Lincoln in The Bardo by Catherine Hokin

 "Mary Lincoln's health had never been good and the loss of young Willie ended her life as a functional wife and mother."

"A Mother's Trial: Mary Lincoln and the Civil War" by Jayne Coster

"Where was her boy? she kept asking. Where was he? Couldn't someone find him, bring him to her at once? Mustn't he yet be somewhere?"

Account of Sophie Lenox, maid in "Eyewitness to History: The Lincoln White House" ed. Stone Hilyard

 Willie Lincoln in 1861

There are books that play with structure that make you want to weep as you stumble around like an extra in the Emperor's New Clothes wondering what on earth the critics are raving about. And there are books that play with structure that make you want to sing - such a one is George Saunders' wonderful tour-de-force Booker shortlisted Lincoln in the Bardo. For those of you don't know (and I promise there will be no spoilers), the novel centres on the death in 1862 of Willie Lincoln, the 11 year old son of Abraham Lincoln, from typhoid fever.

Willie was not the only one of the Lincoln's sons to die - in fact only one of their four survived to adulthood - but he is widely attested as being his parent's favourite and contemporary accounts of his death are harrowing. Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave who was Mary Lincoln's seamstress and friend (and is one of the voices woven through Bardo) wrote of the president’s grief. “I stood at the foot of the bed, my eyes full of tears, looking at the man in silent, awe-stricken wonder. His grief unnerved him, and made him a weak, passive child." There was a reception held at the White House during the last days of Willie's illness (for which many of Lincoln's detractors condemned him) and there are numerous accounts of Mrs Lincoln moving constantly to and fro between the ballroom and the child's bedroom where (as Keckley perhaps rather floridly puts it) "the rich notes of the Marine Band in the apartments below came to the sickroom in soft, subdued murmurs, like the wild, faint sobbing of far-off spirits.” 

This was, of course, a personal tragedy in the midst of a public one. On the day Willie was interred, the casualty lists from the battle at Fort Donelson (a Union victory) were published and the scale of these was enormous: a thousand men dead on each side and three times that number wounded. One of the source voices in Bardo (First Lieutenant Daniel Brower, in 'These Battle Memories') describes the bodies as "Heaped and piled like threshed wheat, one on top of two, on top of three." 

 The crypt where Willie was first interred

The image of Lincoln mourning his son as he tries to hold the Union on a steady and increasingly bloody course is a poignant one. Willie was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery, in a borrowed crypt, with the intention that his body would be eventually returned to Lincoln's home state of Illinois. On the night of the funeral, and after, Lincoln is known to have visited the crypt alone and this is where the novel starts. Young Willie is trapped in the bardo - a Tibetan Buddhist term which refers to a transitional state between the worlds of the living and the dead - where children, according to one of the novel's voices, Roger Bevins iii, are not meant to tarry. It seems that it is Lincoln's great love that is holding his son in this place filled with confused and wandering spirits who do not realise they are dead, actually making the boy's passing harder. It is these spirits, interwoven with contemporary voices, who act then as our narrators.

This is a book that feels like a play - in fact the audiobook runs to a cast of 166. Each spirit has their own voice, the whole novel is told in dialogue and often a character has only a line or two before we skip on to the next. Other than the spirits, we have verbatim contemporary accounts, such as the examples given at the top - the research here is centre-stage not sprinkled. It works, wonderfully - layer upon layer of lost, angry, confused, bitter and sometimes hilarious voices which reflect not only the horror of grief but also the chaos of human life and the ever-present civil war backdrop.

What exactly transpired in Lincoln's visits to the crypt, whether he did in fact have the coffin opened and hold his son's embalmed body, cannot be precisely verified. That a father could not bear to be parted from his son's remains is plausible enough and is really the only fact, beyond the death, we are invited to accept. That the boy's loss had a profound impact on his parents is, however, well-attested. In the following years both, and particularly Mary, created as apotheosis around Willie using phrases such as 'sainted' and 'too precious for this earth' to describe him. Mary remained in her room for weeks, not attending the funeral, requiring the service of a nurse for some months after and removed all her son's belongings from the White House. Keckly's account that “Mrs. Lincoln’s grief was inconsolable. In one of her paroxysms of grief the President kindly bent over his wife, took her by the arm, and gently led her to a window. With a stately, solemn gesture, he pointed to the lunatic asylum. ‘Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there.’” has other voices to support it.

