***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night-When “Stewball” Stu Ruled The Highways

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

Scene: Brought to mind by the be-bop cover art photograph of a “boss” two-toned 1950s Oldsmobile sitting in front of a car dealership just waiting to be driven off in the “golden age of the automobile” night.

********

“Stewball” Stu loved cars, loved 1950s classic “boss” cars, period. And on the very top of that heap was his cherry red ’57 Chevy. The flamed-out king hell dragon of the Mainiac highways, especially those back roads around his, our, hometown, Olde Saco, close by the sea. Not for him the new stuff, the new “boss” Mustang, Mustang Sally ride I am crazy for, or would be crazy for if, (1) I was older than my current no-driver, no legal driver fifteen, and (2) I had any kind of dough except the few bucks I grab doing this and that, mainly that.

And how do I know about Stewball’s preferences, prejudices if you want to put it that way? Well I, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, have been riding “shot-gun” to Stewball’s driver for the past several months, ever since I proved my metal, my Stu-worthy metal, when I “scrammed” a while back when Stu moved in on me and a hot date I had with a local Lolita and three was a crowd.

Ya, Stu and me are tight, tight as a nineteen year guy who is the king of the roads around here can be with a fifteen year old guy with no dough, no drivers’ license, no sister for him to drool over, and zero, maybe minus zero, mechanical skills to back him up. So you see me flaking out on that Lolita thing meant a lot to Stewball, although he is not a guy that you can figure something on, not easy figuring anyhow.

[Hey, by the way, by the very big way, that Stewball moniker is strictly between you and me. Some of the guys that hung around his garage (really his bent out of shape trailer home rigged up with all kinds of automobile-fixing stuff all over the place) started to call him Stewball among ourselves after we observed, observed for the sixty-fifth time, Stu loaded before noon on some rotgut Southern Comfort that he swore kept him sober, unlike whiskey. Like I say don’t spread that around because Stu in one tough hombre. I once saw him chain-whip a guy just for kind of eyeing a Lolita (not the one I butted out on) that was sitting next to him in that cherry red Chevy at Jimmy Joe’s Diner, the one down on Route One, not the one over on Atlantic Avenue. Enough said, okay.]

Let me tell you about one time a few months back when Stu proved, for the umpteenth time (although my first time, first really seeing him in action glory time), why no one can come close to him as king of these roads around here, and maybe any. It was a Friday night, an October Friday night, just starting to get to be defroster or car heater time so it had to be then. Stu, who lives over on Tobacco Road (I won’t tell you his real address because, like he says, what people don’t know is just fine with him and the girls all know where he is anyway. Ya, that’s a real Stu-ism) picked me up at my house on Albemarle Street (got that girls, Albemarle) like he always does, sometime between seven and eight, also as usual.

We then make the loop. First down Atlantic passed the Colonial Donut Shoppe (they serve other stuff there too) to see if there was a stray clover (A Stu-ism for a girl, origin unknown) or two looking to erase the gloomy, lonely night coming on. (I hoped two, two girls that is, because while I am glad, glad as hell, that I did right by Stu with that "hot" Lolita (and she was hot, maybe too hot for me then, not now) I don’t want to make a habit of it, being Stu’s “shot-gun,” or not. No dice. So off to Lanny’s Bowl-World over on Sea Street. Guess it is kind of early because no dice there either. Well, it’s off to “headquarters,” Jimmy Joe’s Diner on Main Street (really Route One but everybody local calls it Main).

Now Jimmy Joe’s has been Stu’s headquarters for so long that he has a “reserved” spot there. Yes, right in front just to the left on the entrance so that he can “scope” (Stu-ism) the scene (read: girls, Josh-ism). Jimmy Joe, the owner, felt that Stu was so good for business, Friday night hot teenage girls crowding the place looking for fast-driving guys and fast, or slow, driving guys, ready to, well you know I don’t have to draw you a diagram, business so he had no problem with the arrangement. Except this Friday night, this October Friday night, Stu’s reserved spot is occupied, occupied by a two-toned, low-riding 1956 Oldsmobile that even I can see had been worked on, worked hard on to create maximum horse-power in the minimum time. And inside that Oldsmobile sat one Duke McKay, a guy some of us had heard of, from down in Kittery near the New Hampshire border. So maybe Duke, not knowing the local rules, parked in that spot by accident. Yah that seems like the right answer.

