I left the last blog with the following question: was Calvin Cowles – the president of the 1868 N.C. Constitutional Convention – merely a puppet of the “carpetbaggers” or a part of a coalition to promote change? Before answering this question, I am going to take a detour to delve more into Cowles’ story that is told through original documents available at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History.
As a starting point, I used a number of books, articles, and web sources for the research that was the basis for my story in the last blog. I was out of town, however, and not able to investigate original documents. After returning, I spent a couple of days at the State Archives. Culling through collections of original documents can be both exciting and daunting. No doubt there are historians out there who could tell you more about the research process, but here’s what happened on this trip.
I knew from some of my other research that the State Archives had a collection of Calvin Cowles’ papers. I had no idea how big the collection was until I reviewed the Archives’ description found in a well-aged 3-ring binder. It explains that the collection consists of 23,000 items contained in 24 manuscript boxes and 24 tissue letterpress books. If you tend to imagine that frequent communication began with email or text messages, it is rather amazing that the collection holds approximately 18,000 letters written by Calvin Cowles between November 1850 and February 1877.
All of his letters are handwritten and are difficult to read. Cowles’ cursive is very swooopy: his “s” looks like a “p” or an “l”. Deciphering is made more difficult by the use of words and phrasing now uncommon and the physical aging of the letters. Reading letters on fragile tissue in the letterpress books is even more challenging. With these books, Cowles would write on the tissue with a piece of carbon paper behind it to make a copy on stationery. He then would send the stationery copy and the tissue version remained in the letterpress book.
Without some idea of what to look for, it would be extremely time-consuming to read through entire letterpress books. In this case, I was helped by an excellent “finding-aid” prepared by staff of the Archives. It mentions a letter written to another postmaster about the conflict Cowles felt in working for the federal government as postmaster in a seceded state. In the story I created in the last blog, I tell about how Cowles is forced to resign from his postmaster responsibilities because of his allegiance to the Union. This letter to postmaster A. Hamilton Horton at Elkville shares an ambivalence not clear in Cowles’ later recounting of his forced resignation. Here’s an excerpt:
Wilkesboro, N.C. Aprl 26/61
My dear sir
…
You and I and thousands of others are in a pretty fix – Federal offices in a seceded state –not yet seceded but will be as soon as the forms can be gone through with --- what are we to do? Our oaths bind us to support a Constitution that is ignored. For my part I wish I had not accepted office. I intend to try to guard myself against perjury & to do that I can not raise my hand (nor voice) against the Federal government. For my dear Hamilton these are the days that will try our pluck – our sworn duty one side & impulse & feelings the others for section will be on is arrayed against section. Who can refrain from sympathizing with his fellows – the fruit of the same soil. Moral courage is greater than physical courage or more to be commended – we must do nothing to compromise our oaths of Office and therefore must remain neutral at least.
With a date range in mind, it is then easier to begin looking through the other files for related original documents. A typed notice dated November 12, 1861, requires the postmaster to register all arrivals and departures of the mail from the office and make it available to the Inspection Office of the Post Office Department of the Confederate States of America. Such a requirement would have aided the Confederacy in monitoring activities of potential Unionists. Surely this must have caused Cowles some angst. It may have even aided the Confederacy in intercepting the letter from Cowles that led to his forced resignation from his postmaster position. But as can be the case in constructing stories from primary documents, the story stops short of giving us this answer.
Another part of the story I tell in the blog is that “the Confederate Calvary also made its way through, wiping out families’ paltry provisions. The actions of the Calvary appalled Calvin Cowles and in April of 1864 he wrote to complain to Governor Zebulon Vance.”[1] This was important as a part of the story for showing the dissatisfaction with the Civil War in Wilkes County and Cowles’ position as a prominent local businessman. Using the cite listed in my footnote, I was able to retrieve the letter. However, it was not in Cowles’ letterpress book: instead the original is in the collection of papers for Governor Vance. Holding the letter in your hands (carefully), you can see how the brown ink spreads across the paper. The red wax seal Governor Vance broke to read the letter remains in the two pieces on the back of the letter.
From this letter, we get a fuller description of what occurred when the Confederate Calvary came through. It is admittedly much more interesting than my summary statement:
Wilkesboro N.C. Aprl 4th 1864
Gov. Vance
My dear sir
Longstreets men are here pressing cattle & corn – they are making clean work of it too… Yesterday 40 wagons with long teams came down the river hunting corn – 6 of them being loaded turned across the river toward Jefferson – the others have gone on down the river. They called here & left a rept [receipt] for 49 Bus. [bushels] Corn which they found on my farm in Caldwell Co. & took – took it though it was all I had there & my tenant not enough to do him and I with less than – 2 bbls [handwriting not clear] in my cribs here and a farm – a grazing farm in Ashe to supply. It is generally known that the Hokes Geo. Cavalry turned their horses on to my growing crop last fall to eat it up which I had hoped would have given me an immunity from this visit…what can the hundreds of our farmers do toward making a crop this season when deprived of the grain to feed their work horses as they have been & are being? … What are the poor day laborers to do for bread when every crib in the land is depleted to the lowest possible standard – just enough left for the family & stock? I see a dark way ahead for the poor sons of toil and in face for us all unless some unforeseen good luck should happen. Why were these men sent here instead of S.C. or elsewhere where Grain is plenty – it would be better to have Corn sent up to Statesville for them if it can not reach them over the Va RR. .. I throw out the suggestion hoping you will feel significant interest in the subject to propose the adoption of the plan to the secretary of war or others having the control of such matters…
In the next blog, I’ll return to the story line. This blog is a chance to pause to think about the process of discovery available to all of us at the State Archives and other repositories of original documents. It is becoming more common in collections such as at the Library of Congress to make available only microfilm copies. There is no touching or handling, just squinting and hitting the forward button. But even that is much better than relying solely on textbooks or other secondary sources. These original documents bring a richness to our understanding of events important in our lives as North Carolinians.
Primary Sources:
C. J. Cowles to A. Hamilton Horton, Apr. 24, 1861, Calvin Cowles Papers, NC Department of Archives and History, Box 111.30, letterpress book December 1859-October-1862.
Confederate States of America, Post Office Department, Inspectio Office, Richmond , VA., Nov. 12, 1861, Calvin Cowles Papers, NC Department of Archives and History, Box 111.5, Folder Correspondence 1860-61.
C.J. Cowles to Z.B. Vance, Apr. 4, 1864, Z. B. Vance Papers NC Department of Archives and History G.P. 175, Correspondence Folder Apr 1-6, 1864.
Other useful resource:
For more information about the State Archives, go to: http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/
Ann McColl
Constitutionaltales.org
[1] C.J. Cowles to Z.B. Vance, Apr. 4, 1864, Z. B. Vance Papers NC Department of Archives and History, cited in Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina, p. 241 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963)
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