There are as many ways to read the novel as there are voices in it. Erica Wagner, writing in the New Statesman calls it "a stunning portrait of a violently divided America" with a particular resonance for the world we live in. For writers and readers of historical fiction, it is a fascinating journey in what can be spun from the smallest nugget of historical fact. Oh and it's also wonderful - did I mention that?

Museums, Doll Houses and Giant Scones by Catherine Hokin

I have recently started working on a project with the Glasgow Women’s Library as a Community Curator which is all a bit fab. I will be doing a post about the library shortly and, when we work out what it is going to be from the trove of delights in the archive, a preview about the exhibition we are planning in 2018. One of the many things we have been reflecting on as a team is what makes a museum memorable. From my own experience I know that you remember museum visits for all kinds of reasons which may having nothing to do with the exhibitions. My eventual refusal to leave the Barcelona FC museum because I loved it is remembered far less than my behaving like Kevin and Perry at the suggestion of going and the irony of the Dunbrody Ship and Famine Experience in Ireland having scones bigger than our heads will live on as a family folk tale.

Pritzker Military Museum

So to my own shared tale. In 2010 I found myself stranded in Chicago for a week following the volcanic eruption in Iceland. It was an odd experience, coming as it did at the end of a holiday: we were mentally adjusting to returning to everyday life (and physically adjusting – we were actually airborne on a plane that was sent back) and no longer felt like tourists. I was teaching at the time and had touched on the origins of photo-journalism with a class – the American Civil War (which I have always been obsessed with) was the birthplace of this so I decided to use my time to do some research, which was when I discovered the wonderful Pritzker Military Museum and Library. 

Once the staff recovered from their hilarity at my pronunciation of Antietam they fell over themselves to help me; once they realised I had an interest in women’s history, they pulled out a whole new set of photos and documents about the women who had fought in the conflict disguised as male soldiers. These women were astonishing. Not all cases could be documented but estimates suggest 400-750 ordinary American women actively participated, fighting as men. Writing in 1888, Mary Livermore of the US Sanitary Commission wrote: “Someone has stated the number of women soldiers known to the service as little less than 400. I cannot vouch for the correctness of this estimate, but I am convinced a large number of women disguised themselves and enlisted in the service, for one cause or another, than was dreamed of. Entrenched in secrecy, and regarded as men, they were sometimes revealed as women, by accident or casualty. Some startling histories of these military women were current in the gossip of army life."

 Family Devotion: the ideal wife and mother

Choosing this active, masculine role was a step outside the social boundaries of the period which rigidly fixed the female role. The American Civil War lasted from 1861-65 and was fought to determine what kind of a nation it would be: the war’s coming challenged most of the attitudes that held sway across the country, including the ideology of domesticity that shaped the lives of men and women in both the North and South. In the antebellum period, life for women was shaped by a set of ideals American historians often refer to as The Cult of True Womanhood. As men’s work moved more into the external sphere of offices and factories, the household became more feminized and private, a haven in which ‘true women’ were encouraged to strive and build their husbands a comfortable home. Under this world-view, women were perceived as frail, subordinate and passive creatures with no interest in the outside world. The war changed all this and is seen by many as the first step towards emancipation.

From 1861 women were actively involved in the war effort on both sides, engaged in domestically-based work such as knitting, baking and fund-raising galas as well as the horrors of front-line nursing such as experienced by author Louisa May Alcott. For some women, however, even nursing, which remained strictly socially-controlled, was too small a step beyond the domestic sphere. The reasons they became soldiers were as different as the women themselves: for some it was freedom, for others it was patriotism, or more money than they could hope to earn in their narrow worlds, to follow their husbands or, simply, to have an adventure. One of the few women very open about what she was doing was Sarah Rosetta Wakeman who served with the 153^rd Regiment out of New York and wrote to her strict family about her choice saying she was “as independent as a hog on ice.” The reasons differed but all broke the stereotype of how women should think and live.

