Echoes of the Twelfth Century in Golden Gate Park

The magnolias were in bloom yesterday at the Botanical Garden in San Francisco. The sky was cornflower blue; the sun’s rays were warm and golden. Spring usually arrives the first week of February in this city, a fact for which I am grateful, especially if January has been cold and wet. So I took a bike ride to Golden Gate Park where the unfurling pink and white velvet of magnolia petals were a delicious treat. 

Do they chant Gregorian?

As I strolled through the arboretum, in the midst of the Rhododendron Garden I ran across a circular seating area made out of stones that struck me as old. Very old. And the stones had personality. Soul, even. As I examined them, I noticed the stones were cut and carved in shapes that reminded me of, well, a medieval church of all things. Odd. What were medieval-looking stones doing in the arboretum of a city not exactly known for medievally-inspired architecture? 

Time for some research! It turns out these stones are not medieval-looking, they are the real thing, remnants of a twelfth-century Cistercian Spanish monastery. I kid you not. They are likely the oldest things you can touch in the city limits of San Francisco. How they ended up halfway across the world surrounded by rhododendrons is your usual story of power, greed, bureaucratic incompetence, and Byzantine San Francisco politics, combined with a dab of grace and a sprinkle of serendipity.

What's left of the monastery

Construction began on the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila (in the Spanish province of Guadalajara) in 1188, probably to help hold the border area that King Alfonso VIII had recently reconquered from the Moors. A small monastic community thrived there over the centuries but eventually faded to the point that in 1835, by royal decree, the monastery was secularized and fell into private hands. Over time the site decayed, any portable parts of value were sold, and its buildings were used as barns and even a manure pit. Volunteer shrubbery grew from the vaulting. One can imagine goats traipsing through the abandoned interior. 

Our story now advances to another century and another continent where the brashest of characters arrives on the scene—William Randolph Hearst, media tycoon extraordinaire. He has just had so much fun building Hearst Castle in San Simeon that he has another project in mind, a true blue medieval castle to replace his mother’s burnt down summerhouse near Mount Shasta. Medieval castles scarce in California? If you’re William Randolph Hearst, this is not a problem. Just get one from Spain! 

Hearst and Morgan, medieval on their minds

Good old Hearst, looting the treasures of Europe right and left like they were bonbons for the taking. His agent in Spain recognized Hearst’s potential castle walls in the decrepit Santa Maria de Ovila monastery. He quickly arranged to buy the structure from the owner who, it fortuitously turned out, could use the extra $97,000 in cash. Julia Morgan, Hearst’s trusted architect who had designed his “castle” in San Simeon, drew up the plans for the proposed Wyntoon Castle based on the components Hearst had purchased. The monastery’s Chapter House would become the castle’s entrance hallway; the Refectory would be the “armory” that would display Hearst’s extensive collection of armor. The castle plan even included an eight-story tower with Hearst’s study, of course, occupying the top floor. The monastery’s church posed a problem due to its great size (150 feet long and 50 feet tall.) Try as they might, it seemed too large for an assembly hall or any other room appropriate to the castle. Solution? Put the swimming pool in it! Problem solved. The price tag for this medieval fantasy quickly rose to a cool $50 million. In comparison, Hearst’s yearly income ran about $15 million, so you can see this castle was an expensive dream indeed. 

Bye-bye Spain

Whatever his shortcomings, Hearst never lacked ambition. In 1931 a hundred laborers were hired to take much of the monastery apart and pack ten thousand of its stones in crates. Although shipping even a single antique stone out of the country was illegal according to Spanish law, the King of Spain had just abdicated, the government under the Second Republic was in turmoil, and much could be gotten away with, especially considering the project was providing so many unemployed Spanish workers with jobs. (I suspect a bribe or two also greased the wheels.) The crated stones made their way via small trench railway to ferry to trucks to eleven German freighters waiting in the port of Valencia. From Valencia they sailed across the ocean, through the Panama Canal, to San Francisco where they were off-loaded at a warehouse near Fisherman’s Wharf. There the stones would wait while the site of Wyntoon Castle was prepared. 

Hearst, dachshund, and castle substitute

But in 1933 the Depression caught up with Hearst. Money grew tight enough that work couldn’t begin on the new venture. The stones sat patiently in their warehouse accruing storage costs. Business went from bad to worse until eventually Hearst realized he would never be able to build his medieval dream. He built at Wyntoon a less expensive “Bavarian Village” instead. (Again, I kid you not.) He tried selling the monastery stones but there were no takers. Storage costs kept accumulating. 

Franco suggested the stones be returned to Spain. Hearst did not oblige. Finally, in 1941, Hearst presented the stones to the city of San Francisco as a gift with the understanding that the monastery would be reconstructed and made into a Museum of Medieval Arts right next to the DeYoung museum in Golden Gate Park. The city was thrilled! Plans for the museum were drawn up. In return for Hearst’s generosity, San Francisco took care of the little problem of the $25,000 in outstanding storage debt. The stones were then carted to Golden Gate Park to await their transformation. 

