The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

This is the thread for the discussion of Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life & the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David MCullough.

This is the second week's reading in our new Presidential Series group discussion.

The complete table of contents is as follows:

Syllabus

Mornings On Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

Table of Contents

Author's Note 9

Part One
ONE: Greatheart's Circle p.19
TWO: Lady from the South p.39
THREE: Grand Tour p.69
FOUR: A Disease of the Direst Suffering p.90
FIVE: Metamorphosis p.109

Part Two
SIX: Uptown p.131
SEVEN: The Moral Effect p.149
EIGHT: Father and Son p. 160

Part Three
NINE: Harvard p. 195
TEN: Especially Pretty Alice p. 218
ELEVEN: Home is the Hunter p. 237
TWELVE: Politics p. 251
THIRTEEN: Strange and Terrible Fate p. 277
FOURTEEN: Chicago p. 289
FIFTEEN: Glory Days p. 316
SIXTEEN: Return p. 351

Afterward p. 362

Notes p. 373
Bibliography p. 413
Index p. 427

The assignment for this week includes the following segments/pages:

Week Two - June 7th - June 13th -> Chapter TWO p. 39 - 68
TWO - Lady from the South

We look forward to your participation; but remember this is a non spoiler thread.

We will open up threads for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers.

This book was kicked off on May 30th. This will be the second week's assignment for this book.

We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, or on your Kindle.

A special welcome to those who will be newcomers to this discussion and thank you to those who have actively contributed on the previous Presidential Series selection. We are glad to have you all.

~Bentley

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

David McCullough

Sorry for the late entry due to my out of state trip.

So, we get to know a little about the other side of the family: mother, Mittie Bulloch.

McCullough tells us that the Roosevelt children got the adventurous side from the Bullochs, a prominent family from Savannah. We learn that Margaret Mitchell supposedly based Miss Scarlet from Mittie!

Theodore knew a Bulloch through marriage and went down to Georgia where he met Mittie and instantly fell in love. Mittie would visit NYC and they got engaged. They married at Bulloch Hall on Dec. 22, 1853. She briefly went back to stay in Georgia after Anna was born, but came back with her mother due to the fact the wedding was rather expensive. TR was born on Oct. 27, 1858.

The Civil War left the family scarred, like many others. Bullochs served the Confederate Cause including one who captained the Alabama that broke the Union blockade. The author states that no Confederate flag hung outside the E 20th st. home, just a rumor and Mittie and her mother respected the Roosevelts too much to do anything like that. Like many upper class Southern families, the war helped bankrupt them and they had to sell the house after the war. Gramdma Bulloch died in NYC in 1864.

However, the Roosevelts did not serve in the service, and Theodore paid for a substitute. Bamie stated Theodore regretted that move the rest of his life, and TR saw it as the only flaw his father showed. Instead, Theodore started a successful program to have soldiers send their pay back to their families. It was this process that helped cement Roosevelt's relationship with John Hay. In fact, the Roosevelts got to know the Lincoln family.

The chapter ends as Mittie began a new life after the war and the fact that she did not have to turn to her mother's more sedate social outlook any longer.

Yes, and TR always said that his mother was absolutely wonderful but was totally "unreconstructed" to the day of her death.

Here is a little more information on substitution during the Civil War:

The policies of substitution and commutation were controversial practices that allowed drafted citizens to opt out of service by either furnishing a suitable substitute to take the place of the drafted, or paying $300. Both of these provisions were created with the intention of softening the effect of the draft on pacifists and the anti-draft movement. The result however was general public resentment of both policies. These two practices were major points of contention among the general public and led directly to the slogan "rich man's war, poor man's fight."

Substitution
The policy of substitution was continued throughout the war. The problem with substitution was that it provided substitutes with powerful incentives to desert soon after enlisting. Career "jumpers" made a living off of enlisting as a substitute, collecting their compensation, deserting before their units were dispatched to the front, and repeating the process. This problem was well known to the military commanders who regularly saw the same recruits repeatedly. In addition, troops furnished through substitution were considered to be of an inferior quality in comparison to regulars and volunteers.

Commutation
Commutation (paying $300 to escape the draft) was created in an effort to keep substitution prices low. If commutation were not instated, the price of a substitute would have quickly inflated past $300. In addition to suppressing substitution prices, commutation was intended to raise money for the war effort. While commutation did raise war funds, it was often a criticism of the draft that it was better at raising money than troops. The rationalization for commutation was that unwilling troops were ineffective, so the government may as well extract funds from the unwilling if it couldn't get proficient service. Despite the good intentions behind commutation, it was one of the most hated policies of the war.
(Source: Wikepedia)

The big question:

How do you think TR was affected as an adult by his father's actions to pay for a substitute?

Bryan wrote: "The big question:

How do you think TR was affected as an adult by his father's actions to pay for a substitute?"

I doubt it had any effect. How many of us really know the story of our father as young men? It was also probably fairly common in their social circle and would not have been a cause for any real comment.

Every biographer states that TR was very much affected by his father's decision and that is why he insisted on doing as much as he did in active service and expected it of his sons. He paid dearly for this.

His mother had brothers who were serving in the Confederate army and who ultimately ended up living in England after the war. To save the sanctity of his marriage, you can see why he decided to pay for a substitute.

Good posts, Patricrk and Bentley. I think it illustrates the difficulty Theodore faced. On the one hand, it was acceptable to pay for a substitute and it isn't a big deal in the social circle. On the other, TR does seem to be affected by the decision. Theodore told his children that cowardice is not a good trait, and I wonder if TR felt he was getting mixed messages here.

