American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode Title: American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong
Guests: Brenda Wineapple, Geoff Wisner
Host: Max Rudin
Date: February 23, 2026

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Overview of the Episode

This episode features a rich discussion about the newly published Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong, edited and annotated by Geoff Wisner for the Library of America. Acclaimed historian Brenda Wineapple joins Wisner to explore both the literary brilliance and historical significance of Strong’s diaries, long considered a masterpiece of American nonfiction and a window into Northern civilian life during the Civil War. Together, they examine Strong’s complex personality, his evolving views, and why his diaries remain both vital history and great literature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Strong’s Background and the Diary’s Significance

• Introduction (00:01–04:11):
  Max Rudin introduces Strong as a patrician New York lawyer, passionate Unionist, and keen observer of both war and daily life in mid-19th-century Manhattan. Keepers of the cultural flame, both guests are introduced, setting the tone for a deep literary and historical conversation.

• Strong’s Personality & Diary Origins (05:02–08:05):
  Geoff Wisner describes his path from discovering Strong through Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary and Pete Hamill’s recommendation, to delving into the unabridged diaries, captivated by Strong’s “wicked sense of humor.”

“Strong began his diary when he’s 15 years old and he didn’t stop until he was at the time of his death. And that went on for something like 60 years. That’s a lot of diary.”
— Brenda Wineapple (08:05)

2. Strong and Thoreau: Literary Comparisons

• Tempering Styles & Influences (09:11–10:13):
  • Both read the great naturalists (e.g., Darwin, Humboldt).
  • Strong, unlike Thoreau, delighted in fiction and urban life.
  • Strong’s view of transcendentalists—specifically, his parody of Bronson Alcott—is discussed with humor.

3. The Diary’s Private/Public Paradox

• Strong’s Audience and Candor (11:25–12:24):
  • Unlike Thoreau, whose journals were stepping stones to publication, Strong labeled each page “a private journal in” ornamental letters.
  • The result is often brutally frank—sometimes unpublishable for the time—with vivid opinions on major figures:

“He is so brutally frank about people.”
— Geoff Wisner (12:24)

4. Vivid Character Sketches & Changing Opinions

• Commentary on Contemporaries (12:35–15:01):
  • Strong’s acerbic observations: Hamilton Fish (“If you want to know which way the wind is blowing, throw a pin at Fish”), Washington Hunt (“not welcome at the club…at any time”).
  • Changing view of Lincoln from skepticism (“first rate, second rate man”—14:00) to deep respect.
  • Damning criticisms and biting wit, e.g., calling Stanton a lunatic.

5. Strong’s War Involvement: Firsthand Courage

• On the Battlefront and Sanitary Commission (15:01–17:00):
  • Despite not fighting, he was deeply engaged as treasurer of the Sanitary Commission (predecessor to Red Cross), with visits to military camps and hospitals—even bringing his young son into harm’s way.
  • Ellen, Strong’s wife, also risked her life as a hospital ship volunteer.

6. Humanity, Anger, and Compassion

• Witness to Chaos — Draft Riots and Bull Run (18:20–21:34):
  • Strong’s compassion shines, often “laced with anger” at officers’ cowardice and civilian suffering (“of the first 300 fugitives that crossed the Long Bridge [at Bull Run], 200 had commissions. Two colonels were seen fleeing on the same horse”).
  • His writing conveys direct emotion—“anger and compassion at the same time”—with memorable, novelistic detail.

7. Ellen Strong: Expanding the Picture

• Domestic Life, Family, and Transformation (19:14–21:34):
  • Editor Wisner restores focus on Ellen Strong’s courage and growth—elements downplayed in the earlier Nevins edition.

8. Riot, Prejudice, and Evolving Views

• Draft Riots and Racial Attitudes (21:34–24:50):
  • The horror of 1863 New York draft riots: Strong observed and intervened, pressing the mayor and Lincoln for federal response.
  • Strong’s initial prejudice toward Irish immigrants hardened; empathy toward Black New Yorkers increased—“early advocate of black volunteers.”

“He felt that freedmen…should have political rights at least equal to the bitter enemies of the country.”
— Brenda Wineapple quoting Strong (23:36)

9. Editorial Choices: Restoring the Man & His World

• What’s New in This Edition (18:20–20:43, 49:01–52:40):
  • Nearly half the volume is newly transcribed, faithful to Strong’s handwritten text.
  • Restores domestic, social, and sometimes “scandalous” elements omitted in the 1952 Nevins edition.
  • Retains linguistic quirks, puns, Latin and Greek fragments, peculiar spellings for authenticity and flavor.

10. Strong’s Voice: Literary Masterpiece or Just History?

• The Literary Power of the Diary (29:00–32:20):
  • Strong’s entries are lively, formulaic yet varied—combining humor, metaphor, and precise observation.
  • He frequently uses animal imagery, sometimes disparaging (“this country is a debilitated chicken dressed in eagle feathers”—29:39).
  • Brenda Wineapple and Wisner place him among the greatest American diarists, alongside Thoreau.

11. Reception, Transmission, and Legacy

• How the Diary Survived & Became Public (32:52–36:10):
  • Preserved by family, later used for Red Cross exhibition and law firm history, eventually published by Nevins and Thomas in 1952.
  • The new edition benefits from high-quality digitization by the New-York Historical Society.

12. Psychology and Motivation

• Strong’s Self-Critique and Depression (36:10–39:09):
  • Despite being “incredibly useful” as a citizen, Strong was often self-critical and afflicted by depression, migraines, and physical ailments.
  • Wisner sees his suffering as enhancing his empathy and the diary’s depth.

13. Beyond the Civil War: The Long View

• Postwar Reflections (39:09–42:34):
  • The diary doesn’t end with Appomattox; it continues into the turbulent early Reconstruction, including Strong’s skepticism of Andrew Johnson and historical consciousness—“I would give a good deal to know what estimate will be put on [this writing] 10 or 50 years hence.”