Crated stones fire 1941 (SFPL photo)

Stones on fire 1958 (SFPL photo)

But there were more bad years ahead for our stones. Money for the construction could not be raised. People disagreed where the museum should be built. The Board of Supervisors couldn’t gather consensus for a bond issue. A government Park commission couldn’t resolve the matter, and then a neutral citizen’s commission failed to make headway. As the years passed and the stones sat in the park unprotected from the weather and vandalism, they endured five (count them, five!) fires, at least two of them arson. One wouldn’t think stones would burn, but the heating and then sudden cooling by water as the fires were put out took their toll, fracturing some of the stones internally. Brambles grew over the stones strewn in unorganized piles. Some smaller ones were carried off altogether to parts unknown. By 1960 it was determined that only half of the stones were sound enough to use in construction. 

Stone graveyard?

In the decade of Haight Ashbury's ascendance, the Recreation and Park Department was given responsibility for our poor forsaken stones. Someone practical decided to put the stones to use, and a number found their way into various gardens in the park, including the Arboretum and the Japanese Tea Garden. A few citizens still had the goal to at least rebuild the Chapter House of the monastery (a large room where meetings were held), but the price tag was now $3 million and funds never emerged. 

New home

In the meantime, an order of Cistercian monks in Vina, California had a dream of reclaiming the stones for religious use—and for Cistercian religious use at that! They set their sights on rebuilding the Chapter House as a part of their own abbey. But they would have to be patient. It took thirty-nine years, from 1955 to 1994, before they finally convinced the Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco to release the stones that remained of the Chapter House to them on permanent loan. There was public outcry in San Francisco at the decision (“The museum is giving away ‘our’ monastery!”), but the stones went to their new home nonetheless, and construction began at the Abbey of New Clairvaux. All these years later, the reconstruction is still underway (but almost finished!) if you’re ever passing Vina, California (population 237) and want to see what a twelfth-century Chapter House of a medieval monastery looks like. 

A portion of the rest of the stones can be found strewn throughout Golden Gate Park, especially in the Botanical Gardens. The Library Terrace Garden (near the Main gate) has a wall and seating area constructed from the stones, some of which were undoubtedly column capitals and other ornamentation. I also spotted some carved stones in the Fragrance Garden, and the Rhododendron Garden (most easily accessed from the North gate) boasts the architectural whimsy that first caught my notice. 

 

When the twelfth-century stonemasons put that monastery together, maybe they imagined their handiwork enduring centuries of weather as it sheltered monks and novitiates during the daily rituals of monastic life. Maybe the masons could even envision their stones facing fire and defilement. (Through war? Conquest?) But could they have dreamed that one of the richest and most powerful men in the world would take their stones to the other side of the planet for his personal pleasure? (Probably not given they didn’t know the world was a sphere and had another side.) And could they have imagined a city filled with skyscrapers that would want their stones to make a monument dedicated to the craftsmanship and art of their era? Or that this grand city would fail in their quest and decorate their gardens with the stones instead? Or that, eight centuries after the stones were first cut, monks separated so far in time and space from their medieval brethren would patiently gather some of the stones and use them to again shelter monks and novitiates in the daily rhythms of monastic life? 

The world spins and comes around, all in its own time. In the winter-spring sunshine, I sit on these stones carved so long ago, admire their soul, their beauty, and consider their grand journey through space and time. 

Note: The Rhododendron Garden in the Botanical Garden is not the same as the Rhododendron Dell that is located east of the Academy of Sciences. (It is easy to confuse the two.)

Sources:
www.sacredstones.org
http://www.outsidelands.org/monastery-stones.php

The Cruelties of Gilligan's Island, Hamlet and Chopin

All boats carry Hamlet costumes in case of shipwreck

My introduction to both Hamlet and the opera, Carmen, was through a Gilligan’s Island episode--you know, the one where a movie producer crash lands his plane on the island with them. He sends out a distress call, so it looks like at last help is on the way--hurrah! But, before the rescue, Ginger wants to convince the producer to cast her in one of his movies. So our intrepid castaways come up with the brilliant (at least brilliant to all future pop culture) idea to stage Hamlet set to tunes from Carmen. (And also, it turns out, from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, but I just learned that.) The producer is impressed, so impressed that he slinks away to be rescued without them so he can produce Hamlet, The Musical as his own original idea. Poor islanders, foiled again.

My childhood speaks

Gilligan’s Island ran from 1964 to 1967. This astonishes me because it means that during the 70’s, when I saw it, I only ever viewed it in reruns. (In between Bewitched and I Love Lucy episodes. Oh that Desi.) And, boy, did I view it. Gilligan’s Island was a staple of my childhood. I must have seen every episode at least three times, especially during the long rainy Seattle summer afternoons when only reruns filled the airwaves. Television had enormous power and influence on me during those years. To say it was my window on the world is a vast understatement. What an astonishing use of my time and childhood.

Matches the shag

I grew up in a classic, brand new subdivision rife with young families and children where every house was decorated in Harvest Gold or Avocado Green. Your choice of color would determine the shade of your shag carpet, appliances and panel of hideous frosted glass located next to your front door. I’m sorry to remind you that this is how many of us lived in the 70’s, I truly am. I just spent five minutes looking at photos of ugly 70’s kitchens, and it is more depressing than I can say.

