by Michiana Covenant | Aug 22, 2013 | Breckinridge
September 25, 2012
I’m only eight months away from RJB’s death, and it isn’t pretty. I’m reading letters from old friends — those who had known him for fifty years or more — and they are begging him to come back to Lexington (his hometown — 40 miles from Danville) to see them again. Sure, maybe they disagree on politics — or on whether to join the southern Presbyterian Church — or whether the Old School should have reunited with the New School…
click
If the telephone had been invented, Breckinridge would have hung up on them. 75% of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky was now part of the southern General Assembly — and then 90% of the 1/4 of Kentucky that remained in the Old School had the temerity to vote for reunion with the New School. And then the reunited northern Presbyterian General Assembly removed him from his professorship at Danville Theological Seminary — some said because he had dared to oppose the Reunion. His brother, William, fled to Missouri, where the independent Old School Synod of Missouri would refuse to join either Assembly until 1874.
In Kentucky politics, it was no better. Anyone who had been pro-Union during the War was now an outcast. Lawyers couldn’t find clients. Shopkeepers couldn’t find patrons. Pastors couldn’t find churches. Many sought out R. J. Breckinridge, seeking his assistance in obtaining the patronage of the Ulysses S. Grant administration (in the old “spoils system” the President could appoint every post master, tax assessor, etc., in the country!). More simply left Kentucky for the north.
R. J. Breckinridge simply hung up.
Of course, in the age of letters, it was easier to say (and in fact it was true) that he was too ill. His long-standing pattern of being deathly ill every winter got worse in 1869 when he was hit with neuralgia — one of the most intense facial pains imaginable. During the last year of his life he was rarely able to write. As he wrote to his son, Willie, one letter could take an entire day to write.
But write he did. He had to make sure that his estate was tidied up for the sake of his children. The Panic of 1870 had severely affected several of them, and he hastened to arrange his affairs so that his death would not add to their troubles. His sizeable estate would guarantee that all of them (with some continued exertion of their own) could live comfortably.
Death continued to stalk him. Two grandchildren died — only weeks apart. Then, a few weeks later, his brother, William, lost a grown son and his wife of 46 years in the span of two months.
By the spring of 1871, RJB’s world had contracted to a very close circle of family, and a very few close friends.
by Michiana Covenant | Aug 16, 2013 | Breckinridge
September 21, 2012
But R. J. Breckinridge was a contented and happy old man as well! Into the summer of 1868 he was lonely and miserable, but as I like to say, history never moves in the same direction for long! There were a number of changes in the summer and fall of 1868 that were conducive to his happiness:
1) While church affairs in Kentucky went from bad to worse (as the “rebel” Synod prepared to unite with the Southern Presbyterian Church), RJB was highly sought after as a speaker and writer in the Grant campaign that resulted in the election of Ulysses S. Grant as president of the United States. [General Grant also gave RJB’s son, Joseph, a six month leave of absence to take care of his late brother, Charley’s affairs]. Whether praised (in the Republican press), or damned (in the Democratic press), RJB was back in the limelight!
2) Speaking of Joseph, he married his late brother’s fiancee, Louise Dudley [Incidentally, Joseph’s eldest sister, Mary, who was supposed to have orchestrated the match, thought that Lou was the perfect soldier’s wife, because she didn’t seem to care whether she could match her skirt to her blouse]. Sister Sophy (in New York) howled that Lou would desecrate Charley’s memory by marrying his brother only 11 months after his death — but then in the next breath hoped that Joseph and Lou would come visit them when they passed through New York back to California!
3) Speaking of marriage, on November 5, 1868, RJB married for the third time. His new wife, Margaret Faulkner White, was 35 year old widow with small children of her own — but he needed someone who would take care of him, and she needed someone who would provide for her and her children. While all three of RJB’s surviving daughters commented to him about how “quite quite young” she was (Mary was now 40 years old, and did not quite relish the thought of calling a 35 year old “mother”), the children all agreed that he needed someone to look after him.
