The Lost Gettysburg Address (5 page)

Young Charley Anderson was a precocious teen with many
talents. He was among a select few, in the opinion of one classmate,
who ranked “far above their fellows in superior mental endowments,
high-toned morality, and upright conduct.” Most people agreed that
Anderson’s finest attribute, however, was his “genial warmth and
gladsome society.” Charley seemed to be everyone’s boon
companion. He was the “soul of social life and the center of its circles,” as
another former student described him. Colonel Anderson’s youngest
son discovered that he was a natural leader, and that he could use
that power for all manner of ends. This sometimes resulted in a
practical joke with Charley as the instigator. One such instance occurred
at the house of a Mr. Bingham in Oxford, where Anderson first
boarded. A skittish young man named Solomon Mitchell was one
of his housemates. In May 1832, U.S. Army troops, including some
led by Charley’s brother Robert, were fighting the Sauk Indian chief
Black Hawk in Illinois. Just a short distance away in Indiana, Native
American villages predominated, and the threat of Indian attack was
a constant concern. A rumor circulated that Black Hawk was
fifteen to twenty miles from Oxford and advancing. Anderson was
following the war and knew this was extremely unlikely, but Mitchell
was beside himself with apprehension. Charley gathered a band of
friends, dressed them as Indians, trained them to yell and “hoop” like
warriors and made a mock assault on the boardinghouse room where
young Mitchell was sleeping. Once he had recovered from the shock,
the “victim” was too humiliated to report the incident.

After the Union Society unveiled a portrait of university president
Dr. Robert Hamilton Bishop in the fall of 1829, the Erodelphians
racked their brains for a way to outdo their rivals. Anderson
recalled the lifelike wax figures he had seen recently in Cincinnati and
proposed that they procure a statue of Bishop for their hall. “Too
costly,” the members retorted. “Then perhaps a bust,” Anderson
replied. When the members asked Charley who would create the work,
Anderson suggested that the artist who made the wax figures could
accomplish the task. The society voted to allocate seventy-five
dollars in subscriptions for a plaster bust and sent Charley, William
Woodruff, and James Stagg to find the artist. The boys found a
handsome young man in a dirty apron named
Hiram Powers and offered
him the commission. Powers agreed to make the bust for one
hundred dollars, and his clay-covered handshake with Anderson sealed
the deal. The bust was a hit with both Bishop and the Erodelphians.
Then unknown Powers later gained the patronage of
Larz Anderson’s
father-in-law, self-made millionaire
Nicholas Longworth, and
became a world-renowned sculptor. Powers’s masterpiece “The Greek
Slave” was viewed by more than one hundred thousand people on its
American tour in 1847. The sculpture became a potent symbol for the
abolitionist movement.
⁴

When the time came for Charley to graduate, he was near the
top of his class. In fact, only his inability to master Hebrew kept
him from achieving the top rank. The young man rose to deliver his
commencement oration on September 25, 1833. It was customary for
select graduating seniors to give a brief address on a topic of their
choosing. This particular student stood out among his twenty peers.
Over six feet tall, with reddish-blonde hair, a prominent nose, and a
booming voice that belied his nineteen years, the popular youth had
a magnetic stage presence. He was not bound for the ministry, where
half of his classmates would end up. While all the student speeches
were serious, Charley’s effort was particularly earnest.

As Charley announced the title of his address—“An Oration on
the Influence of Monumental Records upon National Morals”—his
friends may have cringed. The young graduate began by claiming
that “the commemoration of illustrious individuals and events has
ever been the delight and glory of past ages.” He maintained that
every soul “burns for immortality” and that “marble is made to
speak lessons of piety, patriotism and philanthropy.” Honoring the
patriots that built this great nation, Anderson argued, is as noble and
virtuous as the biblical admonition to honor one’s father and mother.
Such monuments promote a “national morality.” In the America of
1833, he asserted, the young country’s greatest hero had no lasting
memorial to glorify his past deeds and instruct future generations.
His speech was a plea for the creation of the Washington Monument.
The young baccalaureate extolled “the obelisks of fallen Egypt” and
suggested that the memorial be “simple, towering, sublime,” bearing
Washington’s name aloft, “bright with the beams of immortal glory.”
How did this mere lad foresee the precise aspect of an iconic shrine
that was yet to be designed and would not stand complete for another
fifty years? The answer lies in Charles Anderson’s family history.
⁵