In this classic, hastily-built subdivision there were three choices of floor plan—rambler, tri-level or split level. Every friend’s home you went into you knew where to find the bathroom because you’d already been in three other houses exactly (and I mean exactly) like it. Even as a child I knew this was wrong, that I was living in an architectural wasteland. My subdivision was named “Wellington.” I assume this was after the Duke of Wellington, defeater of Napoleon, victor of Waterloo. I could weep.

For the rambling man

My house was of the rambler variety. Three bedrooms, two baths. It looked something like the photo to the right, except it was brownish-olive-brown in color. Brown was very seventies. People wore brown, decorated with brown, and had lots and lots of brown hair. Men had brown moustaches and sported brown sideburns. People began to eat brown bread and macramé brown hanging plant holders with brown jute that would hold brown plants once the poor things died.

No mowing

My father didn’t want to mow grass (he had allergies), so he covered our front yard in rocks. It looked a little like the photo to the left, except, well, less attractive. But I do admire his willingness to experiment.  Every other yard in the entire 80-house subdivision had a freaking lawn. We were the strange ones.

Though I didn’t read Hamlet until my freshman year of college, it must’ve been sometime during the purgatory just this side of hell known as junior high that it dawned on me that the play in the Gilligan’s Island episode was a highly abridged version of one of the greatest works in the English language. The source of most of the episode’s tunes probably didn’t occur to me until I studied opera during my junior year abroad and saw Carmen for the first time in Florence.

Now, though I love Carmen, I’m not a huge fan of Hamlet; he’s too petty and indecisive for me. (He was the son of the king, for crying out loud. His rightful throne was usurped. Why the heck didn’t he get some nobles together and chase his uncle out of Denmark?) Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice and The Tempest are my favorites of Shakespeare’s plays, and I’ve got a soft spot for Romeo and Juliet. But Gilligan will forever whisper in my ear (to the melody of the Habenera aria), “To fight or flee, to fight or flee. I ask myself to be or not to be?"

So two of the heavyweights of the Western canon were introduced to me by the likes of Lovey and Thurston Howell the Third. Faux, ersatz, a parody before I had any idea of what was being parodied. Did my culture value me so little or the works so little that I was fed the spoof rather than the real thing? I guess it could’ve been worse. No doubt children these days miss nary a classic via The Simpsons.

Pusher

But Chopin—Chopin was different.  He didn’t come through the back door. He was introduced to me as he ought to have been--whole, genuine, the real thing--straight into my soul via the ephemeral elegance of ballet.

Trapped in my seventies subdivision, attending a school that mostly bored me to tears, my one saving grace, besides reading a book a day, was ballet lessons. I took ballet at first twice a week, then three times, then pretty much most of Saturday added as well. And Chopin was the music of the barre, of the center floor, of the porte de bras. Yes, his tempo was often altered slightly so my teacher, Mrs. Bruce, could sternly count, “And one, and two, and three, and four,” but it was still him directly responsible for the rippling notes.

A young girl's heroin

Ballet! Not only did I get introduced to Giselle, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and Les Sylphides, but also art, because one Christmas Mrs. Bruce gave us all posters of dancers by Impressionists (Degas! Renoir!) as gifts.  Mine was this beauty on the right. She was on my bedroom wall until I went away to college. And classical music! Tchaikovsky, of course; but also Ravel, Liszt, Saint-Saens, and a host of others. (But not Beethoven. I became acquainted with him later.) It was rapture, euphoria, cultural heroin. Like having two hundred years of European civilization injected straight into my veins. I was hooked, a junkie for life. No wonder I loved ballet fiercely for five years even though I didn’t have the body for it. (I had no turn out, my legs and feet just wouldn’t do 180 degrees, and classical ballet is cruel, cruel, cruel. You have the body or you don’t. After the body, then comes talent, determination, lyricism, and effort. But the body comes first.)

Eventually I gave up on ballet after glimpsing that this rarefied, mysterious world wonderfully far from shag rugs and television laugh tracks might also be accessible through literature and college. Chopin’s music still beckoned, so enigmatic and sublime. Life would be a glorious wonder if only entry into his universe could be obtained.

Suburban soul food

There are cruelties and there are cruelties. Ballet is merciless. It knows its enchantment and demands everything of you that can be given. It is so heartless it can turn away emaciated orphans from its door without a twinge of regret. Gilligan’s Island in comparison was a TV dinner cook. Its intentions were no doubt benign enough, but when I was literally starved for culture, it fed me Twinkies and Cheez-Whiz.

But Chopin, it turns out, was the cruelest of all. Yes, he fed my soul when I had little else to sustain me, and yes, I still hear traces of that magic world (secret garden?) as I play his notes on my piano. But there is never a final passageway to enter, no key to turn in the last lock. Yes, the floating preludes, the hushed nocturnes, the soaring waltzes limn the mysteries of the human experience. They allude (so delicately!) to the vast, lost chambers in our souls we long for but never visit because we’ve forgotten how or never knew the path. But his music promises what might be, not what is. And it’s not a promise that it keeps.