14. Audience Q&A: Slavery, Race, Edition Differences, and the Value of Diaries

• Strong’s Evolving View on Slavery (44:02–47:54):
  • Early conventional thinking (“The Bible doesn’t make it clear”), but war experience radicalized him; saw no gap between Union’s preservation and slavery’s abolition.
  • Saw abolitionists as “cranks” pre-war, changed during war.
• Patrician Context (47:16–49:01):
  • Both characteristic of, and exceptional within, his class and time—personally evolving as the war redefined Northern values.
• Edition Comparison (49:01–52:40):
  • New edition adds omitted material, corrects errors, restores Strong’s full humor and voice.
• Literary Value and Why Read Diaries? (52:40–57:04):
  • Diaries like Strong’s allow readers to live history “day by day, in the moment,” offering immediacy, emotional depth, and unmediated perspectives unavailable in secondary histories.
  • Brenda Wineapple: “He’s the eye and ear and heart on the street...enormously compassionate...authoritatively, even though he’s capable of changing his mind.” (55:30)

15. Strong’s Motivation for His Lifelong Diary

• Enduring Mystery (57:37–58:28):
  • After 30 years, Strong himself could not explain the compulsion, except perhaps an “enormous ledger-sized book” and a habit begun at age 15.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 07:32 | Wisner | “I felt like this was great material and it had to come back into print.” | | 11:25 | Wineapple | “He said, ‘The importance of this chapter in world’s history is we’re helping to write.’” | | 12:24 | Wisner | “I’m sure a lot of what he wrote couldn’t have been easily published in his lifetime because he is so brutally frank about people.” | | 14:00 | Wineapple | “He says, ‘I fear that Lincoln is what Wendell Phillips calls him, a first rate, second rate man.’ I mean, I think that’s incredible.” | | 23:36 | Wineapple (quoting Strong) | “Freedmen...should have political rights at least equal to those of the bitter enemies of the country.” | | 29:39 | Wisner (quoting Strong) | “This country is a debilitated chicken dressed in eagle feathers.” | | 32:20 | Wineapple | “‘Summer, as it always does, then it became a fanatic.’ ...just so hot in that particular sense.” | | 41:17 | Wineapple | “I would give a good deal to know what estimate will be put on it 10 or 50 years hence.” | | 54:02 | Wisner | “I think it’s the best way to put yourself inside the mind of someone who is living through this day by day.” | | 55:30 | Wineapple | “He’s the eye and ear and heart on the street, on the battlefield...authoritatively, even though he’s capable of changing his mind.” |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–04:11: Intro, Max Rudin’s framing of Strong and the project
• 05:02–08:05: Wisner’s entry to Strong, initial impressions, and scope of the diary
• 09:11–10:13: Literary comparisons: Thoreau vs. Strong, reading habits
• 11:25–12:24: Public vs. private nature of Strong’s diary and his frankness
• 15:01–16:55: Strong’s frontline activities, Sanitary Commission work, Ellen Strong
• 21:34–24:50: Strong’s reactions to the draft riots and evolving views on race
• 29:00–32:20: Literary merit of the diary and use of language
• 32:52–36:10: How the diary was preserved and digitized
• 36:37–39:09: Strong’s self-doubt, health, and depression
• 39:09–42:34: The long arc of the diary into Reconstruction
• 44:02–47:54: Audience Q&A on Strong’s evolving stance on slavery
• 49:01–52:40: Differences between new LOA edition and Nevins; why they matter
• 52:40–57:04: Why read a diary? Literary/historical value, immediacy
• 57:37–58:28: The (non-)answer to why Strong wrote the diary

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Conclusion

This episode offers a compelling, nuanced exploration of The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong, covering not only the diary’s rich literary qualities but also the contradictions, growth, and vibrant humanity of its author. The new Library of America edition—expanded, more faithful, and fully annotated—restores Strong as one of America’s great diarists and a vital witness to a defining era. Listeners come away with a sense not just of Civil War history, but of how the act of close, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable looking can make the past live again.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Max Rudin, president and publisher of Library of America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing authoritative new volumes of great American writers and to keeping the multivocal democratic spirit of our literary tradition a vital part of the culture. Warm thanks to Library of America members and to all of you here tonight for supporting our work and these loa live programs. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, 40 year old George Templeton Strong, a cultured and patrician New York attorney, had been keeping a diary for decades, recording with an astute eye the dynamic life of 19th century Manhattan and the gathering national storm. Passionately pro union and fiercely contemptuous of what he called the woman flogging and child selling south, he was also something of a snob and deeply skeptical of the new president elect who struck him as a Western yahoo who talked too much and laughed too loud. In the years ahead, as Strong devoted himself to improving the care of sick and wounded soldiers on the US Sanitary Commission, his diary as it grew, would reflect his change of mind about the embattled president and much else. Filled with novelistic detail, vivid eyewitness accounts of the 1863 draft riots, field hospitals teeming with wounded soldiers, meetings with Grant and with Lincoln, all against the background of the social and cultural life of wartime New York and the capricious shifts in national mood, what Strong called the great mass of selfishness, frivolity, invincible prejudice and indifference. Strong's diary is at once the greatest northern account of civilian life during our country's most searing conflict and a masterpiece of American writing. George Templeton Strong, Civil War Diaries has just been published in the Library of America, Volume 396 in the series selected and annotated by Jeff Wisner, who joins us this evening. Newly transcribed and rigorously faithful to Strong's handwritten text, nearly half the entries are published here for the first time, superseding the only previous edition published in 1952 and long out of print. Civil War Diaries is published with generous support from the Achilles and Bodman foundation, and our producers will put a link to more information about the book in the chat. We are incredibly fortunate tonight to have here to discuss Strong and his great work two distinguished writers and scholars. Jeff Wisner is editor of A Year of Birds, writing on Birds from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau's Wildflowers and Thoreau's Animals. He is author of a basket of 99 books that captured the Spirit of Africa. Acclaimed historian and literary scholar Brenda Winapple as author of Keeping the God Democracy and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, which the New York Times called history at its most delicious. Her other books include the Impeachers, the Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation and Ecstatic Confidence Crisis and Compromise, 1848-1877. Her biography of Fiorello Laguardia is forthcoming for from the Yale University Press Jewish Live series for Library of America. She has edited a collection of John Greenleaf Whittier's poems and Walt Whitman his final thoughts on life, writing, spirituality and the promise of America. Both Brenda and Jeff are joining us from New York City. We welcome your questions and comments and invite you to share your name and where you're viewing from. The Q and A button is on your menu bar now. Please welcome Jeff Wisner and Brenda Winapple. Brenda, to you.