4) Speaking of looking after RJB, the person who seemed most afraid of the change (from what I can gather) was Betty Cowan. In my last note, I referred to RJB’s frustration with his domestic help. Betty Cowan had remained with him after all the other former slaves had left. In 1867 she had married, and her husband had persuaded her to leave RJB’s employ — but life for the freedmen in Kentucky was hard — and so Betty returned to keep house for the “old Doctor.” She was especially fond of John — and wrote to him often while he studied at Princeton. At least one of her letters betrays her fears that the new Mrs. Breckinridge would disrupt “her” house!
5) Perhaps most important of all was his reconciliation with Issa — Willie’s wife. From 1862-1868 there had been virtually no contact between them. Her bitterness towards her father-in-law (whom she viewed as the personification of the hated Yankees) and his patronizing attempts to contact her during the war had resulted in an equally bitter cold war that lasted long after the rest of the Breckinridge clan had reconciled. After two years of icy silence, Willie urged his father to reach out to Issa (since RJB had *never* seen Sophy — the daughter named after Willie’s mother — and had only seen Ella — now five years old — in the street). Charley’s death seems to have done something to soften RJB, and perhaps also Issa. His father replied that his silence toward Issa was not hostility, but simply the inability to communicate with a person who had rebuffed every effort he had ever made. A year later in September of 1868 Willie convinced Issa to take the children for a visit to RJB’s house, and after a few further pleasantries were exchanged, Issa invited RJB to stay for a week at their place in Lexington after RJB’s wedding, even referring to him as “dear Father” for the first time.
Finally — fully three years after the end of the War — the Breckinridge family was at peace with each other.
6) And last, but not least, in the summer of 1868 Danville Theological Seminary finally reopened its doors with the General Assembly’s blessing, and around a dozen students enrolled. RJB was back in the saddle, training pastors for the church he loved. (Admittedly, he almost immediately had one student try to leave due to his comment about the “ingratitude” of more than half of DTS’s graduates who now served in the “rebel” Synod that was seeking to align with the Southern General Assembly. One student admitted that *he* intended to serve in the southern church, and so sought a dismissal. RJB refused — suggesting that the student had misunderstood his comment…)
So…while as charmingly cantankerous as ever, by the end of 1868, RJB was as happy as he had been for many, many years.
by Michiana Covenant | Aug 15, 2013 | Breckinridge
September 20, 2012
Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871) was a very lonely old man. He was committed to rebuilding Danville Theological Seminary after the Civil War — but his circle of friends was getting smaller and smaller. Nearly 3/4 of the members of the Synod of Kentucky wound up rejecting his attempt to keep the Synod in the Old School — as radicals and moderates joined together in uniting with the southern Presbyterian Church in 1869. Throughout the north he was respected and admired as the man who had kept Kentucky in the Union — but in Kentucky he was increasingly irrelevant. The only men who would come teach at his seminary were a handful of devoted followers whose career depended on him. But he had driven away most of Danville’s natural constituency, alienating most of Kentucky by his strong pro-Lincoln, pro-Union stance during the War (one of his many colorful nicknames was “the Reverend Maligner” — one that hurt the most was “the Political Parson” — since he was famous for *never* bringing politics into the pulpit — though he would spend the other six days of the week on the political stump!).
Further, Danville is around 40 miles from Lexington (where his daughter Mary, and his son William, lived). His eldest son, Robert, lived only a few miles away at Chilhowie, and practiced law in Danville — but besides crazy Anny (a demented former slave who simply wouldn’t leave) and an unreliable series of Irish and African servants, few of whom lasted more than a few weeks, his housekeeping was, as he put it, “rather an uphill business; and is likely to continue so – until the ‘darkies’ relent, or we get good enough to take ‘no thought what we shall eat, or what we shall drink.’”
Besides the eldest three, the rest of his children were spread around the country (reminding us that having family spread all over the country is as old as America). He had a daughter in New York, and a daughter in Maryland, as well as two sons in the army in Alabama and San Francisco and a son at Princeton college.
And then, in August of 1867, 23 year old Charles, the youngest son of his first wife, died of Yellow Fever, while serving in the army in Alabama. Charley was the one of Sophy’s children who had no memories of his mother (he was 6 months old when she died). His older sister, Mary, wet-nursed him when she was only sixteen, and then served as a surrogate mother for him.