Did he promise a rose garden?

Perhaps this isn’t Chopin’s fault. Perhaps he just glimpsed these worlds, too, and the best he could do was communicate potential, not define how to achieve it. Perhaps, indeed, sensing a plane of consciousness askew to our own, one just out of reach, that we catch sight of only from the corner of our eye or in a fleeting run of notes, is an immutable part of being human (transcended by a few lamas and saints.) We get the moments, the glimpses, and must bear it best we can. Even if it means we live out a Gilligan’s Island version of Hamlet.

Ulysses S. Grant--Out of Love But Still Very Fond

The Man

This a sequel to my previous post, I Am In Love With Ulysses S. Grant, written just as I began the perusal of his memoirs.

Ah, Ulysses. Hiram Ulysses, actually. During his appointment to West Point, his middle name got mixed up as his first, and when he got to the Academy, he didn’t argue about it. Sign of a good solider, I suppose, take what comes. Put up and shut up. Except Grant’s genius was that during the Civil War, “do what you’re told” was not what he did.

Grant was a math guy. In the Mexican-American War he was a quartermaster—the officer in charge of supplies, rations, clothing, and shelter.  Though I still don’t understand how someone good at supplying an army (and later commanding an army) could be so hideously bad at running a small business as Grant, his memoirs show that logistics was indeed a key strength. He was always considering how to get supplies to his army or cut them off from the enemy, either by choking off supply routes or destroying the supplies themselves. (Sometimes the enemy’s supplies were still in the fields and smokehouses of the Confederate citizenry. As Grant saw it, this was what Sherman’s march to the sea was all about.) Looking at the state of Lee’s army at Appomattox, this strategy appears to have worked, though the terrible casualties, the noose of Grant’s forces preventing escape, and the desertions due to low morale no doubt contributed as well.

Raring to vanquish

Grant’s other great strength was his tremendous impatience, almost fury, to trounce his opponents. While out west, often cut off from communication with Washington and his higher ups, Grant took the initiative and attacked when and where he thought he could win. (When your superiors are terrified to act for fear of blame, doing first and informing later is an effective tactic as long as the result is a success that your superiors can take credit for.) He rose through the ranks through sheer nerve and competence when such qualities were scarce.

Go-Getter Sheridan

Once Grant was promoted to general-in-chief of all the Federal forces and had to operate out of the east, you could palpably feel his frustration with the idiotic interference of Stanton and Halleck (be cautious! be defensive!) who would change Grant’s direct orders without his knowledge. And you can understand his vexation when his subordinates failed to follow orders or followed them too late to be of use. Grant loved Sherman and Sheridan because they could get their men marching off before most other commanders could put one leg out of bed.

Reading the memoirs I was amazed at how often the Federal troops made very early morning (3:30 am!) or all night marches. In the west, Grant was often able to use his predilection for early movement to surprise his opponent. It worked less well with Lee because Lee started doing it, too.  Perhaps Lee heard about Grant’s tactics in the western battles and adjusted accordingly?

Hasty military bridge--Chickahominy, Virginia

Cut those supply lines

Another aspect of the war that astounded me was how often railroads were ripped up and then laid right back down. To disrupt the other side’s supply lines and troop transport, each army had a small army constantly burning ties and twisting rails into curlicues. Then when the other side gained back control of the area, they would put down new ties and unbend the steel. Bridges were also constantly destroyed and rebuilt, although Grant’s army did often carry around pontoons with them to get over rivers in a pinch. And all this was done incredibly rapidly, without backhoes, chainsaws or cranes.

Loathed

Though I still admire Grant, I have to say my infatuation has faded, as infatuations are wont to do. He was more of a black-and-white guy than I like, though I realize seeing the grey in things does not a good general make. In a war, there are only two sides: yours and the enemy’s. Grant was clear why he was fighting, what needed to be done, and what sacrifices were worth making. Though he didn’t like his men dying, he accepted the deaths and maiming as the cost of winning. He acknowledged the valor and tenacity of the Confederates but believed them wrong, wrong, wrong. He respected Lee, admired Lincoln (though pooh-poohed him when he put his pretty civilian head towards military strategy) and despised the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.

In the first half of Grant’s accounts, before he became commander-in-chief of the Northern army, I got more of a sense of thoughtfulness, more wry acknowledgement of the twists and turns that fate throws us mortals. Perhaps in the second half Grant became more cut and dried because he was growing very ill and felt the need to make the case for his version of history before his time was up. He seemed defensive that people claimed Lee was the better general, he didn’t really acknowledge the terrible destruction done to the South by Sherman and other Northern forces or later during the Reconstruction. (He doesn’t go much into his presidency at all.) He sincerely believed slavery was wrong but didn’t mention that both he and his wife owned slaves for a time. He didn’t believe in social equality between blacks and whites.

