box office in the next town.
On November 4, 1933, Texas was playing
Vancouver when she collapsed backstage. She
died the next day of ulcerative colitis. She was
49. As her body returned to New York by train,
her lawyer said Guinan had left her elderly
mother $40,000, plus “a quart of diamonds and
enough bracelets to fill a berry basket.” Texas
Guinan’s final Broadway appearance—at Camp-
bell’s funeral parlor, wearing gray chiffon with
sequins—drew thousands.
“On her hands were diamonds as big as head-
lights—or at least they seemed to be diamonds,”
the Daily News reported. “A detective from the
pickpocket squad who stood in line to gaze on
Tex expressed his doubts.” +
OCTOBER 2017 19
 First
Families Donald Trump has a large first family—wife,
three sons, two daughters, one son- and daugh-
ter-in-law each, and two exes—putting him in
the middle ranks of presidential patresfamilias.
George Washington, James Madison, Andrew
Jackson, and James K. Polk were childless, as
was James Buchanan, a life-long bachelor to
boot. At the other extreme of paternity, John
Tyler fathered 15 children by two wives.
Most of the Trumps keep average to low
media profiles; Melania especially has seemed
anchored to Trump Tower and son Barron. El-
dest daughter Ivanka and husband Jared
Do the Madison Kushner more than make up for that. Both
First Lady Dolley have West Wing offices and security clearanc-
Madison, above, es. Kushner is a senior adviser to his father-in-
was an energet- law, Ivanka an assistant. Neither takes a salary.
ic helpmeet. John Journalistic flow charts of the Trump White
F. Kennedy, top, House regularly depict Jared and Ivanka hov-
made his West ering as near the president as do Vice Presi-
Wing a family
dent Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus,
act, naming his
brother Robert and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
U.S. Attorney Two presidential sons—John Quincy
General. Adams and George W. Bush—have followed
their fathers in the job. The first politically ac-
tive first lady was Dolley Madison. “Everybody
loves Mrs. Madison!” gushed Henry Clay at
one of her many White House parties. “That’s
because Mrs. Madison loves everybody!” she
20 AMERICAN HISTORY
BY RICHARD BROOKHISER
gushed back. Loving Dolley also maintained
her husband’s enemies list. But the first rela-
tive to have a formal job near the nation’s top
job was Robert F. Kennedy.
As anyone versed in Kennedyana knows,
the clan’s president-designate was eldest son.
Joseph Kennedy Jr. When Joe died in World
War II, the torch passed to John. Third son
Robert became John’s right-hand man. Bob ran
Jack’s campaign for the Democrats’ 1956 VP
slot that segued into 1960’s victorious presi-
dential quest, as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. put it,
by “saying no, telling people off, whipping the
reluctant and the recalcitrant into line.”
PHOTO BY ROLLS PRESS/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES; GILBERT STUART/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Upon defeating Richard Nixon, John tapped
Robert to be attorney general, a move he knew
would draw fire. A journalist friend asked how
he’d make the announcement.
“I think I’ll open the front door of the
Georgetown house some morning about 2
a.m., look up and down the street,” JFK said.
“And if there’s no one there, I’ll whisper, ‘It’s
Bobby.’” Boos sounded on schedule. The New
York Times called the younger Kennedy’s ex-
perience “insufficient,” The Wall Street Journal
predicted his tenure would be an “unqualified
disaster,” and The New Republic declared RFK
“not fit for the office.” In private, Vice President
Lyndon Johnson called him “a little fart.”
8 CIGARS
ONLY 10
First-Class
$ *

Premium Cigar Sampler

# )$/*( ./*$"-.W)**)  1 )*( .'*. /*$"-.
)/ -)/$*)'
)2 _- - 4/*+-*1 $//*^42$/#)*0/-" *0.$)/-**!! -\>+- ($0(
#)( $"-.!*-%0./$76X‚*# W+-$ .#*+/#$.*) )+- +- 
/* ./0)) X# )4*0_- - 4W2 _- # - 2$/$)"2$/#/# 2*-'_.
'-" ./. ' /$*)*!+- ($0(#)( $"-.//# +') /_.'*2 ./
+-$ .W '$1 - !./)!- .#X#/_.*0-"0-)/ X

www.CigarsIntl.com/SA7098
You must enter the complete web address for special offer

1-888-244-2790 Mention code SA7098

Item #: CA49-SP
*Plus $299 s/h. PA residents add 6% tax — taxes on orders shipped outside

52
$
of PA are the responsibility of the purchaser. Offer available to first-time
purchasers. One per customer. Cigars International does not sell
products to anyone under the age of 21. For more information see
www.cigarsinternational.com/ageverify. Offer expires 10-15-17.

Includes 1 each of: Torañ*b  -$ .b; ".

b0
$- b .0.0 "*b
 -' )
Value
bŷ' ŵ-' 4b*&4/ '
 The critics were too harsh. Robert, a graduate
“I’m going of University of Virginia Law School, had worked
to have for Senate panels investigating communists in
somebody government and union corruption. Campaign-
ing had trained him in political nuts and bolts.
who’s But Robert’s main value to John was brother-
going to ly. In scything a field of Democrats that included
tell Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Adlai Steven-
son, JFK won few friends. His cabinet contained
me the “no person with whom I have been intimately
unvar- connected,” he admitted. He respected Dean
nished Rusk and Robert McNamara, his secretaries of
state and defense, but “the truth of the matter is
truth, no I had no contact” with either before taking office.
matter “I need to know that when problems arise I’m
what,” going to have somebody who’s going to tell me
the unvarnished truth,” President Kennedy said.
President What’s wrong with nepotism, so long as you
Kennedy have loyal and forthright relatives?
said. As attorney general, Robert did John’s bid-
ding. On civil rights, he pushed a warily liberal
line, with a personal touch: after a white su-
premacist killed civil rights leader Medgar Evers,
Robert gave Evers’ brother Charles his private
numbers, saying to call “any time, day or night, if
Negroes were being harassed.”
Robert was the administration’s go-to fixer.
John’s definition of management, said one diplo-
mat, was “calling Bob on the telephone and say-
ing, ‘Here are ten things I want to get done.’” He
counseled on non-legal business, too—most sig-
nificantly, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
A member of the Executive Committee of the
National Security Council, formed to advise the
president on dealing with Soviet missiles in
Cuba, Robert argued for blockading the island.
When hawks urged a first strike, RFK, in a note
Trump Tribe
to fellow committee member Theodore Soren-
The president-to-be
and family in 2015. son, wrote, “I now know how Tojo felt when he
22 AMERICAN HISTORY
was planning Pearl Harbor.” The president
sided with his brother, sidestepping the risk of
world war; after a blockade and tense negotiat-
ing, the Soviets removed their missiles.
Among President Trump’s children, Ivanka
seems closest to him. “Ivanka is the one person
who can speak frankly with her father,” said a
friend of the family. “And he will listen.” Trump
genuinely likes her husband, another scion of a
real estate mogul. Trump seems to view Kush-
ner as a less-outré version of his younger self.
Trump needs helpful relatives at hand far
more than JFK did. Going into his 2016 run, he
knew no one in government and politics be-
sides fashion plate free-lance Roger Stone.
Trump knew that if he won his inner circle
would be strangers unless leavened with kin.
It’s early days for this White House family
act. Ivanka Trump met privately with Planned
Parenthood president Cecile Richards, seeking
to obtain what the Times called a “common
sense solution” to controversy over federal
funding for the group. She found none.
Her father named Jared Kushner his Middle
East point man. “He has an innate ability to
make deals,” Trump said, “Everyone likes him.”
Kushner’s peacemaking has yet to begin.
Critics have scored him and his wife for
self-promotion and influence-peddling—Ivan-
ka for flashing a bracelet made by her jewelry
company in a post-election family interview
on 60 Minutes. More flak sprayed Jared’s sister,
Nicole Meyer, for a presentation in China that
promoted a stateside Kushner development.
Wooing potential investors; Meyer hawked
EB-5 visas, reserved for wealthy immigrants.
The rise of political first families has less to
do with Kennedys and Trumps than with what
Arthur Schlesinger called the imperial presi-
dency. As the office has gained power and ce-
lebrity, those characteristics naturally have
accrued to courtiers. Yet imperial presidents
feel increasingly lonely, impotent, and over-
worked. “Being held totally responsible for sit-
uations that one is helpless to manage,” wrote
historian Forrest McDonald, is “scarcely calcu-
lated to strengthen the presidential psyche.”
The first family will remain a necessary refuge.
REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID/FILE PHOTO
After JFK’s death, Lyndon Johnson asked
RFK to stay on as attorney general. “I need you
more than the president did,” LBJ pleaded.
The title remained; the job had vanished.
Robert stayed at Justice less than 10 months,
then began planning a White House run. +
 an Election,
1880’s-Style

December 2016
HistoryNet.com STRIKE!
Unions Fight
Disney Studios
SAM COOKE
12/6/16 9:29 AM Making Music
in the Money
Business
PRESS WAR
Winning Hearts
All About and Minds...
...in 1775

ursuing His winore!kou t

Plus
rout er things
AMERICA’S
17 MONTHS
WITHOUT A

Pirates 9 oth
to know
FUNCTIONING
PRESIDENT
America’s Most
Explosive Word
Pledging
Allegiance—
The Backstory
Terror in
Tobacco
NIXON’S S.O.B.
H.R. Haldeman,
Pioneering Staff Chief
Big Li 28th U.S. Pr
Woodrow
W
e

Country
TRACKS OF A TRAITOR
The Chase For Benedict Arnold
AMHP-170600-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1
TWAIN vs. TEDDY
The Fierce Debate Over
America as Empire
October 2017
HistoryNet.com

6/24/16 11:03 AM
AMHP-171000-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1 6/22/17 8:22 AM

Landslid

Patriots Go
Undercover
Soviet Spy
Nabbed in
Brooklyn
CIA Directors
On Drone War
Camp
From
WWI
HistoryNet is the world’s largest Germ
publisher of history magazines, visit August 2016
Barne
Blows
SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM
HistoryNet.com

to subscribe to any of our nine titles

Spy AMHP-160800-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1

The United States of Espionage Last of the

RED HO
12/2/16 1:51 PM

Jefferson’s STEAMER
Big Score Europe’s
iticalRoyalty
‘Family Business’ a threat to your democracy?
Loss, His
Gain: The
American
West
SCOTUS 101
WHY
MARBURY
MATTERS
BY DANIEL B. MOSKOWITZ
MARBURY V. The U.S. Supreme Court—unlike the highest
courts in 10 American states and in many for-
MADISON, 1803 eign countries—cannot rule on abstract ques-
5 U.S. 137 tions of law, only on actual controversies be-
HIGH COURT tween actual litigants. Often those litigants
AUTHORITY TO represent thousands, even millions, in similar
circumstances—children attending racially
OVERSEE OTHER segregated schools, or same-sex couples who
BRANCHES OF want to marry. But in the first case of continu-
GOVERNMENT ing importance that the Court decided, the rul-
ing came on a problem affecting four persons.
And in the greater scheme the problem wasn’t
even very consequential.
Nonetheless, the 1803 decision in Marbury
v. Madison arguably matters as much as any
the tribunal has handed down. Marbury set
out the very way this country’s legal system
works and through legal legerdemain avoided
24 AMERICAN HISTORY
I Want That Commission
William Marbury took it to the maximum.
a potentially perilous conflict.
The case arose from the nation’s attempts to
deal with political parties. From the start,
American leaders differed over whether the
country should be mainly agrarian, focusing
power in state governments’ hands, or have a
strong, industry-fostering central government.
But no organized groups took up those views;
in fact, at the end of his presidency, George
Washington was warning Americans against
“the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party.”
Under John Adams, distinct parties did
emerge. A Federalist ticket Adams headed in
his 1800 reelection bid got 65 electoral votes,
losing to a slate led by Thomas Jefferson with
73. Taking the House of Representatives, Jef-
ferson’s party put him in the White House.
With Jefferson to take the oath of office on
March 4, 1801, Adams’s party rushed to con-
solidate power. Last-minute patronage legisla-
tion authorized the president to name new
justices of the peace for the District of Colum-
bia. On March 3 Adams signed 23 such com-
missions for Washington County on the Mary-
land side of the Potomac River and 19 for
Alexandria County in Virginia. All 42 were
hurried to Secretary of State John Marshall so
he could attach the Great Seal of the United
States and deliver each appointee his commis-
sion; 25 commissions got delivered in time.
Of the other appointees, 13 cared little that
their commissions did not arrive: they were
prominent citizens for whom becoming a jus-
tice of the peace was no big prize. The remain-
ing four—William Marbury, Dennis Ramsay,
Robert Townsend Hooe, and William Harper—
did care, obstinately. Their intransigence was
at the crux of Marbury v. Madison.
Those four were prominent, too. Marbury
PORTRAIT BY REMBRANDT PEALE, COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT
was a top aide to the Secretary of the Navy.
Ramsay had been so trusted a Washington
lieutenant that he had been a pallbearer at the
former president’s funeral. Hooe had been
mayor of Alexandria, Virginia; Harper was an
Alexandria alderman—and a big landowner
there. Still, they wanted those appointments.
The four asked James Madison, Marshall’s
successor as secretary of state, to deliver
their commissions. Madison, at Jefferson’s
order, refused. Marbury and cohort went to
the Supreme Court, petitioning the justices

