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Scripting a Nationalist Narrative: Robert Bingham and the Construction of Confederate Identity

2011; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14664658.2011.620390

1743-7903

Bryan Sinche,

Asian American and Pacific Histories

Abstract Abstract In this essay, I analyze and contextualize Robert Bingham's prisoner-of-war diary and show how the work of life writing intersects with the work of Confederate identity formation. Arguing that nationalism need not be fueled by political rhetoric or a local print culture, I show how Bingham uses daily descriptions of his prison experience to shape a sense of national identity. Using northern news and literature as well as local interactions to distinguish himself from his real and imagined Yankee captors, Bingham returns again and again to the broad contrasts between Union and Confederacy and to the more subtle valences of southern gender and class identity to construct himself and his wife according to an ideal that he uses, in turn, to reinforce his affective commitment to the new nation. Though Bingham's ideals are not always shaped by facts, his daily fictionalizations posing as facts allow him to stabilize his sense of self and imagine himself embodying a Confederate ideal. Keywords: Civil Warprisoners-of-warnationalismlife writing Acknowledgements For their comments on drafts of this essay, I would like to thank Robert Allen, William L. Andrews, Katherine Owens, Avinoam Patt, Michael Robinson, Michele Troy, and the anonymous readers for American Nineteenth Century History. Notes 1. For a full description of the skirmish at which Bingham was captured, see The War of the Rebellion The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies . Washington : Government Printing Office , 1880–1901 . [Google Scholar], I.27, 793–8. 2. Kagle Kagle, Stephen. 1979. American Diary Literature, Boston, MA: Twayne. [Google Scholar], American Diary Literature, 17. 3. Nussbaum, "Toward Conceptualizing Diary," 134. 4. Bingham, "Diary," "17 July 1863." Robert Bingham's diary is contained in two slim volumes, each measuring 4 × 5.5 inches and numbering 108 pages. The first pages of the first volume are written in a broad, confident hand with plenty of space between each line. The writing in Bingham's second volume is cramped and difficult to read – evidence of Bingham's anxiety about consuming the available space at his disposal. Though Bingham's diary contains instances of incorrect spelling, punctuation and abbreviations that can make the diary challenging to read, his original text has been preserved for this essay. The numerous abbreviations and dashes that appear throughout this work speak to the pressure he must have felt as he ran out of space in his tiny diary. The only alteration I have made – for the sake of readability – is the substitution of the word "and" for the plus sign (" + ")that Bingham uses to signify "and." 5. Though Bingham was only on Johnson's Island for seven months, he spent another month in captivity in Point Lookout Federal Military Prison in Maryland. 6. The authors of Why the South Lost the Civil War argue that the Confederacy "functioned as a nation only in a technical, organizational sense, and not in a mystical or spiritual sense." See Beringer Beringer, Richard E., Hattaway, Herman, Jones, Archer and Still, William N. Jr. 1986. Why the South Lost the Civil War, Athens: University of Georgia Press. [Google Scholar] et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War, 66. Paul Escott Escott, Paul. 1978. After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. [Google Scholar] writes in less absolute terms, but he would agree that Confederate "unity" and Confederate "ideology" were always problematic. As the following pages will show, though, Robert Bingham seems to have embraced the very tenets of Confederate identity (opposition to northern depravity, a commitment to U.S. Constitutional principles) that Jefferson Davis enunciated early in the war. Escott, After Secession. 7. Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism, 10. On Confederate print culture, see also Fahs Fahs, Alice. 2001. The Imagined Civil War, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar], The Imagined Civil War. Despite its efflorescence in 1861–1862, Confederate print culture suffered as the war dragged on, primarily because the exigencies of war and the destruction of southern industrial centers made production and distribution of print matter extremely difficult. 8. Bernath Bernath, Michael. 2010. The Confederate Mind: The Struggle for Intellectual Independence in the Civil War South, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar], The Confederate Mind. Like Faust, Michael Bernath focuses on Confederate print culture, though his lengthier study paints a fuller picture of the intellectual and cultural work performed by the Confederate writers, editors, and citizens. 9. See Barney Barney, William L. 2008. The Making of a Confederate: William Lenoir's Civil War, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], The Making of a Confederate; Lang Lang , Andrew F . "' Upon the Altar of Our Country': Confederate Identity, Nationalism and Morale in Harrison County, Texas, 1860–1865 ." Civil War History 55 ( 2009 ): 278 – 306 . [Google Scholar], "Upon the Altar of Our Country"; Rubin, Shattered Nation; and Sheehan-Dean Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. 2007. Why Confederates Fought, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar], Why Confederates Fought. 