[Reading-hall-of-fame] A Memorial Day Message

[klare at ohio.edu]

Tom,

The literacy teachers of the Civil War is a good story indeed, and we 
should certainly remember them this Memorial Day.

Best wishes,

George

--On Thursday, May 26, 2005 6:06 PM -0700 tsticht at znet.com wrote:

> Memorial Day 2005
>
> Remembering the Literacy Teachers Who
> Taught For the Union During the Civil War
>
> Tom Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
>
> "Outside of the Fort were many skulls lying about;
> I have often moved them one side out of the path.
> The comrades and I would have wondered a bit
> as to which side of the war the men fought on,
> some said they were the skulls of our boys; some
> said they were the enemies; but as there was no
> definite way to know, it was never decided which
> could lay claim to them. They were a gruesome sight,
> those fleshless heads and grinning jaws, but by this
> time I had become used to worse things and did not
> feel as I would have earlier in my camp life.
> --Susie King Taylor, 1902 (in Lerner, 1972)
>
> Suzie (Baker) King Taylor was born a slave in Savannah, Georgia in 1848.
> She was raised by her grandmother who sent her and one of her brothers to
> the home of a free women to learn to read and write.  As she explained in
> her 1902 book, "We went every day with our books wrapped in paper to
> prevent the police or white persons from seeing them." (Taylor in Lerner,
> 1972)
>
> During the Civil War the Union Army initiated the practice of enlisting
> freed African-Americans. But it was soon apparent that there were
> problems  in using these men as soldiers. Among other problems,  it was
> difficult for  officers to communicate with illiterate former slaves. So
> promotion and  advancement in the army was difficult for the
> African-American soldiers.  Many of them blamed this situation on their
> lack of education. In response  to these needs, many officers initiated
> programs of education for the  former slaves.
>
> One officer, Colonel Thomas W. Higginson of the 33rd U. S. Colored
> Troops,  appointed the chaplain as the regimental teacher. Higginson
> reportedly saw  men at night gathered around a campfire, "spelling slow
> monosyllables out  of a primer, a feat which always commands all ears, "
> and he observed that,
>
> "Their love of the spelling book is perfectly inexhaustible,
> -they stumbling on by themselves, or the blind leading the
> blind, with the same pathetic patience which they carry into
> everything. The chaplain is getting up a schoolhouse,
> where he will soon teach them as regularly as he can.
> But the alphabet must always be a very incidental
> business in a camp." (Cornish, 1952).
>
>  One of the people whom the chaplain engaged in teaching soldiers of the
> 33rd to read and write was Suzie King Taylor (Blassingame, 1965). She
> went  with the regiment to Florida where she reported that "I learned to
> handle a  musket very well while in the regiment and could shoot straight
> and often  hit the target. I assisted in cleaning the guns and used to
> fire them off,  to see if the cartridges were dry, before cleaning and
> re-loading , each  day. I thought this was great fun." (Taylor in Lerner,
> 1972, p. 101).
>
> According to Taylor, "I taught a great many of the comrades in Company E
> to  read and write when they were off duty, nearly all were anxious to
> learn.  My husband taught some also when it was convenient for him. I was
> very  happy to know my efforts were successful in camp also very grateful
> for the  appreciation of my services. I gave my services willingly for
> four years  and three months without receiving a dollar." (Taylor in
> Lerner, 1972)
>
> Throughout the Civil War, thousands of teachers, some modestly paid and
> many volunteers, worked often under very arduous conditions, such as
> described above by Suzie King Taylor, to educate the newly freed slaves
> who  came to fight for the preservation of the United States of America.
> In just  the Union Army?s  Department of the Gulf (Louisiana,
> Mississippi,  Alabama,Texas) by 1864 there were 95 schools with 9,571
> children and 2,000  adults being taught by 162 teachers. By the war?s end
> it was estimated some  20,000 African-American troops had been taught to
> read "intelligently"  (Blassingame, 1965).
>
> No one knows how many adult literacy teachers gave their lives in the
> course of their service to the education of those soldiers, both blacks
> and  whites, fighting for the preservation of the Union, during the Civil
> War.  But this Memorial Day we should remember their service to those
> they taught  to read and write, many of whom we can be certain did give
> their lives for  our Nation in the war that took more lives than all the
> wars from the  Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War combined.
>
> In all these wars, the literacy teachers were also there. Perhaps,
> contrary  to what the progressive Colonel Higginson thought, the alphabet
> should not  be considered just " an incidental business in a camp."  It
> may, instead,  be central to victory in wars. It may just be true that
> "the pen is  mightier than the sword."
>
> On May 30th let us remember the thousands of literacy teachers who have
> taught hundreds of thousands of troops, the fallen and those who survived
> their wars, how to wield the mightiest sword of victory ? the alphabet!
>
> References
>
> Blassingame, J. W. (1965). The Union Army as an educational institution
> for  Negroes, 1862-1865. Journal of Negro Education, 34, 152-159.
>
> Cornish, D. T. (1952). The Union Army as a school for Negroes. Journal of
> Negro history, 37, 368-382.
>
> Lerner, G. (Ed.) (1972). Black women in white America: A documentary
> history. New York: Pantheon Books-Random house.
>
> Thomas G. Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
> 2062 Valley View Blvd.
> El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
> Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
> Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Reading-hall-of-fame mailing list
> Reading-hall-of-fame at nottingham.ac.uk
> http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/reading-hall-of-fame