United States History Commons^™

Abraham Lincoln And The Doctrine Of Necessity, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Abraham Lincoln was a fatalist. That, at least, was what he told many people over the course of his life. "I have all my life been a fatalist," Lincoln informed his Illinois congressional ally, Isaac Arnold. "Mr. Lincoln was a fatalist," remembered Henry Clay Whitney, one of his Springfield law clerks, "he believed ... that the universe is governed by one uniform, unbroken, primordial law." His Springfield law partner William Henry Herndon, likewise, affirmed that Lincoln "believed in predestination, foreordination, that all things were fixed, doomed one way or the other, from which there was no appeal." Even Mary Todd …

The Turbulent Sixties At Rutgers: An Interview With Richard P. Mccormick, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Richard P. McCormick’s professional life has been so intertwined with Rutgers University’s history that it is difficult to imagine anyone who knows more about Rutgers or who has put a greater imprint on the institution. Except for half a dozen years living in Philadelphia and Newark, Delaware, during the era of the Second World War, McCormick has been a significant presence at Rutgers for six decades. He arrived as a freshman at Rutgers College in 1934 and, after graduating in 1938, worked for the Department of History as a factotum while completing a master’s degree in history. Recruited to join …

Book Review: The Presidency Of Abraham Lincoln, By Phillip Shaw Paludan, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Americans have had a highly complex love-hate relationship with politics, especially with political ideology. Recent books on the state of American politics underscore the resentment Americans feel at governments that have grown bloated and indifferent. And the groundswell of complaints about congressional "gridlock" and budgetary "train wrecks" seems to show that Americans are particularly impatient with political ideologues who insist on letting their philosophies, economics, or values get in the way of consensus and problem solving. Yet tumbling out of every newspaper, radio, and television, now as never before in this generation, is evidence of Americans' possession by political polarizations …

World War Ii: On The Home Front - M. Francis Coulson Interview, Jenny Sonnenberg

Adams County History

Americans love anniversaries. The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War has afforded citizens an opportunity to remember with pride the great men and events of a war that saved the world from totalitarian tyranny. Happily, memories of World War II have not been restricted to recalling battlefield heroics or diplomatic intrigues. Across the United States, public libraries and local historical societies have commemorated the Home Front during the war years with exhibits that recapture the texture of life on farms, factories, in classrooms, and at home during what Studs Terkel has labeled "the Good War." These …

A Tour Of Gettysburg's Visual Battle Damage, Timothy H. Smith

Adams County History

A little-known aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg is the story behind the Civil War battle damage still present m some of the town's buildings. During the first three days of July 1863, cannons fired over and into Gettysburg, and as a result some of the homes were inadvertently struck by the shells. As a battlefield guide, the author has driven by these structures everyday for the past few years, and a highlight of any tour is a stop in front of the Sheads house on Buford Avenue, where one can point up to an artillery shell embedded just to …

William And Isabel: Parallels Between The Life And Times Of The William Bliss Family, Transplanted New Englanders At Gettysburg, And A Nineteenth-Century Novel, 'Isabel Carollton: A Personal Retrospect' By Kneller Glen, Elwood W. Christ

Adams County History

By 3 July 1863, Union troops under the command of General George G. Meade and elements of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army had struggled for two days over the rolling farm lands, ridges, and rocky crags around a small farming community and county seat known as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Within the encompassing whirlpool ofbattle, however, smaller dramas had unfolded, and one of them is of interest to us here. The soldiers had been fighting for the possession of a house and barn situated equidistant between the battle lines about one and onequarter miles south-southwest of the town square. During a …

Adams County History 1996

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

The Jameson Raid (1758) As A Focus For Historical Inquiry, Charles H. Glatfelter

Adams County History

Each year the Adams County Historical Society receives inquiries either in person or by mail from persons asking for information about a young woman who with the rest of her family was seized and carried off from their home in what is now Adams county during the French and Indian War. She was the only member of that family who was not slaughtered as the raiding party and its captives moved into the western part of Pennsylvania. The subsequent life of this woman among the Indians was deemed of sufficient historical importance that she was chosen to be among some …