No way though. Why? Because sitting right next old Duke, actually almost on top of him is that Lolita that I made way for to help Stu. Said Lolita (not her real name because she was, and is, as I write, uh, not “of age” so Lolita is a good enough moniker) looking very fine, very fine indeed, as Stu goes over to the Oldsmobile to give Duke the what for. I can almost hear the chains coming out.

But Stu must have had some kind of jinx on him, or Lolita put one on him, because all he did was make Duke a proposition. Beat Stu in a “chicken run” and the parking spot, Lolita, and the unofficial king of the road title were his. Lose, and he was gone (without chain-whipping I hoped) from Olde Saco, permanently, minus Lolita. Now I can see where this Lolita is worth getting a little steamed up about. But take it from me Stu, until just this minute, was strictly a love them or leave them guy (leave them to me, please). Duke, with eight million pounds of bravado, answered quickly like any true road-warrior does when challenged and just uttered, “On.” And we are off, although not before Lolita gives Stu some madness femme fatale look. A look, a pout really, which you couldn’t tell if she was in Stu’s corner or wanted to see him in hell. Girls, damn.

A chicken race, for the squares, is nothing but a race between two cars (usually two), two fast teenager-driven cars, done late at night or early in the morning out on some desolate road, sometimes straight, sometimes not. The idea is to get a fast start and keep the accelerator on the floor as long as possible before some flame-out. For Olde Saco runs they use the beach down at the Squaw Rock end since it is long, flat, and wide even at high tide, and the loser either winds up in the dunes or the ocean, usually the latter, ruining a perfectly good car but that is the way it is. Most importantly it is out of sight of the cops until too late.

So about two in the morning one could see a ’57 cherry red Chevy lining up, with me as a “second,” against a ’56 Oldsmobile, with Lolita as Duke’s “second.” Jimmy Joe’s son, Billy, acted as starter as usual. And they are off. Duke got an extremely fast start and was maybe thirty yards ahead of us and it looked like we done for when Stu opened up from somewhere and flat out “smoked” the side of Duke Olds sending his vehicle off into the ocean, soon to sputter in the roaring waves, and oblivion. Stu stopped the Chevy, backed up the several hundred yards to the vicinity of the distressed Oldsmobile, opened up the passenger side door and escorted Lolita, as nice as you please, to his king hell Chevy. And she was smiling, smiling very, well let’s put it this way, Stu’s got a big treat coming. And Josh? Well, Stu yells over “Hey, Josh, hope you find a ride home tonight.” But do you see what I mean about Stewball Stu being the king of the roads around here. What a guy.

***In Search Of The Great Working-Class Love Song

 

Yes, I know, just when you thought it was safe to, discretely, peruse this page without having to be bombarded by some outlandish commentary from a fellow classmate here he is again asking those infernal, eternal questions.

Today's subject is prompted by a question that I have been asked about before - what music were you listening to back in the day? Well, for me at least that subject is exhausted. I no longer want to hear about how you fainted over Teen Angel, Johnny Angel, or Earth Angel. Moreover, enough of You're Gonna Be Sorry, I'm Sorry, and Who's Sorry Now. And no more of Tell Laura I Love Her, Oh Donna, and I Had A Girl Her Name Was Joanne, or whatever woman's name comes to mind. It is time, boys and girls, to move on to other musical influences from our more mature years.

But why, as the headline suggests, the search for the great working- class love song? Well, hello! Our old town was (and is, as far as I can tell from a very recent trip to the old place) a quintessential working class town (especially before the deindustrialization of America). At least the great majority of us came from working class or working poor homes. Most songs, especially popular songs, reflect a kind of "one size fits all" lyric that could apply to anyone. What I am looking for is songs that in some way reflect that working class ethos that is still in our bones, whether we recognize it or not.

Needless to say, since I have posed the question, I have my choice already prepared. As will become obvious, once you read the lyrics, this song reflects my take on the male angst in the age old love problem. However, any woman classmate is more than free to choose songs that reflect her female angst angle (ouch, for that awkward formulation) on the class hit parade.

1952 Vincent Black Lightning-Richard Thompson

This song is on "YouTube" performed by Thompson, although a stronger version is done on a cover by folk singer Greg Brown.

