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Carl Schurz (1829–1906)

Författare till Life of Henry Clay

31+ verk 176 medlemmar 5 recensioner

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Inkluderar namnet: Carl Schurz Schurz

Foto taget av: Civil War photograph (LoC Prints and Photographs Division,LC-DIG-cwpb-07114)

Serier

Verk av Carl Schurz

Life of Henry Clay (1887) 40 exemplar
Abraham Lincoln (1891) 23 exemplar
The reminiscences of Carl Schurz (1907) — Författare — 15 exemplar
Life of Henry Clay, Volume 2 (1887) 11 exemplar
Life of Henry Clay, Volume 1 (1887) 10 exemplar
Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Speech and Other Papers (1899) — Författare — 9 exemplar

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This is a hit job against Clay's reputation by Free Trade advocate Carl Schurz. It is in the American Statesmen series whose general editor was
Arthur M. Schlesinger, author of the lying trash attack on Clay, "The Age of Jackson." Schlesinger provides an introduction to this 2-volume set.
 
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chaitkin | Apr 17, 2017 |
Carl Schurz led an interesting life, all right, and he is one of those figures who was very well known and influential on a national scale in his own time, but is mostly forgotten, except, I guess, by historians, in our own.

Schurz was a German native who took part in the revolutions in Germany in 1848, after which he was obliged to escape to the U.S. Due to his skills as an orator, his connections in the German-American community here and his reputation as a revolutionary hero, Schurz quickly became an influential speaker among the sizable German speaking population in the U.S. He became a fervent abolitionist and spoke much on the subject. He campaigned for Lincoln and became an associate of and sometime adviser to that famous figure. His descriptions of his meetings and conversations with Lincoln are among the highlights of these memoirs' second volume. At the outbreak of war, Schurz became a Major General in the Union army, leading a regiment of German-Americans. There is evidently some controversy about how well (or poorly) these troops performed, and Schurz spends some time trying to refute his regiment's poor reputation. At any rate, his descriptions of his war experiences are quite interesting, as you'd imagine.

This third volume opens with the Battle of Gettysburg and continues through 1869, at which point in his writing ill health caused Schurz to put down his pen. He passed away shortly thereafter in 1906. (Historians Frederic Bancroft and William Dunning pick up the narrative and continue the story of Schurz's life fron 1869 through 1906, working from their subject's voluminous correspondences and publications.) The book's original copyright is 1908. My volume was published in 1917.

The most fascinating part of this volume is Schurz's description of the years immediately after the war. At the behest of Andrew Johnson, Schurz toured the southern states just a year after the cessation of the fighting to gather a report for the president of conditions on the ground. Schurz's narrative of what he saw there, and the attitudes he heard from those he spoke with during his three-month sojourn are riveting. He talks about the fact that many Southern whites were completely at a loss as to how to proceed without slavery, upon which they depended for their labor force. The keenest necessity for all involved was to get a crop into the ground quickly, but many land owners simply didn't believe that their former slaves would work at all without being physically forced. They had no confidence that blacks would work for pay. Additionally, many thought that once the Union troops left, they'd be once again free to handle this situation however they wanted, up to and including the re-institution of slavery. (Interestingly, at least to me, this all points up a glaring weakness in And Wait for the Night, the novel about Reconstruction I read just before this book, which, in an evident attempt to whitewash the era, glosses over this issue entirely.)

Schurz, who soon became a Senator from Missouri, then provides an in-depth account of (what he considered) Johnson's wrong-headed and ultimately disastrous policies toward reconstruction. After that, we get a similarly up-close picture of the horrid Grant administration. In addition, Schurz reports on his meetings and lengthy conversations with Bismark upon Schurz's return to Germany as, now, a traveling diplomat.

The book becomes less compelling, although still intellectually interesting, once Schurz's biographers take over the narrative, as one would imagine. There's a bit too much hero worship. Plus, the issues Schurz threw himself into, including the reform of the Civil Service system (which was rife with corruption and cronyism, especially under Grant) and various currency issues (gold vs. "greenbacks" -- Schurz was for gold), while vital at the time, seem less urgent a century and a half later.