Can we say that one part of TR's view of war was shaped by his father's decision? Quite possibly, I think. As Bentley says, he pushed his sons to serve, and he served himself. (He wanted to serve in WWI too but Wilson turned him down.) It might not have been for U.S. interests to go to war, but on a personal level, too.

At some level did he feel that his beloved father was a coward? I never sensed that but maybe that was part of his headstrong attitudes towards war and fighting the good fight.

I think we could say that his father's decision influenced him very much and it affected his own sons adversely too. They paid the ultimate price and sacrifice and I think were driven to their choices at some level by TR. A shame really.

I agree, I don't think TR thought his father was a coward. One of the other messages Theodore drilled into his kids is "no idleness." We can see this in TR, no doubt.

Yes I agree Bryan...I think TR loved his father especially so I think at some level he was made to feel embarrassed at his father's decision and maybe that was a large part of what made him the person he was and became. Hard to tell.

Here is some information on Bulloch Hall where Mittie and Theodore got married:

Bulloch Hall is a Greek Revival mansion in Roswell, Georgia built in 1839. It is one of several historically significant buildings in the city and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is where Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, mother of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President, lived as a child. It is also where she married Theodore Roosevelt's father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

The Hall was built by Martha's father, Major James Stephens Bulloch. He was a prominent planter from the coast who was invited to the new settlement by his friend Roswell King. After the death of his first wife Hester Amarintha Elliott, in 1831 Bulloch married the widow of his first wife's father, Martha (Stewart) Elliott and had four more children Irvine Bulloch, Anna Bulloch, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, and Charles Bulloch, who died young. In 1839 Bulloch and his family moved to the completed house.

Soon Bulloch also owned land for cotton production and held enslaved African-Americans to work his fields. According to the 1850 Slave Schedules [1:], Martha Stewart Elliott Bulloch, by then widowed a second time, owned 31 enslaved African-Americans. They mostly labored on cotton and crop production, but some would also have worked in Bulloch Hall on cooking and domestic tasks to support the family.
(Source: Wikepedia)

Here is the official website:
http://bullochhall.org/index.html

TR evidently visited the home in 1905.

McCullough has a great quote about Mittie I wanted to share: "She remained immutably herself. 'There is nothing more like a Roosevelt than a Roosevelt wife,' it would be said within the tribe, but in her case this was patently not so and never would be." (p. 65)

I think her independence, her being different plays a important influence on the children. In some families, it might be a cause of disharmony. Theodore seems to respect it.

Yes, he loved his mother and at some level I think he admired her spunk. I think he also admired and got a kick that no matter what she would never be "reconstructed" and remained unreconstructed till the day she died.

Yeah, and I think the 1905 visit is a testimony of how much he loved her and that whole side of the family. He had plenty of places to go and people to see, and he went there.

Very true..he obviously had some fond memories.

I have read this chapter twice now and what struck me most was the touching story of the brief meeting in the park with Irvine, who had worked his way across the ocean on a sailing ship so that he could see Mittie and Anna for only one hour.

It is a great story. TR really looked up to the Bulloch family and it seemed to be reciprocated.

Bryan wrote: "Here is a little more information on substitution during the Civil War:

The policies of substitution and commutation were controversial practices that allowed drafted citizens to opt out of servic..."

A number which really surprised me was that $12M was spent by upper classes in obtaining substitutes which went directly into the nation's treasuries. That money constituted a lot of $300 payments.

This was also a stark difference between the North and the South in terms of how they viewed substitutions. In the South, honorable men did not do such a thing. In the North, most upper class men did this as a matter of course. At least on the Northern side, the war was not fought by the upper classes. You have to wonder about that distinction; here the Southern men of all classes were fighting to maintain their culture and style of life; where on the side of the Northerners who espoused the need to free the slaves, etc and preserve the Union, the upper classes did not fight for these values but sent in others (many foreigners to boot).

Also, right in Theodore Roosevelt's (the father) own home, his wife's relatives were preparing care packages for the South.

I wonder how they kept this fact from him.

This is a write-up on General Dan Stewart:

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.com/ng...

Mittie's father, the "impetuous" Major James Bulloch, after his fighting days were over, married his stepmother-in-law, Martha Stewart Elliott, and in a flurry of scandal over the marriage left Savannah behind, packed up his wife, their children from previous marriages, and slaves, and moved to Roswell, Georgia. In Roswell the Bullochs settled on land which the Cherokees had recently held, before gold was discovered and President Andrew Jackson forced the native people to walk to Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears.

Major Bulloch was well known because he had been a highly decorated soldier during the Texas War for Independence, and Georgia’s esteemed citizen, Archibald Bulloch, was a direct decendant. Archibald Bulloch had been the Speaker of the Royal Assembly, the President of the Provincial Congress, and was instrumental in Georgia signing the Declaration of Independence. Martha was well connected in her own right as she was the descendant of General Daniel Stewart of Revolutionary War fame. Both had been married before so their family was an early example of the Brady Bunch with his, hers, and ours offspring.

Source: Georgia On My Mind - http://mymindisongeorgia.blogspot.com...

I was also trying to figure out the relationship of Thomas King (the Tom King) that Mittie and the author frequently mention. He was the grandson of the founder of the town Roswell King (much scandal about the founder and Roswell King Jr.)

http://www.women-will-howl.com/roswel...

Bentley wrote: "Bryan wrote: "Here is a little more information on substitution during the Civil War:

The policies of substitution and commutation were controversial practices that allowed drafted citizens to opt..."

Yeah, very interesting on both counts. Regarding the packages, Theodore did travel a lot during this period, so maybe then??

Yes, that is what I was thinking; I do not think that he would have condoned this.

Yeah, this is a great example of how the war divided families. Although Bamie certainly kept her "head down" in all of this so as to not bring attention, she had a Southern family.

Very true and her roots ran quite deep.