Once again death had struck RJB. Two wives. Seven children. At least three grandchildren. Seven of his eight siblings by his 42nd birthday.
And now, at the age of 67, he was alone.
by Michiana Covenant | Aug 10, 2013 | Breckinridge
September 19, 2012
I’ve spent the last couple days in the Library of Congress reading Breckinridge letters from 1866-1867. I usually find that the first day I work pretty slowly — and I read more carefully (before remembering on the second day that if I don’t make it through at least 5 volumes of correspondence a day, I won’t finish!!)
The major public event in Robert Jefferson Breckinridge’s life in 1866-1867 was the division of the Synod of Kentucky in the wake of the Civil War. The short version looks like this:
1–During the War, the Old School General Assembly had declared that secession involved the sin of treason, and so any ministers or members wishing to return to the Old School church from the Confederate states would have to repent of the sin of treason.
2–After the War, some Kentuckians (many of whom had fought for the Confederacy) objected to the General Assembly’s rule — and some filed a protest, entitled, “The Declaration & Testimony” (D&T).
3–When the General Assembly declared against the D&T, and determined that the Presbytery of Louisville had erred in adopting it, RJB was determined to prevent D&T adherents from remaining in the Synod of Kentucky.
The Presbyterian church in Kentucky was deeply divided. The lines fell largely between the pro-Confederate men (such as Stuart Robinson of Louisville) and the pro-Union men (such as RJB). Of course, Kentucky in 1866 was already deeply divided. It was very hard for Kentuckians to remember that ‘Union’ and ‘Confederate’ could still be one in Christ. Indeed, it is probably true that Presbyterianism in Kentucky never recovered from the Civil War. Ministers (including R. J. Breckinridge and Stuart Robinson, but by no means limited to them!) were so politically engaged throughout the war that when the war ended, they could no longer view themselves as brethren.
Over the last two days I read several letters written to RJB from pastors who had tried to minister to divided flocks — but failed. Many churches that were barely large enough to support a minister divided — their two ruling elders dividing the congregation. Many of the pastors left the state looking for a place to minister that would not be driven by politics.
To no one’s surprise, lawsuits followed. Who owned the property? In a curious twist, the lead lawyer defending the 2nd Presbyterian Church in Lexington (a Union-friendly church) was RJB’s Confederate son, Willie. Willie was cut to the heart at how deeply he had grieved his father by joining the Confederate Army, and so now (in 1867) he was determined to do everything in his power (consistent with his convictions) to demonstrate his love and loyalty to his father.
The mutually destructive course of Kentucky Presbyterians in the 1860s demonstrates how deeply the church had become enmeshed in the politics of the day. RJB would have been appalled at what the Presbyterian Church became in the 20th century (to say nothing of the 21st century!) — but he contributed significantly to its cultural and political captivity. When the church forgets that we are one regardless of our political differences, we are doomed.
by Michiana Covenant | Aug 8, 2013 | Breckinridge
March 22, 2011
Right now I am reading about the travails of Kentucky in 1860-1861. With the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (over RJ’s nephew, John C. Breckinridge), and the secession of South Carolina, the question for Kentucky was whether to join the Confederacy to preserve slavery — or whether to trust the Union. Many Kentuckians wanted no part of a “Cotton Confederacy” — and even RJB favored at one point a southwestern Confederacy of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas. He suggested that an independent Kentucky would be better than domination by either abolitionists or South Carolina.
Throughout the 1850s RJB had made occasional forays into national politics by writing public letters to prominent individuals (e.g., Charles Sumner, William Seward, and his nephew, Vice President John C. Breckinridge). These carefully crafted letters won him high praise from conservatives — and guaranteed that when RJB spoke on national issues, people from all over the country would pay attention.
On January 4, 1861, on the national Day of Humiliation, RJB gave a discourse in Lexington, Kentucky, which quickly made it into print in newspapers all over the country. He began with the thesis “that our duties can never be made subordinate to our passions without involving us in ruin, and that our rights can never be set above our interests without destroying both.” Shortly thereafter, he began editing the Danville Quarterly Review — which regularly included his political commentary on the political and military course of the Civil War.
