Copperhead Gore: Benjamin Wood's Fort Lafayette and Civil War America

PREFACE

[ vii ] PREFACE Practically all reasonable antebellum Americans were against civil war, but when it came they fought in it anyway. A large minority of Northerners objected to the way the Civil War was conducted and even questioned the purpose for which it was fought, but only a small share of them actively resisted the war or tried to obstruct the war effort. Mainstream historiography today tends to minimize the threat this determined opposition posed to the Union’s cause, but during the war many Northerners considered it a serious menace. In Lincoln’s inner circle, the extreme adversaries of their policies were understood and referred to as a dangerous “¤re in the rear.” More commonly and compactly, but still metaphorically, Northern opponents of the war were usually referred to as Copperheads, a tag that signaled danger. The copperhead is a venomous snake common to the eastern United States, so called from the reddish-brown color of the top of his head. Unlike the rattlesnake, it strikes without warning. To this dictionary de¤nition, the OED adds the derivative “a type of secret or unexpected hostility.” Many Copperheads did organize themselves into secret societies in the course of the con¶ict. Some of them planned, or even executed, schemes intended to obstruct the war effort. But other Copperheads, at least as committed to the anti-war crusade, rather than scheming on the sly actually raised a ruckus. Indeed, some of the most prominent opponents of the war, such as Clement L. Vallandigham, Samuel Medary, or Wilbur F. Preface [ viii ] Storey, could more ¤ttingly be derided as noisy rattlesnakes than as silent copperheads. They were thought to be dangerous precisely for their barrage of ringing venomous words, not for any silent lethal strike they were presumed to be capable of. Benjamin Wood, a prominent and colorful New York Copperhead , was apparently capable of both loud words and silent, dangerous deeds. This vociferous dissenter would collaborate, late in the war, with Confederate spy masters plotting against the Union. Wood had been a professional lottery operator and gambler before becoming a highly successful, if controversial, newspaper editor and politician. Throughout the war Ben Wood, who was a brother of New York City war mayor Fernando Wood, represented New York’s Third District in Congress. On the ¶oor of the House, Wood delivered several memorable orations, which marked him as a most effective spokesman of the anti-war and pro-Southern sentiment in the Union. The editorial opinions he expressed in his newspaper— the New York Daily News—were even more in¶ammatory and seditious than his Congressional performances. The administration responded by taking action that forced Wood to close his newspaper for more than a year, beginning September 1861. He used his newly found quality time to write a novel, Fort Lafayette, published early in 1862. Fort Lafayette is at one and the same time an action-packed page-turner and an intellectually complex and intriguing literary work, re¶ecting important trends in political thought and moral philosophy characteristic of its times. When published, Fort Lafayette was condemned and rejected for advocating an unpopular—if not seditious—political and moral agenda. Today it represents an outstanding resource for understanding the Civil War experience of Northern dissenters. It provides an unparalleled exposition of anti-war, even paci¤st, ideology, and intriguing insights into the experiences and minds of the Copperheads. Fort Lafayette can surely stand on its own as a gripping story and Preface [ ix ] a profound ideological statement. It features dramatic battle scenes, imaginative plots and counter-plots, and picturesque glimpses of homefront life in both North and South, interlaced with remarkably insightful political analyses. Nevertheless, it is introduced in this volume by an essay providing background—literary, biographical , political, and social—that may help contextualize the novel and sensitize contemporary readers to important, but not always obvious , dimensions of its message. Also reprinted in this volume are two important speeches Wood made in Congress, which may be seen as a blueprint for framing Fort Lafayette’s political sub-plot. This re-issuing of Fort Lafayette—apparently the war’s single anti-war novel—and the re-introduction of its colorful author—a one-man rainbow opposition to the Union’s cause—respond to the curious neglect of the Copperheads in America’s culture of remembrance . For, ironically, the silent and secretive connotation of “copperhead” well ¤ts the place allotted to the...