to issue an order—officially, a
“writ of mandamus”—com-
pelling Madison to hand
over the commissions.
If issued and resisted, as
seemed possible, that writ
could have caused a consti-
tutional crisis. Intense per-
sonal animosity separated Jef-
ferson and Marshall, who in the
Adams administration’s final days
had been named chief justice. The Jeffer-
son administration did not bother to appear
before the justices to argue its case. Clearly,
the Court would have no way to force Madi-
son to obey any writ the Court might issue.
Yet the justices felt compelled to acknowl-
edge the legitimacy of claims by Marbury,
Ramsay, Hooe, and Harper to commissions
the president had signed and the secretary of
state had recorded. Marshall found a way to
finesse the dilemma. In the opinion he wrote
for the unanimous four-justice panel, the chief
justice acknowledged the four litigants’ right to
the writs they requested and that Congress, in
the Judiciary Act of 1789, specifically had au-
thorized the justices issue such writs.
Even so, Marshall said, the justices had no
such power. The 1789 provision conveying
that authority was unconstitutional because
it reached beyond what Article Three—which
defines the judiciary’s role—allowed, Mar-
shall said. His reasoning displayed audacity.
True, the Constitution did not specifically
authorize federal courts to issue writs of
mandamus—but neither did the Constitution
empower those courts to declare acts of Con-
gress unconstitutional.
Yet authority to do so had to reside some-
where. It was one thing to form a government
bound by a written Constitution outlining ex-
actly what the executive and the legislature
could do and—after adoption of the Bill of
Rights in December 1791—what those branches
NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (2)
could not do. But of what use would such lim-
its be without a way to enforce them, of saying
a president or a Congress had gone too far?
The men drafting the Constitution recog-
nized that dilemma but in the final document
did not address it—probably because they as-
sumed such powers to accrue inherently to the
courts. Without specific authority from state
constitutions, courts in most states had been
declaring state laws unconstitutional. For in-
SCOTUS 101
In the Crossfire
Secretary of State James The court
Madison was pinioned. must decide
stance, in 1780 New Jersey’s
which rule
highest court struck down a governs
law allowing six-man juries, the case,
and in 1785 the Connecticut
Supreme Court declared uncon-
wrote
stitutional a law altering the terms marshall.
of a colonial land grant. “This is
Marshall’s opinion reasoned that, in as-
serting the power to hold an act of Congress
the very
unconstitutional, the justices simply were essence of
doing the job assigned them. “If both the law Judicial
and the constitution apply to a particular
case...the court must decide which of these
duty.”
conflicting rules governs the case: this is the
very essence of judicial duty,” he wrote.
But the framers already had stated that the
Constitution had supremacy. Alexander Ham-
ilton made that abundantly clear in The Feder-
alist Papers, issued to explain the Constitution
to the populace. “It is a proposition too plain to
be contested, that the constitution controls
any legislative act repugnant to it,” Hamilton
wrote. It logically follows that contrary actions
by Congress must be deemed invalid.
The beauty of Marshall’s ruling is that the
decision established the federal judiciary’s
power to review executive and legislative ac-
tion while, notes Georgetown University law
professor Susan Low Bloch, “ordering no one
to do anything, and thus providing no oppor-
tunity for defiance or resistance. It was a re-
markable feat.”
Federal courts’ authority to oversee the
other branches of government is accepted The Chief
broadly. “At no time in our history has the John Marshall led
power of judicial review been seriously endan- the Supreme Court
gered,” a popular constitutional law textbook for 34 years.
explains. “Despite attacks on the Court’s deci-
sions, on its personnel, and even on the proce-
dures by which review is exercised, no major
political party has ever urged the complete ab-
olition of the power of review itself.”
That record came to be largely because the
Court has been cautious in exercising its re-
view power. Having established their author-
ity in Marbury, justices went more than 50
years before again declaring a statute uncon-
stitutional—an 1857 ruling, in the case of a
slave, Dred Scott, that Congress had no power
to bar slavery in the territories. +
OCTOBER 2017 25
 RESTLESS
ROAMER BY SARAH RICHARDSON
John Ledyard’s mother hoped her son would
be a missionary to Native Americans, but the
Connecticut-born Dartmouth dropout had a
different mission: to see the world and all its
peoples. Within the space of two crowded
decades, Ledyard toured the South Pacific
with Captain James Cook, ventured among
natives of the Aleutian Islands, and traveled
deep into Siberia—where he was arrested for
spying. Ledyard’s final journey, in 1788, took
place along the Nile, underwritten by noted
British naturalist Sir Joseph Banks.
Sometimes called “America’s Marco Polo,”
Ledyard was more ethnographer than ex-
Rambling Man plorer. His memoirs brim with notes on the
The peripatetic habits and similarities of cultures he encoun-
Ledyard, above, ters. But Ledyard’s most lasting achievement
ranged far and
is not his writing, but the effort he put into a
wide, including 1783 lawsuit to gain legal protection in Con-
a voyage to the
necticut for his book, A Journal of Captain
South Pacific with
Captain James Cook’s Last Voyage. That measure led to en-
Cook, shown at actment of a federal copyright law in 1790, a
top in the Sand- bit more than a year after Ledyard’s death.
wich Islands. Ledyard logged less than a year at Dart-
mouth, preferring to spend time among Na-
tive Americans. Dropping out, he collaborated
with friends to build a 50’ dugout canoe. On a
voyage now commemorated annually at
Dartmouth, Ledyard—with a bearskin and
26 AMERICAN HISTORY
two books, the Greek New Testament and an
edition of Ovid—put into the Connecticut
River and paddled alone to his hometown of
Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1776, Ledyard, 25, enlisted in the Royal
Marines and that July sailed from Plymouth
with Cook on the explorer’s third voyage.
Pausing in the Aleutians, the crews of HMS
Resolution and HMS Discovery encountered
natives clad in blue linen shirts and pants
serving salmon baked in a crust of rye bread,
a culinary legacy of Russian fur traders who
had arrived decades before. Ledyard de-
scribes a trek he made to the island’s interior
with natives to meet actual Russians, who
served their guest boiled whale and rum.
Barred by naval regulations from keeping
THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK/THE GRANGER COLLECTION (2)
a journal, Ledyard nonetheless carefully ob-
served all he beheld, such as details on the
Aleuts: “The women cut their hair short, and
the men wear theirs long. They have a cus-
tom of staining their bodies in a manner that
is universal among all the islands, and is
called by them tattooing; in doing so they
pick the skin with an instrument of small
sharp bones, which they dip as occasion re-
quires into a black composition of coal dust
and water, which leaves an indelible stain.”
Ledyard later had his hands tattooed. The
 British expedition next headed to the Sand-
wich Islands, now Hawaii, where the vessels’
arrival impressed locals.
“The intrinsic difference between us and
them in every respect was certainly great,”
Ledyard recalled. “But the greatest difference
was imaginary respecting them and imputed
to us, the moment therefore that this sup-
posed superiority of ours should cease to
exist or be diminished, our consequence and
importance would be at an end…”
Ledyard evenhandedly depicts a disregard
for cultural traditions that provoked an at-
tack by natives in which Cook and three of
his men died. Ledyard describes the fate of
the captain’s remains: “We were extremely
affected and disgusted when the other indian
produced from a bundle he had under his
arm a part of Cook’s thigh wrapped up in
clean cloth, which he said he saw himself cut
from the bone in the manner we saw it, and
when we enquired what had become of the
remaining part of him, he gnashed his teeth
and said it was to be eaten that night.”
Arriving in London in 1780, Ledyard re-
mained a Royal Marine until 1782, when he
deserted, returning to Connecticut. To make
money, he pitched prospective investors on a
trading post in the Northwest and a publisher
on a memoir of his travels with Cook, in the
process petitioning a court to grant him a
copyright on the resulting work. He argued
that an account of Cook’s last voyage “may be
essentially usefull to America in general but
particularly to the northern States by opening
a most valuable trade across the North Pacific
Ocean to China and the East Indies.” No one
TOP: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK/THE GRANGER COLLECTION
continent by passing through St. Peters-
burg to Kamschatka, and procuring a pas-
sage thence in some of the Russian vessels
to Nootka sound, whence he might make
his way across the Continent to America,”
the future president wrote.
Ledyard set off in 1787 but didn’t get
far. Russia, ruled by Empress Catherine
the Great, issued the wandering Ameri-
can papers admitting him to the country.
He got as far as Yakutsk, Siberia, but
when Ledyard was 1,930 miles south-
west in Irkutsk, police seized him as a
spy. He was sent to Moscow and held
for more than two months.
“It would be excellently qualifying, if
every man who is called to preside over the For the Record
liberties of a people, should once—it would be Ledyard, below
enough—actually be deprived of his liberty in Siberia, died in
unjustly,” Ledyard wrote of the episode. 1789. A year later,
Ledyard, 38, next persuaded the English his bid to copyright
naturalist Banks to fund an expedition up his book, above,
the Nile. At Cairo in November 1788, Ledyard led to a federal
fell ill; he died in January. In his last letter—to law on intellectual
property.
Jefferson—he mentions plans to visit to an
African ruler. “If possible, I shall write you
from the kingdom of this black gentleman,”
the intrepid traveler wrote. “I shall not forget
you; indeed, it will be a consolation to think
of you in my last moments. Be happy.” +

bought into his trading gambit, but Ledyard

did get Connecticut to protect copyrights.
Through his travels, Ledyard focused more
on the puzzle of people than places. “I am
now fully convinced, that the differ-
ence of color in man is solely the effect
of natural causes, and that a mixture by
intermarriage and habits would in time
make the species in this respect uni-
form,” he wrote. Thomas Jefferson, the
American minister in France, met the ex-
plorer, whom Jefferson described as “a
roaming, restless character” and a “man of
genius, some science, and of fearless courage
and enterprise.” Jefferson encouraged his
countryman. “I suggested to him the enter-
prise of exploring the Western part of our

OCTOBER 2017 27
STYLE
A sesquicentennial
fete at the Museum of
Modern Art celebrates
Frank Lloyd Wright,
a visit to an historic
Vermont inn, and
new products from
one of America’s
oldest companies. Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ, All rights reserved.

Frank Lloyd Wright,

hailed as “the
greatest American
CREDIT

architect” by the
Frank Lloyd

American Institute
© 2017PHOTO

of Architects. Pho-
tographer unknown.

28 AMERICAN HISTORY
PHOTO CREDIT

OCTOBER 2017 29
STYLE

ARCHITECTURE

The Wright Stuff

In an expansive and variegated 70-year career, Frank Lloyd Wright
(1867–1959) designed more than 1,000 homes, office buildings, churches,
schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums, and other structures. Wright’s
work embodied an organic design philosophy stipulating that architec-
ture should exist in harmony with humanity and a building’s particular
environment. At Mill Run, Pennsylvania, Wright’s philosophy took form
as Fallingwater, a series of spaces cantilevered over a 30-foot waterfall
that achieved the dual goal of making a startling artistic statement admi-
rably suited to its context.
In addition to creating innovative structures, Wright often designed
the furnishings that graced his buildings’ interiors. In 1991, the American
Institute of Architects recognized the midwestern master as “the greatest
American architect of all time.”
This year, the 150th since the architect’s birth, New York’s Museum of
Modern Art has organized an exhibition of models, drawings, and other
materials related to more than 450 of Wright’s works from the 1890s
through the 1950s. Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, a
collaboration between MoMA and Columbia University’s Avery Architec-
tural & Fine Arts Library, runs through October 1.
A hardcover 256-page catalog, by Barry Bergdoll
and Jennifer Gray, below left, offers an overview
of Wright’s world and how he changed it.

Frank Lloyd Wright St. Mark’s Tower, New York

at 150: Unpacking (53 x 16 x 16”). Designed
the Archive, $65. 1927-1929, not completed.

30 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Fallingwater
(Kaufmann House),
Mill Run, Pennsylvania,
1934-1937. Pencil
and colored pencil
on paper (15.375 x
25.25”).

Wright in 1953
by Pedro E.
Guerrero, the
architect’s
photographer
1939-1959.

Model of Wright design

for the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum
at East 89th Street and
Fifth Avenue, New York.

OCTOBER 2017 31
STYLE
T R AV E L

Historic Haven
Castle Hill Resort and Spa, outside Proctorville,
Vermont, has the vintage design and patina of
age—the building and its dependencies date to
1905—to go with its National Registry of His-
tory Places listing and membership in Historic
Hotels of America. Set in the Green Mountains,
convenient to historic and cultural attractions,
shopping, and antiquing, the Castle Hill com-
bines the feel of yesteryear with state-of-the-art
modern amenities, including the award-win-
ning Aveda Concept Spa. (castlehillresortvt.com)

T R AV E L

Point of View
In 1866, at Sausalito, California, overlooking the Golden
Gate, the U.S. Army built Lime Point Military Reservation.
Renamed Fort Baker in 1897, the 45-acre base guarded
seaward access to San Francisco Bay until 1990. In 2002,
the decommissioned coastal defense bastion became
a national park. Now the refurbished officers’ quarters
are home to luxury hotel Cavallo Point. Certified LEED
Gold, this establishment, which offers many dog-friendly
rooms and suites, is acclaimed for its efforts at historic
preservation and sustainability. (cavallopoint.com)

Colonial Revival
buildings, encircling
the former fort’s
10-acre parade
ground, nestle in a
magnificent setting
that includes the
Golden Gate Bridge.

32 AMERICAN HISTORY
 STYLE
In 1876, the
company acquired
its present name
when John Rose
Caswell partnered
with New York
businessman
William Massey.

Caswell-Massey’s
first apothecary,
Newport, Rhode
Island.

GOODS

Making Scents
Caswell-Massey pack-
aging, smart in navy
Working with shaving goods maker The Holy Black, linen, bears an embossed
Caswell-Massey has revived a 19th-century line, right. phrase that encapsulates
Regents shaving cream porcelain tub, $75; TrueBlack the brand’s identity:
synthetic shave brush, $45; The Holy Black bone- America’s 1752 Original.
handle straight razor, $150. (caswell-massey.com) “Caswell-Massey is a
true American treasure,”
says president Nick
Arauz, summarizing
the 10-generations-old
company’s story. “Our
archives hold original
formulations for many
iconic fragrances and
colognes that have been
favorites of presidents,
Hollywood stars, and
well-heeled private
clients. Today we are
undergoing a major
renaissance in relaunch-
ing these original
products using the very
best ingredients and by
partnering with other
renowned American
companies such as IFF,
the New York Botanical
Gardens, and The Holy
Black—innovators who
embody our founder’s
ideals.” (caswell-massey.
com)

Centuries Coffret gift

set includes fragrances
almond, sandalwood,
verbena, and lavender,
$49.95.

OCTOBER 2017 33
 The Franklin File JOSEPH SIFFRED DUPLESSIS/IAN DAGNALL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Ten things you ought to know about old Ben

By Victor M. Parachin

Founding Fixer
Franklin, shown circa
1785, was a nonstop
innovative thinker.

34 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Long before America’s colonies unified into an independent nation, Benjamin Franklin was highly
regarded as a scientist, inventor, diplomat, politician, educator, librarian, writer, and publisher. In no
area of life did Franklin fail to exhibit extraordinary interest, from medicine and music, to science and
philosophy, to technology and satire. Early in life, he emerged as colonial America’s smartest, most ver-
satile citizen. As early as 1762, Oxford University was recognizing his talents and achievements with an
honorary doctorate. Almost immediately, despite his limited formal education, he became known
throughout Europe as “Dr. Franklin.” Among highlights of Dr. Franklin’s wide-ranging career:

1
He petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. In February 1790, Franklin
wrote to the legislature, “Mankind are all formed by the same Almighty
Being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of
happiness.” He argued that Congress had a duty to establish “the blessings
of liberty…to all people living in the United States…without distinction of
color.” Specifically citing enslaved Africans, Franklin urged that Congress
grant “liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are
degraded into perpetual bondage.” Congress balked and members from No More Auction Block
southern states harshly denounced Franklin, declaring slavery a God- The Philadelphian decried
given system. what John Calhoun later la-
beled the "peculiar institution,"
embodied in a 1780 slave sale
in Charleston, South Carolina.
FROM TOP: RUE DES ARCHIVES/GRANGER, NYC; DORLING KINDERSLEY/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Sight for Sore Eyes

Franklin popularized
the combination lenses
that eased life for many.