One of his first subscribers was Edward Bates — an Old School Presbyterian ruling elder (and Abraham Lincoln’s Attorney General!). Among those who wrote to encourage and thank him for his literary efforts was Francis Lieber, an influential political theorist at Columbia University (and a long-time colleague of James Henley Thornwell at South Carolina College!). Many people noticed at the time (and since) a number of statements in Abraham Lincoln’s speeches that reflect at least a similar mode of expression as Breckinridge, and some were convinced that Lincoln had been influenced by RJB’s arguments. (Certainly Lincoln viewed RJB as a crucial figure to holding Kentucky in the Union).
But it was not merely the bigwigs who paid attention to him. When the Governor of Kentucky proposed holding a convention to decide whether to secede from the Union, a lady from Louisville wrote him, “to implore you to go forthwith to our Capitol and exert every power and influence you possess to overcome such high handed treason. I feel that everything rests upon Kentucky’s course – and that course I am satisfied you alone can direct – God never bestowed such gifts upon you without holding you responsible for their proper use. Go — Oh for God’s sake go — and save your name a name so dear to every Kentuckian — your state and your Country.”
Plenty of other ministers wrote on political matters. But I do not find other ministers receiving anywhere near the attention that Breckinridge did.
Even before the war started, I find that death continues to play a large role in my research.
First, sickness and death plagued the Breckinridge home. RJB himself was terribly ill almost every winter, and sometimes he never really recovered for 6-9 months. Then, in 1859 his second wife, Virginia, died (possibly breast cancer), followed shortly by his son William’s wife Lucretia (seizures after childbirth), two grandchildren, and finally, a year after her mother, his twelve-year-old daughter, Virginia (apparently of diptheria that weakened her heart).
But there is another sort of death that RJB spoke of: controversy. Many people thought that RJB loved to fight — but he disagreed. “I never fight merely for fun: only when it is needful to fight. I don’t understand that there is any fun in it. Fighting means death. Therefore I attack no one — and I advise no one to attack me.”
Fighting means death. I had been thinking this about RJB for some time — so I was pleased to hear him say it! RJB never entered a controversy just for “fun.” He only fought when truth and honor were at stake (in other words, when life was on the line). Of course, I think he erred sometimes in his judgment — but in principle I agree: fighting means death. Is it worth dying over? If not — don’t fight!
by Michiana Covenant | Aug 6, 2013 | Breckinridge
March 21, 2012
The women of the Breckinridge family are a remarkable lot as well. Since my research during this trip has focused on the years 1862-1866, the stories have tended toward the dark, painful, and tragic.
One remarkable providence is that while Robert Jefferson Breckinridge had three sons and two sons-in-law in harm’s way (four of whom were captured at one point or other), none of them died in the war. But as Lee surrendered his sword at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, one of his children lay dying — “one of the victims of this diabolical insurrection.” [1] His daughter, Sally (the one who said, “I wish I was a man,” as I wrote last week), suffered a series of heart attacks that took her at the age of 32. She had spent four years living in Cynthiana — the center of Confederate support in Kentucky — as a staunch Union supporter. During a brief respite in Maryland, she had heard of the capture of her (Union) brother Joseph. She wrote to her father, “I feel so bitter since Josey’s capture. I can hardly stand a rebel in my presence, though the rebels here are not at all like our Kentucky rebels….I dread going back to Cynthiana.” [2]
Of course, for those of you who know something about Civil War history, the timing of Sally’s death was particularly grievous:
April 9, 1865 — Lee surrenders
April 15, 1865 — Lincoln is assassinated
April 23, 1865 — Sally Breckinridge dies
And so as the nation first rejoiced — and then mourned the death of Lincoln — RJB faced a particularly private grief. “[T]he burden…was too great for her frail and sensitive temperament. Whatever idea is most gentle & most powerful, at once, in the words, ‘heroic Christian woman’ — this noble creature realised.” As he commented to Miss Binnie, “Three of my sons, and two of my sons in law — were exposed…as continually, and terribly, to every form of death — as any like number, during this frightful war. And yet the whole five were in this room with me, & with each other but a few days since….The Master came to my flock — and took one noble creature — perhaps the one readiest for the work above…” [1]
The death of Sally, perhaps, was instrumental in drawing those “whole five” together. The Breckinridge children had been drawn close together by the death of their mother in 1844. Mary, the eldest, had cared for the younger children (even wet-nursed the youngest, Charley, who was only four months old when his mother died). But when she married William Warfield in December of 1848, the task of managing the family fell to her 17 year old sister, Sally, who practically reared the younger children for eight years before she married George Morrison in 1856.
