"Chiefly About War Matters", originally credited "by a Peaceable Man", is an 1862 essay by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The essay was inspired by the author's traveling during the American Civil War to experience more of the conflict firsthand. Upon its publication, it was controversial for its somewhat pro-southern stance and antiwar sentiments. Hawthorne was also chastised for his unflattering descriptions of American president Abraham Lincoln.
Background At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Hawthorne wanted to view the effects of battle firsthand or, as he wrote, "to look a little more closely at matters with my own eyes".McFarland, 265 He was distracted by the national crisis and had difficulty writing. After consulting with friends Franklin Pierce and Horatio Bridge, he decided to visit Washington, D.C.Mellow, 548–549 and was commissioned by The Atlantic Monthly to write a report on the Civil War, which appeared in the July 1862 issue of the magazine.Traisnel, Antoine. "Writing in the Name of: Hawthorne's 'Chiefly about War-Matters JSTOR. Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Fall 2009), pp. 44-66. His wife, Sophia Hawthorne, asked publisher William D. Ticknor to accompany her husband. The two set out in March 1862, leaving by train from Massachusetts through New York and on to Philadelphia, then Washington.Wineapple, 347
While traveling, Hawthorne witnessed heavy military presence, including guards at railroad depots and scattered military encampments. As he wrote to his wife, "The farther we go, the deeper grows the rumble and grumble of the coming storm, and I think the two armies are only waiting our arrival to begin."Mellow, 549 During his visit, Hawthorne met Major General George B. McClellan at his headquarters. Shortly after, he met President Abraham Lincoln at the White House on March 13.McFarland, 256 The meeting also included secretary of war Edwin M. Stanton and secretary of the treasury Salmon P. Chase. Hawthorne had joined a group from Massachusetts who were presenting the president with an ivory-handled whip. Lincoln kept them waiting for about half an hour while he ate breakfast.Mellow, 550 Hawthorne stayed in Washington for about a month and took several side trips, including one visit to Harpers Ferry.McFarland, 258
Publication history
Hawthorne wrote "Chiefly About War Matters" in less than a monthWineapple, 348 and sent the manuscript to publisher James T. Fields in May. Fields approved it without reading it, to the disappointment of Hawthorne, who wrote to Ticknor, "I wanted to benefit of somebody's opinion besides my own, as to the expediency of publishing two or three passages in the article."Wineapple, 350 Fields soon regretted the decision as well and asked for changes. He tactfully wrote to Hawthorne, "I knew I should like it hugely and I do. But I am going to ask you to change some of it if you will."Mellow, 556–557 In particular, Fields asked to soften the description of Lincoln, whom Hawthorne referred to as "Uncle Abe",McFarland, 263–264 as homely, coarse, and unkempt:
Though Hawthorne acquiesced to the editorial cuts, he lamented, "What a terrible thing it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!" He believed the section was "the only part of the article really worth publishing."McFarland, 264 In its place, Hawthorne included a footnote which said, in part, "we are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal appearance and deportment of the President."Wineapple, 351
"Chiefly About War Matters" was published in the July 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly,Mellow, 556 then edited by Fields. Hawthorne used his "Peaceable Man" persona to respond to the contrived editor's notes in a letter to the editor published in the October 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly:
The removed excerpt was reinserted when republished in the collected works of Hawthorne edited by George Parsons Lathrop,Swann, 181 who later married Rose Hawthorne, the author's daughter. In 1899, Horace Scudder asked Fields's widow, Annie Adams Fields, for permission to restore the omitted passages in a new publication of Hawthorne's works. Though these passages had already been printed in full, Scudder emphasized the previously "injudicious" material would be "harmless and quite interesting in 1900".Gollin, Rita K. "Annie Fields's Nathaniel Hawthorne", collected in Hawthorne and Women: Engendering and Expanding the Hawthorne Tradition, edited by John L. Idol, Jr. and Melinda M. Ponder. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999: 138–139.
Critical response Many readers of The Atlantic were offended by Hawthorne's essay, and the magazine received "cruel and terrible notes".Miller, 472 The concern was partially because it was somewhat pro-southern, but also because it was antiwar.Wineapple, 353 It portrays Confederate prisoners of war in a sympathetic light, and people fleeing slavery in an unsympathetic one.
Others found it too ambiguous. George William Curtis condemned it as "without emotion, without sympathy, without principle".McFarland, 270–271 Hawthorne's biographer Edwin Haviland Miller wrote, "his familiar ambivalence afforded him a kind of cowardly protection and freedom from commitment, his see-sawing and evasiveness pleasing no one."
Hawthorne also offended many New Englanders by criticizing Ralph Waldo Emerson. Referring to John Brown as a "blood-stained fanatic", Hawthorne dismissed Emerson's assessment that his execution has "made the Gallows as venerable as the Cross!"Johnson, Claudia Durst. "Discord in Concord: National Politics and Literary Neighbors", collected in Hawthorne and Women: Engendering and Expanding the Hawthorne Tradition, edited by John L. Idol, Jr. and Melinda M. Ponder. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999: 108. Instead, Hawthorne concluded that "nobody was ever more justly hanged."Miller, 473
Analysis Scholars struggle over how to interpret "Chiefly About War Matters". It has been described as ironic black comedySwann, 180 or satire. In the latter reading, the Peaceable Man and the footnotes added by his fictitious editor both lampoon the state of the country, not only the slave-holding South but also the censorious North.
Notes
References McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. . Mellow, James R. Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. . Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. . Swann, Charles. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tradition and Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991: 180. . Wineapple, Brenda. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Life. New York: Random House, 2004. .
External links Original text from The Atlantic online