Oberlin Perfectionism And Its Edwardsean Origins, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

An impression has very generally prevailed," wrote James Harris Fairchild toward the end of his twenty-three-year presidency of Oberlin College, "that the theological views unleashed at Oberlin College by the late Rev. Charles Grandison Finney & his Associates involves a considerable departure from the accepted orthodox faith." It was an impression that Fairchild believed to be inaccurate, and he would probably be horrified to discover a century later that the prevailing impression the "Oberlin Theology" has made on historians of the nineteenth-century United States continues to be one in which Oberlin stands for almost all the progressive and enthusiastic unorthodoxies …

Union Civilian Leaders, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The American Civil War was a war of civilians. The fact that 3 million or so of them happened to be in uniform was almost incidental, since the soldiers, sailors, and officers of both the Union and Confederate armies were mostly civilian volunteers who retained close contacts with their civilian social worlds, who brought 1f9Culent civilian attitudes into the ranks with them, and who fully expected to return to civilian life as soon as the shooting was over. By the same token, civilian communities in both North and South kept closely in touch with their volunteers all through the war, …

Calvinist Metaphysics To Republican Theory: Jonathan Edwards And James Dana On Freedom Of The Will, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The Reverend Mr. James Dana, the pastor of the First Church in Wallingford, Connecticut, had never before attempted to pick a quarrel with his old friend and ally, Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College. But in the winter of 1782 what was happening at Yale passed all the bounds of propriety and friendship. "I have understood that Mr. Edwards's book on fatality was laid aside some years since at your university," Dana wrote (not stopping to add what he surely must have thought, and good riddance too); but now, "it gave me pain to hear lately" that the …

A Sufficiently Republican Church: George David Cummins And The Reformed Episcopalians In 1873, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

In 1873 George David Cummins, the assistant bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Kentucky, rocked the complacency of the Protestant Episcopal Church by resigning his Kentucky episcopate and founding an entirely new Episcopal denomination, the Reformed Episcopal Church. Schismatic movements in American religion are hardly a novelty. Still, Cummins and his movement occupy a peculiar position in both the history of American religion and the cultural history of the Gilded Age. Unlike the wave of church schisms before the Civil War, the Reformed Episcopal schism of 1873 had no clear relation to sectional issues. And unlike the fundamentalist schisms of …

Funeral Practices In Upper Northeast Adams, Nancy Delong

Adams County History

In 1994 in upper north-east Adams county, local people relate thoughts of death with advanced age, hospitals, and nursing homes. Occasionally, there is an accident or irreversible medical problem involving a younger person. These infrequent occurrences receive much attention from the community. Widespread fear of infant mortality is not manifest.

However, in this same area, from colonial times until about 1920 death occurred in a more widely dispersed fashion: far from being merely the prospect of the elderly, death's inevitability was the unseen companion of young and old alike. Death could occur at random. Mortality was a distinct possibility for …

Catherine Mary White Foster's Eyewitness Account Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, With Background On The Foster Family Union Soldiers, David A. Murdoch

Adams County History

Catherine Mary White Foster lived with her elderly parents in the red brick house on the northwest corner of Washington and High Streets in Gettysburg at the time of the battle, 1-3 July 1863. She was the only child of James White Foster and Catherine (nee Swope) Foster (a former resident of Lancaster county), who married on 11 May 1817 and settled in Gettysburg, Adams county, Pennsylvania. Her father, James White Foster, had served his country as a first lieutenant in the War of 1812. Her grandparents, James Foster and Catherine (nee White) Foster, had emigrated with her father and …

Adams County History 1995

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

Anatomy Of A Log House In Adams County, Pennsylvania And Its Unspoken Language, Elwood W. Christ

Adams County History

Sixteen years after the end of the Revolution, and on the eve of the formation of Adams county, the United States became embroiled in a "quasi-war" with France (1797-1801) which strained the federal treasury. As a result of the diplomatic disagreement, Congress approved several bills to fund America's military build-up. One of these, the U.S. Evaluation Tax of July 9, 1798, was signed into law to raise two million dollars in revenues. The direct or "window tax" was levied based on landholdings, buildings and the number of glass lights, and slaves-in essence, a federal property tax.