Of course, when Sally died — just two weeks after Lee’s surrender — her Confederate brothers were absent: Robert (and brother-in-law Theophilus Steele) in a Union prison in Ohio and William serving in the Confederate Army in North Carolina — only her Union brother, Joseph (recently recovered from his stint in a Confederate prison), and her Union husband, George Morrison, were there.
But less than a month later, all the Breckinridge sons (and sons-in-law) gathered together in RJB’s house, and in most respects, life very quickly returned to some semblance of normalcy. The brothers made occasional references to the “terrible war” (no one at that time would have ever trivialized the War by calling it “the late unpleasantness!”), but never in spite or malice — and the undying love that bound them together once again was made manifest in their daily lives.
In the title of this “chapter,” however, there is a name that has not been mentioned since. There was one Breckinridge who was not reconciled. Yes, the sons and sons-in-law all resumed regular interaction. Even Kate Breckinridge — Robert Jr’s wife — would cheerily invite her father-in-law over for dinner. But Issa Desha Breckinridge, Willie’s wife, remained shrouded in darkness.
Issa was 17 when she married Willie, September 19, 1861. Shortly after her 18th birthday, she gave birth to her first child, Ella (June 7, 1862 — hey, the math works!). Five weeks later, Willie joined Morgan’s Raiders — he had always been a southern sympathizer, but had tried to stay out of the war for his wife’s sake (and blamed his departure on his sister, Mary, accusing her of threatening to denounce him to the Federal authorities) — and did not see his wife or daughter again for nearly three years.
I will not try to adjudicate between Willie and Mary here. But Issa spent the next three years trying to figure out a way to get to her husband. Her parents were concerned that she was too frail — that her health could not survive the rough conditions of the hot, humid, southern summers. She submitted petition after petition to Union Generals, requesting a pass to go to her husband. Denied. She sought assistance from leading men in the county to intercede with the Generals. Denied. She wrote to the President, Abraham Lincoln, who replied that if her father-in-law (RJB) requested it, he would approve.
Issa was furious. RJB was the one man on earth that she would not ask.
Willie tried to persuade his wife to change her attitude toward RJB: “If I am at all worthy of your love — if in my character & culture & training there is anything of which you can be proud or that can add to your happiness, to his love & kindness & influence we should be grateful. I was a delicate child — he was as tender as a mother [remember that Willie’s mother died when he was 8] — I was an obstinate boy — he was patient; I was sensitive & proud — he was kind & indulgent; I was hot-tempered — he was forbearing; I was an eager questioner — he was a willing & oh how patient explainer…. He is old — his life has been a most laborious one — a very great part of it full of suffering — most of it very full of sadness; and my precious loving darling, my heart goes out to him in his old age when I know he has so much to sadden him, with a tenderer warmer love than ever when I loved him better than any one living.” [3]
But when (at Willie’s suggestion) RJB tried to reach out to Issa in March of 1864, her reply stung: “Twenty months and more have passed since Willie was forced to leave Ella & I at your house, and since that time we have had no reason to think that have had even ‘kindly thoughts,’ and I do not now care to accept them, given too only because my husband asks them, and I hope you will no longer feel this as a ‘solemn charge’ when I assure you that neither I nor our child expect or desire any thing from you.” [4] After calming down slightly, she wrote to her husband, saying that in twenty months RJB had never taken the slightest notice of her — or of Ella, “our little child the only child of a son that ought to be so dear to him.” [5]
Since the mails between the Union and the Confederacy were somewhat slower than normal, it was September 1 before RJB could explain his side of the story to Willie: “she had long before that avoided me, and refused to see John….I have occasionally seen your child by accident in the streets; and each time…blessed it, which God, I trust, will ratify.” [6]