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

And he gave her his Vincent to ride

Come on now, after reading these lyrics is any mere verbal profession of undying love, any taking somebody on a ride to some two-bit carnival (I am thinking of Bruce Springsteen's Jersey Girl here) , some buying of a gold ring or some chintzy flowers going to mean anything? Hell, the guy is giving her HIS bike, his bike, man. Case closed.

Added note: I KNOW of at least one female, not on this class list, who might relate to this song. I also know at least one male, also on not this list, who snuck out the back door of NQHS with another classmate to ride his bike during school hours back in the day. So don't think I have forgotten my medication, or something. And I repeat, the guy in the song gave her HIS bike, man. That is love, no question.

***Sometimes There Really Ain’t No Cure For The Summertime Blues-Hats Off To Mr. Eddie Cochran

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

“Hey, school is going to be out for the summer next week Billy (or you fill in the name, the1950s billy/johnnie/jimmy/bobby name, or betty/joann/connie/linda name if you prefer), What you gonna do?” yelled girl magnet Frankie Larkin, Francis James Larkin, king of the North Adamsville Junior High School corner boy night and a guy who has his card filled for the summer. And if you are a billy/johnnie/jimmy/bobby teenage boy, maybe just made it to teenage boy (or girl but this is strictly a guy thing and the girls, well, the girls can speak for themselves and from what I hear they do every Monday morning at mandatory girl talk what happened over the weekend pre-school “lav” world-historic session) then your answer, my billy answer, is mope. Yah, you heard it right (and you secretly knew it was coming, sledgehammer coming, once I started talking about teen boys, or that Monday morning girls “lav” line-up). Mope.

Mope, maybe mope plus. Reason: one betty/joann/connie/linda, hell, let me just say it and get it over with, connie, did not give me encouragement number one at the last dance of the last school dance. And so mope, more mope, and maybe leave my sweaty humid room for a drink of water once in a while, is what summer has in store for me to while away the summer until school gets back in session come September and back to the connie wars. Until then I will just dream trance that we, billy and connie we, are one (and more, importantly known as one, known as one that netherworld Boys’ AND Girls’ Monday morning before school “lav” talkfest), down at the seawall of old Adamsville Beach. Yah, you know the spot right between the toney Adamsville Yacht Club and the broken down North Adamsville Boat Club. And where billy mind’s eye can already see Frankie holding court with some bevy of Monday morning talked-out junior high high order pecking order chicks (okay, okay girls).

But let me back up and give you the details, the gruesome details of that last dance school dance and mope. I got kooky about this connie (alright Connie) when she sat next to me in art class and we started, as things like that happen in junior high, spatting. Yah, spatting back and forth about this and that, the subject matter is not important but the meaning, the significance, the world- historic significance (did I say that before, oh well, I like the expression) of those exchanges, for those clueless about how 1950s boys and girls relate, is that spatting, you know, if you say this, she says that, and then you say that and she says this, is we are, well, interested in each other. Otherwise why go to all the bother of being contrary. Jesus, do you guys need a diagram? Well all this this-ing (sic) and that-ing (double sic) led to my asking her to the last chance to dance end of school dance to be held on a Friday night. I was happy, and I thought she was too.

I won’t kid you. I was sky high getting ready for this dance, got a new shirt, double- showered, put on some sticky deodorant, and some father’s bay rum concoction on my hair. And I looked okay (and she said I looked okay). And she looked great when I went to her house to walk her to school (come on you know as well as I do these junior high school dances aren’t going to be held at the Ritz or someplace like that. And that would be a waste anyway because what matters is who you are with, or not with, not where the damn thing is held. Christ it could be in an airplane hangar for all we cared as long as the certain hes and shes were there and the music was loud (except that last chance dance, then you wanted it dreamy).

But enough of this, Let me get to that last dance and why I am moping, maybe moping plus. Things were set; the last song was The Dubs Could This Be Magic? Home run, right? Well, usually right. But the problem with the slow-mo last dance is that you can hear enough to actually talk. So when Connie asked me “Will you miss me this summer when my parents take the family for a vacation until mid-August?” I answered “No.” Wrong answer, way wrong answer. See I was still playing she says this and I say that. Kids’ spat stuff. When the dance was over she just walked away, and she hasn’t spoken to me since. So when Mister Eddie Cochran says in his song about his mopes that just finished on the radio “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues,” he’s got it right, damn right. Excuse me; I have to go for a drink of water.