[B]

Thank you, Max. Pleasure to be here with all of you and certainly with Jeff. I'm very excited about this volume. Jeff has done a great job and very eager to talk to him about it. And you can all overhear our conversation. And one of the first things I want to know is how you, Jeff, whom I associate with Thoreau, got interested in this Herculean task in the first place. And also I'm sure many people who are listening know quite a bit about Strong. But maybe is a kind of two part question you could also tell us while you're telling us a little bit about you tell us a little bit about Strong.

[C]

Okay, happy to. Well, thanks for that great introduction, Max and thank you Brenda for agreeing to do this. It's, it's always a pleasure to talk about Strong or about Thoreau. But

[B]

for us, why not, you know, Thoreau meets Strong. Although Throw is dead by the time.

[C]

They have a lot of interesting similarities and differences that we may or may not get into. But I, I got into Strong in the same way that a lot of people did through Ken Burns Civil War documentary. Oh yeah, which came out in, in 1990. I'm pretty sure I'd never heard of him before but there were these wonderful pungent quotes in the voice of George Plimpton, who my knew and liked in that, that wonderful unmistakable voice of his. So that that struck a chord, put Strong's name in the back of my head. But then what really did it was Pete Hamill. Because a few years ago my wife and I went to the Tenement Museum in New York to hear Pete Hamill talk about his new book Downtown in New York City history. And toward the end in the Q A a woman asked him what should I Read to learn about 19th century New York City. And he said, read the diaries of Philip Hone and George Templeton Strong. And I, I tried a little of each of them. There's a collection Louis Auchincloss put together with quotes from each of them and some courier knives prints and all that. But I quickly realized that, that Strong was the one that I really resonated with partly because of his, his wicked sense of humor.

[B]

So like Thoreau has a wicked sense of humor?

[C]

Yes, yes. He's often not given credit for that, but he does. So a few years later I bought the four volume 1952 edition of strong and read it and loved it and started putting quotes up on, on Twitter as it was. And I had, my original scheme was to just, I felt like this was great material and it had to come back into print.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So my original scheme was to try to re edit those four volumes into a Civil War volume and a New York volume and get them reprinted. But in the end, you know, it was Library of America for which I'm very grateful that went for the project and, and wanted to do, establish a new text and do it the right way and go back to the original manuscript. And it's really been, was a hell of a lot of work, but it was also a great pleasure to do it.

[B]

Yeah, well, it, it, it must have been both great pleasure and a hell of a lot of. Because it's voluminous. I mean he, I think as Max suggested, Strong began his diary when he's 15 years old and he didn't stop until he was at the time of his death. And that went on for something like 60 years. That's a lot of diary. It is, but it's really the Civil War years that I think so distinguish him in many ways. Although again, going back to Thoreau, you think of Thoreau in Nature or near Walden Pond and, and Strong is such an urban character that it, it, you know, it's hard to bring them together. How would you compare before we get into the content of the diary itself, how would you compare their literary styles? Or do you think you think they read some of the same people perhaps?

[C]

I think they read some of the same, some of the same naturalists. They both read Darwin for instance. They read. Pretty sure they both read Humboldt, the other Agassi, leading science and nature writers of the day. Thoreau didn't care for fiction very much so whereas Strong. Strong did. Strong read quite a lot of fiction

[B]

and he probably Emerson because everybody read Emerson.

[C]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you did? Yeah. Strong didn't have a high opinion of transcendentalists.

[B]

Well, neither did Henry Adams, you know, not alone in that.

[C]

But, you know, I think it's partly because his exposure was from Bronson Alcott, who

[B]

the Library of America is going to put out Alcott's journals anytime soon.

[C]

He did a parody of Alcott's. Kind of otherworldly.

[B]

Yeah. Too bad that can't get into this particular book. But. But you can't do everything, certainly. And. And I think, you know, talk about his pungent style. Just so. So kind of on point and seems to me. So there's such a human quality to what he's writing.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

That there are so many passages where he. Free, even forgetting the war, where he makes you laugh, as you said, or puts your heart out in. In another case. And, you know, early on, it seemed to me. And then we'll talk a little bit about the war itself. How can you not. But. But early, even early on, he was. He understood what he called the magnitude of the war, you know, and, you know, he said, and I'm quoting now, he said, the importance of this chapter in world's history is we're helping to write. Do you think he had a sense that somebody would be reading his diaries, like you and me and Ken Burns and probably a lot of the people who tuned in.

[C]

Yeah. It's interesting because I think. I think he didn't. I think that's a paradox of Thoreau and Strong, that Thoreau is considered to be such a private person. And yet Thoreau's journal was always intended to be a stepping stone to publication. It was his workshop where he created his lectures and essays and rough drafts of. Of Walden and other books. Whereas Strong. Now, he was a very public guy and he knew everybody. And he would have been well placed to publish his. His journal or part of it or arrange for it after his death. As far as I know, he never did. And at the top of every page of the journal, he wrote a private journal in.

[B]

Oh, he did.

[C]

Ornamental letters. Yeah.