I recommend this volume of Carl Schurz's memoirs very highly indeed for readers interested in Reconstruction in particular, and the American politcal scene in the second half of the 19th century in general. Taken together, the three volumes of Schurz's memoirs provide a wonderful look at a fascinating life and mind, lived during interesting times, indeed.
… (mer)
 
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rocketjk | Nov 5, 2011 |
Carl Schurz was born in Germany in the early 19th century. In his late teens and into his early 20s, Schurz took and active role in the German Revolutions of 1848 that attempted to unify the country and institute representative government. He eventually came to the U.S., where he became a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War, then a congressman, and finally Secretary of the Interior!

This second volume of Schurz's memoirs covers the period from his arrival in the U.S. in 1852 in his early 20s, through his participation as a Union general in the disastrous (for the Union) Battle of Chancellorville.

Shortly upon coming to America, Schurz, as a German who had recently taken active part in the failed revolutionary attempts to gain more democracy in the German states, was fascinated and exhilarated by the American democratic experiment. Through family connections, Schurz made his way to Wisconsin, home to a large German community. And through his status as a European freedom fighter, he gained access quickly to the upper reaches of American government. He soon became an active speaker in the anti-slavery movement and soon came to the notice of the leaders of the newly formed Republican Party.

There are many fascinating events described, and Schurz's first-hand descriptions of the leading politicians of the day, including Stephen Douglas, Lincoln and Seward, are fascinating. Schurz tells of sitting and speaking with Lincoln on a train ride on the way to one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, for example, relates many of the conversations he had with Lincoln in the White House during the Lincoln presidency. One or two letters from Lincoln to Schurz are included intact, as well.

Once the Civil War began, Schurz was sent to Spain to act as the American ambassador to the Spanish court, assigned to try to keep his finger on the pulse of European sentiment about the war. Schurz felt strongly that the commercial and monarch-supporting interests in England and France especially would support the Confederacy. As a strong anti-slavery man, Schurz urged Lincoln, to make the war about the slavery issue rather than about keeping the Union together, reasoning that making the war about abolishing slavery was 1) the right thing to do and 2) the best way to get public sentiment in Europe so firmly on the side of the North that European rules wouldn't dare take any overt pro-South action.

However, Schurz also provides Lincoln's clear and forceful response regarding the political necessity of waiting for the right time to change strategy in that way. Fascinating stuff.

Schurz finally convinced Lincoln that his work in Spain was done and won his suit to be allowed to join the Union Army. He was instantly made a Brigadier General (and Schurz describes nicely why making civilians instant officers was a common practice). His first-hand accounts of some of the Union Army's horrendous early disasters makes heartbreaking reading. But also, his insider accounts of how the Union Army operated and how decisions were made are fascinating.

Schurz, writing his memoirs around 1900, was of course looking back over 40-50 years of time. He seems to have been an active journal keeper, but nevertheless we must assume that at least some of his memories may be affected (he admits as much, himself), and that he is also providing a subjective personal account rather than a more objective "historical" one. Nevertheless, on a whole I found this volume quite interesting, and fun to read as well.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
rocketjk | Dec 18, 2010 |
Carl Schurz was born in Germany in the early 19th century. In his late teens and into his early 20s, Schurz took an active role in the German Revolutions of 1848 that attempted to unify the country and institute representative government. He eventually came to the U.S., where he became a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War, then a congressman, and finally Secretary of the Interior! Wow!

This first volume of Schurz's 3-volume memoirs cover his middle class childhood, continues through his activities in the German Revolutions and ends with his departure for America. Along the way, Schurz provides a quick but very readable background of the German political developments that led to the upheavals. He does quite a good job describing his own exciting (as he tells it, anyway) participation in the fighting, including a daring escape from capture and certain execution at the hands of the reactionary Prussian forces. Later, Schurz describes his leading role in the rescue from prison of one of the revolutions leading lights.

It's all quite fascinating in the telling for anyone interested in the time period. How true to life all of the narrative really is, well, who knows? I'm assuming Schurz is providing us with at least a facsimile as events as they occurred in his life. I only had the shallowest of knowledge about these events, dating back to an excellent high school history class that covered, in part, the European anti-monarchial struggles of this period. Educational and fun to read.
… (mer)
 
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rocketjk | Sep 22, 2010 |

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Verk
31
Även av
2
Medlemmar
176
Popularitet
#121,982
Betyg
½ 3.5
Recensioner
5
ISBN
32
Språk
1

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