I recently attended the first of three lectures given by the “Friends of John Jay” in the Ballroom of The John Jay Homestead. The lecture was given by Barnet Schecter, a New York based writer and Historian who is also a Fellow at The New York Academy of History.

Just when you think the Civil War is over, due to the conclusion of the Katonah Museum’s “Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era,” there was yet one more memorable event. The topic was “The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America” based on his research and the name of his book on the subject. Introduced by Melissa Vail, Chairman of The Scholars Committee, Mr. Schecter illuminated the era in yet another way to increase my understanding of the time.

It was just nine days after The Battle of Gettysburg when the riots took place on July 13 - 16, 1863.

One has Currier & Ives and Winslow Homer visions of men marching off to war proudly in their Union uniforms, yet the draft - unpopular as in any other period of History - tore New York apart at the seams. When Lincoln called for an Army of 75,000 at the start of the war, 8,000 New Yorkers signed up in the first 10 days, yet they became very War weary as it lagged on and Lee had several Victories for the South.

It was six months after the Emancipation Proclamation. The poor whites of the city were afraid that should they leave for battle that upon their return they would have been replaced by the newly freed slaves in their jobs. There was also a Commutation Fee which wealthier New Yorkers could afford to pay - 300 dollars - a tidy sum at the time, in order to avoid the draft. It was a time of great corruption in New York. There even was talk of secession so they could corner the cotton processing and export market with the South. It was a conflict over Race and Class. John Jay II informed Lincoln of the riot and pleaded with him to send a militia to stop the riots which he did. There were 175 people killed and over 2000 wounded.

The upcoming Lectures of “The 2010 John Jay Lecture Series - Through the Eyes of Three Generations of Jays” are:

• Thursday, March 18 - Cliff Sloan: “The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall and the Battle for The Supreme Court.”


• Thursday, April 15 - Graham Russell Gao Hodges: “David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City.”

The lectures are $25.00 for non members and $15.00 for members. The Ballroom opens at 6:30; there is time to meet and greet fellow attendees and neighbors and the lecture begins at 7. At the end there may be a book signing but there are refreshments and discussions to enjoy!

Plus, take the time before or after the lecture to enjoy the exhibit “From Oppression to Freedom: John Jay and His Huguenot Heritage.”

For further information go to: JohnJayHomestead.org

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” (Proverbs 25:11)

This quote was used by Guest Lecturer Philip Kunhardt at The Katonah Museum to either illustrate the words of Abraham Lincoln or Walt Whitman - I was taking notes so furiously that I lost track. What I do know is that it aptly fit Mr. Kunhardt.

Longtime area resident and noted Lincoln scholar and author/historian, Philip Kunhardt, spoke to a full house at The Katonah Museum of Art on Jan. 10. The lecture was to accompany the current exhibit, “Bold, Cautious, True: Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era.” The focus of the lecture was “The President and the Poet: The Converging Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.”

Philip Kunhardt was the recipient along with his brother, Peter, in 2009 of The Order of Lincoln Award from The Lincoln Academy of Springfield, Illinois for their lifetime contribution to the understanding and appreciation of Abraham Lincoln. He has written several books on Lincoln for Smithsonian Magazine, received a grant from the U.S. State Department to speak to audiences in Russia about Abraham Lincoln and has directed conferences on Lincoln, including one at Bard College in March 2009.

He spoke of Lincoln’s and Whitman’s passion, their similarities and their differences. The strongest point was how deeply they admired each other. They also influenced each other. They were passionate about the other’s writings and causes. They never met. Yet there were times when they were in proximity of one another. During the years that Whitman acted as field nurse in the tent hospitals just outside of Washington, D.C. he used to post himself at a corner where he knew Lincoln’s carriage would pass on a daily basis. Over time they began to acknowledge each other with a bow. No one mourned Lincoln’s assassination more publicly than Walt Whitman.

Mr. Kunhardt completed his lecture with a portrait slide show of the two gentleman over the years. Whitman always appeared much older than Lincoln who was 10 years his senior. He had a more rapid decline after Lincoln’s death. Artist Thomas Eakins photographed him during this time and his decline was much in evidence during that visit to his Camden, New Jersey home. Yet he wrote, from that deep well of sorrow his two most famous poems - “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and one known by schoolchildren for generations “O Captain, My Captain.”