[B]

Allowed him to be much freer than somebody would have been.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm sure a lot of what he wrote couldn't have been easily published in his lifetime because he is so brutally frank about people.

[B]

Can you give us some examples of that?

[C]

Well, yeah, I mean, certainly.

[B]

He's certainly pretty frank about Lincoln, but then, so was Hawthorne. Hawthorne said he was one of the ugliest men that he'd ever met. And he looked like he hadn't combed his Hair in a while. And he said that publicly. But that was Hawthorne kind of a.

[C]

Yes. Well, he, he had some wonderful cutting remarks. I mean, Hamilton Fish was a leading political figure in New York at his, in his time. And he, he quoted someone as saying, if you want to know which way the wind is blowing, throw a panel. And Fish. And, and he also Strong was the founder of the Union League Club, which was meant to bolster union sentiment. So they were always trying to make sure that copperheads, Southern sympathizers didn't get into the club. And one of these was Washington Hunt, another kind of leading politician who happened to be a friend of Strong's father in law. So Strong says at one point, I'm going to paraphrase, but he says, you know, I must, I must advise my father in law that his particular friend Washington Hunt is not welcome at the club on Tuesday afternoons or Thursday evenings or at any time.

[B]

Right, right, right, right, absolutely. But he was also capable of changing his mind. I guess Lincoln is a case in point because he began to say he's a, he's an honest man of considerable ability, even though he, you know, was very leery of him at first. One of the things that he said that I thought was remarkable in your book was there's a line that we associate with fdr and what, what Strong says is he says, I fear that Lincoln is what Wendell Phillips calls him, a first rate, second rate man. I mean, I think that's incredible. They also called Stanton a lunatic, which I don't think he was. But in any event, what about his going to battlefields? What did you think of that? I mean, those are pretty incredible passages too.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, they really are. You know, I think of Strong as like one of the great war heroes who never fought, trained with a rifle company for a little while at the beginning, but he was nearsighted and he was 41 when the war broke out. And so he eventually hired a substitute.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But for someone who never fought, he did take some risks. You know, he would visit, you know, visit various military encampments near the front lines beginning at the. Started the war. And then he was the treasurer of the, the Sanitary Commission, which is a precursor of the Red Cross. And they among other.

[B]

Oh, I think Jeff froze. Well, he was talking about the Sanitary Commission. I don't know if anybody can hear him.

[C]

Transport system. They had done out them to, to places like City Point in Virginia, which was kind of a staging area for a lot of fun men and material and, and then, then up the river you know, within sniping distance of. Of Confederate soldiers. And not only that, but his wife Ellen did the same.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Volunteer on one of the hospital ships. And at one point, Strong goes with his son Johnny, who is only about 12 at the time, and they go out on what was already a somewhat hazardous trip. And then the boat grounds itself on a sandbank, and it's at least a day, maybe two, before it can be pulled off. So took some considerable risk. And then disease was always, Always a hazard. Going south, you could get malaria or typhoid fever, any number of things.

[B]

Right, right, right. And to me, one of the things that's. Besides what you're talking about, these heroic qualities, and he's very brave, was that he had such compassion for the men that he saw and, you know, compassion laced with anger. I. I think in the passage, shortly after Bull Run, he said, you know, the men have lost faith in their officers. And no wonder when some so many officers set the example of running away. Anybody who knows about the first Bull Run, the officers left. And he said, of the first 300 fugitives that crossed the Long Bridge, 200 had commissions. That's remarkable. You know, two colonels were seen fleeing on the same horse. I mean, you know, I mean, the detail is so alive, and it's alive. It gives you the picture, but to me, it gives you so much more than the picture. It gives you. It gives you anger and compassion at the same time. Did. Did you find that? And what were the. I guess, in relation to that? How did you decide what to put in and what to leave out?

[C]

Yeah, Now, I started because this was my first plan. I started by going through the. The 1952 edition and picking out what I thought were the best passages on the Civil War, because the volume three, which covers the war years.

[B]

Right.

[C]

In Nevins, has a lot of stuff that is not actually about the war, which. Which is fine.

[B]

But thought about music. Was that in the Nevins.

[C]

Well, throughout, there's quite a lot. Because there's quite a lot in the diary.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But, of course, ordinary life was going on while the war was going on, so some of that is appropriate. But there was. There were also a lot of things that did pertain to the war that had been left out. So

[B]

I'm curious.

[C]

Well, I think. I think it's interesting Evans gave short shrift to Ellen, for instance.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I think to Strong's family life in general, but to Ellen in particular.

[B]

Tell us a little bit about her.

[C]

Yeah, she was. I think. I think she's surprised strong. She turned out not to be the person that he thought he was, he was marrying. But she was. She was Ellen Ruggles, the daughter of Samuel B. Ruggles, who is a wealthy businessman and the creator of Gramercy Park. And she was known. She doesn't seem to have ever had a real career. She was known as a fine amateur singer. Did a lot of amateur theatricals and so on. And I think she had a rather sharp sense of humor that he enjoyed. So. So they married. They had. They had three sons together. But I don't think he ever imagined that she would be helping to run these enormous fundraising, sanitary fairs or going out on hospital ships, you know, risking her life. He, I think, ended the war admiring her a good deal more than he did before. You know, he certainly loved her. He thought she was a wonderful mother, but.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Wife and mother. But there turned out to be more to her than.

