Hero or Coward

The Story of General Fitz John Porter

Alexander Morrison Schubart

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Chapter I
by Richard Schubart, Ph.D.

The New Hampshire Seacoast and the American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln in Exeter and Fitz John Porter in Portsmouth

here is no more exciting moment in history than when a local and regional event results in a transformational experience, one that transcends the political, cultural, and geographic boundaries of local, state, and regional happenstance to produce a defining national and international event, one of enormous historical importance for its own time and a lasting legacy to date. This was true of the events of 1860 to 1862 in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire that brought Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States and General Fitz John Porter to prominence as a much heralded and then much libeled commander at the time of the American Civil War. When Abraham Lincoln arrived at the Exeter, New Hampshire, train station on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 29, 1860, he was fully expecting to be greeted by his oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who had enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy the previous fall with a goal of being considered for admission to Harvard College a year hence. Instead Lincoln found himself surrounded on the platform by a group of local Republican party organizers who had been instructed by Amos Tuck, one of the earliest founders of the Republican party in Exeter in 1853, to encourage Lincoln to give a set of political speeches throughout the more significant towns and cities of New Hampshire, including Exeter itself. This is significant because Lincoln was fresh from his oratorical success just days earlier at the famed Cooper Union Hall in New York City. The news of his words, particularly those calling for 11

My God! If I cant depend on Fitz Johns decision I dont know what I can depend on.
General George B. McClellan
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Chapter II
by Kimberly L. Alexander, Ph.D.

The Storied Life of General Fitz John Porter

itz John Porter was born to command. To modern readers, his youth reads like the disciplined preparation of an acolyte for the monastery, invoking a program of character formation in anticipation of greatness. Born in Portsmouth on Livermore Street on August 31, 1822, Porter hailed from a family that boasted some of the nations most prominent naval officers (the renowned David Dixon Porter was a cousin, as were William Dixon Porter and David G. Farragut). His father was Captain John Porter of Delaware, and his mothers roots were in Maine; she was Eliza Chauncy Clark, daughter of Jeremiah Clark, collector of the port of York, and Elizabeth Chauncy of Kittery. The Porters ancestry can be traced back to the early years of settlement and, even in England, the Porter men had taken to the water. Navy life demanded extended periods of separation for the Porter family, and even when Captain Johns command was nearby, Mrs. Porter and her son remained in Portsmouth while the commander bunked across the Piscataqua River at the navy yard, in Kittery, Maine. The house on Livermore Street would be Fitz Johns home until about the age of seven, and it appears that his fondest memories were planted here.1 The family attended St. Johns Episcopal Church, where the young Porter was baptized in 1825. Fitz John Porters father died in 1831 at the age of thirty-seven. Although little is known about his early schooling, the young man attended Phillips Exeter Academy in nearby Exeter, New Hampshire (although by that time his place of residence was listed as Alexandria, Virginia), where he boarded with Mrs. Rindge.2 Rather than follow his father and cousins by enlisting in the U.S. Navy, young Fitz John 21

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Chapter III
Fitz John Porter and the Press
by Dane A. Morrison, Ph.D. he facts of Fitz John Porters journey through disgrace and rehabilitation have been eloquently described in Kimberly Alexanders essay and in several well-researched full-length biographies. But, in this age of Wikipedia and Wikileaks, instant messaging and YouTube exposs, the electronic communications revolution raises another set of questions about Porters times: How did the Porter scandal play out in the primary form of general media then availablethe public press? How did newspapers report the scandal? What impressions would readers have formed about the man and his actions? Did these impressions formed during the Civil War change during the aftermath of Reconstruction? How did Porter and his accusers use the media? This essay will survey the journalistic response to the scandal, using contemporary newspapers as an approximation of public opinion.1 The controversy surrounding Porters actions at the Second Battle of Manassas (August 2930, 1862) and subsequent court-martial were not a military matter only. The scandal was the subject of ardent public debate and played out in the popular press over the next four decades. Consequently, Porters personal journey tells us much about what the Civil War meant to ordinary Americans. The Cool and Definite Hero Porter appears to have come onto the public scene as a competent military man. Newspapers across the country reported promotions and commendations as his career advanced. When the young man from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was promoted to the rank of major in the Mexican War, for instance, 39

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Coda

Monument and Memory

by Kimberly L. Alexander, Ph.D., and Dane A. Morrison, Ph.D.

n 1894, retired major general Fitz John Porter (18221901) traveled with his daughter Eva to revisit New England and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, places that recalled simpler times in my boyhood home, as he wrote to an old friend. The decision to return to the Portsmouth that he still called home may have been one vexed between memories both cherished and troubled. Perhaps the seventy-two-year-old Porter thought of it as the final leg of his lifes journey. His had been unusual: Dedicated to the highest standards of soldiering, stumbling on official censure, recommitted to defending his honor, and ending, ultimately, with exoneration and public accolades. On his journey to Portsmouth, amidst re-acquaintances and reunions, his thoughts must have returned to the single defining moment of his life, in the year 1862, the year that saw his greatest victories and rapid downfall. Long after the final battle had been won, Porters wife and staunchest support, Harriet, urged the general to agree to sit for the sculptor for the statue that would later grace Haven Park in Portsmouth. She confided to sculptor James Edward Kelly (18551933), That it was she who continually urged Porter forward saying why shouldnt you go out and show your face youve done nothing wrong. And so she had him go everywhere with her. Harriet was instrumental in securing and working with Kelly, a renowned artist of powerful Civil War monuments, who had designed the statue of General John Buford, dedicated at Gettysburg Battlefield in 1895. Kelly, who would become a fast friend and even serve as a pallbearer at Porters funeral, asked what would have happened to Porter had she not been by his side, to which she remarked essentially, that he would have 55