He invented bifocal spectacles. Writing in August 1784 to his friend George Whately, Franklin expressed great personal plea-
sure in the “invention of Double Spectacles, which, serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to
me as ever they were.” Whately asked for more information. “The same convexity of glass through which a man sees clearest
and best at the distance proper for reading is not the best for greater distances,” Franklin replied. “I therefore had formerly two
pair of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in traveling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the prospects.
Finding this change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut and half of each kind associate in the
same circle. By this means, as I wear my spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down, as I wanted to see
distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready.”

OCTOBER 2017 35
3
He made it easy to grab books. Franklin, a
bibliophile, assembled one of the largest per-

FROM TOP: LIBRARY CHAIR WITH FOLDING STEPS, 1760-80/ATTRIBUTED TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN/MAHOGANY, LEATHER AND METAL/AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. GIFT OF RICHARD BACHE, 1792/PHOTO CREDIT: BRENT WAHL; THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK (2)
sonal
. libraries in the colonies. To accommodate
his books, he had to install shelves he could not
reach. A born adapter, Franklin reconfigured a
chair, adding hinged steps a user could swing
into place and ascend as if on a ladder. Franklin
sat in the chair while presiding over American
Philosophical Society meetings in his library,
leading acquaintances to call the piece of furni-
ture “the president’s chair.” Another of Franklin’s
book-related creations was the “long arm,” a
board fitted with a cable that controlled two
“fingers” at one end. A tug on the line caused the
wooden appendages to close like a thumb and
forefinger. Now largely absent from libraries, this
device, in metallic form, sees use as a highway
cleanup tool.

Ladder Me
The library chair con-
verted into a set of
steps for reaching out
of the way volumes.

4 He grasped germ theory. Franklin was among the

first to suggest that colds and flu spread not by cold
air, as was thought at the time, but through “conta-
gion” unrelated to temperature. “Traveling in our
severe winters, I have often suffered cold some-
times to the extremity only short of freezing but
this did not make me catch cold,” he wrote Philadel-
phia physician Benjamin Rush in 1773. “People often catch cold from
one another when shut up together in close rooms, coaches, etc., and
when sitting near and conversing so as to breathe in each other’s tran-
spiration.” To avoid colds, he recommended getting as much fresh air as
possible. All his life, Franklin ventilated his residences, especially his
bedroom, even in winter. And at every opportunity he shed his clothes.
Man of the Air
A German artist imagined an "air bath"
meant to make possible Franklin's habitual
nudity without frightening the livestock.

36 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Mind the Metal
Franklin saw that
lead in pipes and
paint was sickening
workers.

5
He described symptoms of lead poisoning. Franklin observed that roofers, plumbers, and other artisans working with the
pliant metal often experienced joint paint, stiffness, and paralysis, as well as severe intestinal problems. Friends reported that
the same symptoms appeared in drinkers of rum distilled using coils made of pewter, which has a high lead content. As a
contemporary epidemiologist might have, Franklin diagnosed lead poisoning: “It affects among tradesmen those that use
lead, however different their trades, as glazers, type-founders, plumbers, potters, white-lead makers and painters.” He urged
caution in handling the substance and equipping stills with tin coils.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: DEA PICTURE LIBRARY.GRANGER, NYC; SZ PHOTO/SCHERL/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; FROM THE HISTORICAL AND INTERPRETIVE COLLECTIONS OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Armonicat
The instrument,
left, and its cre-
ator, shown in a
19th century print.

6 He invented a musical instrument. At a 1761 concert in England, Franklin heard music made using
only wineglasses holding different amounts of water. Within months he had fashioned what he called
an “armonica”—37 glass bowls arranged by size on a spindle rigged with a foot pedal and spun by a
flywheel. Once the armonica got going, simply touching the spinning rims with a wet finger produced
notes. Writing to an Italian friend, Franklin described his instrument as “peculiarly adapted to Italian
music, especially that of the soft and plaintive kind.” Europeans especially enjoyed the armonica.
Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for the device; Marie Antoinette took armonica lessons.

OCTOBER 2017 37
7
FRANCOIS JOUVENET/DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/GRANGER, NYC;
He was a vegetarian—for a while. As a printer’s apprentice, the young Franklin read a book on vegetarianism’s benefits, and
embraced the diet for health reasons—and to save money. Co-workers spent mealtimes in restaurants. Franklin read while

BOTTOM: THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK

eating biscuits and raisins, and felt better for it. “I made the greater progress from that greater clearness of head and quicker
apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking,” he wrote. He drifted back into the carnivore ranks on
a long sail. When the vessel’s crew caught and cooked a meal of cod, Franklin at first declined an invitation, but the aroma of
fried fish proved too compelling. “I balanced some time between principle and inclination until I recollected that when the
fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs,” he wrote. “‘Thus,’ thought I, ‘if you eat one another, I don’t
see why we may not eat you.’ So I dined upon cod very heartily and have since continued to feast as other people, returning
only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet."

8
He developed the fireplace insert. An open fire-
place always has been a great way to heat cold air
and send it up a chimney. Franklin made the fire-
place more efficient by designing a wood-burning
stove that enclosed the firebox. The device he
called the “Pennsylvania fireplace,” and which
quickly became known as the “Franklin stove,”
needed less wood to make more heat and cut
down on smoke and drafts. Thomas Jefferson
bought one. Pennsylvania Deputy Governor
George Thomas liked the device so much he said
its inventor should patent it. Franklin declined:
“As we enjoy great advantages from the invention
of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to
serve others by any invention of ours, and this we
should do freely and generously.”

Hot Time
Bolted together out of iron plates,a Franklin stove kept a
room warmer longer and did so using significantly less fuel.

38 AMERICAN HISTORY
 9
He promoted exercise. In an era when life
expectancy was 35 to 40 years, Franklin lived to
84, thanks to an exercise regimen emphasizing
intensity. He realized a workout needed to pro-
duce cleansing sweat that carries away toxins
and recognized the importance of raising the
heart rate. Walking a mile up and down stairs
produced five times more body heat than walk-
ing a mile on the level, he noted. He calculated
that when swinging weights that resembled
today’s popular kettle bells his pulse rate went
from 60 to 100 beats per minute.

Time's Arrow
Nearly obsolete, the long-
bow still had enough
killing power to convince
Franklin of its utility.

10
Jumping George
A fanciful 19th century
print imagines George
LEFT: THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK; BRITISH LIBRARY/GRANGER, NYC

Washington jumping
rope to stay healthy in
mimicry of Franklin.

He directed saboteurs and advocated reviving the use of an obsolete weapon. As the colonies were preparing to fight
England, Franklin, as head of Pennsylvania’s defense committee, presided over development of secret underwater barriers
for denying enemy warships use of the Delaware River. He fine-tuned gunpowder manufacturing and championed use in
combat of the outdated but still deadly bow and arrow. “A man may shoot as truly with a bow as with a common musket,”
Franklin wrote to General Charles Lee. “He can discharge four arrows in the same time of charging and discharging one
bullet…A flight of arrows, seen coming upon them, terrifies and disturbs the enemies’ attention to their business…An
arrow striking any part of a man puts him outside of combat till it is extracted.”

OCTOBER 2017 39
 WHEN
TITANS
TANGLED LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; OPPOSITE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

As America was feeling an urge for empire,

Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt rumbled
By Stephen Kinzer
40 AMERICAN HISTORY
 Caption Here
Caption describing
the photograph will
be placed here.

Chalk and Cheese

In 1898, New Yorkers elected The-
odore Roosevelt, hero of San Juan
Hill, the Empire State’s governor.
Regarding America as an imperial
power, he and Mark Twain could
not have differed more.

OCTOBER 2017 41
Avid Convert Rabid Rooter
Twain, once in favor Roosevelt never wavered
of expansion, came to in his enthusiasm for
despise the concept. overseas conquest.

eporters swarmed the end of a Manhattan pier as the liner SS Min-

R
nehaha docked on October 15, 1900. Mark Twain, among the most
beloved of all Americans, had come home, a return newspapers
treated as epochal.
Twain appeared at the top of the gangplank in his mature per-
sona—bow tie, thick mustache, unkempt shock of curly white hair.
Correspondents shouted questions. Several pressed Twain about
his criticism of the war America was waging against nationalists in the
Philippine Islands. Before leaving London, the author had told a
reporter for the New York World that the conflict was “a quagmire,”
that the islands should be ruled “according to Filipino ideas,” and that the United States should “not
try to get them under our heel” or intervene “in any other country that is not ours.”
“You’ve been quoted here as an anti-imperialist!” cried a reporter. “Well, I am,” Twain said. “A Adapted by the author
year ago I wasn’t. I thought it would be a great thing to give a whole lot of freedom to the Filipinos. from The True Flag:
LEFT: THE MARK TWAIN HOUSE & MUSEUM, HARTFORD, CT; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

But I guess now that it’s better to let them give it to themselves.” Subsequently, the author told an Theodore Roosevelt,
interviewer, “I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” Mark Twain, and the
With those words, Twain plunged into that era’s great debate, arguably the farthest-reaching in Birth of the American
American history. In the years around 1900, the United States leaped from continental empire to over- Empire Copyright ©
seas empire by asserting power over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam and, amid terrible violence, the 2017 by Stephen
Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt, the era’s iconic imperialist, considered this a leap toward national Kinzer. Published by
greatness. Twain thought that expansionism stood in contradiction to every American ideal. Henry Holt and Co.
As the debate over America-as-empire sharpened, Roosevelt came to embody the nation’s drive
to project power overseas. Twain became Teddy’s most acerbic adversary. The men passionately
framed the question that has been at the heart of American foreign policy debate ever since.

Roosevelt and Twain moved in overlapping circles and knew each other, but for years geography
separated them. For much of the 1890s, Twain traveled and lived abroad. In Fiji, Australia, India,

42 AMERICAN HISTORY

South Africa, and Mozambique, white rulers’ treatment of
natives had appalled him. His frame of historical and cul-
tural reference stretched far more broadly than Roosevelt’s.
Twain saw nobility in many peoples, and abroad found
much to admire—quite unlike Roosevelt, who believed that
“the man who loves other countries as much as he does his
own is quite as noxious a member of society as a man who
loves other women as much as he loves his wife.” Instead of
seeing the United States only from within, Twain compared
his homeland to other powers. He saw his country rushing
to reenact follies Twain believed had corrupted Britain,
France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Russia, and the
Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. That way, the
author warned, lay war, oligarchy, militarism, and suppres-
sion of freedom at home and abroad.
These adversaries were deliciously matched. Their views
of life, freedom, duty, and the nature of human happiness
could not have been further apart. World events divided them
even before their direct confrontation. Germany’s 1897
seizure of Chinese port Kiaochow—later Tsingtao, now Qing-
dao—outraged both, but for different reasons. Twain opposed
THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK
all foreign intervention in China; Roosevelt worried only that
in the race for overseas concessions Germany was pulling
ahead of the United States. Roosevelt considered colonialism
a form of “Christian charity.” Twain pictured Christendom as
“a majestic matron in flowing robes drenched with blood.”
Even though Twain’s most famous work, Huckleberry
Big Stick
A 1905 cartoon
portrayed the
former NYC police
commissioner.
Finn, is full of coarse language and has as its hero a runaway
rascal, Roosevelt acknowledged the novel to be a classic. He
did not care for much else that Twain wrote, however, and
especially disliked A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s
Court. Twain treated the Knights of the Round Table as
objects of lusty satire—horrifying Roosevelt, who had revered
the imaginary Arthurians since childhood.
Yet in intriguing ways, Roosevelt and Twain were
remarkably similar. Both were fervent patriots who believed
the United States had a sacred mission—though each
defined that mission quite differently. Both were writers and
thinkers as well as activists. Most importantly, both were
relentless self-promoters, born performers who carefully
cultivated their public images. They loved to preach, reveled
in the spotlight, and could not turn away from a crowd or a
camera. Acutely aware of one another’s popularity, neither
publicly denounced the other. Among friends, though, each
was free with his feelings. Roosevelt said he would like to
“skin Mark Twain alive.” Twain considered Roosevelt
“clearly insane” and “the most formidable disaster that has
befallen the country since the Civil War.”
Roosevelt did not conceive or organize or lead the imperi-
alist movement. Neither did Twain fill any such roles for the
anti-imperialists. Nonetheless the pair would become the
most prominent, most admired, and most reviled spokesmen
for their opposing causes.
“There comes a time in the life of a nation, as in the life of
OCTOBER 2017 43
 The Kaiser as Role Model?
Expansionists saw in Germany’s occupation
of Kiaochow, China, a path for America.

an individual, when it must face great responsibilities, whether it will or

not!” Roosevelt said in one of his rousing speeches. “Our flag is a proud
flag, and it stands for liberty and civilization. Where it has once floated, Harsh Critic
there must and shall be no return to tyranny or savagery!” Twain did some of
his fiercest writing
against imperialism.
Twain detested this view. He believed the United States should withdraw
from the Philippines and accept an independent Filipino nation—a notion
Roosevelt deemed absurd. In a letter to fellow imperialist Rudyard Kipling,
he scorned “the jack-fools who seriously think that any group of pirates
and head-hunters needs nothing but independence in order that it be
turned forthwith into a dark-hued New England town meeting.”
Soon after returning to New York in 1900, Twain addressed the City
Club. He told a few stories and, slipping into his most disarming drawl,
added that he knew enough about the Philippines “to have a strong aver-
sion to sending our bright boys out there to fight with a disgraced musket
under a polluted flag.” Several listeners took indignant exception.
Over the next two years, Twain wrote scathing critiques of the expan-
sionist ethos. The pithiest was “Salutation Speech From the Nineteenth
Century to the Twentieth, Taken Down In Shorthand by Mark Twain.” The
Minneapolis Journal of December 29, 1900, included the broadside in a
series of musings by famous men.
“I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning
bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiaochow,
Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of mean-
ness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies,”
Twain wrote. “Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.”
Anti-imperialists made Twain’s jibe into a card showing a female figure
above a couplet—probably written by Twain himself:
Give her the glass; it may from error free her
When she shall see herself as others see her.
With these few lines, Twain secured his position as a movement’s evis-
cerating bard. The New York Anti-Imperialist League invited the author to
become one of that body’s vice presidents.
“Yes, I shall be glad to be a vice president of the League,” he wrote back, Headstrong Hero
“a useless because non-laboring one, but prodigiously endowed with sym- TR made clear a
pathy for the cause.” Twain proudly held the title for the rest of his life. desire to see his
Encouraged by the success of his salutation, Twain decided to codify nation rank first
among peers.
44 AMERICAN HISTORY

