David Prashker's Book Of Days: December 2

1859

Another instance of the ways in which we recreate history by false remembering, and then transform it into the history that we prefer to remember.

All through my childhood, when Tottenham Hotspur were still a soccer team to be reckoned with (the first to win the League and Cup Double, the first to win a European trophy), and long before "You'll Never Walk Alone" became the anthem of the Spion Kop in Liverpool, we waved our scarves and sang "Glory, Glory" week in week out at White Hart Lane, needless of that prurient folie bergère they have in America, the Cheerleader. But who knew what "Glory, Glory, Halleluyah, and the Spurs go marching on" was really about?

The Pottawatomie Massacre, on May 24th and 25th 1856, in Kansas, is the answer. An anti-slavery group, led by one John Brown, attacked and killed pro-slavery supporters in Franklin County, hoping to inspire a national insurrection. Three years later, on October 16th 1859, with eighteen other men, he seized the government arsenal at Harper's Ferry in West Virginia, intending to distribute the arms to runaway slaves who would then declare an independent republic. But Robert E. Lee stormed the arsenal. Brown was tried in Charlestown for treason, and hanged on December 2nd.

The song that commemorates John Brown's heroic action on behalf of the liberation of the slaves was written by Thomas Bishop of Vermont around 1860, to a tune that he borrowed (liberated?) from William Steffe, in which the original lyrics spoke of "Canaan's happy shore" and the chorus rang out "brothers will you meet me". Few ever sing the whole of Bishop's version; few ever get beyond "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave" and the chorus "Glory, glory, halleluyah, his soul goes marching on"; but really they ought to.

"He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord" is verse two, "John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back" is verse 3, "His pet lambs will meet him on the way" assures his eternal innocence in verse 4; but then, what is this in verse 5? "They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree… as they march along", completed by "Now three rousing cheers for the Union".

Jeff Davis was really Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States between 1861 and 1865; his anti-John Brown speech entitled "The Miserable Prostitution of Noble Men's Ideas" was delivered before the US Congress on December 8th, 1859, intended as a peace-cry to avert what looked by then inevitable, the American Civil War. Clearly the supporters of John Brown, who was dead by the time the speech was made, were in favour of adding the Confederate President to the list of those lynched at Pottawatomie.

And then there is Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), abolitionist, social activist, editor of "The Women's Journal", authoress of a novel with the unlikely title "The Hermaphrodite"; and wife of Samuel Gridley Howe (more of a hero of the Greek wars than Byron ever managed), nicknamed Chev, the founder of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, whose most famous resident was Helen Keller (see April 5 and June 28)

It was Julia who took Bishop's John Brown song and rewrote it, keeping its melody and its chorus precisely, but creating verses that are now known as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic": "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord". The Battle Hymn of the Republicans anyway, who in those days were the liberal element in government, while the Democrats were the conservatives, the right-wing lobbyists, the pro-slavery party. What was it Jefferson Davis said about "the miserable prostitution of noble men's ideas"?

And now in full, for those of you who want to sing it: The John Brown's Body song. These lyrics are from the Library of Congress:

TUNE: Brothers, will you meet me

John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave

His soul’s marching on

CHORUS

Glory, halle - hallelujah! Glory, halle - hallelujah!

Glory, halle - hallelujah! his soul’s marching on

He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord!

His soul’s marching on

John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back!

His soul's marching on!

His pet lambs will meet him on the way;

They go marching on!

They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree!

As they march along!

Now, three rousing cheers for the Union

As we are marching on!

Amber pages

The Marquis de Sade died, today in 1814 - it has long amused me that he was one of the prisoners in the Bastille, waving down to the revolutionary crowds on that day in 1789 (July 14 - you knew that!) when they overthrew the monarchy and stormed the great prison. Liberté in support of Libertinage - at what point does the one become the other, do Rights become Entitlements, does Freedom become Self-Indulgent Decadence?

1804: Napoleon crowned himself Emperor today: chronologically this should come before the Marquis de Sade, but... here is a man who had witnessed the overthrow of the Bastille and the monarchy, who saw nothing but virtue in the Edicts of Tolerance and yearned to see them universally applied, who then witnessed their collapse into the "Terror", the dictatorship of Robespierre and his cronies, and determined to overthrow that terror and ensure that the Edicts came to fruition. At what point does the yearning for Freedom become self-defeating through its imposition on those who might define it differently? At what point is there a clear distinction between an absolute monarch and a self-crowned Emperor? And what might the Marquis de Sade have thought of it, had he lived long enough to write about the defeat of Napoleon?

And speaking of the battle between Freedom and Empire-building, The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed, today in 1823, open opposition to European colonialism in the Americas. Has anyone thought to write a bicentennial reciprocation: open opposition to American colonialism in Europe? Has anyone thought of applying the Monroe Doctrine in reverse - Exon Mobile in Equatorial Guinea, for example, or Hershey in Cote d'Ivoire (click on either of those country-names at my World Hourglass), Facebook and Uber and Google everywhere? Is there really any difference between MegaCorp PLC and the Dutch or British East India Companies? Is there really any difference between this question and the one in the paragraphs above (and, indeed, the one implicit in the paragraph below)?

Mars 3, Russian, made the first softlanding on Mars, today in 1971 (update December 2 2424: we interrupt this paragraph with a news flash: the first branch of Walmart has just opened on Mars, in spite of protests by indigenous species that the landfill site is causing pollution, and a complaint to the Global Nations Organisation based on the Moon that it has been deliberately placed on land claimed by Russia as the historic site of the first softlanding, in 1971...)

And today in 1982, the first permanent artificial heart transplant, donor unknown, the recipient a retired dentist named Barney C. Clark. Alas, it didn't work (failed to colonise?) - he lasted just 112 days - click here; but also see December 3

I figured out how to make his portrait sort of look like pointillisme, but I couldn't make the text work the same... maybe when the lights change...)