Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Emaline Cameron was among the thousands of refugees who poured into occupied Nashville, Tenn., in 1863. While the strains of war may have contributed to her flight from her native Smithville, about 50 miles
to the east, Emaline crossed Union lines to distance herself from an imploded marriage. James Hayes, known as Toy, had divorced her on the grounds that he was not the father of their eldest child. She admitted
as much in court: while growing up Emaline had worked as a chambermaid at the Smithville Hotel, which was run by her parents. After a boarder left the 15-year-old pregnant, they quickly married her off to
the naïve Toy.
When Emaline came to Nashville, where there were many opportunities to clothe, feed and entertain the garrison of Union soldiers, a demand for labor that far outstripped the city’s prewar population.
Family history reports that Emaline chose the last sector: sometime after her arrival, she “operated a house of prostitution.” If true, my great-grandfather’s great-grandmother participated
in the first licensed and regulated sex trade in the United States.
Like other radical developments during the war, Nashville’s experiment with legalized prostitution evolved as a practical solution to a military problem. Nearly one in 10 Union soldiers were reported
to have contracted gonorrhea or syphilis during the war; rates were even higher for troops garrisoned in and around cities. Read more…
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Most Americans would be hard pressed to recount the events surrounding Cinco de Mayo, a holiday better associated with margaritas and lime-necked Coronas than any historical event. Some wrongly believe that
May 5th is Mexican Independence Day (that’s actually Sept. 16th); others believe it marks the glorious founding of the country’s alcohol industry.
In actuality, Cinco de Mayo celebrates a stunning Mexican victory against French intervention: On May 5, 1862, Ignacio Zaragoza, a bespectacled young man who looked more like a graduate student than a general,
led the brave defenders of Puebla in repulsing the elite troops of an invading French Army.
The Battle of Puebla was not just a much needed jolt of confidence for a threatened Mexican Republic; it was an event with profound repercussions for the direction of the Civil War in the United States. As contemporary
observers on both sides of the Atlantic understood at the time, the French intervention and the American Civil War were two sides of the same conflict, a hemispheric contest that pitted anti-democratic reactionaries
against a new breed of liberal republics. Read more…
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
José Quintero’s reputation was soaring upon his return to Richmond in mid-August 1861. He had travelled the width of the Confederacy to deliver the rarest of gifts for the Southern capital: much
better than a fine box of cigars, the Cuban-born Southern special agent brought good news from Mexico.
Despite a frenzy of activity, Confederate diplomacy was not bearing its anticipated fruits in the nation’s first summer. King Cotton had failed to induce recognition from Britain or France, and Richmond
had heard nothing from Mexico City, where ambassador John Pickett’s boorish antics and intercepted dispatches, laden with contempt and condescension for his hosts, confirmed the Juarez government’s
worst suspicions of the Southern cause — namely, that it had less interest in diplomacy, per se, than it did in southward expansion.
Yet 600 miles to the north of the Mexican capital, Quintero achieved one of the Confederacy’s most stunning diplomatic successes. In his negotiations with Santiago Vidaurri, governor of the Mexican border
states of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, the southern agent discovered a capable ally who offered more than his “great friendship”: Vidaurri promised border security, the supply of vital war material
and an outlet for Southern cotton; most astonishingly, he proposed the outright annexation of his territories. Read more…
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
When the East Tennessee Convention reconvened on June 17 in Greeneville, a small town near the North Carolina border, the Union-minded delegates assembled on what was technically Confederate soil — though
nothing in their defiant tone acknowledged the fact.
On June 8, East Tennessee had voted 32,923 to 14,780 to remain in the Union, in resounding contrast to the 87,392 to 14,315 vote for separation in the rest of the state. It was a dramatic shift from four months
prior, when unionists had outpolled secessionists statewide by over 60,000 votes, trouncing Gov. Isham Harris in his first attempt to lead Tennessee into the Confederacy.
The majority of the delegates assembled in Greeneville were not prepared to accept this sea change in opinion as a true expression of their fellow Tennesseans. They charged the secessionists in Nashville with
suppression of speech, fraud and voter intimidation in their tainted victory. But the greatest anomaly in the election may have been the resiliency of East Tennessee’s loyal mountaineers. Read more…
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
On the morning of March 18, 1861, a bemused crowd shuffled through the narrow streets within the walls of old Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Proclamations plastered throughout the city
had ordered the people to assemble in the Cathedral Plaza, where rumors circulated about a Spanish takeover and the return of slavery.
The crowd stirred when they caught sight of the Dominican president, Pedro Santana, the graying strongman who had wormed in and out of power over the past 17 years of independence, a period fraught with intermittent
civil war, perennial invasions by neighboring Haiti and an ever-worsening currency crisis. And so, rather than face his strengthening enemies, Santana calculated it was time to sell out; from the balcony
of the Palace of Justice, the tired dictator announced the country’s handover to Spain. It was a production meant to demonstrate the people’s “unanimous consent,” a condition
laid down by Madrid. With a 101-gun salute, the banner of the lion and castle was raised over the island Columbus had first claimed for the Spanish crown almost 370 years before.
Regardless of the mock plebiscite, the Spanish annexation of the Dominican Republic was a brazen violation of the Monroe Doctrine and marked the first European encroachment in the Western Hemisphere in response
to divided American power. For William Seward, the man who still harbored thoughts that he should be the guiding force of the Lincoln administration, the Spanish takeover was the germ for a last-ditch effort
to save the Union: a Congressional declaration of war against Spain and France. Seward calculated a foreign conflict would generate enough patriotic fervor to overwhelm sectional differences and allow Union
sentiment to prevail in the Upper South. Read more…
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Matias Romero arrived in Springfield, Ill. on the evening of Jan. 18, 1861. Though late in the day, he figured it would be easy to find a room in this sleepy midwestern town. But there were no rooms available
at his first choice, the American Hotel, or anywhere else: all the hotels in town were full of friends, patronage seekers and the merely curious who had come to meet President-elect Lincoln. Travelers packed
into guesthouses three to a room with strangers sharing beds, while others settled for sleeper cars parked in the rail yard.
Matias RomeroFortunately, the manager of the American quickly recognized that the 23-year-old Oaxacan was no ordinary petitioner. Romero’s refined manner and dapper three-piece suit distinguished him from the homespun
westerners in their hickory shirts and pantaloons tucked into boots. Romero was provided the last “very dirty bed” and the promise of his own room for the next evening. He was thankful just
to get some rest; the following day Romero met with Lincoln to deliver the hearty congratulations of his president and an olive branch from the neighboring Republic of Mexico. Read more…