Lion in Winter
A 1901 sketch posed
Twain as the anti-im-
perialist “American
Lion of St. Mark’s.”
OPPOSITE: CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: FALKENSTEINFOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK; EVERETT COLLECTION INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: THE MARK TWAIN HOUSE & MUSEUM, HARTFORD, CT
his anti-imperialist creed in a full-length essay. The result was
one of his most powerful pieces, “To the Person Sitting in
Darkness,” in which Twain slashes at the so-called civilized
powers: Britain for its brutality in South Africa, others for dis-
membering China, and “the blessings-of-civilization trust” for
dealing in “glass beads and theology, and Maxim guns and
hymn books.” Twain especially rues America’s “bad mistake”
in annexing the Philippines.
“It was a pity; it was a great pity, that error; that one griev-
ous error, that irrevocable error,” Twain wrote. “For it was the
very place and time to play the American game again. And at
no cost. Rich winnings to be gathered in, too; rich and perma-
nent; indestructible; a fortune transmissible forever to the
children of the flag. Not land, not money, not dominion—no,
something worth many times more than that dross: our share,
the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and persecuted
slaves set free through our influence; our posterity’s share,
the golden memory of that fair deed.”
At the conclusion, Twain, in the wickedest paragraph in
the literature of American anti-imperialism, imagines himself
explaining the 1899 Philippines annexation to an ignoramus:
“There have been lies; yes, but they were told in a good
cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order
that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have
crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned
against the weak and the friendless who trusted
us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and
well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in
the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have
bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to
sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land
and his liberty; we have invited our clean young
men to shoulder a discredited musket and do
bandit’s work under a flag which bandits have
been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have
debauched America’s honor and blackened her
face before the world; but each detail was for the
best…And as for a flag for the Philippine Prov-
ince, it is easily managed. We can have a special
one—our States do it: we can have just our usual
flag, with the white stripes painted black and the
stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.”
This venomous essay became one of Twain’s
most popular articles. The American Anti-Imperi-
alist League published “To the Person Sitting in
Darkness” as a pamphlet, distributing 125,000
copies—paid for by tycoon Andrew Carnegie, who
called the work “a new Gospel of Saint Mark…
which I like better than anything I’ve read for
many a day.” Reprints blossomed nationwide.
Some newspapers ran editorials about “Darkness”
day after day. “Mark Twain,” the Springfield Daily
Republican reported, “has suddenly become the
most influential anti-imperialist, and the most
dreaded critic of the sacrosanct person in the
White House, that the country contains.” The strong response
encouraged Twain to press on. One essay offered an unortho-
dox apologia for George Washington:
“He did not write the Declaration of Independence, as
some historians erroneously believe, but excused himself on
the plea that he could not tell a lie. It was the intention of the
Americans to erect a stately Democracy in their land, upon a
basis of freedom and equality before the law for all; this
Democracy was to be the friend of all oppressed weak peo-
ples, never their oppressor; it was never to steal a weak land
or its liberties; it was never to crush or betray struggling
republics, but aid and encourage them with its sympathy. The
Americans required that these noble principles be embodied
in their Declaration of Independence and made the rock on
which their government should forever rest. But George
Washington strenuously objected. He said that such a Decla-
ration would prove a lie…that as soon as the Democracy was
strong enough it would wipe its feet on the Declaration and
look around for something to steal—something weak, or
something unwatched—and would find it; if it happened to
be a republic, no matter; it would steal anything it could get.”
Twain emerged as an anti-imperialist much as Thoreau and
Emerson, half a century before, had become abolitionists.
Twain had a distinct contrarian impulse. His characters were
often unconventional. Instinctive skepticism, however, does
OCTOBER 2017 45

not explain the intensity of Twain’s opposition to American
expansion. Life experience brought him to this point of view.
Partly as a result of foreign travel, Twain viewed race in
more enlightened terms than did most Americans. Often he
wrote admiringly about anti-colonial rebels. He saluted the
nationalist Boxers in China, portrayed in the American press
as missionary-slaughtering savages. “The Boxer is a patriot, he
is the only patriot China has and I wish him success,” Twain
wrote in a letter. To another correspondent, he said, “My
sympathies are with the Chinese. They have been villainously
dealt with by the sceptered thieves of Europe, and I hope they
will drive all of the foreigners out and keep them out for good.”
Twain was always an iconoclast, but his pen never dripped
as poisonously as when he was skewering American imperi-
alism. In speeches, interviews, letters, and pamphlets, he
scorned and condemned the expansionist project.
“We find a whole heap of fault with the war in South
Africa, and feel moved to hysterics by the sufferings of the
Boers, yet we don’t seem to feel very sorry for the natives in
the Philippines,” he told a reporter. In a letter to a friend he
confessed, “I am distressed because our President [William
McKinley] has blundered up to his neck in the Philippine
mess, and that I am grieved because this great big ignorant
nation, which doesn’t even know the ABC facts of the Philip-
pine episode, is in disgrace before the sarcastic world.” When
the War Department, to encourage enlistments, began placing
patriotic poems in newspapers, Twain sent one of the poets a
46 AMERICAN HISTORY
Fitting and Proper
A 1900 cartoon has
President William
McKinley measuring
Uncle Sam for a role
as world leader.
note: “Will you allow me to say that I like these poems of
yours very much? Especially the one which so vividly pic-
tures the response of our young fellows when they were sum-
moned to strike down an oppressor and set his victim free.
Write a companion to it and show us how the young fellows
respond when invited by the Government to go out into
the Philippines on a land-stealing and liberty-crucifying
campaign.” Twain even rewrote “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic” to fit what he saw as the tenor of the times:
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching
of the Sword
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s
wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe
and death is stored,
His lust is marching on.
Twain’s writings and speeches of 1900-01 made him the
anti-imperialist movement’s highest-profile star. Many
anthologies of his work conspicuously exclude these works,
NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
possibly due to a censorious impulse that began with his wife.
“Does it help the world to always rail at it?” Olivia Clemens
asked her husband in a letter. “There is great & noble work
being done, why not sometimes recognize that? Why always
dwell on the evil until those who live beside you are crushed
to the earth & you seem almost like a monomaniac?”
Twain agreed that some of his rants were too extreme for
public consumption. Privately he looked forward to a day when

he could be “as caustic, fiendish and devilish as possible” and
publish tirades that would “make people’s hair curl.” Yet his side
was steadily losing the political debate. The Senate ratified
McKinley’s treaty making the Philippines an American terri-
tory. The Supreme Court ruled in the “insular cases” that Amer-
ican subjects in overseas territories are not entitled to
constitutional rights. In the 1900 election, McKinley won a sec-
ond term with Roosevelt as his new vice president.
The vice presidency, largely a meaningless job, pulled Roos-
evelt out of the public eye. After taking the oath of office on
March 4, 1901, he presided over the Senate for four days,
whereupon that body declared its customary nine-month
recess. Most lawmakers left Washington. Roosevelt decamped
to his Oyster Bay, New York, estate. Occasionally he made
speeches, always returning to familiar themes. On September
5, the vice president told an audience in Burlington, Vermont,
that American rule was “giving to the Philippines a degree of
freedom which they could never have attained had we permit-
ted them to fall into anarchy or under tyranny.”
The next day, Roosevelt decamped to Isle La Motte in
THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK
Lake Champlain, near the Canadian border, where his friend
Nelson Fisk, a former lieutenant governor of Vermont, had an
estate. Roosevelt was entering Fisk’s home after a fete in the
garden when the telephone rang. Answering it, Fisk beckoned
Roosevelt inside. Murmurs rippled through the crowd in the
yard until Senator Redfield Proctor (R-Vermont) emerged.
Killing McKinley
With a .32, assassin Leon
Czolgosz put Roosevelt
in the White House.
“Friends, a cloud has fallen over this happy event,” he said. “It
is my sad duty to inform you that President McKinley, while
in the Temple of Music at Buffalo, was this afternoon shot by
an anarchist.” McKinley died eight days later.
“I told William McKinley that it was a mistake to nominate
this man in Philadelphia!” Senator Mark Hanna Citizen(R- Ohio)
Morgan
fumed aboard the funeral train. “I asked him Irene
In 2001, if he Morgan
realized
what would happen if he should die. Now look!
accepts theThat damned
Presidential
cowboy is President of the United States!”Citizens Medal from
Twain saw the end at hand. “We have President Bill Clinton.
never had a Presi-
dent before who was destitute of self-respect & of respect for
his high office,” he fumed. “We have had no President before
who was not a gentleman; we have had no President before
who was intended for a butcher, a dive-keeper or a bully.”
Despondent, Twain wrote a bitter lament. His observa-
tions, trenchant then, sound eerily appropriate today.
“It was impossible to save the Great Republic,” Twain
wrote. “She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long
ago done its work. Trampling upon the helpless abroad had
taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the
like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of
other people’s liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in
their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the
hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on, the suf-
frage was become a mere machine, which they used as they
chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patrio-
tism but of the pocket.” +
OCTOBER 2017 47
Playing Defense
At 1973 Senate hear-
ings, Haldeman tried
to justify White House
lawyers sitting in while
FBI agents queried
presidential staff.

NIXON’S S.O.B.
White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

became the model for all who followed

By Chris Whipple
48 AMERICAN HISTORY
O n the 39th floor of New York City’s Pierre
Hotel, in a suite monitored by closed-circuit
cameras and Secret Service agents, Richard M.
Nixon looked out over the threadbare landscape
of Central Park. It was December 1968, and Nixon
was huddled with his closest adviser, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, a grave young
man in a tweed jacket and a brush haircut. The victorious candidate and his
chief of staff were scribbling on yellow legal pads, planning the next presi-
dency of the United States, now just a month away.
Having served as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, Nixon knew the
presidency could be a “splendid misery,” as Jefferson put it, unresponsive
even to the commands of the most celebrated general in modern history.
“Poor Ike!” predecessor Harry Truman had quipped upon Eisenhower’s elec-
tion. “He’ll sit here and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen.
It won’t be a bit like the Army.”
Richard Nixon was determined to control his fate. His cabinet would be
full of strong, idiosyncratic personalities. But the 37th president wanted
someone to keep them in line, to ensure that his agenda would be executed,
giving him time and space to think. Haldeman would be that person. As his
chief of staff recalled years later, referring to himself in the third person:
“Eisenhower had told Nixon that every president has to have his own ‘SOB.’
Nixon had looked over everyone in his entourage and decided that Halde-
man was a pluperfect SOB. And because of that somewhat unflattering
appraisal, my career took a rise.”

Of course, Haldeman’s career, and the Nixon

presidency, would suffer a spectacular fall that
began when the Watergate scandal unfolded,
eventually sending the disgraced president into
exile and his chief to prison. Newsweek wrote:
“Harry Robbins Haldeman is Richard Nixon’s
son of a bitch, glowering out at the world under a
crew cut that would flatter a drill instructor with
a gaze that would freeze Medusa.”
Indeed, Haldeman seemed to personify Nix-
on’s “imperial presidency.” And yet, in one of the
great ironies of presidential history, Haldeman’s
successors credit him with creating the template
Adapted by the for the modern White House chief of staff—a
author from The model that presidents since Nixon have strayed
Gatekeepers: How from at their peril. “There was a conventional
the White House wisdom that Watergate occurred because [of] the
Chiefs of Staff White House chief of staff system under Halde-
Define Every Pres- man,” says Dick Cheney, who at 34 became Ger-
idency Copyright ald Ford’s gatekeeper. “That wasn’t true. The truth
© 2017 by Christo- is, sooner or later nearly every president, no mat-
pher C. Whipple. ter what he thinks when he arrives, ends up fol-
Published by lowing the Haldeman system.”
Crown, an imprint Harry Robbins Haldeman and Richard Mil-
of Penguin Ran- hous Nixon made for an odd couple, worlds apart
dom House LLC. socially. H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, an advertising

OCTOBER 2017 49
The Selling of the President 1968
Nixon confers with Haldeman on
a flight during the campaign that
brought the Californians victory.

Inside Men
Nixon and advisers Haldeman,
Dwight Chapin, and John
Ehrlichman huddle in the Oval
Office on March 13, 1970.

