Untouched by the Conflict

Description

A rare glimpse into the life of one young man who chose not to fightNearly three million white men of military age remained in the North during the Civil War, some attending institutions of higher learning. College life during the Civil War has received remarkably little close attention, however, in part because of the lack of published collections of letters and diaries by students during the war. In Untouched by the Conflict, Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn seek to fill that gap by presenting the unabridged letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, a student at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, to his closest friend at home near Philadelphia.Ashenfelter was arrogant, erudite, witty, impulsive, self-interested, reflective, and deeply intellectual. His voice is like none other in the published primary source literature of the Civil War era. Following the war, he became a newspaper editor and the US attorney for the Territory of New Mexico. The letters' recipient, Samuel W. Pennypacker, went on to become the 23rd governor of Pennsylvania.Covering the years 1862-1865, Ashenfelter's correspondence offers a rich, introspective view into the concerns and experiences of a young, middle-class white man who chose not to enlist. His letters reveal, too, the inner world of a circle of friends while they mature into adulthood as he touches on topics of interest to scholars of 19th-century America, including romance, religion, education, social life, friendship, family, and the war.

Sujets

• USA
• United States of America
• Pensilvania
• Diaries
• Pennsylvania
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession
• Pennsylvanie

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 10 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631013799
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Untouched by the Conflict

Untouched by the Conflict
The Civil War Letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, Dickinson College

Edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn
THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS KENT, OHIO
Frontispiece: Singleton M. Ashenfelter and Samuel W. Pennypacker (Courtesy of Pennypacker Mills, County of Montgomery, Schwenksville, PA)
© 2019 by The Kent State University Press
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-383-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
23 22 21 20 19        5 4 3 2 1
For Paul S. Trible Jr.,
who has established Christopher Newport University
as a preeminent liberal arts university
Contents   List of Illustrations   Foreword by J. Matthew Gallman   Acknowledgments   Note on Method   Abbreviations   Key Participants   Introduction One 1862 Two 1863 Three 1864 Four 1865 Epilogue Postwar Romances Appendix A Curriculum at Dickinson College Appendix B Summary of Expenses to Attend Dickinson College Appendix C Dickinson College during the Gettysburg Campaign Appendix D Ashenfelter’s 1864 Speech, “Capital Punishment”   Index
Illustrations
Frontispiece. Singleton M. Ashenfelter and Samuel W. Pennypacker
Fig. 1. Singleton M. Ashenfelter
Fig. 2. Henry Ashenfelter
Fig. 3. Catharine K. Ashenfelter
Fig. 4. Members of the Young Men’s Literary Union
Fig. 5. Josiah White
Fig. 6. West College, ca. 1861–74
Fig. 7. East College, ca. 1870
Fig. 8. Pres. Herman Merrills Johnson
Fig. 9. Dickinson College students in 1863
Fig. 10. Gov. Andrew G. Curtin
Fig. 11. First page of November 22, 1862, letter
Fig. 12. Anna J. Euen
Fig. 13. David Euen
Fig. 14. Singleton M. Ashenfelter
Fig. 15. Class of 1865 outside of West College, ca. 1864
Fig. 16. Alice Lee
Fig. 17. Mary Eliza “Lide” Vanderslice
Fig. 18. Sketch of Horace Lloyd
Fig. 19. Anna J. Euen
Fig. 20. George W. Ashenfelter
Fig. 21. Albert H. Slape
Fig. 22. Class of 1865 outside of West College, ca. 1865
Fig. 23. Drawing of dies
Fig. 24. Hannah Ashenfelter Laning
Fig. 25. Prof. Samuel D. Hillman
Fig. 26. Samuel W. Pennypacker
Fig. 27. Singleton M. Ashenfelter
Fig. 28. Nettie Bennett Ashenfelter
Fig. 29. Henry Watts, African American janitor at Dickinson College
Fig. 30. Samuel Watts, African American janitor at Dickinson College
Fig. 31. Prof. John K. Stayman
Fig. 32. Thomas M. Griffith
Fig. 33. Homes of Profs. William C. Wilson and Samuel D. Hillman
Fig. 34. The Rebels Shelling … of Carlisle, Pennsylvania , by Thomas Nast
J. MATTHEW GALLMAN
Foreword
T HOSE OF US WHO STUDY THE C IVIL W AR, AND ESPECIALLY THE C IVIL War home front, love to wade into wartime diaries and letters. This is particularly true for historians who focus on life in the North. Civilians who wrote letters left us an invaluable account of a nation at war. Some correspondents penned long discussions of what they thought about the war. They wrote details about particular events; they recorded personal opinions about particular battles and campaigns; they captured immediate responses to conflicts and celebrations in their own communities. Others only mentioned the war’s military and political narrative on rare occasions, providing the historian with a useful quote here and there. While this is partially just a reflection of what people chose to write about in their letters, it also illustrates a larger truth: in the Civil War North, many aspects of life carried on almost undisturbed by events on distant battlefields. Such was the reality of the Northern home front.
The wartime letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, are a great source about mid-nineteenth century America, particularly the Civil War home front. Readers looking for commentary on the war as a military and political struggle will find very few nuggets within this correspondence. In a broader sense one might argue that Ashenfelter’s relative silence about such major events is in fact an eloquent commentary about the role of the national conflict in the daily lives of at least some civilians at home. If Ashenfelter—who was a young man during the war—was deeply concerned about the details of the conflict, he did not let those concerns sneak into his correspondence very often. Occasionally, one finds a comment on events important to the Civil War narrative. He wrote some useful letters about antiwar Democrats (he disliked them) and had a bit to say about the Army of Northern Virginia’s 1862 invasion of Maryland, which culminated in the Battle of Antietam (on September 17). But the truth is that, day in and day out, Singleton Ashenfelter devoted his fascinating letters to his own life and thoughts. And as a chronicler of such, he has provided the historian with invaluable information about a host of fairly elusive topics.
Let me suggest a few.
Ashenfelter’s letters offer a marvelous window into the daily life of the mid-nineteenth-century college student. Historians have just begun to explore the collegiate worlds in both the North and the South. Some have asked questions about the impact of the Civil War on students’ lives, while others have looked more broadly at the role of colleges and universities in shaping men and society. Ashenfelter’s letters are rich with the quotidian details of a young man’s world in these institutions. We learn about the rules that defined a man’s life at Dickinson and the discipline that transgressors faced. Ashenfelter, who would describe himself as a “good fellow” more than a “good student,” threw himself into club life and literary societies, even being tabbed to deliver a major address on “Religious Liberty.” On occasion he got drawn into college hijinks, including one occasion when he posted a series of anonymous parodies on a Dickinson bulletin board, earning himself a bit of notoriety among his peers. Such accounts are priceless windows into wartime college life. Along the way we learn quite a bit about what Ashenfelter read and admired, about his classes, and about his thoughts on various teachers, authors, and ideas.
These comments about college life are interspersed with a wealth of information about the thoughts and personal preoccupations of a young man in midcentury America. In truth, many Civil War–era men—both at home or in uniform—were quite introspective about large ideas. But the range of topics that absorbed Ashenfelter’s thoughts, not to mention the depth of his writings, is distinctive, even when the topics themselves are familiar. As a college student, Ashenfelter developed a strong affection for alcohol, an issue he periodically confronted and attempted to limit. Like many other young men, he wrestled with both religion and his own vices. Concluding that he could not believe in any “Deity,” he nevertheless devoted many pages to discussions of organized religion. Looking in the mirror, Ashenfelter often seemed to find himself wanting, worried about his selfishness and sloth as well as his drinking and other misbehaviors. (He devotes one long paragraph to his unfortunate “habit of swearing.”) And, like many other young men, Ashenfelter expended much thought and energy on young women. In the space of just a few years, he managed to grow deeply attached to at least three women, providing plenty of details about courtship, while also perpetually questioning his own impulses and actions. But around the age of twenty, Ashenfelter seems to have settled on Annie Euen as the principle object of his substantial desires, providing interesting insights about both friendship and courtship between young men and women during this period.
These are just a few of the many topics that come up in these letters. Having myself read many dozens of collections of wartime letters and diaries, much of Ashenfelter’s introspection feels more like what one might find in a young man’s diary, not in his correspondence with another man. If we step away from the individual passages and letters as bits of evidence and consider this book as a single fascinating document, it becomes—I think—a wonderful source for two interconnected themes: the nature of midcentury masculinity, and the shape and character of friendships among men.
This book is at its core a portrait of the intense friendship between Singleton Ashenfelter and Samuel Pennypacker as viewed through the lens of Ashenfelter’s letters. Pennypacker was only a year older, but sometimes he seemed to adopt a mentor role. As the editors explain, the two men remained friends for a half century. This collection captures their relationship when they were still young, trying to navigate their futures.
These letters from “Sing” to “Pennie” include a surprising number of comments about the etiquette of correspondence and much more about the nature of friendship. Sing apologizes for being “dilatory” (February 12, 1863) in responding to Pennie’s most recent missive. This becomes a recurring theme as letters carefully dissect who owes the next letter, with Sing periodically chafing at gaps between incoming correspondence. In late November 1863 he writes an extremely long letter to Pennie, confessing his loneliness at Dickinson and admitting, “I miss most just such a friend as I feel you to be.” The college continued to provide pleasant distractions, but no friend had emerged on campus who could match the pleasures he enjoyed with Pennie. In this long letter Sing takes a lengthy digression to describe a classmate named Jackson, who he feels is a true “genius.” “I am so deeply interested in this Jackson that I could not refrain from telling you of him,” he admits. But it becomes clear that Sing is seeking not merely a kindred spirit in Jackson but a replacem