 Jennie Hodgers

These women did everything the men did, including working as spies and fighting in some of the worst combat: at least four women were known to have fought at Antietam on 17 September 1862 which, with its 30,000 casualties, was the single bloodiest day in the conflict. They were rarely discovered: physical examinations were scant, uniforms were baggy and so many young boys volunteered that the lack of a beard was nothing remarkable. Jennie Hodgers fought the whole war undiscovered as Albert Cashier and then lived the rest of her life as a man. Sarah Edmonds, who served for two years as Franklin Flint Thompson and whose career only ended when she contracted malaria, was described by comrades as a “frank and fearless” soldier and was awarded a military pension for her services.

After the war ended the existence of these soldier-women became widely known, at least among the reading public. An 1866 publication, The Women of the War by Frank Moore, included a chapter on female military heroines and some women, including Loreta Valazquez who fought as Harry Buford, published their memoirs. The US Army, however, denied women had played any role. In 1909, in response to a query about women who had served, Adjutant General Ainsworth responded: “I have the honor to inform you that no official record has been found in the War Department showing specifically that any woman was ever enlisted…at any time during the period of the civil war. It is possible, however, that there may have been a few instances of women having served as soldiers for a short time without their sex having been detected, but no record of such cases is known to exist in the official files.”  This was despite the detailed records that existed, including examples of discharge on the grounds of ‘sexual incompatibility’. A poorly timed attempt to put women back in the doll’s house.

The women who fought were ordinary soldiers, not generals or commanders: they did not change the course of battles. They were not, however, ordinary women: they displayed revolutionary attitudes by refusing to stay in their socially-delineated place. It is heartening how many of their stories are now being uncovered after too long a period in which their role was denied or reduced to the activities of a few oddities and eccentrics. For anyone who wants to find out more, can I recommend She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War by Bonnie Tsui. And, if you are in Chicago, go to the Pritzker and lose yourself: they’ll welcome you with open arms.  

Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First Kara Walker at Victoria Miro Catherine Johnson

A view of an earlier Kara Walker Installation, Darkytown Rebellion at Sikkema Jenkins Gallery 

I don't know a lot about the American Civil War. I've read Amanda Foreman's book and a few others. I've seen photographs, some of the first war pictures ever taken. I remember a terribly emotional TV show with Cicely Tyson as a 100 year old ex slave remembering the war.

I know it was a war about slavery and a clash of ideals. I know the Unionist north won and that the south, the Confederacy, saw themselves as rebels fighting for  their way of life which included the right to buy and sell and own other individuals.

I'm writing about it today because last week I went to an art exhibition. It was unusual in that it made me feel so much at once. I think we are so used to our culture being so saturated with images that they lose their power. Occasionally something will break through, for example in recent months the photograph of Aylan Kurdi provoked a massive response, but that was particularly shocking. And so terrifying it was hard to look at.

Kara Walker's life size friezes are, at first glance, very easy on the eye.

I don't go to loads of art exhibitions, previously to this I saw some local artists' work exhibited in a derelict newspaper building, oh and a couple of weeks ago I popped into the National Portrait Gallery to look at the portraits of the Tudors. Oh I do love those paintings!

But last week I went to the Victoria Miro gallery to see a new show by an artist whose work I've only ever seen before in books or in photographs.

The title of the show is the title of this blog, Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First, the artist Kara Walker is known for her silhouette cut out friezes. Which on first glance appear whimsical and  almost fairytale, but on closer inspection are also insightful, political, shocking and horrific.

The show was  Walker's reaction to the Confederate Monument, Stone Mountain, a colossal carving of Confederate Generals on the side of a mountain. This mountain was the site of the founding of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915, and in 1916 the Daughters of the Confederacy commissioned the carving.  Several artists worked on the sculpture, there were accidents and fallings out. It was not finished until 1970 when it was 'consecrated.  (the State of Georgia bought the mountain off the Venables family who were big in the Klan in 1958).

The Klan rise again, Stone Mountain 1915 from the Atlanta Constitution newspaper

The Stone Mountain Monument, Georgia

This show was Kara Walker's response to this gigantic memorial. There were preliminary sketches downstairs in the gallery and then upstairs one massive open space with the finished frieze on one side and a massive photograph of the monument on the other.

