Notable Bully

E. Cray Robert

Description

The definitive biography of a Civil War scoundrel and streetwise politico Largely forgotten by historians, Billy Wilson (1822-1874) was a giant in his time, a man well known throughout New York City, a man shaped by the city's immigrant culture, its harsh voting practices, and its efforts to participate in the War for the Union. For decades, Wilson's name made headlines-for many different reasons-in the city's major newspapers.An immigrant who settled in New York in 1842, Wilson found work as a prizefighter, a shoulder hitter, an immigrant runner, and a pawnbroker, before finally entering politics and being elected an alderman. He harnessed his tough persona to good advantage, in 1861 becoming a colonel in command of a regiment of alleged toughs and ex-convicts known as the "Wilson Zouaves." A poor disciplinarian, however, Wilson exercised little control over his soldiers, and in 1863, unable to maintain order, he was jailed for a number of weeks. Nonetheless, Wilson returned home to a hero's welcome that year.Wilson left behind no personal papers, journals, or correspondences, so Robert E. Cray has masterfully woven together a record of Wilson's life using the only available records: newspaper stories. These accounts present Wilson as a fascinating but highly unlikable man. As Cray demonstrates, Wilson bullied his way into New York, bullied his way into fame and politics, and attempted to bully his way into military greatness. His story depicts the New York City and Civil War experience in bolder, darker hues. As Cray shows us, it was not always a pretty tale.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• Military history
• Military administration
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631014536
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Notable Bully
INTERPRETING THE CIVIL WAR
Texts and Contexts
EDITOR
Angela M. Zombek University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Aaron Astor
Maryville College
Wiliam B. Kurtz
University of Virginia
Joseph M. Beilein Jr.
Pennsylvania State University
Brian Craig Miller
Mission College
Douglas R. Egerton
Le Moyne College
Jennifer M. Murray
Oklahoma State University
J. Matthew Gallman
University of Florida
Jonathan W. White
Christopher Newport University
Hilary N Green
University of Alabama
Timothy Williams
University of Oregon
The Interpreting the Civil War series focuses on America’s long Civil War era, from the rise of antebellum sectional tensions through Reconstruction.
These studies, which include both critical monographs and edited compilations, bring new social, political, economic, or cultural perspectives to our understanding of sectional tensions, the war years, Reconstruction, and memory. Studies reflect a broad, national perspective; the vantage point of local history; or the direct experiences of individuals through annotated primary source collections.
 Colonel Billy Wilson,  Masculinity, and the Pursuit of Violence  in the Civil War Era
A      Notable   Bully  
Robert E. Cray
  The Kent State University Press Kent, Ohio
© 2021 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2021005739
ISBN 978-1-60635-424-7
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.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cray, Robert E., author.
Title: A notable bully: Colonel Billy Wilson, masculinity, and the pursuit of violence in the Civil War era / Robert E. Cray.
Other titles: Colonel Billy Wilson, masculinity, and the pursuit of violence in the Civil War era
Description: Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, [2021] | Series: Interpreting the civil war | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021005739 | ISBN 9781606354247 (cloth) | ISBN 9781631014536 (epub) | ISBN 9781631014543 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Wilson, William, 1823-1874. | Politicians--New York (State)-- New York--Biography. | New York (N.Y.)--Politics and government--To 1898. | Boxers (Sports)--New York (State)--New York--Biography. | Political corruption--New York (State)--New York--History--19th century. | United States. Army. New York Infantry Regiment, 6th (1861-1863)--Biography. | United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Regimental histories.
Classification: LCC F128.47 .C885 2021 | DDC 974.7/03092 [B]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005739
25  24  23  22  21      5  4  3  2  1
To Cindy and Pamela Cray with many thanks, and to George E. Webb with great thanks
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Immigrant Fighter
2 Wilson Campaigning
3 Defeat and Uncertainty
4 Colonel Billy Wilson and the Zouaves Take Shape
5 Colonel Billy Wilson and the Zouaves at War
6 Colonel Billy Wilson and the Zouaves at Home
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Billy Wilson came to my attention unexpectedly after I finally located a certain ancestor, Stephen Cray, as notorious in his own way as Billy, who happened to serve under him in the Wilson Zouaves. Curiosity compelled me to find out something more about Wilson, and thus began a search through various and sundry locales, unearthing the fact that Wilson was also involved peripherally in a heated campaign to deliver Andrew Jackson’s gold snuff box, an award New York City granted him for wartime military service in 1819, to the bravest man in New York in 1857. That resulted in a journal article “The Most Valiant in Defense of his Country: Andrew Jackson’s Bequest and the Politics of Courage, 1819–1857,” Journal of the Early Republic 38 (Summer 2018): 231–60, parts of which are reprinted in chapter 3 with permission from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Further searching revealed that Billy Wilson was a character to put it mildly, a bully to put it more forcefully, well known, often for the wrong reasons, to many New Yorkers in the 1840s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Wilson crossed paths with people well known and not known at all, violently carving a niche for himself in Civil War–era New York. That Wilson accomplished what he did, however contemptible, tells us something about this period.