By the time young Anderson graduated from college,
John
Marshall had been chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for more
than three decades. It was Marshall who first organized and chaired
the Washington National Monument Society just weeks before the
Miami University graduation festivities. Charles must have thought
it his patriotic duty to help “Uncle John” spread the word and raise
money for the project. At least one member of the audience at the
Miami University commencement ceremonies listened to Anderson’s
oration with rapt attention. Sixteen-year-old
Eliza Jane Brown would
later say that she fell in love with Charles that very day. He dedicated
his speech to her, and they would share the marital bed for sixty
years.

There was another woman who, despite Eliza’s sacrifices and
devotion, would hold the preeminent place in her future husband’s heart.
Lady Liberty was Charles’s first and most ardent love. He was
betrothed to her by his father’s legacy. He would never abandon her at
any cost. Anderson’s graduation speech may have been dedicated to
Eliza, but it was really a solemn oath to Union and country and set
the course for the rest of his eventful life. The young man with so
much potential ignored his guardian Larz’s advice to prepare for the
ministry. Larz had found that religion soothed the heartache of his
wife’s untimely death and made a declaration of faith. Charles had
other plans: he had been devising a business partnership by
correspondence with his brother Robert, who by now was seriously
considering retirement from the military and getting back to farming.
Charles yearned to return to the rural life of his boyhood. The root
of his desire ran all the way back to his earliest memories.

When Colonel Anderson’s youngest son was only three years old,
his sister Maria presented him with three unusual gifts: an almond,
a pecan, and a dinner knife. Charles was to plant the nuts and grow
his own trees, which might someday bear the fruit of his juvenile
efforts. He did as he was instructed and the little seedlings grew for
about four years, until a particularly hard winter killed the almond.
The pecan tree, on the other hand, would outlive the boy. Charles
later recalled this feat with some irony, as his “sole great success in
life’s works.” The toddler arborist often heard his father speak of his
lands on the Ohio River opposite the Wabash, which included a huge
island full of ancient pecans. Repeated begging led Colonel Anderson
to deed the land to his youngest son. Charles dreamed that one day
he would build his own bucolic country seat on that very spot. He
convinced his brother Robert to join him in the
venture. In October
1833, not long after graduation, Charles boarded a steamboat and
headed for Wabash Island. There he found a former Shawnee town
with huge tree stumps remnant of an urgent contest to clear the
land. Fever raged in this remote outpost. There were no schools, no
churches, and no polite society of any kind. When Charles reached
the tract that he owned, he discovered that a tornado had recently
cut a mile-wide swath directly through the property. The pecan trees,
along with his childhood dreams, were obliterated.

Undaunted, Charles and
Robert purchased a farm on Gravois
Creek, near Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in 1834. That effort also
ended in failure. As Charles was preparing to leave, an old man
advised him to return to Louisville and become a lawyer. It was clear
to the aged stranger that Charles Anderson “was no farmer.” Charles
took the old man’s advice and headed to Louisville, where he studied
the law and joined Larz’s firm, Pirtle and Anderson.

Robert accepted an appointment as instructor of artillery at the
United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He had
made many important connections there while he was a student. In
the Black Hawk War, Robert had mustered
Abraham Lincoln in and
out of service.
Winfield Scott had become Robert’s loyal champion
and closest friend. Mississippi native
Jefferson Davis (the future
president of the Confederacy) had served as Robert’s aide.
William T.
Sherman had been Robert’s junior first lieutenant when they were
both stationed in South Carolina. Robert’s friends became Charles’s
friends. The brothers were that close. Some of these connections
proved valuable as Charles’s life progressed.
⁶

Jefferson Davis and young Charley shared more than mutual
admiration for Robert’s character and abilities. They also shared a
sweetheart. As a boy on the Bear Grass, Charley’s playmate from
early childhood (and his first crush) was
Sarah Knox Taylor. She was
the daughter of career military officer, Louisville resident and future
U.S. president
Zachary Taylor. It was an innocent tryst that existed
more in Charley’s imagination than in reality. When the dashing
young Lieutenant Davis met sixteen-year-old Sarah at Fort Crawford
in Wisconsin territory, sparks flew. It took nearly four years for Davis
to convince Zachary Taylor to allow Davis to marry his daughter.

