Forgotten Firebrand : James Redpath and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America

311 Pages·2008·6.204 MB·English

by  John R. McKivigan

Forgotten Firebrand

FORGOTTEN FIREBRAND
james Redpath and the Making of
Nineteenth-Century America
joHN McKIVIGAN
Cornell University Press
ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright© 2oo8 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof,
must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street,
Ithaca, New York 148 50.
First published 2008 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKivigan, John R., 1949-
Forgotten firebrand :James Redpath and the making of nineteenth-century
America I John R. McKivigan.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-o-8oq-4673-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
r. Redpath, James, r833-189r. 2. Social reformers-United States-Biography.
3. Journalists-United States-Biography. 4· Abolitionists-United States-Biography.
5· Redpath Lyceum Bureau. 6. United States-Politics and government-r849-1877.
I. Title.
E415.9·R43M38 2008
303.48' 4092-dc22
[B]
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable
based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly
composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.
cornell.edu.
Cloth printing IO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
Dedicated to Merton L. Dillon and W. Wayne Smith,
who taught me the historian's craft

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments lX
The Roving Editor I
I.
2. The Crusader of Freedom I9
3· Echoes of Harpers Ferry 43
4· Commissioner Plenipotentiary for Haiti 6r
5· The Radical Publisher 84
6. Abolitionizing the South 98
7· The Redpath Lyceum Bureau 113
8. Entertainment Innovator 131
9· The Adopted Irishman 153
IO. Jefferson Davis's Ghostwriter 178
Notes 193
Index 273
VII

Preface and Acknowledgments
The name Redpath was well known across the rural portions of midwest
ern and prairie states down to the Great Depression. For another generation
or so, many residents of that region retained positive memories of the trav
eling Chautauqua programs annually brought to their community by the
Chicago-based Redpath Lyceum Bureau. Operating under a tent capable of
seating a thousand or more patrons, the typical weeklong program featured
an assortment of entertainment and educational features. Musicians, humor
ists, magicians, interpretive readers, and other performers brought the latest
in art and culture into the rural communities. The educational, or "instruc
tive," portion of an evening's fare in the "Canvas College" would include
lecturers on topics ranging from religion, travel, and art to reforms such as
temperance and women's rights to political controversies of the era.1
Down to the first or second decades of the twentieth century, older mem
bers of the audience probably retained a vague recollection of the bureau's
founder, James Redpath. This diminutive, red-headed Scottish immigrant
organized the bureau in r868 but retained its ownership only until r875.
Redpath's reputation as an intimate of such an eccentric assemblage of fig
ures as John Brown, Mark Twain, Henry George, and Jefferson Davis and
as a militant proponent of such causes as abolitionism, black rights, Irish
nationalism, women's suffrage, and labor unions had originally drawn pub
lic interest to his lyceum programs. Although he abandoned his creation
fairly quickly, a character trait he repeated through his life, Redpath had
remained with his lyceum bureau long enough to have encouraged popular
tastes for uplifting entertainment. Hoping to retain not just Redpath's vision
but a bit of his charisma, the men who inherited the bureau kept his name
attached to their enterprise for the following half century.
Redpath was a discerning witness to and an active participant in many of
the key developments in nineteenth-century American political and cultural
IX
I
x Preface and Acknowledgments
life. Born in Scotland, Redpath immigrated to the United States in I849 and
found work as a reporter for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. In the mid
I 8 sos, he made three journeys through the South secretly interviewing slaves
and publishing their accounts of slavery in abolitionist newspapers. After his
third trip, Redpath published these interviews together with his impressions
of the South in a book entitled The Roving Editor: or, Talks with the Slaves.
In the late I 8 sos, Redpath moved to Kansas Territory where he reported
on events for a number of newspapers and eventually edited his own news
paper, the Doniphan Crusader of Freedom. Redpath regularly crossed the
line between journalist and participant and soon became a leader in both
the political and paramilitary campaigns attempting to prevent the territory
from becoming a slave state. In these years, Redpath also became a close as
sociate of John Brown in the militant wing of the Kansas "free-state" cam
paign. In I 8 58, Brown persuaded Redpath to move to Boston to help recruit
support for a contemplated slave insurrection. After the failure of Brown's
attack on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October I859, Redpath assisted raid
ers who had eluded capture to reach safety. Also sought by authorities as a
suspected accomplice in the raid, Redpath evaded arrest. While in hiding,
he produced the first biography of Brown within weeks of his execution.
Redpath's The Public Life of Capt. John Brown was uncompromisingly
sympathetic towards its subject and vigorously defended his employment of
violent antislavery tactics.
In I 86o, Redpath toured Haiti as a reporter and returned to the United
States appointed the official Haitian lobbyist for diplomatic recognition,
which he secured within two years. He simultaneously served as director of
Haiti's campaign to attract free-black emigrants from the United States and
Canada. Redpath hoped that a selective migration of skilled blacks to Haiti
would elevate conditions on the island nation and thereby dispel prejudice
in the United States. He abandoned the scheme, however, when he recog
nized that North American blacks preferred to remain at home once the
Civil War seemed to promise a new day of freedom for their race.
In I863 and I864, Redpath redirected his energies to pioneering the pub
lishing of cheap paperbound books primarily aimed at a reading audience
of bored Union military personnel. This series featured a mixture of re
ligious, historical, and humorous works by such authors as Louisa May
Alcott, Wendell Phillips, and Victor Hugo. A particularly noteworthy title
published by Redpath was William Well Brown's Clotelle: A Tale of the
Southern States, the first novel written by a black. Another in this series was
a short work by Redpath himself, Shall We Suffocate Ed. Green?, an early
anti-capital punishment tract.
Later in the Civil War, Redpath served as a frontline war correspondent
with the Union army in Georgia and South Carolina for the New York
Tribune. In February I865, federal military authorities appointed Redpath
superintendent of South Carolina public schools. He soon had more than