[B]

Than he expected and probably more to both of them. I mean, she probably felt the same way about him, I would imagine. It's too bad she didn't kill Diary. I don't think she did, as far as any of us know. Maybe it'll come up someday. But that's very, very interesting because I think it gives us a fuller sense of both of them as a couple, kind of committed in the ways that they were and that they, you know, is. I think Max said in his introduction they were patrician. They didn't have to be, but everyone was caught up. And certainly those passages around the draft riots of 1860, 63. I mean, they're chilling. Is that how you found them? Or, you know.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, Very, very much. Just. Just horrifying and is so strong, you know, witnessed houses being looted and burned as. As you can read in the book.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[C]

But he also went with others to try to convince the mayor, Mayor Opdyke and General Wool, who happened to be in town, to do something about it, you know, to have a forceful response. And each of them basically said it was the responsibility of the other. And so finally, Strong, and I think it might have been Vulcut Gibbs telegraph to. To Lincoln to try to convince him to send in the troops and then put the riot down. So one. One effect, you know, I think. I think you have to admit that Strong was in many ways a bigot. And Daniel Aaron, although a great.

[B]

Wasn't.

[C]

Well, maybe even more so than others. Daniel Aaron, in his essay the the Greatest Diarist.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Aaron was, of course, a founder of Library of America, gives a long list of Groups that. That strong was prejudiced against. But as a result of the. Of the riots, his existing prejudice against the Irish got worse. But his. His prejudice about black New Yorkers was. Was largely dissipated. He. He felt that they. Hard working, peaceful put upon, you know, unjustly treated of any of the. The poor people of New York City.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And he was also early. Early on an advocate of. Of bringing black volunteers into the Union Army.

[B]

Yes. And I noticed too, you know, that in your volume, just to sort of skip ahead for a minute, but at the end of the war, he says, and this I think gives you a nice portrait of just what you. He's talking about suffrage actually in the 13th amendment. And he says, you know, that freedmen, and I'm quoting that freedmen who have as a class always help the national cause to the utmost of their ability at risk of their lives, should have political rights at least equal to those of the bitter enemies of the countries who are about to resume their rights stolenly and under protest. You know, why should these Confederates get their rights? And only because they're crushed and coerced and subjugated right to the highest degree. So that it's only Justin right that the freedmen, men, of course not women, get suffrage, get the right to vote. But then he goes on and he said, but the average field hand would use this political power as intelligently as would the mule tribes. You think? Oh, yeah. And you couldn't leave that out, of course, you know.

[C]

No, I couldn't. And nor could I leave out the. The occasional times when he uses the N word, as he continued to do even as he was praising troops.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Their courage in battle.

[B]

It shows what a complicated. Not just a complicated man he is, but a complicated country, you know, and, you know, where the best and the worst are sort of mixed together in so many ways. There is worst of the worst and the best of the best. I guess you could say Lincoln on one end and I don't know, May Oak Dyke on the other or the Copperheads or something. But here he is mixed in that sense. I skipped. I skipped ahead a little bit, you know, to, to the end of the war or as the war is happening, ending. And we, of course, we have, you know, again, his wonderful, extraordinary passages about being on the front. But even beyond that, the human quality is. Is Lincoln's assassination. You know, there's some really. You want to speak to those a little bit, you know, really is. We get. We get a bird's eye view or on the. On the ground view of what it must have been like.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Well, he was. He was shocked and horrified, of course, as everyone was, but one of his first reactions was to say he. I think he took it for granted that this was not a crazed gunman, that it was a Confederate plot.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

His reaction was to say, they've, you know, they've murdered their best friend. They've murdered the. The man who could have been their greatest ally.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

The country is recreating itself. I think, at that point. Point he had before the assassination, I think, already recognized Lincoln's greatness, but he felt that this. This was going to make that clear to everyone else.

[B]

Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I mean, but it's interesting that he did think it was a conspiracy. He wasn't alone in that, you know, that many people thought that initially, certainly. And understandably, the power of those passages are among. And I have so many favorites, as I'm sure you do in the diary. What are some of your favorites? You know, what did you find thrilling in a sense?

[C]

Yeah, the whole. The whole episode of his journey with his son Johnny and the. And the stranding of the ship. There are some clues early on that the captain was somewhat incompetent and not n. Navigation is not his strong suit. And. And then getting off. Getting pulled off and coming to City Point, I think it's the same episode describing the. The incredible chaos that's there and the pillars of coppery dust going up. That's. That's a very memorable scene. But another one of my favorites is. Is his meeting with one of his sanitary commission colleagues with Stanton, the Secretary of War. War.

[B]

Oh, right.

[C]

It's just this. This ferocious character, and he describes it in a kind of, you know, Daniel in the lion's den way.

[B]

Well, he's Daniel and. And Stanton is the lion.

[C]

Right, right, exactly. And how they. How he and his colleague managed to. To parry off the various assaults of Stanton and leave him sort of gasping when his. His points are countered. And how Stanton calmed down when he realized that they weren't as frightened as he expected them to be.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. That's a wonderful scene.

[B]

It is. Again, these portraits, these portraits of these people. I was tempted to say characters, they're real people, but they come to us like characters. It brings us back to the. Not just the historical quality of these volumes or this volume or is, you know, his writing, but the literary quality of it. Did you find it to be sort of a. Would you argue for it as a literary. I think, as Max said, literary masterpiece? As well, as a historical. Because when you start with Ken Burns and you said, you know, that was history, he's using it to sort of.

[C]

But yeah, although even there you see his, his gift for language. This is the quote just before the war breaks out where Strong says that, you know, this country is a debilitated chicken dressed in eagle feathers.

[B]

Oh, that's great.

[C]

Not a real country. We've never been a real country. He's. He had a love of, of animals. It's one of the things he has in common with Thoreau. And it comes into his language all the time. He's constantly comparing people with different, different animals, right down to sea anemones, because he was an aquarium keeper, so he was familiar with them. One point he's. When he's disgusted with life and life in Civil War America, he says he would consider going to live with a troop of gregarious blue baboons in South Africa. Now I've gotten off track. I've forgotten the question.

[B]

Oh, it's not off track at all. It's definitely on track, you know.

[C]

Oh, the literary quality.

[B]

Yes, that's the literary.