In the meantime, Davis took every opportunity to rendezvous
with his secret fiancé. One such opportunity came with the marriage
of Charley’s cousin Anne Bullitt and Major Thomas L. Alexander
in 1833. Charley was visiting his cousin Mary, the wife of General
Henry Atkinson, at Jefferson Barracks when he attended an “infair,”
a wedding reception in honor of the newlyweds. He had met Davis
on several occasions. Charley’s customary room at headquarters
was occupied by other Louisville guests, so Lieutenant Davis invited
the young man to room with him at his quarters across the parade
ground. While Charley sat in the general’s headquarters the next day,
Lieutenant Colonel Stephen W. Kearney of the First Dragoons entered
and asked to speak to the general on urgent business. Kearny pleaded
with Atkinson to help persuade Colonel Taylor to allow Davis to
marry Sarah Taylor. It was an awkward moment for the
nineteen-year-old Charley Anderson, as he was compelled to listen to the man
urge a marriage between his “best friend” Sarah and his “then
bed-fellow” Davis. When the two lovebirds finally tied the knot in 1835,
Charley was in attendance. The new bride died of malaria just three
months later. Davis was a changed man. The twenty-five-year-old
officer whom Anderson later described as “witty,” “sportful,” and
“captivating” became a “sober, grave, philosopher-thinker.”
⁷

Yellow fever had nearly claimed the life of
Charley’s brother
Marshall the year before, during a visit to Robert Anderson’s post at
Baton Rouge. A friend of the family convinced Marshall that upon
his recovery, a trip to the Oregon Country might help to restore his
health. It seemed like a rather rash remedy, given that the route Lewis
and Clark had taken just thirty years before was rarely traveled by
anyone other than fur traders and mountain men. The daring trip,
later published in diary form, kindled a spirit of adventure in William
Marshall Anderson that would never be extinguished. Marshall
returned to Ohio in 1835, married the daughter of former Ohio
governor Duncan McArthur, and settled into a legal career. Like his
youngest brother, Charley, Marshall loved learning more than
working and became a renowned archeologist. His valuable collection of
Indian tools and artifacts from the burial mounds of Ohio were later
donated to the Smithsonian Institution.
⁸

Charles Anderson became someone different from each of his
accomplished older brothers.
Richard Jr. was the enshrined model and
facsimile of their father—the beau ideal of a son.
Larz represented
industry and achievement and was the most respected brother of the
clan. Robert represented faith, constancy, and duty, achieving
lasting fame for his lifetime of sacrifice in the service of his country.
Marshall was most like his youngest brother in his interests and
independent temperament. These traits eventually cleaved huge divisions
in the family over faith and politics. In the end, however, brotherly
love prevailed over seemingly irreparable differences. With the
support of these mentors, Charles prepared to enter the real world and
face his own great challenges.

His chosen partner on this lifelong journey was the sister of two
of his Oxford roommates.
Eliza Jane Brown was still finishing high
school when she and Charles pledged their troths to each other. They
married in 1835 after a two-year engagement. The young couple
settled in Dayton, where her Patterson ancestors had founded a
prosperous and growing community. Eliza was an educated woman, a loving
companion, and a dutiful, traditional wife. Anderson’s ego required a
partner and a helpmate, not someone who would oppose or challenge
him. Their first son arrived the following year, and they named him
Allen Latham in honor of Anderson’s brother-in-law. Like his
brothers, Charles pursued a career in the law. It was not his first choice,
nor his calling in life, but he had a family to support and his first duty
was to them.