The Surrender

Grant was a great general who rose through the ranks of the Northern army because no one else could or would do the job in an even halfway effective fashion. Since he wasn’t a political appointee or career military, he had little to lose in terms of salary or position and so was willing to take risks. Poor, poor Lincoln to have such miserable, pathetic generals who refused to do much of anything. Grant was so young, only 41, when he became commander-in-chief. This in itself is a measure of how desperate Lincoln was. There is a hysterical telegram from Lincoln (in Washington) to Grant (on the battlefields) that beautifully sums up what Lincoln was going through:

"The Peacemakers"--Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, Porter

“I have seen your despatch in which you say ‘I want Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to put himself South of the enemy, and follow him to the death. Wherever the enemy goes, let our troops go also.’ This I think, is exactly right, as to how our forces should move. But please look over the despatches you may have received from here, even since you made that order, and discover, if you can, that there is any idea in the head of any one here, of ‘putting our army South of the enemy’ or of following him ‘to the death’ in any direction. I repeat to you it will neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day, and hour, and force it.”

Basically Lincoln is flat out telling Grant that everyone associated with the war in Washington was a useless, incompetent viper and that he himself couldn't do much about it.

What might he have done?

Grant wasn’t a man who had the patience or finesse for politics, and he was inclined to assume people would follow orders correctly rather than suspect they would screw up (which happened with disheartening frequency.) He seemed to feel that since Southerners caused the war they deserved a certain amount of retribution—especially South Carolina. He indicated that President Johnson’s accommodations of the South immediately after the war were what prompted the drastic measures of the Reconstruction. From everything he writes of Lincoln, it is indeed a great tragedy that Lincoln was assassinated. Lincoln was the one man who would've had the patience, compassion, political skill, and credibility to knit North and South back together with an even hand. Reconstruction certainly made advances for African Americans and gave them a brief spot in the sun in terms of political power, but all those advances were soon washed away and replaced by a heavy hand for over a hundred years. Less retribution, more healing, and a firm commitment to education, economic opportunity, and enfranchisement of African Americans over the long haul would have been so much better.

Are Grant’s memoirs a literary masterpiece? Well, they have immense value and are, by and large, highly readable. They’re more oriented towards military history than I had expected (though he does spend time on his childhood and cadet years) and my eyes did glaze over from time to time as each creek, swamp and bayou crossed was discussed in detail. Even so I got a lot out of the work. Grant’s voice speaks to us from another place and time with a freshness that is remarkable. Though I don’t know if he was always honest with himself (he never mentions his drinking), he does write with a candor and integrity I have rarely found in memoirs. I got a great sense of what it was like to be him, in his shoes, directing troops, fretting about an enemy’s retreat or how to feed the army's horses before the grass is growing again in the spring. I love how after a week of battle he found a borrowed change of clean underwear extremely pleasant; I wonder at how he only mentions in passing that his son nearly died of illness while he was holding Vicksburg under siege.

Was he a great man? I believe so, though some of this was due entirely to his unique response to a unique demand of history. Was he moral? I would say close, but since I have a few reservations he doesn’t quite win the cigar for that in my estimation. Do I know all his demons, did I plumb his soul? Unfortunately, no. The memoirs don’t go that far, and I can’t say I blame Grant for his reticence. Who wants their soul plumbed a hundred and thirty years after they’ve left the earth? But he left us his voice, his intelligence, and his understanding of his place in history, and I am glad to know the man and my country better because of it.

I Am in Love with Ulysses S. Grant

The Man

I realize this infatuation may only be a passing fancy, but I have begun reading the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. It is a two-volume set, consisting of 552 pages (although I’m reading it on a Kindle which results in never having a true feel for where you are in a book.) In any event, I’ve set out on a journey to plumb this man’s soul. It’s nice to have a long read to look forward to. 

Grant wrote these memoirs at the very end of his life, as he was dying of throat cancer. Seems to me a meaningful vantage point from which to ponder one’s place in history. A man of humble beginnings, Grant had enormous successes and enormous failures. Some of these would alter the fate of a nation; others the fate of a people. Some brought him shame and financial ruin.

Grant Booster

Mark Twain characterized Grant’s account as “a great, unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece,” a war memoir comparable in stature to Julius Caesar’s.  (There’s hyperbole for you, to be expected since Twain was involved in publishing and selling the book.) Fifty years later, holding court underneath her Picasso’s, Gertrude Stein claimed Grant’s book to be one of the greatest written by an American. Walt Whitman said of Grant, “In all Homer and Shakespeare there is no fortune or personality really more picturesque or rapidly changing, more full of heroism, pathos, contrast." (I cannot resist also including this quote from Whitman, just because it makes me smile: "I do not value literature as a profession. I feel about literature what Grant did about war. He hated war. I hate literature.")

Of course not everyone was a fan of the man. Henry James sniffed that Grant’s prose was “hard and dry as sandpaper.” Matthew Arnold held that Grant’s use of English was “without charm and without high breeding.” But let them say what they like. Dying and nearly destitute, Grant clung to life and churned out up to fifty pages a day so that profits from the book might provide for his family. He finished the manuscript and died five days later.