50 AMERICAN HISTORY
 agency executive in Los Angeles, was an unlikely candidate
for presidential consigliere. “Bob Haldeman would have been
a superstar had he never gone to the White House,” recalls
Larry Higby, who at 23 followed Haldeman from J. Walter
Thompson to the White House. Indeed, Haldeman in the
early 1960s was Southern California royalty: regent of the
University of California; president of the UCLA alumni asso-
ciation; founding chairman of the California Institute of the
Arts. But Haldeman had found his calling as an advance man
in Nixon’s 1960 presidential campaign; he would later man-
age Nixon’s successful run for the White House in 1968.
Holed up in Nixon’s transition headquarters at the Pierre,
Haldeman devised what he called a staff system, to be followed
as a model of White House governance.
On December 19, 1968, he summoned members of the
nascent administration to a meeting. Watching from the back
of the room, speechwriter William Safire took notes as the
president-elect’s newly anointed chief addressed the troops:
“Our job is not to do the work of government, but to get the
work out to where it belongs—out to the Departments,” Halde-
man explained to subordinates. “Nothing goes to the president
that is not completely staffed out first, for accuracy and form,
for lateral coordination, checked for related material, reviewed
by competent staff concerned with that area—and all that is
essential for Presidential attention.”
Haldeman warned about what he called end-running—
when someone with his own agenda meets privately with
the president without going through the chief of staff, all too
often resulting in an ill-considered presidential edict with
unintended consequences: “That is the principal occupation
of 98 percent of the people in the bureaucracy. Do not permit
anyone to end-run you or any of the rest of us. Don’t become
a source of end-running yourself, or we’ll miss you at the
White House.”
No nuance of statecraft or image making escaped Halde-
man’s attention. Nothing was exempt from his “zero defect”
policy, recalls Terry O’Donnell, a White House veteran who
became a Nixon aide in 1972. “He expected perfection. He
said, ‘This White House is the president’s house and it should
be the best in the world,’” O’Donnell said. “So if he walked
through the West Wing and saw a paper askance, he’d make
note of it. And if he went, literally, into the john at Camp
David—because this really happened—and the toilet paper
roll was almost run down, he made a note of it and said,
AP PHOTO; EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
‘Terry, that’s not as it should be. Fix it.’”
With their Germanic names, Haldeman and Nixon’s chief
domestic adviser, John Ehrlichman, were christened by the
media “the Berlin Wall.” The narrative took hold of Haldeman
as the leader of a Praetorian Guard that isolated the presi-
dent, building a wall between Nixon and his cabinet. Yet that
narrative was not true. “It was just the opposite,” says Higby.
“Contrary to what people think, Haldeman worked to get
more people in to see the president.” It was Nixon who
demanded isolation, preferring memos to meetings, retreat-
ing to his private hideaway in the Old Executive Office
Building. Nixon was “pathologically shy,” according to Ste-
phen Bull, at the time a young presidential assistant. Halde-
man knew that Nixon functioned best when given privacy
and latitude to make decisions. “The most important thing
the president has is time,” says Bull. “And the chief’s job is to
preserve as much of it for him as he can.”
With Haldeman cracking the whip, Nixon forged biparti-
san success in domestic and foreign affairs. The president
was ideologically closer to his Democratic opposition than
many supposed. Welfare reform—or “workfare”—was con-
ceived by Democrat Daniel P. Moynihan, a special assistant
to Nixon. And, as Nixon biographer Evan Thomas points
out, “Nixon began the march, and his administration was an
active player in other traditionally liberal realms like health
care, consumer and job safety, and the environment. He
embraced the mid-20th-century ethos that government
existed to solve problems, and he kept at them until he was
swallowed by Watergate.”
Among Nixon’s major domestic achievements, denounced
by the Republican Party ever since, was the establishment of
the Environmental Protection Agency.
In Nixon’s mind, enemies had infiltrated government top
to bottom; he was determined to root them out. Yet Halde-
man often acted as a brake on presidential orders the staff
chief considered unwise or even illegal. “Presidents are like
everybody else,” explains Higby. “They have moments of
pique—moments when they’re really furious or really upset.
Not only would Haldeman talk Nixon out of crazy ideas, but
they had an understanding that the stuff he [Haldeman] felt
was really bad and really wrong, he wouldn’t do.” Better to
let the president cool off, and return another day. “Now, he
would always go back to the president, a day or two later,
and say, ‘I didn’t do that,’” says Higby. “‘Remember you
wanted me to do that? I didn’t do that. Here’s why.’”
The White House tapes capture countless instances of
Nixon doing a slow burn as Haldeman tries to tamp down
the president’s anger. In the summer of 1971, Nixon was
convinced that classified documents had been spirited out
of the State Department and locked up at the Brookings
Institution, a liberal think tank. He demanded action.
NIXON: …I want Brookings, I want them just to break in
and take it out. Do you understand?
NIXON: That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t discuss it
here… I want the break-in. Hell, they do that. You’re to
break into the place, rifle the files, and bring ’em out.
HALDEMAN: I don’t have any problem with breaking in.
It’s a Defense Department–approved security...
NIXON: Just go in and take it. Go in around 8:00 or
9:00 o’clock.
HALDEMAN: Make an inspection of the safe.
OCTOBER 2017 51
Tools of the Trade
A typewriter from
Rose Mary Woods’s
office and the famous
tape recorder.
NIXON: That’s right. You go in to inspect the safe. I mean,
clean it up.
In a subsequent meeting, the commander-in-chief offers a
dark rationale for law-breaking.
NIXON: Do you think, for Christ’s sakes, that The New
York Times is worried about all the legal niceties? Those
sons of bitches are killing me… We’re up against an
enemy, a conspiracy. They’re using any means. We are
going to use any means. Is that clear?
Haldeman managed to shelve the break-in plan, but before
long the harebrained plot would come to life again.
Nixon’s fate turned on ending the Vietnam War; his inabil-
ity to do so triggered a pattern of destructive behavior that
would end his presidency. More than 57,000 Americans,
along with hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, including
civilians, had been killed. Nixon and his inner circle blamed
domestic opposition; agitators who were pawns of Moscow;
52 AMERICAN HISTORY
Hearts and Minds
Nixon’s special
counsel Charles
Colson wound up
doing time
in prison.
Original Sin
The first
break-in target
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; THE WASHINGTON POST/CONTRIBUTOR/GETTY IMAGES; EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
was the office
of the therapist
of Daniel
Ellsberg, left.
traitors who were leaking national security secrets. The White
House was literally surrounded by antiwar protesters.
Besieged, Nixon and his chief would unwittingly give their
enemies the keys to the fortress. In February 1971, Nixon had
posed to Haldeman a seemingly mundane question: How
could they preserve the president’s conversations for poster-
ity? Haldeman suggested installing a manual recorder, which
the president could turn on and off, taping selectively. But
Nixon was incapable of operating even the simplest mechan-
ical device. “So eventually Haldeman said, ‘Well, the only
other thing you can do is do a voice-activated system,’” Higby
recalled. “And that is when we put in the system that later
became the tapes.” As one Nixon staffer would later note rue-
fully, “For want of a toggle switch, the presidency was lost.”
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing
the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the U.S. in Vietnam
from 1945 to 1967, drawn from classified documents. The
sensational leak, by a former Pentagon aide named Daniel
Ellsberg, enraged Nixon. His determination to “get” Ellsberg
set in motion what Attorney General John Mitchell called
the “White House horrors”—the ill-conceived intelligence
 Shadow Facts
A Colson memo uses
veiled terms to refer
to illicit activities.
operations that would doom his presidency. For Nixon’s chief
of staff, managing this crisis would be the ultimate test. H.R.
Haldeman would fail that test spectacularly.
With the tapes silently rolling, Nixon demanded dirt on his
enemies, and on Ellsberg in particular, setting into motion a
chain of events that would spiral out of Haldeman’s control.
The chief had become adept at ignoring orders that were
beyond the pale. But other Nixon confidants were less squea-
mish. Charles Colson, a ruthless political hatchet man and
Nixon favorite, became the president’s go-to person for dubi-
ous if not flagrantly illegal commands. Colson came and went
from the Oval Office, meeting privately with Nixon. And it
wasn’t just Colson; Ehrlichman had set up an under-the-ra-
dar intelligence unit within the White House itself. “The
Plumbers,” as they were known, were born of Nixon’s frustra-
tion with his own FBI. Nixon was convinced that J. Edgar
Hoover was refusing to do for him what he had done for other
presidents: off-the-shelf—that is, illegal—political espionage.
The origin of the illegal break-in at the Democratic
National Committee on June 17, 1972, remains a mystery,
debated for 40 years. There is still no evidence that Haldeman
CYNTHIA JOHNSON/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
or Nixon specifically approved the plot. But one thing is clear:
With winks and nods and looks-the-other-way, the White
House gave the green light to an intelligence apparatus that
had become a criminal enterprise.
How could the break-in and the other White House “hor-
rors” have happened on Haldeman’s watch? “This is the big
mystery about Haldeman,” says biographer Thomas. “Most
people seem to think he was the best chief of staff ever in
many ways. The paperwork was good, the quality of the paper
was good, the chain of command. And Haldeman enforced
that. So he runs this incredibly tight ship. But he just misses
the danger of Watergate.” For Terry O’Donnell, who worked
closely with him, the idea of Haldeman approving tawdry
second-story jobs makes no sense: “He had a very keen sense
of where the line politically and otherwise was about what
you can do. I don’t think he ever would have bought into any
of the illegal activities—and he would have driven a spike into
the Watergate break-in, the stupidest damn thing.”
Saturday, June 17, 1972, was a beautiful day at the presiden-
tial compound in San Clemente, California. Working by the
pool, Higby and Haldeman looked up to see press secretary
Ron Ziegler hurrying toward them. Ziegler brought a strange
news clipping: Five men, wearing rubber surgical gloves, had
been arrested while trying to plant electronic surveillance
devices at the Democratic National Committee headquarters
at the Watergate. “The news item was jarring, almost comical
to me,” Haldeman writes in his memoir. “My immediate reac-
tion was to smile. Wiretap the Democratic Committee? For
what? The idea was ludicrous.” But Haldeman’s claim that he
was surprised is as dubious as Captain Renault in Casablanca
voicing shock that there was gambling going on at Rick’s cafe.
More persuasive is Haldeman’s next entry: “Not that I was all
that horrified of wiretapping or bugging in general. Ever since
a conversation with J. Edgar Hoover at New York’s Pierre
Hotel in 1968, which revealed the extent of the political wire-
tapping by President Lyndon B. Johnson, I had felt no instinc-
tive aversion to such bugging by Republicans.”
Within days, Nixon and his chief of staff were neck-deep in
the cover-up: They discussed everything from paying hush
money to the burglars to ordering the CIA to stop the FBI from
pursuing its investigation. As Thomas observes: “Haldeman
says, ‘Well, gee, I didn’t think of it as obstruction of justice; I
thought of it as containment.’ But, boy, his radar sure is failing
OCTOBER 2017 53
 Hot Seat
With crisis entangling
Nixon (inset), staff chief
Haldeman testified at
August 3, 1973, Senate
Watergate hearings.

Monster Mash-Up him.” Dean points out that Haldeman “withholds a lot of information from
As the scandal deepened, Nixon… He uses a kind of code language and code signals in those early
once-feared figures came conversations—alerting him to the fact that there are some problems. It was
in for cruel caricature. just too ugly to face so that’s why it went forward.”

By spring 1973, as congressional investigators and prosecutors were

closing in, pressure was growing for Nixon to save himself by firing Halde-
man and Ehrlichman. On the evening of April 30, in a televised address

TOP: PHOTO BY HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; INSET: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; BOTTOM: NEWSPAPERS.COM
from the Oval Office, Nixon announced the resignations of “two of the fin-
est public servants it has been my privilege to know.” Yet Haldeman wasn’t
finished doing Nixon’s bidding. When the existence of the White House
taping system came to light, Nixon’s ex-chief continued to give him advice.
“Haldeman said that the tapes were still our best defense,” Nixon wrote in
a memoir. “He recommended that they not be destroyed.” Indeed, Halde-
man believed the recordings somehow would exonerate them. “Haldeman
said to me, on a number of occasions, I think the tapes will really be the
thing that at the end saves the president,” says Higby. The truth was just
the opposite. The discovery of the tapes—hard evidence of the president’s
immersion in the cover-up—meant the Nixon presidency was finished.

As their defenses collapsed, Nixon and his chief of staff behaved less
like seasoned Machiavellians than befuddled amateurs. Haldeman
would defend Richard Nixon to the end. Before the Senate Watergate
Committee, the president’s ever-dutiful chief insisted that Nixon had no
knowledge of the cover-up and never authorized giving hush money to
the burglars. For those untruths, H.R. Haldeman would be convicted of
perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice and sent to prison at the

54 AMERICAN HISTORY
 When the Whip
Came Down
Haldeman entered
the federal prison
system in June 1977.

San Clemente Bound

Nixon prepares to depart the White
House lawn on August 9, 1974.

federal minimum security facility in Lompoc, California,
where he served a sentence of 18 months.
“Son of Nixonstein” read a cartoon showing the fallen
chief as a monster. To the press, and to most Americans,
Haldeman seemed proof that too much power invested in a
White House staff chief leads to calamity. But that’s not the
way Haldeman’s successors saw him. In January 1986, Nix-
on’s ill-starred chief would emerge publicly again. The occa-
sion was a symposium in San Diego, that brought together
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MUG SHOT/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; AP PHOTO, FILE; AP PHOTO/RICHARD DREW
done, and that was what led to the ultimate crisis.”
Facing the ultimate crisis, Haldeman failed to execute his
own model of White House governance. “Haldeman is at the
center of it,” says Evan Thomas. “Because he’s the guy in the
room who should have been able to go, ‘STOP! STOP!’”
“If I had it to do over, I would do so differently,” Haldeman
said. “I would take the bad guy in Nixon on frontally, at least
some of the time.” +

former White House senior aides and chiefs of staff: Dwight

Eisenhower’s Andrew Goodpaster; John Kennedy’s Theodore
Sorensen; Lyndon Johnson’s Harry McPherson; and three
chiefs who followed Haldeman—Gerald Ford’s Donald Rums-
feld and Dick Cheney, and Jimmy Carter’s Jack Watson.
Haldeman struck these savvy White House veterans as
serene, charming, and in total command of his subject.
Cheney was bowled over by his predecessor’s mastery of the
nuances implicit in the chief’s job. “After about two days
together, it was clear Haldeman knew more about it than
anybody else,” Cheney says.
At the conference, Nixon’s ex-chief was asked how the
Watergate scandal had come about.
“The thing that went wrong is that the system was not fol-
lowed,” Haldeman said. “Had we dealt with [Watergate] in the
way we set up from the outset…we would have resolved that Felonious Friends
matter satisfactorily, probably unfortunately for some people, Haldeman and Ehrlichman in
but that was necessary and should have been done. It wasn’t 1987 at Hofstra University.

OCTOBER 2017 55
 Tracks of a Traitor
When he turned his coat, Benedict Arnold
turned a revolution against him
By Norm Goldstein

A Complicated Man
To match his ambition and valor,
Arnold, above and opposite with
Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga,
had a powerful yen for wealth.