[C]

Yeah. Yes. I mean, I don't want to make exaggerated claims for him. I mean, my, you know, having read a bunch of 19th century diaries, I feel as though the two greatest are Strong's and Thoreau's. I read Thoreau's diary as an undergraduate. That's 2 million words, 14 volumes in the 1906 edition. Strong's is twice that long. And I haven't read every word because I tend to skip over the long sections on Episcopal Church politics and the like, but I've certainly read most of it. And the consistency is. It's just excellent from the very beginning, and it's consistent in this voice and tone and sense of humor from the very beginning. And it's an odd thing because in a way that his diary is formulaic. He always, always begins with the weather. He begins with how the health of himself and his family, whether he was diligent in Wall street or not diligent that day, what happened at the Union League Club or the Philharmonic Society. And yet there's just such constant variety and constant humor, even in the weather reports.

[B]

Yes, I noticed that at one point he called summer. It says start summer as it always does. And then it became a fanatic, you know, just so hot. In that particular sense. I'm curious, you, you say, you know, going through all of these diary manuscripts, how did they come. How did they come into the public, basically? I mean, how do how do we have them for you to even call through?

[C]

Yeah, it's. I don't. I don't know all the details, but it seems as though we have them not so much because anybody recognized their literary quality, but because they were useful to different organizations. And maybe that would be. Maybe he wouldn't have minded that because useful was always one of his favorite words to describe someone he liked and especially at the end of their life, that they. This had been a useful man or useful woman. But his family had kept the diary, fortunately. And then in 1927, the Red Cross was putting on an exhibition about their history, and somebody knew that Strong had been treasurer of the Sanitary Commission, which came before the Red Cross, and that he kept a diary. And so the diary was put on exhibit in Washington for the Red Cross. And in some way, a fellow named Henry Waters Taft found out about it, and he was writing a book about Strong's law firm, which is actually the oldest law firm in America, still exists now called Cadwallader.

[B]

Still exists?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. At the time it was. Well, it had different names, but. And a. Strong and Bidwell at one point during Strong's life. So at any rate, Henry Waters Taft consulted it for this book about the law firm. And then he mentioned it to Nicholas Murray Butler, who is the president of Columbia, and then he mentioned it to Milton Halsey Thomas and Alan Nevins, who were history professors, and they. They eventually brought it into print in 1952.

[B]

That's interesting. So it didn't go to Columbia because Nevins was at Columbia. Then it went to the New York Historical Society, isn't that correct?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Looked at it, yeah.

[C]

How the. How they got it, I. I really don't know, but they do own the physical volumes, which I haven't seen yet.

[B]

Oh, really?

[C]

I'd like to like to arrange that.

[B]

Yes. So you were using the. They digitized it?

[C]

Yes, they digitized it. When I. When I first started working on this, they were only available by going there and looking at microfilm, which was not something I was going to do for 4 million words of diary. There were also some photos, photocopied pages at the Columbia Rare Books Room, their library. So. But the New York Historical Society did have the whole thing just beautifully scanned, nice and clear and made available online. So I was able to. To do all this editing in the comfort of my home and to blow up these. He wrote in an extremely tiny script. So I was able to blow it up as far as necessary to see what he was actually saying.

[B]

You you mentioned before one of his, one of the things that he admired in people is whether they were useful or not useful, not youthful and useful. And do you think he would think he's useful, useful, interested, you know, I mean, you know him now better than any of us.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm afraid he might not have thought that, which I think is, is a terrible shame because from an outside point of view, he was, he was incredibly useful. He was responsible directly or indirectly for saving many, many lives. But he was, he was a natural critic. He not only literary way, but just as a, his frame of mind. So. And he was just as critical of himself as he was of anybody else. So he refers to himself at one point as, as poor, weak, effeminate, flaccid gts.

[B]

Oh my.

[C]

And I mean he had, he had various, you know, medical complaints that made him feel that way along with being nearsighted. He had terrible dyspepsia and terrible, what he called sick headaches. I've wondered if they were migraines and also just crippling depression that kept recurring.

[B]

That's very interesting about the Depression. Do you feel that shaped his, the Civil, Civil War diaries in any way? Do you think that helped make him as compassionate and as sensitive a writer as he was, is so interesting?

[C]

Yeah, I think, I think so. I mean, it can go both ways. If you're either sickly or hypochondriac, it could cause you to just focus on yourself. But I think in his case it didn't. It did give him compassion for others. And what I appreciate about him, in many ways, he couldn't be more different from Thoreau and he couldn't be more different from, for me as a nature lover and someone who's politically progressive. But he, he learned from experience and you can, you can see him, him grow and change. I mean, his, his voice, his sense of humor stayed the same, but he, he does become more, more humane, more compassionate as time goes on.

[B]

Well, I always thought that he had a real sense of not his own future, but he was always thinking about the future of the country and was so concerned about that. And that's one of the motivators and one of the passages I thought interesting too, because you nicely. These are the Civil War diaries, but you don't end it at Appomattox, don't end the book at Lincoln's death. You know, you take us a little bit farther on and you know, it has one passage that was interesting to me where Andrew Johnson is now president after the. After Lincoln's assassination. And he says, sorry to say that Andy Johnson, whom I've held in great respect for four years past, seems to have been disgracefully drunk last Saturday and hardly in a condition to take part in the inaugural ceremonies of the new administration, you know, and. And then he goes on to say, which I think is very moving, he said the papers that deride him were the same nice newspapers that denounced the inaugural address by Abraham Lincoln, you know, and. And he said it's certainly most unlike the inaugurals of Pierce and Pope Buchanan or any of the predecessors, unlike any state paper of the century. So he really knows this and he really has a sense of language. Excuse me. And he goes on to say, I would give a good deal. It's very poignant to me. I would give a good deal to know what estimate will be put on it 10 or 50 years hence. It's, you know, he's thinking so much into the future, which I think is rather wonderful. And what gives the force behind his writing about this war.