A curious man. I am in love with his voice. It was anti-Victorian, not flowery and verbose but spare, direct, even acerbic. Yet not cynical, at least not by modern standards. The amusement and wit is gentler, forgiving, and always demonstrating a clarity and intelligence that I admire. 

At his best?

They say Grant had great courage and coolness under fire. It certainly showed during the Battle of Fort Donelson. It was while researching the performance of Gideon Pillow (perhaps the worst general in the Civil War) in that battle that I first ran across Grant’s wry recollections. It was no doubt what set me on a course, six months later, to delve into his memoirs.

My question at the moment: how does an aware, intelligent man of his caliber, a great strategist and imperturbable tactician (unruffled by bolting horses or bullets flying  overhead), make such astonishing, bonehead errors of judgment? His presidency was one of the most corrupt on record, and some of the worst excesses of the Reconstruction happened on his watch. He went on to end his life in financial ruin due to lax oversight and further poor judgment. And yet he says this about the Mexican-American War (with which I am in complete agreement):

“I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”

I cannot but believe Grant was a moral man. Moral in, I suppose, my complex, rather torturous definition of the term. (You have to see all the complexities, the good and the bad, the dark and the light, and all the murky grey areas in between where things are never clear and people try and fail, and maybe don’t try so hard and fail but have to be forgiven anyway because, in the end, kindness is the only true religion. And with all this, knowing the tragedies and the pettiness and the failures and the sadness, knowing your own failures and the reefs you’ve foundered on, you still most days attempt the right thing, that which will cause the least suffering and most well-being for all. You strive for what your conscience can best live with, because there is, in the end, no other choice. And if you can do all this without bitterness, with even a sense of humor, by god, you’re a saint.)

(I have not often managed to live up to this definition.)

I wish Lincoln had lived to write his autobiography. He could be hysterically funny and I’m sure such a book would be a rollicking good time (not unlike Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography which is a hoot.) I’m also a fan of Robert E Lee and wish he’d written memoirs so I could hear his voice without all the mythologizing and interpreters, though in his writing Lee is invariably such a gentleman and so circumspect that perhaps little of his inner personality might have shown through.

But what is left to posterity, mostly due to a pressing need for cash, is the account of a man who, as a West Point cadet, just wanted to become a math professor and who probably would’ve been happier, when all was said and done, had that happened. But his soul, his demons, his moral center? Does the arc of the universe indeed bend towards justice, kindness, redemption? Ah, that’s why I read. And why I write. To find out.

Watch Out for Peaks Ahead

They can be pretty from afar

We are at an interesting crossroads in history where a perfect storm of crises is going to create significant, rapid change. Many commonplace parts of modern society will hit their peak and then not instantly disappear, but undergo a decline. How slow or swift the decline will be depend on the circumstances as well as various levels of corruption and/or government intervention (assuming the two aren’t synonymous.) Sometimes the peak may be a temporary one, if we can manage to reorganize ourselves and our resources in a sensible manner.  Some of the descents, however, are permanent or at least will last for several generations.

The financial crisis is all around us and will last at least another five years, if not ten. World Peak Oil already happened in 2005 (U.S. Peak Oil was in 1971), and world crude oil production is in gentle decline hidden by demand drop due to the recession. The oil crunch will strongly hit in 2013 (or sooner, if anyone decides to airstrike Iran.) And then there’s climate change, the ultimate humdinger that’s awfully hard to predict anything about except that it will likely cause drought, famine, flooding, forced migrations, massive species extinction and a lot of death. But given its uncertainty and longer timeframe (ooh, maybe fifteen or twenty years before the real onslaught of effects) let’s not worry about that one just yet.

 

Let’s get back to our immediate Peaks—Finance and Oil—and the other Peaks related to them that have appeared or are soon to appear on the near horizon.  Now perhaps you believe Peak Oil is a hoax made up by oil companies and/or environmentalists. Perhaps you think the financial crisis is on the way to recovery and another happy finance bubble is around the corner. Even so, just as an intellectual exercise, let’s pretend there’s less oil and financial wealth ahead for the vast majority of the human race. What would be the result?

Less liquidity, less energy, for starters. Which will lead to:

*Peak Credit, which will lead to

US Consumer Debt Levels

*Peak Consumer Debt

*Peak GDP

*Peak Housing

*Peak College,

*Peak Exotic Vacations,

*Peak Vegas

and *Peak Stuff. 

(Basically, any activity or item financed by home equity loans for the past decade will shrink.) This will lead to

*Peak Self-Storage,

*Peak Housing Square Footage

*Peak Lawns and Peak Yards

Which leads to *Peak Lawn Gnomes, *Peak Pink Flamingos, *Peak Lawn Mowers and *Peak Lawn Pesticides

It doesn’t necessarily lead to Peak Remodeling. Nor Peak Housing Density. Nor Peak Urban Infill. Nor Peak Family Camping. Nor Peak Knowledge, Peak Community College, or Peak Internet Connectivity. Anything that can be transferred digitally—data, news, movies, video games, magazines, books, music, etc.--probably will not peak soon, though its hard copy form probably already has. This is not to say there will be much profit in any digital media, however.