10. Anderson and Balibar argue that nationalism is sustained by "imagined communities" or "fictive ethnicities." Though this differentiates them from those who argue for a definition of nationalism that grants more power to the political realm and less to race and print culture, both Anderson and Balibar suggest that national identity is more or less received and not created by individuals. See Anderson, Imagined Communities; Balibar and Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class. For a more state-based understanding of nationalism and national identity, see Breuilly Breuilly, John. 1994. Nationalism and the State, 2nd ed, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar], Nationalism and the State. 11. Berlant, The Anatomy of National Fantasy, 16. 12. Lang, "Upon the Altar of Our Country," 281; Berry Berry, Stephen II. 2003. All That Makes a Man: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], All That Makes a Man. On the relationship between intimate relationships and nationalism, also see Cobb Cobb, James C. 2005. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], Away Down South; and Gordon, "Courting Nationalism." 13. Bhabha, "Dissemi Nation," 297. 14. Ashe, Biographical History, 83 ff. According to census records, William Bingham owned 10 slaves in 1840. See U.S. Census Bureau U.S. Census Bureau . Census of 1840 . Orange County, NC : U.S. Census Bureau . [Google Scholar], Census, 212. Elizabeth Keckley Keckley, Elizabeth. 1868. Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Three Years in the White House, New York: Oxford. [Google Scholar] records a particularly damning description of the elder Bingham in her autobiography, see Keckley, Behind the Scenes. 15. See. Ellis Ellis, William E. 1997. Robert Worth Bingham and the Southern Mystique: From the Old South to the New South and Beyond, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. [Google Scholar], Robert Worth Bingham. Robert Worth Bingham married Mary Lily Kenan Flager (the richest woman in America when he wed her in 1917) and went on to serve as Franklin Roosevelt's ambassador to the Court of St. James. He was also the father of George Barry Bingham (1908–1990) who founded a media empire in Louisville, Kentucky. The fame and influence of the Binghams accounts for several of the other books about the family that include a bit of biographical information about Robert Bingham: Brenner Brenner, Marie. 1988. House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville, New York: Random House. [Google Scholar], House of Dreams; Tift and Jones Tifft, Susan E. and Jones, Alex S. 1991. The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty, New York: Summit Books. [Google Scholar], The Patriarch; and Chandler Chandler, David Leon and Chandler, Mary Voelz. 1987. The Binghams of Louisville: The Dark History Behind One of America's Great Fortunes, New York: Crown. [Google Scholar] and Chandler, The Binghams of Louisville. 16. The Bingham school boasts a number of notable alumni, among them the editor Walter Hines Page (1855–1918) and the planter and Confederate soldier Walter Lenoir (1823–1890) who is the subject of Barney's, The Making of a Confederate. 17. Robert Bingham to Della Worth, April 22, 1861. Folder #57, George Barry Bingham Papers, 1861–1989. The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky. 18. Gordon, "Courting Nationalism," 2 Though I agree with Gordon's suggestion that Confederate nationalism was evident in private correspondence, Bingham's diary – which is written for his wife but not sent to his wife – highlights the importance of imagination and diary keeping in generating a sense of national identity. 19. Berry, All That Makes a Man, 171. 20. Though he wrote only a few letters to Dell during his time in prison, Dell did write to him occasionally. Though her letters were infrequent (he mentions seven over eight months), they did give Bingham the opportunity to shape his imaginative work according to news from home. 21. Culley, A Day at a Time, 12 (my italics). 22. Berry II argues that letter-writing was a way that men like Bingham rekindled their commitment to the cause. He explains that the "exchanges with a sweetheart … fired a man's belief." Berry is surely correct, though his insistence on exchange denies the power of imagination to perform the same work that he locates in interpersonal epistolary communication. As I show in the section titled "Robert Bingham's Confederate ideal," writing one-sided letters to an imagined female audience (as Robert Bingham did in his diary) could be just as "useful" as letter writing. 23. Schafer Schafer, Roy. 1980. "Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue". In On Narrative, Edited by: Mitchell, W.J.T. 25–49. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], "Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue," 38. 24. For the antebellum history of the island, see Peeke Peeke, Hewson. 1917. Johnson's Island. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 26: 470–6. [Google Scholar], "Johnson's Island." Information concerning the Civil War history of Johnson's Island can be found in Frohman Frohman, Charles. 1964. Rebels on Lake Erie, Columbus: Ohio Historical Society. [Google Scholar], Rebels on Lake Erie; Shriver Shriver, Philip and Breen, Donald. 1964. Ohio's Military Prisons in the Civil War, Columbus: Ohio State University Press. [Google Scholar] and Breen, Ohio's Military Prisons in the Civil War; Downer Downer, Edward T. 1972. "Johnson's Island". In Civil War Prisons, Edited by: Hesseltine, William. 98–113. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. [Google Scholar] "Johnson's Island"; Hannon Hannon, Kyle. 1994. Passing the Time: Prison Life on Johnson's Island. Northwest Ohio Quarterly, 66: 82–102. [Google Scholar], "Passing the Time"; Hesseltine Hesseltine , William B . Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology. 