I felt completely overwhelmed by Walker's work.  Shocked and stunned and monumentally sad. Moved to tears. I thought about trying to get a reproduction up here, but it would never have that punch, that power.  I've tried to show some sketches and a couple of samples of her silhouettes but without standing in that space surrounded by those images it's never going to be the same.

If you're in London and anywhere near the Angel do go, the show is free and on  at The Victoria Miro Gallery , 16 Wharf Rd London N1 until November 7th.

I have since read up loads - Stone Mountain is a popular hiking and picnicking venue for Georgians of all colours,  it does seem to be on it's way to reclamation. But Walkers' is not the only uneasy voice about the monument. There's talk of making a memorial to Martin Luther King on the top of the thing, as it gets a name check in the famous 'Dream' speech as if this might cancel out the power of the earlier images.

From Go to Hell or Atlanta,  Kara Walker

I was trying to think of parallels in this country and of course in Britain we have our Tate galleries that glorify the fruits of slavery. Also we should never forget that most of the  'big houses' around our country owe their existence to a horde of unpaid and horrifically exploited labour.

I suppose what grates is that this enormous bas-relief - the largest of its kind in the whole world - was only finished and 'consecrated' in 1970, over a hundred years after the war ended.

Catherine

Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman Catherine Johnson

Tanya Landman's brand new novel is a tour de force. The voice of Charley - born Charlotte - does not waver, and the story of a girl from slave to freedom via the American Civil War and service in one of the black regiments of of the American Army as a 'Buffalo Solider' in the 19th century Indian Wars, pulls no punches.

The story of the Buffalo soldiers, African Americans who fought in segregated regiments of the American army in the 19th century is one I first heard about courtesy of Bob Marley.  I am not sure how well known this story is in the UK. For many of us the American West is a white country and it's important that Tanya Landman has shone a light on other histories. Landman  knows her stuff, Apache, her earlier Carnegie shortlisted  novel was also set in the mid century West  and covers similar territory.

It also features a rather wonderful walk on by Bill Cody, who I have to admit is one of my favourite characters. The stories of the cottage hospital at Llandudno full to the brim with Indian braves from his Wild West show, laid low with Welsh flu contracted on the long ride from Dolgellau to Portmadoc has always been one of my favourites.

Even though this is not really a slave narrative - the concerns at the heart of the book, for me were more to do with the mistreatment of the American Indians, and Charley's eventual realisation that she had been lied to again by her white masters, the people she was fighting and killing and policing were no monsters. That she was on the wrong side. That even when there was some kindness shown by those in power, there was always a cost and it was always involved compromise.

There's an awful lot of death and destruction and pain in this book. Rape and lynching and senseless violence in every form. It is in no way an easy read, and although there are moments of snatched love and humour and comradeship, Charley rides and shoots her way through life with tightly gritted teeth, and as everyone she  loves is killed. Charley manages to survive, and thankfully find her own freedom, even as she is painted out of her country's  history.

There's loads that drew me to this book, I've always had an itch for American 19th century history and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is one of my top non fiction reads (I can't say favourite, it is too sad).  America's history of taking care of it's indigenous peoples is no better or worse than that other ex British colony, Australia, where the local people were hunted down for sport. And there are parallels between the way both the Native Americans - Indians in Landman's book - and the black population are lied to, betrayed and ultimately dispatched in a variety of cruel and unusual ways.

Charley does, thank heavens find some peace by the end of the book. I do think it might well have been unbearable without it. If this book doesn't find itself on the awards lists next year my hat (and I would like it to be one of those Vivienne Westwood monster western hats as worn by Pharell) will be eaten.

On more thing. Another reason I wanted to read this book was that Charley is based on a real African American woman; Catherine Williams who enlisted and served as a man, William Cather.  And this resonates rather well with my own story in Daughters of Time, set during the Crimea and featuring Mary Seacole and her British Hotel.

Buffalo Soldier is out on April 3rd

Catherine

Catherine's latest book is Sawbones, an 18th century forensic murder mystery.