Meanwhile, in July of 1864, Issa and her parents heard that the wives of Confederate officers were to be forcibly removed from the state and sent down the Mississippi River. Fearing that Issa could not handle such treatment, her father quickly took her to Toronto, where she joined a group of Kentucky exiles, led by Stuart Robinson (a long-time friend of RJB, who had become his arch-nemesis during the War). Two-year old Ella remained with her grandmother Desha in Kentucky until the fall, when they joined Issa in Canada. Issa wrote to Willie that her health began to improve almost immediately upon arrival in Ontario. She astutely attributed it to the change in the people around her. In Kentucky, “Every time I looked at a Yankee, and our streets were full of them, I felt that I was looking upon the would-be murderer of my husband. My hatred and intense loathing increased every moment.” [7]
Finally, at the request of Dr. Desha, General Burbridge [the commanding general in Kentucky] wrote to Abraham Lincoln on October 24, 1864, requesting Lincoln to grant Issa’s request. Given that Burbridge resided in Lexington and regularly consulted with RJB, I am firmly convinced that RJB knew and approved of this — but also knew that his intercession was not desired, and so (for once) remained silent! And on November 3, 1864, with Issa and her father coming personally to Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln granted the pass.
But by the time Issa got back to her hotel, the last “truce boat” had already left Washington. The next one was not scheduled for another month. [Did Lincoln know? One could argue that Lincoln knew what he was doing — and was toying with her. One could also argue that Lincoln knew what he was doing — and was sparing her from the horrors of the final chapter of the war. Atlanta had already fallen to the Union Army. Sherman was marching across Georgia — and Sheridan had begun to make his way down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Where could she have gone? She couldn’t live with Willie at the front!] So she returned to Toronto. Shortly thereafter, she received word that she was welcome to return to Kentucky.
She returned by the beginning of April — Willie returned at the end of May. More than 3/4 of their married life had been spent apart. Ella had not seen her father since she was five weeks old.
When Willie had to leave on business three months later (he was gone for three days), Issa feared that the darkness would return: “such a long, long, weary day it has been, recalling those wretched ones when you were far away — days all gloom, anxiety, suspense, almost despair. Thank God they are gone! Would to God I could forget them — so dark is even the recollection of them that to have the remembrance of them blotted out I would gladly forget all the pleasures of childhood, all the hopes of girl-hood — every thing in the past save the remembrance of the happiness with which your love crowned me — and the precious days that followed.” [8]
So perhaps, then, you will understand that when the family gathered in RJB’s house at the end of May of 1865, there was one face that was conspicuously absent. Issa Breckinridge would not go to her father-in-law’s house for more than two years after the war.
I’m sorry to end there — but that is where I am in my research. The Breckinridge family is “sort of” back together again — but now battle-scarred and weary. And RJB, now past his 66th birthday, is beginning to fade from the scene. He had saved Kentucky for the Union — or, more precisely, he had saved Kentucky for the Confederacy (Because Kentucky had remained in the Union — but a majority of the population had favored the Confederacy — they had the legal rights of a Union state, with the voting power of a Confederate state!). Very quickly, the vast majority of Kentuckians wanted nothing more to do with him.
[1] RJB to Miss Binnie, June 9, 1865 (Miss Binnie was one of RJB’s former parishioners from Baltimore in the 1830s; the Binnie family continued to write regularly to RJB long after he left).
[2] Sally to RJB, August 28, 1864
[3] Willie to Issa, March 11, 1864
[4] Issa to RJB, April 2, 1864
[5] Issa to Willie, April 2, 1864
[6] RJB to Willie, September 1, 1864
[7] Issa to Willie, July 30, 1864
[8] Issa to Willie, August 29, 1865. When she wrote the next night, she commented that their servant, Billy, had laughed at her, “Lord, Miss Issa, you ain’t writing to that man already, are you — does you love him so you can’t give him nor rest?”
[All quotes from the Breckinridge Family Papers, Library of Congress]