1930 . Columbus : Ohio State University Press , 1998 . [Google Scholar], Civil War Prisons. 25. See Frohman and Hesseltine on mortality in Civil War prison camps. Johnson's Island was one of the healthiest of all the military prisons. 26. Hannon lists the following plays: "Pocahontas," "Box and Cox," "Persecuted Dutchman," "Family Jars," "Lady of Lyons," and "Battle of Gettysburg" (95). Frohman's study includes a reprint of a playbill for a performance of "The Toodles" and "Slasher and Crasher" (172). Horace Carpenter's essay includes a reprint of the playbill for "The Black Prince." Carpenter, "Plain living." 27. Hundley, Prison Echoes, 111. See also Carpenter, "Plain living," 712. 28. See Hannon, "Passing the Time," 94 and Long, "The Prision," 21–2. Some of the men not inclined toward playwrighting founded a prison newspaper, and others composed for the reading audience outside of Johnson's Island. Major George McKnight of Louisiana adopted the pseudonym Asa Hartz while within the prison and wrote numerous poems, some of which were published in The Sandusky Register and The New York News. 29. John Joyes to? September 7, 1864 in John Joyes Papers. 30. In his diary, John Joyes's records the eight novels he read between November 1864 and April 1865. 31. See Frohman, Rebels on Lake Erie, 17 and Downer, "Johnson's Island," 104. For more information on the prison library also see Wash Wash, W.A. 1870. Camp, Field and Prison Life, St. Louis, MO: Southwestern Book and Publishing Co. [Google Scholar], Camp, Field and Prison Life, 243–4. 32. Rubin, Shattered Nation, 50. 33. Blight Blight, David. 2001. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Race and Reunion, 147. Blight recounts a story of naked black Union soldiers wading through a North Carolina river while a host of southern women looked on. This suggests that, though Bingham might have wished otherwise, it was not just northern females who liked to stare at naked soldiers. 34. Kostantaras, "Idealisations of self," 712–13. 35. The idea that southern manhood was under assault during the war comes from Whites Whites , Lee Ann . The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 . Athens : University of Georgia Press , 1995 . [Google Scholar], The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender. 36. Richardson, 'Johnny Reb' on Johnson's Island. 37. Obviously, for some of the men on Johnson's Island (including Bingham himself) these roles might also have been played by an enslaved man or woman. Still, in his diary and pre-war letters, Bingham recalls Dell's willingness to share a "pleasant chat" and to nurse him when he was ill. Thus, we might say that Bingham actually coded various domestic duties as "female" or preferred to imagine that he was embracing a "female" role as opposed to a "black" role. 38. Faust, Mothers of Invention Faust Drew Gilpin. . Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War . Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press , 1996 . [Google Scholar]. 39. Bingham read both Dream Life and Reveries of a Bachelor while imprisoned, though he read Dream Life first. Other novels that Bingham read that might be categorized as "sentimental" include The Deserted Wife by E.D.E.N. Southworth; Mistress and Maid: A Household Story by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik; Aurora Floyd by M.E. Braddon; and Say and seal by Susan Warner and Anna Butler Warner. 40. On this idea, see Kete Kete, Mary. Louise. 1999. Sentimental Collaborations: Mourning and Middle-Class Identity in Nineteenth-Century America, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar], Sentimental Collaborations. 41. Gide, The Journals of André Gide, 18–19. 42. Likewise, on February 28, 1864, Bingham insists, "Nobody knows a Yankee till he is a prisoner – I know enough now – & am ready to go back." 43. See Bingham's entries on September 14, 1863, November 12, 1863 and January 16, 1864. 44. Davis, Messages and Papers, 345–82. 45. Bingham, "Robert Bingham to Henrietta Bingham," March 14, 1923. 46. Though Bingham must have continued to write to Dell during the rest of the war and in the years to come, these letters are not present in any of the archives where Bingham's other papers are located. 47. Bingham, "The New South Bingham , Robert . The New South The Proceedings of the Superintendents' Department of the National Education Association, Washington, DC, February 15 , 1884 . [Google Scholar]," 76. As he does in this address, Bingham continually proclaimed the constitutional right of secession and the superiority of the Southern man in practicing Republican self-government. See, for example, Bingham Bingham , Robert . " The Status of the South in the Past; The Decadence of that Status; Its Restoration ." At the Annual Banquet of the New York Southern Society in the Waldorf Astoria, December 14 , 1904 . [Google Scholar], "The Status of the South in the Past; The Decadence of that Status; Its Restoration"; Bingham, "The Fifty Years Between 1857 and 1907, and Beyond"; and Bingham, "Secession Bingham , Robert " Secession." Annual Address of the President of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina . Delivered at the Ninth Annual Session of the Association, Raleigh, NC, October 13 , 1908 . [Google Scholar]." 48. Bingham, "The New South," 85. 49. Bingham, "Status of the South," 16. 50. In her family history, Bingham, Passion and Prejudice, Bingham's great-great-granddaughter Sallie Bingham Bingham, Sallie. 1991. Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir, New York: Applause. [Google Scholar] corroborates the Joyner-Bingham link. 51. Wolfe Wolfe , Thomas . The Hills Beyond. 1941 . Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press , 2000 . [Google Scholar], The Hills Beyond, 274–5.