[C]

Yes. It's one of the few times when he sort of gestures at the idea of someone reading the diary is when he's looking ahead, thinking, you know, 100 years from now, will someone read this as they read, you know, peeps. And to bring them back to these days. So he was living in a time when the city was expanding very rapidly. You know, early on in the diary he will make. He will refer to someone setting up house somewhere between 10th street and Lake Champlain. You know, it's all. All just wilderness up there.

[B]

Right. That's why the Dakota was named. The Dakota. Because it might have been in Dakota for. For those not in New York City. I'm referring to a kind of a storage apartment building on. In the 70s, which might as well have been to a man like Strong. The Dakotas in that.

[C]

Yes. Yes. Well, he was there for the beginning of Central park, too. And seeing it, Frederick Law Olmstead was his fellow commissioner on the sanitary commission. So they knew each other well.

[B]

And that's interesting, too.

[C]

Yeah,

[B]

that relationship. There's just so much that's so rich. His life in some way touched everybody. And I think you've said that in that way because he. He met all of the people who've become. Just become stick figures sometimes in history until you open these marvelous pages.

[A]

That seems like a good segue into. I know you guys are just getting revved up and I hate to jump in, but there are some questions from people reviewing. So there are a number of questions that are about Strong's view of slavery. And I'll say that Charles Sperling from New York City writes, hawthorne said he was for the war but didn't know what the war was for. Did Strong see it as preserving the Union or ending slavery? And Beth Brown Preston from Westchester, Pennsylvania, and John Gray from Brooklyn, New York, both asked what was his view of slavery? So I guess if you could just maybe address the general question of his views on slavery, the broader question of what did he think the war was about? Was it about slavery? Was it about Union? And also finally, did his views evolve over the course of the diary?

[C]

Yeah, it's, I'm looking through some quotes here, but yeah, Strong, Strong is interesting partly because he was brilliant, but he was also a real victim of conventional wisdom. And maybe partly because he knew so many people, he was such a social animal. He tended to absorb the opinions that were around him. Like early on when he was writing about slavery in the journal, he, he asked, he asked himself what was the basic moral question about it? Is slavery right or wrong? And he says, in fact. Well, I don't, I can't really be sure. You know, the, the Bible doesn't make that clear. And, but then he, he concludes that slavery, and the more he learns about it, that slavery as it's practiced in the south is perhaps the greatest crime that's been committed in human history based on its, its scale and horrific conditions of servitude. He didn't consider himself an abolitionist until the war. But again, partly, I think it's because abolitionists were considered cranks and fringe characters. So even if you were against slavery, you wouldn't refer to yourself as an abolitionist. So that did change for him, I think. And I think just at the beginning of the war, already at the beginning of the war, he didn't draw any real distinction between saving the Union and ending slavery. You know, it was clear to him that South Carolina and other states were seceding because of slavery, and it wasn't because of any abstract question of states rights. And I think he, he thought early on that the end of the war would also mean the end of slavery.

[A]

Thank you. And just I guess a follow up to that in a way, and it's a question for both of you, I guess. I mean, in what way do you think those views were unusual for a man of his time in class? I mean, you know, we've talked about Strong as a patrician New Yorker. You talked about him, you know, being a partner in this firm which is now called Wilder Wickersham and Taft. He was a, he was a, he was involved with Trinity Church and governance. Right. And he was, he was a trustee of Columbia University. He was, you know, he was an upper crust person and yet he comes through as this incredibly vivid individual, three dimensional character. So I guess just to follow up that question, I mean, to what extent do you see his views as characteristic of a person of his station and time and in what ways do you see them as idiosyncratic and in some way?

[C]

Yeah, well, I think, I think his thinking was rather conventional up until the war and his involvement with the Sanitary commission was more or less accidental. He was drafted onto it. But I think that experience, it might be too much to say that it radicalized him, but I think it put him out at the, the forefront of, of those who are really seeking reform, political reform and, and reform and race relations.

[B]

I just may say I, I think he's pretty unique in a certain sense too. At the same time as he's typical. I think he's unique because of just what Jeff was saying before he, he could change over time and he became increasingly anti slavery, which didn't mean he wasn't racist. He was clearly racist, but he, he saw what the war began to mean. And in that sense he's not the same as Lincoln. But you know, Lincoln who, who at least pretended that the war was to save the Union and then those positions changed when he had black troops involved. Emancipation Proclamation. That's a kind of trajectory of strong too. Just seems to me in reading him that you can still have what we would consider today reprehensible views about groups of people and yet hate the whole, whole institution of slavery.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There are several questions there about, you know, the differences between this edition and the Nevins. And I don't want to get into the weeds too much on this, but let me just say that there's questions from Jennifer Perry from Hartford, Connecticut asks was anything corrected from the Nevins text to this text? Bell. Julian clement from Washington D.C. says please discuss how this edition differs from the Civil War section of Nevins. And Leonard Lanier of Las Vegas says, how does this new edition differ from the previous version? So I guess, I mean the main differences are there's a lot of material here that's not available in the Nevins. And Jeff, I think you've calculated at some point what percentage of the book is publisher for the first time. I don't remember that number, but, but I guess the question really. Yeah. Say again? Maybe 40 or 45% close to have. And I guess the question is, what therefore do we see here that we. That a reader wouldn't see from the Nevins? Would you say? How would you, how would you characterize that?