Although the "window tax" …

Preparations For The Forbes Expedition, 1758, In Adams County, With Particular Focus On The Reverend Thomas Barton, James P. Myers

Adams County History

In the year 1755, two events occurred which left their impress upon the history of what was to become Adams county. One was momentous, and its consequences, like concentric ripples produced by a stone hurled into a large body of water, continued to move and shape the history of Pennsylvania's frontier long afterwards. By comparison, the other was insignificant, the mere, almost undetectable slipping of a pebble into the rushing torrent of Time. Yet this second happening eventuated in ways that profoundly contributed to our understanding of Adams county's, and Pennsylvania's, history during the years 1755-59.

The lesser of these …

Interview With Thomas Wolf, December 29, 1994 & August 9, 1995, Thomas Wolf, Michael J. Birkner, David Hedrick

Oral Histories

Thomas Wolf was interviewed on December 29, 1994 & August 9, 1995 by Michael J. Birkner & David Hedrick about his service in World War II and involvement in the Nixon administration. He discusses his role in the Air Force Counterintelligence Corps during World War II, and his work with several government agencies, such as the Citizens of Eisenhower and the Office of Economic Opportunity. Wolf also describes the Watergate Scandal and his participation in the trial.

Length of Interview: 92 Minutes (Part 1), 47 Minutes (Part 2)

Collection Note: This oral history was selected from the Oral History Collection …

Interview With Dorothy Bloom, May 28, 1993, Dorothy Bloom, Michael J. Birkner

Oral Histories

Dorothy Bloom, wife of Robert Bloom, a professor of history at Gettysburg College, was interviewed on May 28, 1993 by Michael Birkner about her experience as a spouse of a faculty member from 1949 to 1981. She discusses other faculty members and administrators at the time, her husband's work and the events they participated in on campus.

Length of Interview: 91 minutes

Collection Note: This oral history was selected from the Oral History Collection maintained by Special Collections & College Archives. Transcripts are available for browsing in the Special Collections Reading Room, 4^th floor, Musselman Library. GettDigital contains the …

The Spiritual Structures Of Jonathan Edwards, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Thomas Chalmers once wrote in admiration of Jonathan Edwards that "I have long esteemed him as the greatest of theologians, combining in a degree that is unexampled the profoundly intellectual with the devotedly spiritual and sacred, and realizing in his own person a most rare yet more beautiful harmony between the simplicity of the Christian pastor on the one hand, and, on the other, all the strength and prowess of a giant in philosophy. And yet, despite Chalmer's insistence on balancing Edwards's intellectial eminence with his spirituality, the spiritual structures of Jonathan Edwards remain very much an unexplored territory. Although …

Ritual, Romanism, And Rebellion: The Disappearance Of The Evangelical Episcopalians, 1853-1873, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Sometime during the summer of 1830, the Rev. Dr. James May, an Episcopal clergyman and at that time rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, boarded a Hudson River steamboat on his way to a well-earned rest in the New York mountains. Sharing the same steamboat and the same destination with "a prominent Presbyterian Clergyman of the city of New York," the Rev. Dr. George Washington Bethune. The two divines fell to talking denominational shop, and "in the course of their conversation the Presbyterian spoke most favorably of the Protestant Episcopal Church." May was evidently taken aback; he …

A Test Of Identity: The Vestments Controversy In The Reformed Episcopal Church, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The religious culture of Anglicanism has, since the beginning of the 19th century, developed an extraordinarily rich and eclectic texture of liturgical symbol. The fact that symbol and ritual do bear such a weight of meaning for Anglicans suggests, in turn, that the savage conflict of evangelical and anglo-catholic in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the 1840s through the 1870s over vestments, relics, decorations, and even altar flowers, existed on more than the level of bad feelings or party crankiness. As it is, the very savagery of that conflict in those decades, along with its failure to achieve resolution until …