56 AMERICAN HISTORY
 G eneral George Washington
got to West Point, New York,
on Monday, September 25,
1780, expecting to find his
subordinate, Major General Benedict Arnold, awaiting him.
Washington recently had appointed Arnold commander of
the fort at West Point that secured the Hudson River against
British attack. Washington had told Arnold he wanted to
inspect the camp, but Arnold was absent. A servant told
Washington Arnold had said he would return shortly.
That was a lie.
Just before Washington arrived, Arnold had fled to the
Hudson shore, where a rowboat carried him downriver to
HMS Vulture, a British warship. Washington soon found out
why West Point’s commander had cut and run. Captured doc-
uments revealed that Benedict Arnold had sold out his coun-
try. “Whom can we trust now?” Washington said.
OPPOSITE: PAINTING BY THOMAS HART/NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THIS PAGE: PICTORIAL PRESS LTD./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Arnold’s about-face staggered the commander in chief,
who had extolled the other man as his “fighting general.” The
hero of Ticonderoga and Saratoga and Lake Champlain, the
American Hannibal who had force-marched troops through
the bitter Maine wilderness to fight in Quebec, Arnold had
had his share of disputes with the Continental Congress—dis-
putes in which Washington often took Arnold’s side. No more.
The revolution was at a critical juncture. Treason was a
hanging offense; however, summarily executing Arnold could
unravel the rebel cause. Washington ordered Major General
Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, the whip-smart cavalryman,
to choose among his dragoons “a courageous man” to track
down Arnold and take him alive. Under no circumstances
was the rebel operative to harm or kill the turncoat, even if
that meant allowing Arnold to get away. No one should think
“ruffians had been hired to assassinate him,” Washington
declared to his officers.
“My aim is to make a public example of him,” Washington
said. So began a lengthy, frustrating campaign to seize Bene-
dict Arnold and make him pay for his crime.
Benedict Arnold always had a head for business and a hun-
ger for wealth. Born in Norwich, Connecticut, he grew up in
New Haven. After apprenticing there at a pharmacy, he
enlisted in the colonial militia at 16, fighting in the French and
Indian War. Afterward he set himself up as an apothecary
and ship’s captain, prospering on rum and molasses. But Brit-
ish trade policies and royal taxes drove him into the arms of
the rebellious Sons of Liberty and then the Continental Army.
In May 1775, Arnold, along with frontiersman Ethan Allen
and his Green Mountain Boys, mounted a surprise attack on
New York’s Fort Ticonderoga that took the bastion from the
British. On his way back to the Continental camp at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, Arnold learned that his wife, Marga-
ret, had died, leaving him with three young sons. He left his
boys in the care of his sister, Hannah, and returned to war.
Arnold loved combat and had ambition to match, even
exceed, his valor. He was not a man to avoid conflict, and he
got on the wrong side of Major General Horatio Gates and
other key rebel commanders. Washington was planning to
take Montreal, an assignment Arnold lusted after. However,
the post went to Major General Richard Montgomery. Arnold
suggested a second attack up north; Washington granted him
a colonel’s commission to lead 1,100 troops against Quebec
City. Ill-prepared, the unit left in September 1775 on a gruel-
ing 350-mile trip up Maine’s Kennebec River. Only 600 men
survived. At Quebec, Arnold joined forces with Montgomery,
fresh from capturing Montreal, to besiege the city. That action
failed, as did a December 31 assault that ended with Mont-
gomery dead and Arnold with a badly wounded left leg.
The Americans retreated south to Lake Champlain, where
Arnold revived his seadog skills, commanding a fleet of gun-
boats hastily built to hold the strategic waterway against Brit-
ish advances. The Continental Congress named Arnold a
brigadier general. In open session, Thomas Jefferson praised
the Connecticut soldier.
However, along with combat and attention, Arnold also
loved money. At home, cash was short, and in Congress there
were mutterings that on the retreat from Quebec, Arnold had
profiteered by selling the army provisions.
In February 1777, Congress declined to promote Arnold—
he had hoped to make major general but Connecticut had too
many of those—a decision doubtless influenced by Gates, a
rival for promotion and assignments.
Affronted, Arnold proposed to resign. Washington turned
OCTOBER 2017 57
Unhorsed
At Saratoga in 1777,
Arnold endured
grave wounds
when his mount
went down.
down his offer, meanwhile warning Congress that “two or
three other very good officers” might quit fighting if legisla-
tors kept letting politics dominate the army’s leadership.
Pressing his case, Arnold petitioned Congress. The result was
a plan to convene a Board of War in Philadelphia
to examine the details of Arnold’s stewardship
during the Champlain retreat.
Arnold was on his way to Philadelphia when
he heard British troops were marching on a rebel
supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut. He was
too late to save the stores, but at nearby Ridge-
field, he organized militiamen to cut off the Brit-
ish retreat. In the fight, the enemy shot Arnold’s
horse, which fell and pinned him to the ground
in his stirrups. A Loyalist, extending a fixed bay-
onet, shouted at him to surrender.
“Not yet!” Arnold replied.
Drawing pistols from his saddle, he shot and
killed the soldier, freed himself, and limped off
with his troops.
Exonerating Arnold, the Philadelphia board
declared itself satisfied with his “character and
conduct, so cruelly and groundlessly aspersed.”
In May, Congress finally promoted him to major
general, but refused to restore his seniority over
58 AMERICAN HISTORY
officers who had been promoted in February. Arnold again
played the resignation card, but before he could act on that
threat British General John Burgoyne retook Fort Ticonderoga.
Washington sent Arnold to assist Gates, a senior major gen-
eral, in defending the crucial Hudson River Val-
ley. “I would recommend him for this business,”
Washington wrote. “He is active, judicious and
brave. I have no doubt of his adding much to the
FROM TOP: NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK
honors he has already acquired.”
Arnold arrived to the sound of guns. On Sep-
tember 19, 1777, Gates and Burgoyne clashed
about 10 miles south of Saratoga, New York.
Arnold led a detachment that included sharp-
shooters under Colonel Daniel Morgan who
inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking foe.
Field commanders and ordinary soldiers cred-
ited their success to Arnold, but in reporting the
action to Congress, Gates made no mention of
Arnold. The two argued. With the battle still on,
Gates relieved a furious Arnold of his command
and confined him to his tent. A week later, in the
Second Battle of Sara-
Maine Course toga, Arnold left camp
Map shows the re- against orders to join
gion Arnold crossed his men in attacking a
to attack Canada. British redoubt.
 Turncoat Time
In a midnight
parley, Arnold,
left, met with
André near the
Hudson to seal
their deal.

During the fighting, a musket ball and Arnold’s collapsing horse shat-
tered his already compromised left leg; though the injuries healed, that
limb now was two inches shorter than the right.

In spring 1778, after a winter stalemate that saw the Continental Army
hunker in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, while 23 miles east British troops
occupied Philadelphia, the British abandoned that city and headed for
New York. Needing a military governor to oversee Philadelphia, Washing-
ton in June 1778 rewarded Arnold’s heroics at Saratoga with that position.
City life and Philadelphia’s vibrant social scene appealed to Arnold, who
lived extravagantly. That summer, the widowed rebel general, his raffishly
Pretty Peggy-O handsome looks set off by a ruined leg, met Margaret Shippen.
Miss Shippen Daughter of wealthy and influential Judge Edward Shippen, a Loyalist
as drawn by sympathizer, Peggy Shippen was petite and fair-haired, with sparkling
admirer Major gray eyes. A contemporary described her as “delicately beautiful, brilliant,
John André.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DRAWING BY JOHN ANDRÉ, 1778, GRANGER, NYC; IVY CLOSE IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; GRANGER, NYC

The Handoff
Giving André details
the British need to
take West Point,
Arnold shows where
to hide the papers.

OCTOBER 2017 59

Fox on the Run
Fleeing his home to
avoid Washington,
Arnold rides to the river.
witty, a consummate actress and astute businesswoman.”
While the British were running her hometown, she had flirted
with a charming officer, John André, who left for New York.
Peggy still corresponded with André, whom General Henry
Clinton, British military commander in North America, had
made his spymaster in April 1779.
Pretty Peggy bowled over Benedict Arnold. On April 8,
1779, they wed in a ceremony at her father’s townhouse on
Fourth Street. She was two months shy of 19; he was 38.
Arnold’s taste for the high life during his tenure as Philadel-
phia’s military governor renewed rumors about the source of
his wealth. In a newspaper, a letter writer asked, “From
whence these riches flowed if you did not plunder Montreal?”
A lower-level, politically connected Continental Army officer,
John Brown, published a handbill savaging Arnold. “Money is
this man’s God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his
country,” the broadside claimed. Major Allan McLane, who
had spied for Washington when the British held Philadelphia,
also complained of Arnold’s activities. McLane believed the
governor had made money selling abandoned British goods.
McLane told Washington that Arnold might be in cahoots
with the enemy. Washington stood by his man.
Arnold demanded a court-martial be convened that he
60 AMERICAN HISTORY
Traitor Aboard
Men of HMS Vulture
watch Arnold step
onto the warship.
believed would clear his name.
“Having made every sacrifice of fortune and blood, and
become a cripple in the service of my country, I little
expected to meet the ungrateful returns I have received from
my countrymen,” he told Washington in a letter.
Repeatedly delayed, the court-martial finally acquitted
LEFT: THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NYC; RIGHT: HOWARD PYLE/PRIVATE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES;
Arnold of all but two minor charges, for which Congress
publicly reprimanded him. In April 1780, Washington
weighed in. He hailed Arnold’s “distinguished services to the
Country,” but said he found Arnold’s unsavory conduct “par-
ticularly reprehensible, both in a civil and military view.”
Privately, Washington wrote to advise Arnold. “Exhibit
anew those noble qualities which have placed you on the list
OPPOSITE: MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
of our most valued commanders,” Washington said. “I will
furnish you, as far as it may be in my powers, with the oppor-
tunities for regaining the esteem of your country.”
Proud, put-upon, and debt-laden, Arnold started thinking
about how to change his fortune for the better. A month into
their marriage, he and Peggy sought to land him a British
generalship. Their overture to the enemy used classic meth-
ods, including code names—Arnold was “Monk”—and invis-
ible ink. Peggy Arnold, exploiting her friendship with André
and other British officers, was the go-between—and Arnold’s
energetic partner in crime, though her husband said later that
his spouse was “as innocent as an angel.”
The nearest American command
post was across the river at Tappan,
Washing-
Working both sides of the war, Arnold continued to pester New York. Binding André, the mili- ton and
Washington for plum assignments, such as command of West tiamen marched him to the shore, companions
Point, a fortress overlooking the Hudson 40 miles north of
New York City. A man who had control of such a key bastion
stopping along the way at American
outposts. At one, the ranking officer
arrived at
would have a very valuable chit with which to bargain. sent a messenger with the incrimi- arnold’s
In August 1780, Washington did assign West Point to nating papers to Danbury, Con- West Point
Arnold. That September, Arnold agreed to surrender the fort
for a commission in the British Army and £20,000, arranging
necticut, where Washington was
said to be. The office sent another
residence
to seal the deal by meeting André face-to-face. messenger to West Point to inform to find his
On Wednesday, September 20, 1780, André left Dobbs Arnold of André’s capture. spouse in
Ferry, New York, aboard sloop-of-war HMS Vulture to sail up
the Hudson. A night later, Vulture anchored 13 miles downri-
The messenger reached Arnold’s
residence at West Point just before
hysterics,
ver from West Point in Haverstraw Bay. Washington was to arrive. an act she
Coming ashore by boat, André found Arnold. The men Reading the message, Arnold put on in
talked nearly until dawn, during which time American troops
fired on Vulture, causing the crew to hoist anchor and head
spoke briefly with Peggy, got on his
horse, and rode off.
an effort
south, stranding André. To help his British co-conspirator get Washington and his compan- to deceive
through American lines, Arnold gave André a civilian cloak
and a passport identifying him as “John Anderson.” He also
ions arrived to find Peggy Arnold
feigning a hysterical fit to keep the
them.
gave André six sheets of paper on which he had drawn dia- truth from the commander in chief.
grams and written instructions for taking West Point. As she was raving, her husband was
André went across the river and made for the nearest Brit- at riverside ordering six bargemen
ish outpost, at Tarrytown, New York. The English spy obtained to row him south, where he found
a horse and was well on his way to safety when three local Vulture. As soon as Arnold had
patriot militiamen hailed him. Suspicious, the men searched boarded, the crew sailed to New York, where his new masters
André, finding Arnold’s papers in one of his socks. conferred on him a brigadier general’s commission, accompa-
nied by an annual pension.
The messages unmasking André as a spy were nearly two
days reaching Washington at West Point. A Board of Officers
chosen by the commanding general tried André and found
him guilty of espionage. He was hanged at Tappan October 2.
Major General Nathanael Greene expressed emotions
many American army officers shared toward Arnold.
“How black, how despised...loved by none, and hated by
all,” Greene said of his former friend and compatriot. “Once
his country’s idol, now her horror.”

Washington immediately set in motion a move to abduct

Arnold and make an example of him. As ordered, Lee chose
Sergeant Major John Champe, a 24-year-old Virginia dragoon
“rather above the common size, full of bone and muscle,” to
attempt to infiltrate the British camp in New York City, there
to isolate Arnold and take him prisoner.
To accomplish that—and to dupe the British into allowing
him into their midst—Champe had to fake a defection from
the American camp. He and Lee agreed on a scheme to
accomplish that. Lee again emphasized the need to keep the
turncoat healthy. “If you find that you cannot seize [Arnold]
unhurt, do not seize him at all,” he told his fellow Virginian.
“To kill him would give the enemy an excuse for alleging all
Hanged Man sorts of falsehoods against us.”
Captured, charged, On the night of October 22, 1780, Champe rode 10 miles
and tried, André was from his regiment at Totowa, New Jersey, to the Hudson
executed for spying. River. American sentries, who were not informed in advance

OCTOBER 2017 61
Feigning Flight
Chased by rebel soldiers
unaware of his mission,
Virginia dragoon Sergeant-
Major Champe races
toward British lines.
of the ruse, chased him all the way, but Champe eluded them
to reach a British ship on the river. The vessel’s officers wel-
comed him aboard as a defector.
After interrogation by the British, who accepted him as a
legitimate turncoat, Champe was sent to New York to join the
American Legion, a British unit composed primarily of
deserters from the Continental Army.
In New York, with two accomplices sent by Lee, Champe
shadowed Arnold’s every move and soon saw an opportunity
to act. He outlined his strategy in a message sent by courier to
Washington. “The plan proposed for taking A---ld…has every
mark of a good one,” the commander in chief wrote.
On the night of December 11, Champe loosened a section
of the wooden fence enclosing Arnold’s garden, then replaced
the pieces so that they appeared as always. He told one of the
two helpers to bring a boat to a landing on the Hudson.
Champe planned to sneak into the traitor’s garden with his
other fellow kidnapper, seize Arnold, gag him by stuffing a
cloth into his mouth, and carry him to the landing, where a
waiting boat would take the men and their prisoner to Lee on
the New Jersey shore.
But only hours before Champe’s big moment, Arnold
changed his quarters to get ready for an expedition south.
62 AMERICAN HISTORY
Arnold’s men, including Champe, received unexpected orders
CURRIER & IVES/THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK; OPPOSITE PAGE: HOWARD PYLE/THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK; HNA
to board their ships immediately.
“I was hurried on board the ship without having had time
so much as to warn Lee that the whole arrangement was
blown up,” Champe recalled years later.
Only after the ships were out at sea did Champe realize the
force was going to invade his home state of Virginia, led by
the traitor he had been sent to kidnap.
Arnold’s force of 1,600 troops captured Richmond by sur-
prise, and then went on a rampage throughout the state. In
response, Washington sent the Marquis de Lafayette to Vir-
ginia with 1,200 troops and support from a small French fleet.
Lafayette was under orders from Washington that should
Arnold “fall into your hands,” he was to punish him “in the
most summary way”—hang him immediately—“due to his
treason and desertion.” Washington had hardened toward
Arnold, perhaps because of the destruction he had wrought
in Washington’s home state.
Arnold’s attacks throughout Virginia also attracted the
attention of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who had his own
plan to capture the traitor.
On January 31, 1781, Jefferson wrote to Brigadier General
Peter Muhlenberg about a matter of “profound
secrecy.” He urged Muhlenberg to hire frontiers-
men for a mission, authorizing him to enlist as
many men as necessary. Muhlenberg was to
“reveal to them our desire, and engage them [to]
undertake to seize and bring off this greatest of
all traitors.” He offered 5,000 guineas to them if
they brought Arnold in alive, and promised their
names would “be recorded with glory in history.”
An increasingly paranoid Arnold, however,
knew he was a marked man and employed
handpicked soldiers and sailors as guards. Each
morning, he armed himself with two small pis-
tols in case of an emergency. Muhlenberg’s men
were never able to get close to him. Arnold
remained safe in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Months passed. Each morning Arnold rode
along the Chesapeake shore. In March 1781,
Major Allan McLane—Washington’s spy, who
had suspected Arnold of treachery—plotted to
grab him as he galloped. But British warships
arrived, unexpectedly anchoring in the wrong
place, and once again, Arnold escaped capture.
Jefferson turned to an even more desperate
measure proposed by a Virginia naval captain—
and British deserter—named Beesly Edgar Joel.
Joel suggested turning an old navy craft into a
“fire ship” to be filled with explosives and
crashed into Arnold’s vessel, killing him or forc-
ing him to abandon ship and be captured. Jeffer-
son embraced the idea, ordering that Joel “have
everything provided which he may think neces-
sary to ensure Success.” Jefferson did not know
Joel was a deserter in whom Washington placed
no trust. The intended fire ship grounded on a
sandbar in the James River. Arnold apparently
learned of the plot, and Jefferson called it off.
After British General Charles Cornwallis sur-
rendered at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781,
the Arnold family sailed for England. London
embraced them—at first. Peggy established a
splendid home and Benedict again took up trad-
ing. But their welcome quickly cooled and
Arnold’s ventures in Britain and Canada failed.
Benedict died in 1801. To pay his debts, Peggy
auctioned the house and its contents. She died
in 1804. The lone statue to Arnold—the “Boot
Monument” at Saratoga, New York—invokes the
“most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army
who was desperately wounded on this spot.”
No name appears. +

London Calling
After the war
the Arnolds
relocated to the
British capital.