As the rate of oil pumped out of the earth slows below demand, all oil-importing countries are going to see some significant shifts. They will include:

*Peak Plastics, (which will lead to Peak Product Packaging, Peak Recycling, and Peak Cheap Plastic #@$% from China)

*Peak Paved Roads and Peak Asphalt

*Peak Internal Combustion Engines

*Peak Cars (which will lead to Peak Home Garages, Peak Auto Mechanics, Peak Gas Stations)

*Peak Commute Distance and Vehicle Miles Traveled

US Vehicle Miles Traveled

*Peak Auto Weight

*Peak Trucking Freight

*Peak Bottled Water

*Peak Soda Pop

*Peak Human Body Fat

*Peak Suburbia, Strip Malls and Parking Lots

*Peak Blueberries in February from South America

*Peak Chain Restaurants

*Peak Resorts

*Peak Downhill Skiing

*Peak Gasoline-powered toys (jetskis, speed boats, snowmobiles, etc. except where they provide actual economic benefit.)

*Peak RVs

*Peak Air Conditioning

*Peak Airports, Planes and Air Travel

But not peak rail, bicycle, boat travel or freight.  Not Peak Public Transit. Not peak energy efficiency. Not peak alternative energy. Not peak vegetable gardens, chicken and goat raising, or beekeeping. Not Peak Food, Water, or Energy Prices. Not Peak Ceiling Fans, Peak Attic Insulation, Peak Solar Hot Water Systems. Not Peak Resiliency or Peak Self-Sufficiency by any means.

US Health Costs compared to rest of world

As people and governments grow poorer we will soon experience

*Peak Healthcare

*Peak Pharmaceuticals

*Peak Lifespan in the US

*Peak ADD and ADHD

*Peak tranquilizers and anti-depressants

*Peak Prisons

*Peak Medicare, Social Security and Welfare

*Peak Washington D.C.

But not Peak Food Stamps (otherwise too much social unrest). Probably not Peak Lottery as it’s a way for people to gamble cheaply. Not Peak Retirement Age (for a while). And not Peak Family, Peak Community, Peak Relationships. These will be on the increase. Unfortunately, not Peak Homeless, Peak Crime, or Peak Disease. Sadly, probably not Peak World Population until Peak Famine hits first. Does Peak Energy lead to Peak Fertilizer which very quickly leads to Peak Food, even here in the U.S.? Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Long term, Peak Arable Land due to climate change is going to be bad enough.

As I said above, many of these peaks don’t have to be permanent.  They could be temporary downslopes creating local peaks until we retrench, reorganize in a way that makes sense given our resources, and then we can go forward again. Some of these Peaks in my view are beneficial; some are going to cause a lot of suffering that is doubly sad due to the fact that, with some foresight, we could have avoided them. In general with this list I’m not saying what should happen, just what is likely to happen as I gaze into the Peak Crystal Ball.

The Great Beaufort "Skedaddle"

They were at church when the word came. In the pews of Saint Helena’s in Beaufort, South Carolina, master and slave alike heard that an enormous Yankee fleet was massing off Point Royal Sound a mere ten miles away. If Confederate defenses didn’t hold, the town would have to evacuate in a matter of hours. It was time to pack and to pray.

View of Beaufort, Dec 1861

In 1861, Beaufort was one of the wealthiest, most cultured cities in America. The town boasted not only a library of three thousand volumes but also some of the most erudite, educated men in the South. Having built their elegant Greek Revival mansions with ballrooms, chandeliers and two-story piazzas, planter families gathered here each summer to escape the heat and ague of their Sea Island plantations, as well as socialize and talk politics.  Secession politics. For more than a dozen years cries for secession had risen from Beaufort, much of them led by its native son, rabble-rousing, fire-eater Robert Barnwell Rhett, remembered as the “Father of Secession.”

The Confederacy knew full well that Port Royal might be a target for a Northern base, but they couldn’t be sure other sites weren’t also in the running and so were somewhat lackadaisical in establishing defenses for Port Royal Sound. During the summer of 1861, local plantations reluctantly provided slaves to begin construction of two forts to guard the Sound’s entrance: Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on Phillips Island. But not only were the forts still incomplete by November, the artillery installed fell far short of what was originally proposed and even farther short of what was needed when the Yankees came calling.

Plans had been underway in the North to take a Southern port since early summer, with Lincoln himself involved in the selection. After all, to implement the “Anaconda Plan”—a tight blockade of the Southern coastline intended to cripple the Confederate economy—U.S. Navy warships needed a place to refuel with the coal that gave them power. Port Royal was one of the choicest deepwater ports on the Southern coast. That a massive Northern fleet was poised to sail was common knowledge to anyone who could read a newspaper once The New York Times published the details in the article, “The Great Naval Expedition,” on October 26^th. The only unknown was the destination, a secret that, remarkably, was successfully kept.  It wasn’t until they were at sea that the captain of each vessel opened a sealed envelope telling him where his ship was headed.

