In the Archives
Civil War moms, Lincoln letters, Sherman’s total war with NYT
My mom visited last weekend and I took her to the library on my day off so we could look through Civil War archives. We stopped at S&P for a pastrami reuben on griddled rye that we shared in Bryant Park, which smelled like the county fair on account of all the saw dust from assembling the half-plastic, half-wooden shops for the winter holiday market. Earlier that week, they peeled the grass away to make way to the ice rink.
I actually like being in Midtown. It feels like the ultimate terminus for so many New Yorkers and it is excellent for people watching, especially Bryant Park. The density of action. Workers talking shop on lunch breaks. Tourists with cameras around their neck reminding you to look anew at all around you. No one bothers you, not even the pigeons patiently waiting to pick the pastrami riblets spilled at your feet.
After getting my mom a newly minted library card, we went up to the hushed Rose Main Reading Room whose vaulted ceilings are painted in heavenly hues. Inside the manuscripts room, we were first handed a box of files with loose leaf letters of correspondence, news clippings, and records from the Department of Agriculture, all collected by a Civil War enthusiast during the early 20th century who was an avid supporter of General Boynton. My mom turned the pages while I took notes and photos.
She gasped at old dates and notable signatories including a letter signed by W. T. Sherman, commander of the U.S. Army, who was disputing a New York Times report of the Battle of Shiloh. But the real show stopper was a letter signed by Abraham Lincoln using War Department letterhead. “This is right before Gettysburg!” my mom whispered in excitement.
I whispered questions to my mom who whispered back facts, locating us in history since I didn’t even know when the Civil War began or ended. Both our thumbs whispered over pages that held the lived experience of that history, especially the three diaries we requested, one of which was shot through with a bullet.
Caroline Dunstan, a prolific diarist living in New York during the war gave a startling first-person account of the draft riots: “An awful riot commenced today on account of the draft… Whole blocks were destroyed. Fires were kindled in every direction. A large armory by [...] in this 2nd Avenue, just below us. I saw thousands of men pass our house with guns and men running excited yelling and shouting for men to join them. They…compelled 14 hundred men to leave.”
Her diary on October 3, the day we were visiting, read: “Cloudy, looking like rain.”
We were early to our dinner reservations at Mission Chinese, so we stopped next door at Basement bar. Terrible bar, excellent meal, though mom shockingly didn’t care for the kung pao pastrami.
