“For Want of a Scribe”
How four North Corol in ions missed roe-
oyuil ion for their g'rentness hoeo use no
one bothered to record their d«keds.
Williom A G'ohom He orgonucd expedition
which opened Japon.
By tkkih
(An add res* before Ihc North Carolina
Literary & Historical Society)
Governor Zebulon Baird Vance re¬
gretted during (he War Between the
States that no adequate record was
being compiled which would preserve
for posterity the generous measure of
the state's participation in the struggle
for southern independence. Disturbed
because North Carolina newspapers
did not enjoy the financial resources to
support correspondents at the front in
Virginia, as did the leading Virginia
newspapers and some of other areas,
he suggested to General Lee that North
Carolina be permitted to attach a state
war correspondent to the Army of
Northern Virginia. Through this medi¬
um the home people would be kept
enlightened about the achievements of
North Carolina troops, regarding
which they were usually mcagcrly in¬
formed. and. of equal importance, the
story of the state’s military per¬
formance would be accumulated for
historians of later ages.
A diligent student of ancient as well
as English constitutional history and
the common law — of Livy, Cicero,
and Tacitus along with Hume. Burke.
Coke. Blackstone. and many others —
Vance recognized that the stability
and progress of the present depend
upon an esteem of the past. He under¬
stood clearly what some administra¬
tors often have forgotten, that history
is not what transpires in the course of
human events, but what comes to be
recorded about what transpires. Civili¬
zations have been lost — the ancient
Mayan, the Incan, the Aztecan. the
primitive Germanic and Scandinavian
cultures to large degree, the pristine
splendor of the North American In¬
dians — not because these people
lacked intelligence or worthy aspira¬
tions. but because they produced no
THE STATE. July IS. 1966
Willie Pcuon Mongum "miswd the presidency
by on eyo-losh."
scribes and in some instances no writ¬
ten language, or else they failed to
safeguard their records and traditions.
General Lee found a military man’s
objection to having an official state
correspondent in the field, and the
project was dropped. But Vance ap¬
preciated that the historian, however
conscientious, can work with no more
than the materials at hand. The truth
is that in history, just as in the daily
newspaper, names enter sometimes
whimsically and mention of them often
recurs and snowballs. The name of a
person, perhaps of secondary import
— a Davy Crockett or a Henry Ward
Beecher, for example — can become
a fixture in the history books just as
capriciously as a bullish business man
or an eager dowager may come to
dominate the financial or society col¬
umns. Glittering publicity firms have
been erected on this last simple fact.
Why is it that a Charles Sumner will
ordinarily get a generous space allot¬
ment in the better grade histories,
while a George E. Badger will receive
no mention at all?
That question is what this speaker
wishes to examine briefly tonight. As
one who has read history persistently
over the years, I do not recall that
when I came to North Carolina nearly
eighteen years ago I had ever heard of
George E. Badger. The Reverend
R. II. Whitaker, in his delightful
Reminiscences, Incidents and Anec¬
dotes, commented about Badger: "If
he had hailed from some northern
state instead of North Carolina, where
we have not learned to properly ap¬
preciate our great men. a shaft would,
long ago. have been reared to his
memory, and our school books would
have been filled with extracts from
some of his great speeches."
Nor had I ever known of Willie Per¬
son Mangum. or more than super¬
ficially of William A. Graham, and not
at all of Thomas L. Clingman except
that a Clingman was an obscure gen¬
eral and the name of one of the highest
mountain peaks. I was charmed with
these four men when I met them be¬
cause they were all rich surprises. Nor
is it startling that I knew so little of
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