The Great Naval Expedition en route

The fleet that set out on Oct 29^th would prove to be the largest U.S. naval and amphibious expedition in the entire nineteenth century.  It included 17 warships, 25 colliers, 33 transports, 12,000 infantry, 600 marines, and 157 big guns. Port Royal, with its two cobbled-together forts supplied with only 2500 men, 4 gunboats, and 39 guns between them, didn’t stand a chance.

Bombardment of Port Royal

Nature came to the South’s aid in the form of a storm that sank some of the Northern fleet along the way, and then rough water delayed the day of the final attack. But when November 7^th dawned clear and calm, the water so still it was glassy, enough of the North’s warships were available to commence battle. Union ships concentrated their enfilade on Fort Walker. To the soldiers inside, the sound of artillery was deafening. By noon, only three of Fort Walker’s water battery guns were still operational; by 2:30 p.m., all powder was gone. The time had come to abandon the fort. The command at Fort Beauregard, concerned about being trapped on Phillips Island with no line of retreat, quickly followed suit. Thankfully, casualties on both sides were light. Accounts vary, but the Confederates finished the day with between 11 and 59 killed and an equivalent number wounded or missing, while the Union fleet saw 8 dead and 23 wounded.

Even with the enormous attacking naval force, Sea Island planters had been so confident in the defending forts manned with recruits from their very own Beaufort Volunteer Artillery that many watched the battle from shore on nearby Saint Helena Island. But when Confederate cannons grew silent and cheers reverberated from the Northern ships, they knew something had gone dreadfully wrong. They hurried home to evacuate, no doubt pained to leave bolls of valuable Sea Island cotton still unpicked in the fields.

When news of the battle’s outcome reached Beaufort, a kind of panic ensued. Facing an invading army of Yankees was too dreadful to contemplate; flight was of the essence. But what to take, what to leave behind? The daguerreotypes? The silver? Of course the family bible must be packed. Some loaded up carriages, hoping to stay ahead of the Yankees on the long overland route to safety. But Beaufort was lucky that day—there was a steamer anchored in the river that could take hundreds swiftly to Charleston. However, it had only so much room. Furniture, clothing, horses, and the vast majority of their most valuable property—slaves—would have to be left behind. In the tumult, even food and dinner dishes were abandoned on dining room tables, testament to the haste involved. That evening the steamer departed overflowing with Beaufort’s white citizenry along with every jewel and sentimental item they could squeeze on board. Legend has it that when Yankee forces arrived two days later to occupy the town, they found just one white man remaining in Beaufort, and he was dead drunk.

What must the deserted slaves, who spoke Gullah, their own Sea Island patois, have thought as the laden steamer chugged away from Beaufort’s dock? Did they realize that history had unexpectedly turned a corner right in front of them, and that now, after centuries of captivity as a people, they were suddenly free? Perhaps the political ramifications didn’t sink in that night, but before the first Yankees arrived, clothing and other finery had been looted (liberated?) from the grand homes, and food and liquor thoroughly consumed in an understandable celebration of events. 

Five generations now free (1862)

It is estimated 8-10,000 slaves were left behind in the Sea Islands when the white population fled. They were soon joined by thousands of others who escaped to the region once they realized that Northern occupation meant freedom.  They all needed food and shelter, and since the Emancipation Proclamation had yet to happen, their legal status, beyond being “contraband,” was unclear. The Army asked for help and received it in the form of the Port Royal Experiment. Financed and organized by Northern abolitionist charities, the Experiment worked as a test case to create self-sufficiency among the former slaves. Its success points to what Reconstruction might have been if less corruption and more competence had been at its helm.  Northern missionaries and teachers flocked to the Sea Islands to create schools and aid societies. Former slaves were allowed to farm the confiscated plantations and were paid $1 per 400 lbs of cotton they were able to harvest.  The Penn School on St. Helena Island was one of the earliest schools established for freed slaves and can be visited as part of the Penn Center today.

Yankees at home on a Beaufort piazza (1862)

The Union Army found Beaufort a pleasant setting for officer’s quarters, administrative offices and hospitals.  Because the Army occupied Beaufort until the end of the war, the fine mansions, while suffering damage, were not burned to the ground like so many other Southern towns and surrounding Sea Island plantations. To this day Beaufort’s centuries-old live oaks and antebellum charm remain. Port Royal turned out to be as advantageous a harbor as the Union had hoped and did much to strengthen the potency of the blockade. After the war, most planter families—their sons dead, their plantations burnt, their Beaufort homes sold in government auctions for back taxes (often without their knowledge)—never returned. The civilization that was antebellum Beaufort vanished into the night with that last steamer.

It is rare that the wheel of fortune spins as violently as it did on November 7, 1861. The town that had advocated so fiercely for secession was the first to feel the brunt of an occupying army. A people remarkable for their wealth lost almost everything in a matter of hours. A region that so defiantly insisted that its way of life—slavery—was non-negotiable ended up being the first to have a colony of former slaves experiment with what it meant to be free. The Great Skedaddle indeed.

Photos above are from (in order):  Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Harper's Weekly 11/9/1861, Harper's Weekly 11/30/1861, Library of Congress, Library of Congress.