History Class was never like this! Kudos once again to The Katonah Museum of Art for bringing such opportunities for an in depth education to the community. I have been rewarded and enriched with a much deeper understanding of the era, the sorrow and the strife that the country endured.

The exhibit continues with tours at 2:30 each day the Museum is open Tuesdays through Sunday until January 24th. Go to KatonahMuseum.org for more information.

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom

The role of a witness is a heavy responsibility, especially the role of a war correspondent. We have had the comfort of Walter Cronkite, the routine of our network news and had our world changed by the birth of CNN and Cable News.

At the time of the Civil War we had our Writers, Poets, and Artists to report from the Front. Some bore double roles.

Walt Whitman, a New York carpenter, print setter and author who had his own newspaper at the age of 19, grabbed the attention of the nation with his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 with his own money. It also caught the attention of a young lawyer in Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who used to read it aloud in his law office.

Later in his career as a U.S. Senator, Lincoln spoke of his fear that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was elected President in 1860 although several of the Southern States did not have him on the ballot. Within one month the attack on Fort Sumter occurred.

The Nation was plunged into War. A War against each other and often times brothers. Former classmates at West Point were now the Generals that waged battle against one another. Families were divided. Mary Todd Lincoln lost two of her step brothers who had fought on the side of the Confederacy.

Walt Whitman’s brother, George, enlisted and the family learned by letter at one point that George was injured. Walt headed South to the tent hospitals of Washington D.C. to search for his brother. What he discovered were mountains of discarded limbs. He stayed on to comfort the soldiers, to change their bandages, to write letters - often the last - home for them. The toll of the Civil War was steep: 620,000 lives were lost and over 460,000 were severely wounded - most returning missing a limb and maimed for life.

The Exhibit is a very comprehensive study of the period curated by Kevin Sharp of The Dixon Gallery and Gardens of Memphis, Tennessee. It is not a textbook study of the War Between the States, there is nothing dry about it. Using the art of the period we capture and are swept up in the emotion of the time.

The two galleries are divided by the Curator into three sections: The Poetics of a House Divided, The Poetics of Service, and The Poetics of Endings and Beginnings. Here you will find the reportage of the era whether it be with paintings, the poetry of Whitman, or wood cuts that later became engravings for Harper’s Weekly and other papers in order to quench the appetite for news. There is also the landscape paintings of the Hudson River School which mirrored the turbulence, the hope, plus the reverence for nature and Divine Harmony.

Artists included in this exhibit are the well known Winslow Homer, T. Buchanan Read, Thomas Nast, Eastman Johnson, Enoch Wood Perry, Fredrick Edwin Church, Sandford Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. The others you will soon know as well as this is an exhibit that you will not forget.

This new exhibit at The Katonah Museum of Art will run until January 24th, 2010. For additional Museum information, events and lectures based on the current exhibit go their website KatonahMuseum.org.

Walt Whitman:

“….On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.”

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring, But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.”

Photos courtesy of the Katonah Museum of Art

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom

Let me start by saying that it has been many years since I was taken on a Field Trip! As a Docent at the Katonah Museum of Art, no sooner that you are fluent in the subject matter of the current show that you are given a schedule of events and lectures in order to immerse yourself in the upcoming show.

The new Show will be “Bold, Cautious & True - Walt Whitman & The Art of The Civil War Era” - October 18, 2009 - January 24, 2010

The Katonah Museum offered a Field Trip day. We started at the Horace Greeley Home in Chappaqua. Grey Williams, the Town Historian, led us through the home with a lively recounting of the life of Horace Greeley and his family. It was primarily their summer home, but then as years went by he may have become the first commuter to New York on a regular basis. We learned that Horace Greeley came from New Hampshire and apprenticed at a print shop when he was 14. He then worked his way to Vermont and then onto New York City where he was known for his typesetting skills. It was there that he started the “New York Tribune” which became the first national newspaper. He was against the expansion of slavery and was very vocal in his papers; some to which we were privy to in the archives held there. I noted that the font used was excruciatingly small. The answer was they used to read with a magnifying glass! Well, that is one way to save paper and trees - perhaps we should learn from that today.

After an enjoyable lunch at Jardin Du Roi Restaurant in Chappaqua, we hurried onto The John Jay Homestead in Katonah, NY where we were met by Bethany White, Educator for the Homestead.