[C]

Yeah, I think, I think you see, you see more of his, his domestic life as, as I mentioned, you see more of his social life in New York City as the war is going on. Maybe more scenes at the, the Union League Club where he's having conversations about the war with various people. I think, I think the Nevin's edition cuts out some of the, some, some of the more scandalous stuff that I tended to include. And, and there are some, some errors. I think Nevins and Thomas did an excellent job, but still you go through a second time and you see, for instance, places where whole lines were, were missed, which is easy to do when someone writes very small and you have, have to pick up the next line at the correct place. And there's places where they, they, they missed or flattened out some of Strong's humor. Strong is talking about the, the west coast fundraisers for the Sanitary Commission. He refers to them as Californicators. They changed that to Californians. And some things that they just got just misread. I think there's a reference to hanging Pennsylvanians. That's actually to Harry, Pennsylvania, little things. And, you know, with Library of America's encouragement, I, I kept a lot of the, a lot of the peculiar, the idiosyncra, idiosyncrasies of his, his writing. There's little Latin and Greek tags that he drops in that, that were left out of Nevin's various puns and jokes, his peculiar spelling, you know, despite, you know, he was, as I say, a brilliant guy. When, when he quotes Shakespeare, for instance, and you look up the quote, you see it's, you know, he's not, it's not Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet. It's Henry VI Part 2 or something. But he spelled ankle and skull with a C consistently. God knows why, but has a certain charm.

[A]

Just to stay on the question of the diary as writing there, there are a couple questions. David Neslin of Denver, Colorado says, given all that's transpired over the last 160 years, why should we continue to read diaries? I want to come back to that, maybe reframe it a little bit. Niall Monroe of Oxford, England says, in terms of literary merit, how does Strong's diary compare to other famous diaries of the time? Mary Chesnut, Sarah Morgan, Kate Stone. You talked about that a little bit. And Patrick Howard of West Palm Beach, Florida says, to what extent have diaries like Strong and Chestnut influenced perception of the war and empathy, or lack thereof, for Southerners versus Northerners? You can grab those three questions however you like, but I also just want to kind of pull out what I think is the, really, the big question lurking behind all of them, which is why read a diary? Like, you know, why, you know, why now? Like, why read a diary? I mean, what. What do we get? What does the reader get, I guess, from reading a doc, from reading these diaries or the diary form that you. That you would not get, let's say, from reading, you know, a narrative history of the period or, or an academic history of the period, let's say. Like what? You know, So I don't know, as I say, take. Come at that, however you like.

[C]

Yeah, well, I've. I've always found primary sources just really compelling. And, and in Strong's case, I think what you get is. I think it's the. The best way to put yourself inside the mind of someone who is living through this day by day. You know, I've read Mary Chestnut. I understand a lot of that diary was kind of massaged and reconstructed later on, Whereas, Whereas Strong is really writing in the moment that day, or sometimes the next day about what happened the previous day, but at the moment, not knowing what's going to happen, you know, having moments of. Of deep, deep despair and, you know, as. As well as joy, when he sees the. The troops passing through the city, it. I, I do find myself, you know, living that time with him in a way that I wouldn't, I think, in a narrative history or, or even historical fiction. And he is so, so honest, so, so emotionally honest, what he's going through.

[A]

Brenda, how would you answer that? Because you've used a lot of these kinds of. You use Strong in your own work.

[B]

I have used Strong. Strong is a wonderful resource because there's, there's. Because he's so talented, because he's the eye and ear and heart on the street, on the battlefield. He's. He's like Whitman in this way because he's enormously compassionate. He's right there. He speaks authoritatively, even though he's capable of changing his mind. And, and to the question of why read a diary? I mean, you wouldn't read any diary. Not going to my mother's diaries. I'm not even going to read them. But you would want to read this. Why wouldn't you want to read a diary? You know, In a sense, I think it's the, I think that's why, as Jeff said earlier, Ken Burns used, is why I used it. It's where we get a sense of immediacy in a world that's not immediately available to us. It's, it's, you know, there's some immediacy in Gardner's photographs or in Brady's photographs, but everything else is mediated as opposed to immediate. And I adore these diaries and I think it's a great service that you and Jeff have done because, because they haven't been available. They really haven't. So it's wonderful in that sense. That's how I would answer or did answer.

[A]

And of course, Ken Burns was lucky enough to find one of the last surviving two people who still had that accent of the aristocratic New Yorker. So, last question. For a quick answer, Michael Wood of Dunalon, Florida asked an interesting question. He says, are there any clues in the, in the diary as to why Strong devoted so much energy to diary writing over his life or just your. And what's your sense of that?

[C]

He never really explains it. He. 30 years after he began the diary, he goes back and recalls the night when he began it. When he was 15, he was already a confirmed coffee drinker and felt stimulated to set down his thoughts in some enormous ledger sized books, which is what he ended up doing. But why exactly? He never, he never really says, yeah,

[A]

yeah, Brenda, you have any instinct on that or should we just leave it as a mystery also? We can do that.

[B]

You know, it's interesting. He wasn't a novel reader according to Jeff, but he writes as if it's a novel. So he's our first non fiction novelist.

[A]

Interesting.

[C]

It was more, more Thoreau who wasn't a novel reader. You know, Strong, Strong did read, read novels as well as histories and other work. Consumed an enormous amount of music too. Right, right.

[A]

Really interesting. Well, thank you both really for a really terrific hour. You've been listening to Jeff Wisner and Brenda Wine Apple discuss George Templeton's Strong Civil War Diaries, Volume 396 in the library of America series. Please join us this weekend, February 2022, as Library of America presents a free limited time virtual screening of the documentary look and See A Portrait of Wendell Berry, a collaboration with the Berry center in Newcastle, Kentucky. Scan the QR code on your screen to RSVP or watch or visit loa.org for more details. On March 10, Edward Hirsch returns with a new online course, how to Read An American Poem. If you missed Hirsch's course last spring. You will not want to miss this one. One participant called it the best online course course I've ever taken. Details and links to register can be found on our website, loa.org and finally, on Wednesday, March 12, we cook off the first of several programs marking the 250th anniversary of 1776 and the Declaration of Independence. An exploration of great American short stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others wrestling with the meaning of the American Revolution. The stories are drawn from the just published Library of America two volume set devoted to the American short story in the 19th century. Details on all the books and programs mentioned this evening can be found on loa.org thanks again to Brenda Wineapple and Jeff Wisner for a really wonderful hour and have a great evening everybody.

[C]

Sam.