Bootless, Nameless
A memorial at
Saratoga invokes
Arnold without
naming him.

OCTOBER 2017 63
HERITAGE TRAVEL &
LIFESTYLE SHOWCASE
Home to more than 400 sites, the Civil
War’s impact on Georgia was greater
than any other event in the state’s
history. Visit www.gacivilwar.org to
learn more.
Greeneville, TN
Founded in 1783, Greeneville has a rich
historical background as the home for
such important figures as Davy Crockett
and President Andrew Johnson.
Plan your visit now!
Richmond,
Kentucky
“Part of the One and Only Bluegrass!”
Visit National Historic Landmark,
National Civil War Trust tour, historic
ferry, and the third largest planetarium
of its kind in the world!
Are you a history and culture buff?
There are many museums and
attractions, Civil War, and Civil Rights
sites just for you in Jackson, Mississippi.
Fayetteville/Cumberland County, North
Carolina is steeped in history and patri-
otic traditions. Take a tour highlighting
our military ties, status as a transporta-
tion hub, and our Civil War story.
Explore Maryland with once-in-a-
lifetime commemorations—all at one
destination. Create your family history
by exploring ours. Go to visitmaryland.
org to plan your trip today.
Walk where Civil War soldiers fought
and died. A short trip from Nashville and
a long journey into America’s history!
Call (800) 716-7560.
ReadySetRutherford.com
Edward S. Curtis: The North American
Indian. Historic exhibition of the full col-
lection. Only at the Muskegon Museum
of Art. May 11–September 10, 2017.
Experience living history for
The Battles of Marietta Georgia,
featuring reenactments, tours and
a recreation of 1864 Marietta.
www.mariettacivilwar.com
H I S T O R I C
Roswell, Georgia
Whether you love history, culture, the
peacefulness of the great outdoors, or the
excitement of entertainment, Roswell
offers a wide selection of attractions and
tours. www.visitroswellga.com
For free information about these advertisers, fill out the attached reply card.
There’s no other place that embodies
the heart and soul of the True South
in all its rich and varied expressions—
Mississippi. Find Your True South.
Join us for our Civil War Anniversary
Commemoration including
attractions and tours, exhibitions,
memorials and a selection of artifacts
from Fort Fisher.
A vacation in Georgia means
great family experiences that can
only be described as pretty sweet.
Explore Georgia’s Magnolia Midlands.
Experience the Old West in action with
a trip through Southwest Montana.
For more information on our 15 ghost
towns, visit southwestmt.com or
call 800-879-1159, ext 1501.
Over 650 grand historic homes in three
National Register Historic Districts.
Birthplace of America’s greatest play-
wright, Tennessee Williams. The ultimate
Southern destination—Columbus, MS.
To discover more about Tennessee and
to order your free official Tennessee
Vacation Guide, visit:
TNVACATION.COM
or call 1-800-GO2-TENN
Lebanon, KY is home to the Lebanon
National Cemetery, its own
Civil War Park, and it’s part of the
John Hunt Morgan Trail.
VisitLebanonKY.com today.
Experience the Civil War in Jacksonville
at the Museum of Military History.
Relive one of Arkansas’ first stands at
the Reed’s Bridge Battlefield.
jacksonvillesoars.com/museum.php
The Mississippi Hills National Heritage
Area highlights the historic, cultural,
natural, scenic and recreational treasures
of this distinctive region.
www.mississippihills.org
Six major battles took place in Winchester
and Frederick County, and the town
changed hands approximately 72 times—
more than any other town in the country!
www.visitwinchesterva.com
Known for sublime natural beauty,
captivating history and heritage and
warm hospitality, West Virginia really
is the great escape. Start planning your
getaway today.
History lives in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Visit Brice’s Crossroads National
Battlefield, Natchez Trace Parkway,
Tupelo National Battlefield, Mississippi
Hills Exhibit Center and more.
Explore the past in Baltimore during
two commemorative events: the War of
1812 Bicentennial and Civil War 150.
Plan your trip at Baltimore.org.
Once Georgia’s last frontier outpost,
now its third largest city, Columbus is
a true destination of choice. History,
theater, arts and sports—Columbus
has it all.
Tishomingo County, MS
With a variety of historic attractions
and outdoor adventures,
Tishomingo County is a perfect
destination for lovers of history
and nature alike.
 History surrounds Cartersville, GA,
including Allatoona Pass, where a fierce
battle took place, and Cooper’s Furnace,
the only remnant of the bustling
industrial town of Etowah.
ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION
Confederate Memorial Park is the site of
Alabama’s only Home for Confederate
veterans (1902-1939). The museum inter-
prets Alabama’s Confederate period and
the Alabama Confederate Soldiers’ Home.
Cleveland, TN
Near Chattanooga, find glorious
mountain scenery and heart-pounding
white-water rafting. Walk in the footsteps
of the Cherokee and discover a charming
historic downtown.
If you’re looking for an easy stroll
through a century of fine architecture or
a trek down dusty roads along the Blues
Trail, you’ve come to the right place.
www. visitgreenwood.com
Vicksburg, Mississippi is a great place
to bring your family to learn American
history, enjoy educational museums and
check out the mighty Mississippi River.
Prestonsburg, KY - Civil War &
history attractions, and reenactment
dates at PrestonsburgKY.org. Home to
Jenny Wiley State Park, country music
entertainment & Dewey Lake.
Tennessee’s Farragut Folklife Museum
is a treasure chest of artifacts telling the
history of the Farragut and Concord
communities, including the Admiral
David Glasgow Farragut collection.
Williamson County, Tennessee, is rich in
Civil War history. Here, you can visit the
Lotz House, Carnton Plantation, Carter
House, Fort Granger and Winstead Hill
Park, among other historic locations.
Charismatic Union General Hugh
Judson Kilpatrick had legions of
admirers during the war. He just wasn’t
much of a general, as his men often
learned with their lives.
Southern hospitality at its finest, the
Classic South, Georgia, offers visitors a
combination of history and charm mixed
with excursion options for everyone
from outdoorsmen to museum-goers.
Follow the Civil War Trail in Meridian,
Mississippi, where you’ll experience
history first-hand, including Merrehope
Mansion, Marion Confederate Cemetery
and more. www.visitmeridian.com.
Search over 10,000 images and primary
documents relating to the Civil War Battle
of Hampton Roads, now available in The
Mariners’ Museum Library Online Catalog!
www.marinersmuseum.org/catalogs
Seven museums, an 1890 railroad, a
British fort and an ancient trade path can
be found on the Furs to Factories Trail
in the Tennessee Overhill, located in the
corner of Southeast Tennessee.
Explore the Natchez Trace. Discover
America. Journey along this 444-mile
National Scenic Byway stretching
from the Mississippi River in Natchez
through Alabama and then Tennessee.
Sandy Springs, Georgia, is the perfect
hub for exploring Metro Atlanta’s Civil
War sites. Conveniently located near
major highways, you’ll see everything
from Sandy Springs!
Alabama’s
Gulf Coast
Relive the rich history of the Alabama
Gulf Coast at Fort Morgan, Fort Gaines,
the USS Alabama Battleship, and the
area’s many museums.
'PSU.PSHBOPSH
r

Fitzgerald, Georgia...100 years of bring-
ing people together. Learn more about
our story and the commemoration of the
150th anniversary of the Civil War’s
conclusion at www.fitzgeraldga.org.
Historic Bardstown, Kentucky
History, bourbon, shopping, sightseeing
and relaxing—whatever you enjoy,
you’re sure to find it in beautiful
Bardstown, KY. Plan your visit today.
www.visitbardstown.com
Through personal stories, interactive
exhibits and a 360° movie, the Civil War
Museum focuses on the war from the
perspective of the Upper Middle West.
www.thecivilwarmuseum.org
Come to Helena, Arkansas and see
the Civil War like you’ve never seen
it before. Plan your trip today!
www.CivilWarHelena.com
www.VisitHelenaAR.com
Treat yourself to Southern Kentucky
hospitality in London and Laurel
County! Attractions include the Levi
Jackson Wilderness Road State Park and
Camp Wildcat Civil War Battlefield.
Just 15 miles south of downtown
Atlanta lies the heart of the true
South: Clayton County, Georgia,
where heritage comes alive!
CIVIL WAR MUSEUM
of the Western Theater
Hundreds of authentic artifacts.
Voted fourth finest in U.S. by North &
South Magazine. Located in historic
Bardstown, Kentucky.
www.civil-war-museum.org
Confederate Memorial Park in Marbury,
Alabama, commemorates the Civil
War with an array of historic sites and
artifacts. Experience the lives of Civil
War soldiers as never before.
The National Civil War Naval Museum
in Columbus, GA, tells the story of the
sailors, soldiers, and civilians, both free
and enslaved as affected by the navies
of the American Civil War.
Join us as we commemorate the 150th
anniversary of Knoxville’s Civil War
forts. Plan your trip today!
www.knoxcivilwar.org
Hip and historic Frederick County
boasts unique shopping and dining
experiences, battlefields, museums,
covered bridges, and abundant outdoor
recreation. Request a free travel packet!
St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Visit Point
Lookout, site of the war’s largest prison
camp, plus Confederate and USCT
monuments. A short drive from the
nation’s capital.
Come to Cleveland, Mississippi—the
birthplace of the blues. Here, you’ll find
such legendary destinations as Dockery
Farms and Po’ Monkey’s Juke Joint.
www.visitclevelandms.com
Destination
Jessamine, KY
STEP BACK IN TIME at Camp Nelson
Civil War Heritage Park, a Union Army
supply depot and African American
refugee camp. Museum, Civil War
Library, Interpretive Trails and more.
 the bumblingest
James Buchanan was a study in ineffective-
ness. Intelligence and a peer-pleasing nature
made him popular, but habitual oscillation
over decisions paralyzed his judgment. The
Pennsylvanian who preceded Abraham Lin-
coln as president was, as Robert Strauss puts
it, “The wrong guy for the wrong time.” Strauss
Worst. President. was an apt choice to write this book, which,
Ever.: James despite occasionally dragging and meander-
Buchanan, the ing into asides and personal tales, offers blunt,
POTUS Rating Game, experience-based comments on the career of
and the Legacy of the the free world’s bumblingest leader.
Least of the Lesser Dueling narratives of praise for bril-
Presidents liance and reprimand for rebellion marked
by Robert Strauss young Buchanan’s school days, after which
Lyons, 2016, $26.95 his father’s wealth and influence greased
his entry into lawyering. At 23, Buchanan
embraced politics as a staunch Federalist;
within the decade, however, he was cam-
paigning for Democrat Andrew Jackson’s
successful 1828 White House run. Jackson
despised Buchanan but made him minister
to Russia. “If I could have sent him further,
I would have,” Old Hickory said.
Buchanan parlayed his negotiation of a
Making Nice
In the 1850s, President favorable trade treaty into a ho-hum Senate
Buchanan persuades career, a failed presidential run, and service
warring Pawnee and as James Polk’s secretary of state, of which
Ponca tribesmen to Polk the diarist wrote, “I cannot rely upon
shake hands. his honest or disinterested advice.”
66 AMERICAN HISTORY
Buchanan twice more ran for the White
House and also served as Franklin Pierce’s
“envoy extraordinary and minister pleni-
potentiary to Great Britain” before finally
winning the presidency in 1856.
Out of the gate, Buchanan bid fair to be
the least of America’s lesser leaders. Two
days after his inauguration, the Supreme
Court, ruling in the Dred Scott case, found
the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
Southern sympathizer Buchanan did noth-
ing to calm either abolitionists or slavehold-
ers, a stance that that fanned racial flames
through his term. Otherwise overreactive,
Buchanan sent troops to the Utah Territory
to resolve a false claim of Mormon corrup-
tion and to the Oregon Territory in a beef
over a pig. Despite a willingness to posture
militarily over trivia, Buchanan limped out
of office in 1861 convinced the Constitution
stated he could “do nothing” to stop South-
NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
ern states from seceding.
Strauss balances entertaining snark with
a chronicle of the limp, self-serving leader-
ship that precipitated the republic’s darkest
hour. Worst. President. Ever. is a good-hu-
mored recasting of a cautionary tale.
—Ryan Winn teaches at the College of
Menominee Nation in Green Bay,
Wisconsin
 Never Going Back to
My Old School
Schenley High closed in 2008, eight years shy
of its 100th anniversary and 45 after I walked
its grand halls as a senior. My old school, on
Bigelow Boulevard in the neighborhood of
Oakland, near Pittsburgh’s Hill District, shut
down because a badly needed renovation
would have cost too much. Now the building
is divided into 180 luxury apartments.
Before reading Jake Oresick’s fascinating,
deeply researched book, I had no idea that
simply by attending my beloved neighbor-
hood school I was part of an “educational
experiment.” Experiment chronicles the life
of a competitive environment with a distin-
guished staff, a multifaceted curriculum, and
a student body unique among those of Pitts-
burgh’s public high schools.
My hometown’s first public secondary
school had been Central, which opened in
1855 offering coeducational college-caliber
academics and 13 years later adding voca-
tional courses. Schenley, which opened in
1916, offered the same. But Schenley, a
unique triangular edifice built of Indiana
limestone, deliberately located near Carnegie
Mellon University and the University of
Pittsburgh on land formerly owned by
philanthropist and namesake Mary Schenley,
was different. The school motto—“Enter to
Learn, Go Forth to Serve”—distilled a practi-
cal philosophy. The founders meant to plow
away barriers of class, race, ethnicity, and
neighborhood by attracting students from all
over Pittsburgh and the city’s suburbs. Long
PHOTO BY CHARLES ‘TEENIE’ HARRIS/CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART/GETTY IMAGES
wrestler Bruno Sammartino; Nobel laureate
Clifford Shull; and Broadway singer Vivian
Reed. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa
Cather taught at Schenley.
In contrast to American public education’s
grim history of segregation, Schenley pioneered
openness with voluntary integration obtained The Schenley
through creative reforms. Any student could Experiment: A
enroll in any course, and the courses were Social History of
prescient: Ballet, English as a Second Lan- Pittsburgh’s First
guage, International Studies, International Public High School
Baccalaureate, High Technology, and Classi- By Jake Oresick
cal Studies, among many others. Penn State
The bad news in 2008 included retiring University Press,
the school name, but classes through 2011 2017, $19.95
bore the Schenley brand, whose spirit lives
on at a new facility, Obama Academy. We are
unlikely to see a Schenley High again, but
historical traces in the apartments include
slate chalkboards, classroom doors, nar-
row-plank floors, and part of the original
basketball court.
—Maral Taylor (Schenley ’63) retired from
the U.S. Department of Education after a
career there as a compliance monitor and
earlier as a special education teacher

halls, well-windowed classrooms, a competi-

tion-grade swimming pool and concert-grade
auditorium, a greenhouse, top-tier language
and science labs, and shop and home eco-
nomics rooms welcomed generations of
eager students. Alumni included Harvard
Law School Professor Derrick Bell; artist
Andy Warhol; jazzmen Earl Hines, Stanley
Turrentine, and George Benson; professional

Student Demonstration Time

Pittsburgh photog Charles “Teenie” Harris
nailed Schenley’s spirit in a 1945 image.