The New York State Archives, the National Archives in Washington, the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, and the invaluable Fifth Avenue Library all aided in the research on this work. A sabbatical in autumn 2018 enabled me to research certain aspects of Wilson’s career, as well as to write various chapters, and so I am grateful to the Office of the Provost at Montclair State University. As always, the Montclair State University Library came through by fulfilling many interlibrary loan requests. I benefited from an understanding chair, Jeff Strickland, who clued me in to certain resources as well as by listening (more than he should have) to my discourses on Colonel Billy, while busily engaged in his own work. Jeff also read a very early version of chapter 6 and deemed it worthy to follow up before I began my other chapters. Other colleagues played no direct role in this study, yet I would be remiss if I did not cite Ben Lapp, an individual with a moral compass in things academic and otherwise; as well as Dawn Hayes and Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia for their work on unrelated academic matters; naturally enough Susan Goscinski, a peerless administrative assistant who retired midway through this project; and Susan Brunda, the expert new administrative assistant in the history department.
Academic mentors from a long-distant past still guided my path, although all of them would be surprised by the route I took. My graduate work focused on early American history, courtesy of the late Jackson T. Main and Ned C. Landsman, and I generally steered my research course in that direction, with forays into the early nineteenth century. Bill Miller introduced me to the new social history, in particular, the nineteenth century, and it may well be because of him that I dared to think the Civil War era was not insurmountable.
This work clearly benefited from the understanding and talented staff at the Kent State University Press, first with William Underwood and then Susan Wadsworth Booth, my first editors, and those valiant, stalwart but unnamed referees whose careful reading and evaluation of this manuscript saved me from various errors while prompting me to improve the product greatly. The two anonymous readers furnished much food for thought and scholarly tomes to consume! They show me, as an early Americanist, why the Civil War era fascinates. Any errors that remain are clearly my fault, for which they are in no way responsible. And thanks to my copyeditor, Erin Holman, who improved the prose so nicely and tactfully.
Then there is the debt I can never professionally repay: George E. Webb, a friend and colleague from afar, showed what real historians can accomplish while beleaguered in a rather unforgiving academic environment quite unlike the congenial setting of Montclair State University. For over thirty years, we have kept in touch via the post and email. And when George volunteered to look over my chapters, I was deeply touched—he is a crack editor and as a historian of science he applied expertise to the strange world of nineteenth-century Gotham, as well as Florida and Louisiana. He helped make this work possible.
Various people, some of whom knew nothing about this work, nonetheless reminded me about the value of friendship over decades past and even more so as the coronavirus descended upon us. Trying times can be made less so when you have friends, academic and otherwise, and thus Mary Rose Lamb, Gary Haber, Mark Dawidziak, and Michael Dawidziak merit thanks.
Finally, there is my family: Cindy Cray has stayed married to a historian who can never quite understand the scientific instruments she tests and the computer bugs she unearths in software, but that gulf has not prevented her from supporting me in my work. My daughter Pam found this study amusing, since it mentions on several pages that notorious ancestor of ours, the great-great grandfather she christened “Stabby Cray.” And, I suppose, I should give a certain thanks to Stephen Cray for inspiring me to write a book about his former commander. We all have ancestors from whom we learn in different ways.
 

Colonel Billy Wilson (Col. Wm. Wilson, Mathew Brady Photographs of Civil War Era Personalities and Scenes, 1921–1940, Record Group 111, National Archives, Washington, DC, online version http://catalog.gov/id/529379 , accessed Aug. 24, 2020)
Introduction
William Wilson’s death in New York City on November 13, 1874, prompted journalistic reflection. The fifty-two-year-old Wilson, according to the New York Times , had organized and commanded the Sixth New York Volunteer Regiment, a Civil War unit popularly known as “Billy Wilson’s Zouaves,” drawn from an assortment of largely Catholic, laboring-class residents of Manhattan’s lower wards. The troop defiantly promised “no quarter” against the Southern secessionists in 1861. In response, outraged Southerners threatened to kill any captured “northern hirelings.” Neither side fully acted on these threats, but Colonel Wilson’s regiment did fight Confederates in Florida and Louisiana before returning to New York in 1863. Wilson went on to be appointed colonel in the Sixty-ninth New York State Militia in 1864. After the war, he was employed in the New York City Custom House then resided in Westchester County as a gentleman farmer. The Times obituary concluded by noting that Wilson’s friends considered him a “genial and generous man, and