The New York-New Jersey Boundary Controversy: John Marshall And The Nullification Crisis, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

In 1832 a long-standing boundary dispute between New York and New Jersey complicated the work of Chief Justice John Marshall and President Andrew Jackson. Long reviled by southern states' rights advocates, including the president, Marshall in 1832 faced the prospect of having the Court's decisions ignored by the state of Georgia. Federal authority was further challenged in the fall of 1832, when South Carolina nullified the tariff of 1828, thereby provoking a constitutional crisis. On December 10, 1832, to the amazement of many observers, Jackson issued a proclamation rejecting nullification and secession, and threatening military action if South Carolina did …

The Ohio Company And The Meaning Of Opportunity In The American West 1786-1795, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Founded in 1786 by former officers of the Continental Army to promote an orderly expansion of American society westward, the Ohio Company soon succumbed to the desire of many of its investors to make money. The aims of settlement warred with the desire to make a profit through land speculation; eventually the company dissolved, a casualty of its inability to reconcile the varied interests of shareholders and to manage westward development.

"Men And Measures": The Creation Of The Second Party System In New Jersey, Michael J. Birkner, Herbert Ershkowitz

History Faculty Publications

During the Jacksonian Era, politicians frequently framed election contests as choices between "men and measures." On one side, the argument ran, were politicians who cared only for the spoils of office. On the other, one found those who cared about "real" issues that mattered to voters. Voters, in this context, had a simple choice to make. [excerpt]

Presidential Politics And The Press, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

As the Tet offensive wound down early in March 1968 with staggering losses dealt the North Vietnamese invaders, President Lyndon B. Johnson flicked on one of his White House television sets and heard CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite declare the Vietnam war to be "mired in stalemate." Johnson reportedly turned, visibly shaken, to an aide and said, "It's all over." By month's end, LBJ announced his decision not to seek reelection, in order, he said, to devote his energies to negotiating peace in Vietnam.

No single vignette more graphically symbolizes the power of the press-or at least that of its most …

The Defining Moment: The 1980 Nashua Debate, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

For George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, the debate in Nashua, New Hampshire marked a crossroads in their respective bids for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination. A month earlier, Bush had emerged from a seven-man field by upsetting Reagan in the Iowa caucuses. Reagan had run a relaxed and aloof campaign in Iowa. At the behest of Campaign Manager John Sears and most senor staff, Reagan had refused even to participate in a candidates' debate on grounds that debates were bad for party unity. Iowa voters responded by giving Bush a small plurality in their caucuses on January 21. …

A Salutary Influence: Gettysburg College, 1832-1985, Charles H. Glatfelter

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Written by Professor and Alumnus Dr. Charles H. Glatfelter '46, A Salutary Influence was published in 1987 in commemoration of Gettysburg College’s 150th anniversary. The two-volume set includes a detailed index at the end of the second volume.

The General, The Secretary And The President: An Episode In The Presidential Campaign Of 1828, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

The presidential campaign of 1828 has been widely and understandably characterized as the "dirtiest, coarsest, most vulgar" such contest in American History. Though president John Quincy Adams's strong commitment to active government as a means to national improvement in many spheres of life provided the basis for a serious if contentious exchange of views as he bid for reelection, most scholars agree that the campaign turned less on issues than on the Jacksonians' superior organization and propaganda. [excerpt]

The Way We Were: A History Of Student Life At Gettysburg College 1832-1982, Anna Jane Moyer

College History Publications

In writing The Way We Were: A History of Student Life at Gettysburg College, 1832-1982, it has been my purpose to capture what it was like to be a student at Gettysburg as the changing patterns of that life evolved and shifted with the growth of the College and events in the world outside the campus. Space confines impose perimeters. No attempt has been made to detail the history of organizations or to include many of the names of persons involved in campus leadership. The role of athletics has been mentioned only briefly as two monographs in the History …