OCTOBER 2017 67
 Bird man of america
John James Audubon devoted 13 years to
The Birds of America. Driven to document the
continent’s every bird, he probably did not
imagine that a first edition of his debut book—
print run 200, each copy containing 435 life-
size illustrations, colored by hand—would sell
for $10 million, as one did in 2010. Audubon’s
ambition was to have the world see not the
John James talented naturalist he was but the scientist he
Audubon: The held himself to be. Historian Gregory Nobles
Nature of the explicates the man in all his complexity.
American Born in 1785 to a French sea captain and
Woodsman his mistress, who died within weeks of deliv-
by Gregory Nobles ering him, Audubon grew up in Nantes,
University of France. To avoid conscription during the
Pennsylvania Press, Napoleonic Wars, he sailed at 18 to America,
2017, $34.95 taking up residence in Philadelphia.
Amid business ventures, bankruptcy, mar-
riage, and travels, Audubon found lodestars in
painting and birding. He scoured the land for
feathered species, surpassing predecessor
Alexander Wilson’s count. With images of
200 varieties in hand, Audubon sought
financing for a book he hoped would admit
him to Philadelphia artistic circles. Instead,
Wilson acolytes flayed him, deriding the pre-
tender’s substitution of watercolors and pas-
tels for oils and the wire-and-thread rigs he
Bird’s Eye View used to prop specimens into lifelike positions.
Audubon Plate 307 Happily, Audubon found favor across the
celebrates the Blue Atlantic—and backers in Liverpool and Edin-
Crane, or Heron. burgh willing to underwrite his “Great Work.”
68 AMERICAN HISTORY
Visiting Britain, where people poked fun
at him for being a yokel, Audubon enthusi-
astically embraced an identity as a pioneer-
ing American naturalist and gun-toting
man of the wilderness. Even as he became
more widely known in artistic and scientific
circles, he made America his universe, styl-
ing himself the “masculine hunter…and
self-fashioning man of the people.”
Acknowledging Audubon’s artistry and
fieldwork, Nobles challenges the painter’s
demotic preening, and with reason.
Audubon, in life the embodiment of
mid-Atlantic urbanity, made a point when
posing of vogueing in backwoods drag, cra-
dling not brush and palette but firearms.
“We cannot take all of Audubon’s stories
literally, but we must take them seriously,”
Nobles writes. “The man who took so much
time and trouble to depict birds accurately
left a bold but deceptive picture of himself.”
Nobles’s point-making gets to feel repe-
titious, except in a chapter about Audubon’s
Ornithological Biography. That book offers
descriptions from The Birds of America and
reports how rival birders tried to sandbag
Audubon. Playing to his “kind readers,” the
COURTESY JOHN AUDUBON CENTER AT MILL GROVE, AUDUBON, PA, AND THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA, AUDUBON COLLECTION
author posed questions and offered birding
advice, an angle that Nobles regards as dis-
ingenuous—though he does observe that
Audubon’s correspondence with a youth,
Spencer Baird, led to the discovery of a pre-
viously unknown species of flycatcher.
Audubon and Baird became friends, and in
1850 the National Museum at the Smithso-
nian hired Baird as its first curator.
Deftly dissecting the multifaceted life of
the Frenchman who came to embody the
American pioneer more than any natu-
ral-born citizen, Nobles balances fresh anec-
dotes with skepticism. “Audubon’s greatest
creation was himself,” he writes. At times
redundantly, the author delivers a captivat-
ing portrait of a self-taught, self-made man
who out of passion to paint America’s birds
illustrated a country ripe with possibilities.
—Liesl Bradner keeps an eye out for birds
in Los Angeles, California, and environs
READING WASHINGTON
LIKE A BOOK
A groaning bookshelf gains two additions. The
first takes its subtitle from the author’s conten-
tion that Washington’s willing resignation of his
commission at Revolution’s end was unprece-
dented in military annals. Noting that Washing-
ton himself fired the first shot of the Seven
Years War, Rhodehamel contrasts the then-ma-
jor’s uneven performance in that conflict with
his sure-handed leadership once the Continen-
tal Congress named him to lead a motley of
George Washington;
short-term enlistees, untrained and short on
The Wonder of the Age
weapons, clothes, and food.
By John Rhodehamel
Wonder’s abbreviated treatment of Benedict
Yale University Press,
Arnold is unfortunate. Washington did give him
2017, $32.50
that West Point job, but Arnold pursued it (see p.
56). And Washington was not “baffled” by his
turncoat subordinate’s absence when he arrived
on his inspection tour—he had just learned of the
capture of the spy, Major John André. The author,
formerly archivist at Mount Vernon, methodi-
cally patrols well-trod terrain.
George Washington: A Life in Books explores
much the same territory. Hayes, however, inter-
weaves history with detailed references to and
insights into his subject. The author found a THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL
OF MILITARY HISTORY

trove of volumes personally associated with

Washington, many with his marginalia. Hayes
read Washington’s diaries and journals, notes he George Washington:
took while reading, and his correspondence. In A Life in Books
his early teens, Washington favored material By Kevin J. Hayes
offering young gents moral and practical advice, Oxford University The brazen British mission that could have
changed the course of the Revolutionary War
graduating to works on travel, geography, and Press, 2017, $34.95
history. Assigned to deliver to the French a The Battle for Baikal
demand that they abandon Ohio, Washington studied military exploits. As Germany’s ‘Trojan
Horse’ U-Boat SUMMER 2017

a young husband managing an inherited plantation, he opened agricultural

MHQP-170700-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1 3/30/17 12:18 PM

texts, particularly on alternatives to tobacco, a crop, Hayes explains, that

Washington the planter phased out rather early.
With rebellion afoot, Washington bought political pamphlets on emerg-
ing issues—a practice he kept up. During the Revolution, some of his
library was always at hand, riding in a green baize bookcase. After defeat-
ing the British, he binged on books. In an age when authors funded book
projects by selling subscriptions, Washington subscribed avidly. Not sur-
prisingly, he was considered a superb wordsmith.
Hayes comments knowledgeably on what reading did for Washing-
ton. Those picturing a man of action will find in A Life a portrait of a
president seeking and absorbing a myriad of books to achieve his aims.
—Richard Culyer is a writer in Hartsville, South Carolina
 Depth of field
Sam Stephenson has been swimming a
long time in the Sea of Gene Smith. The
writer and filmmaker began studying the
legendary photographer in the 1990s, aim-
ing to write a mainstream biography. That
effort underwent a sea change—not the
erroneously tidal metaphor today’s com-
mentariat intends, but Shakespeare’s mean-
Gene Smith’s Sink: ing: a mind-blowing transformation:
A Wide-Angle View “…Nothing of him that doth fade/But
By Sam Stephenson doth suffer a sea-change/Into something
Farrar Straus and rich and strange.”
Giroux, 2017, $26 In The Tempest, Ariel sings these lines to
Ferdinand, whose father drowned. Smith,
whose father killed himself just before his
son finished high school, lived in loss and
sorrow and endured his own sea changes.
Coming to photography as other boys of the
`20s came to the fielder’s mitt and the
microphone, young Smith had those dis-
cerning eyes Jack Kerouac invokes in his
Blood and Sand
Smith on Iwo introduction to Robert Frank’s The Ameri-
Jima, one of 13 cans. “You got eyes,” Kerouac croons to
Pacific bastions Frank, as he could have to Smith, who in
whose invasions he his twenties became a star at Life. During
documented. World War II, Smith marinated in gore,
70 AMERICAN HISTORY
including his own, covering 13 invasions,
including Saipan and Guam and Iwo and
finally Okinawa, where he was shot up.
Home recuperating in spring 1946, Smith
rejoiced to compose “The Walk to Paradise
Garden,” showing his children, Juanita and
Pat, stepping from darkness into light.
Smith said later that he needed that day
to make a photo that would free him to keep
working. Revivified, he quit Life and joined
the Magnum collective to produce ambi-
tious stunning essays, like a portrait of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for which Smith
exposed 11,000 frames distilled into 36
pages of Popular Photography. Stephenson
addressed that saga in a 2001 book, Dream
Street, suggesting that this shooter’s shooter
needed more than a single biography.
Life ran Smith stories on a country doc-
tor, a Spanish village, a Carolina midwife,
and the devastated children of Minamata, a
village in Japan poisoned by industrial mer-
cury. Between assignments Smith, whose
own poisons were booze and methedrine,
found succor at home in Croton-on-Hud-
son, New York—but only until he had to
 carom to downtown Manhattan and a loft he rented in an 1853 building
on Sixth Avenue. The loft became a haven for jazzers and junkies, not a
few of them the same individuals. Avant garde music and the scent of
developing fluid filled the space. Smith mic’ed the loft and recorded
24/7, a long-term undertaking Stephenson chronicled in 2009’s The Jazz
Loft Project, another side-eyed look at the master and his unusual ways.
Stephenson in Sink reveals Smith by examining shadows he cast on
colleagues and friends, etching in words a lensman whose life in unde-
served torment yielded images that made him deservedly immortal.
—Michael Dolan is editor of American History

higher ground
Strap on your rucksack and scrabble along
with Maurice Isserman through four centuries
of adventure from New England to the Hima-
layas. Beginning with Darby Field’s 1642 ascent
of Mount Washington in New Hampshire,
Continental Divide is a bracing trek. Isserman
keenly perceives the collision of mountaineer-
ing and Manifest Destiny. Many early explor-
ers went high for lack of an easier path, but
some sought the sublime at wild altitudes and A Scot at Waterloo
The Reconquista
Iraqi Civil Strife
through writing began to influence American Louis XIV’s Gloire
Camel Cavalry
attitudes on nature and exploration. HistoryNet.com
Khe Sanh Siege

Pioneers like John C. Frémont popularized Continental Divide:

westward travel. Frémont led five expeditions, A History of American
including an 1842 odyssey on which the future Mountaineering
presidential candidate “impulsively decided to Maurice Isserman
climb a mountain” he called “Snow Peak.” Atop Norton, 2016, $28.95
what is now Fremont Peak in what is now MAC’S
Wyoming, the adventurer planted the Stars and Stripes, recording the
gesture in his daily journal whose published form, Isserman writes, DAY IN
“became one of the seminal works of American expansionism.” THE SUN
A CEREMONY IN TOKYO BAY BEGAN
Tales like Frémont’s and more cerebral works by Ralph Waldo Emer- THE REIGN OF AN AMERICAN EMPEROR SEPTEMBER 2017

son, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir shifted American sentiment MIHP-170900-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1 5/23/17 9:18 AM

about peaks from regarding them as “impediments[s] to holiness” to

embracing mountainous settings as locales in which to exalt “unsur-
passed grandeur” and find inspiration. Mountaineering evolved from
PHOTO BY W. EUGENE SMITH/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

mere transportation to achieving a state of transport by riding remote

rock faces to transcendental enlightenment. Isserman follows this line in
detail through 1964, documenting not only the proliferation of mountain
exploration but also innovations in climbing technique. The author then
switches tone and topic subtly but discouragingly to rake at modern
mountaineering’s methods and popularity. Isserman’s distaste for climb-
ing as “mass participation activity” threatens to disillusion current and
future enthusiasts. Even so, his book has an agreeable spirit of adven-
ture, curiosity, and existentialism, conveying in print the spark of excite-
ment and tingle of consequence that propels climbers like today’s
suddenly notorious free-soloing phenom, Alex Honnold.
—Gus Long escapes Denver as often as he can to climb mountains
For information on placing a Direct Response or Marketplace
ad in Print and Online contact us today:
American History 800.649.9800 / Fax: 800.649.6712
amh@russelljohns.com / www.russelljohns.com
 The Dry Tortugas…
…are an island chain 90 miles north of Havana, Cuba,
and 67 miles west of Key West, Florida. The name reflects
a lack of fresh water and the abundance of sea turtles in
1513, when Ponce de Leon claimed the islets, or keys, for
Spain. Treasure galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, laden
with 40-plus tons of gems, silver, and gold, sank off the
Tortugas in 1622. Two hundred years later, to gain con-
trol of the Florida Straits, the United States acquired
the islands. In 1847, crews began to transform Garden
Key into Fort Jefferson. That bastion, never completed,
stayed in Union hands through the Civil War. Until
1874, the fort was a prison; Lincoln plotter Samuel Mudd
did time there. Subsequently a coaling station, a seaplane
base, and an oceanographic facility, the Tortugas since
1935 have been a national park. Boats and seaplanes
yearly bring 63,000 visitors, many of them snorkelers,
divers, and birders; 299 avian species have been sighted
there. In 1985, midway between the Tortugas and Key
West, treasure hunter Mel Fisher found the Atocha and
its hoard, estimated value $450 million.
—Michael Dolan

ROBERTHARDING/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; INSET: DANITA DELIMONT/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Island in the Stream

Fort Jefferson is a
magnet for birders,
history mavens, and
snorkelers, inset.

72 AMERICAN HISTORY
 The 75th Anniversary of D-Day:
An Iconic Journey of Remembrance
A Luxury Cruise Program from Amsterdam to Southampton aboard
the six-star Seven Seas Navigator from May 30-June 8, 2019

PRIVILEGED ACCESS TO HISTORIC SITES 6-STAR ALL-INCLUSIVE LUXURY CRUISE TRAVEL IN THE COMPANY OF HEROES

Reserve your place in history

Contact The National WWII Museum Travel at
1-877-813-3329 x 257 or visit www.DDAY75.org
for more information.

LIMITED NUMBER OF SUITES AVAILABLE – BOOK EARLY AND SAVE $2,000 PER COUPLE!