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- In The Time Before The Rock ‘n’ Roll Jailbreak –They Shoot iPODs Don’t They

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Some people ask, and not always the young people either who have grown up in hip-hop nation or on techno stuff, if there was music before 1950s classic rock ‘n’ roll. I am not one of those asking such a question as will become clear for the reasons listed below but also because I was faced with the endless droning coming from the kitchen countertop radio seemingly permanently glued to radio station WJDA, glued to about the year 1946 as far as music played went.

So of course there was music and moreover I have taken some pains to establish the roots of rock, although stuff that those same not always young people did not know, back to Mississippi country blues, electric blues as they traveled north to the heartland industrial cities, jazz as it got be-bopped and took to swing, certainly rhythm and blues from the likes of Ike Turner and Big Joe Turner, north and south, and rockabilly as it came out of the white small town South. What it owes little to, or at least I hope that it owes little to is that Tin Pan Alley/ Broadway show tune axis part of the American songbook. That music, more reflected in my parent’s generational choices seemed to me a different trend and one that was reflected in a CD review I did recently, The 1950s: 16 Most Requested Songs. That compilation was really about the 16 most requested song before the rock jailbreak of the mid-1950s. Let’s be clear about that.

I have along the way, in championing classic rock as the key musical form that drove the tastes of my generation, the generation of ’68, contrasted that guitar-driven, drum/bass line driven sound to that of my parent’s generation, the ones who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought World War II, and listened to swing, jitter-buggery things and swooned over big bands, swings bands, Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters and The Mills Brothers, among others. In other words the music that, we of the generation of ’68, heard as background music around the house as we were growing up. Buddha Swings, Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree, Rum and Coca-Cola, Paper Dolls, Tangerine, and the like. Stuff that today sounds pretty good, if still not quite something that “speaks” to me. That was not the music however reflected in that compilation and which, I think rightly, I was ready to shoot my iPOD over once I heard it as I announced in the headline to this piece.

No, this music compilation reflected, okay, let’s join the cultural critics’ chorus here, the attempted vanilla-zation (if such a word can exist) of the Cold War Eisenhower (“I Like Ike”) period when people were just trying to figure out whether the Earth would survive from one day to the next. Not a time to be rocking the boat, for sure. Once things stabilized a bit though then the mad geniuses of rock could hold sway, and while parents and THE authorities crabbed to high heaven about it, let that rock breakout occur and not have everything wind up going to hell in a hand basket. But this music, these 16 most requested songs were what we were stuck with before then. Sure, I listened like everyone else, everyone connected to a radio, but this stuff, little as I knew then, did not “speak” to me. And unlike some of that 1940s stuff still does not “speak” to me.

Oh, you want proof. Here is one example. On that compilation Harbor Lights was done by Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra. This was cause number one for wanting to get a pistol out and start aiming. Not for the song but for the presentation. Why? Well, early in his career Elvis, while he was doing his thing for Sam Phillips’ Memphis Sun Records operation, covered this song. There are a myriad Elvis recordings during the Sun period, including compilations with outtakes and alternative recordings of this song. The worst, the absolute worst of these covers by Elvis has more life, more jump, dare I say it, more sex than the Kaye recording could ever have. And it only got worst from there with incipient things like Frankie Lane’s I Believe, Johnny Mathis’ It’s Not For Me To Say, and Marty Robbins’ (who did some better stuff later) on A White Sports Coat (And A Pink Carnation). And you wonder why I ask whether they shoot iPODs. Enough said.

*******

Harbor Lights Lyrics
(words & music by H. Williams - J. Kennedy)

I saw the harbor lights

They only told me we were parting

Those same old harbor lights

That once brought you to me.

I watched the harbor lights

How could I help it?

Tears were starting.

Good-bye to golden nights

Beside the silvery seas.

I long to hold you dear,

And kiss you just once more.

But you were on the ship,

And I was on the shore.

Now I know lonely nights

For all the while my heart keeps praying

That someday harbor lights

Will bring you back to me.

 

 

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Billy’s Back- The Crests’ Step By Step

 

Peter Paul Markin comment:

This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billy, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.

Billy and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley (remind me to tell you sometime about a not so funny story of Billy finding out the hard way that Bo, Bo who claims, legitimately claims, to have put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll was black), Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook (read: “five-finger discount” at Kenny’s Record Store up in North Adamsville Center), and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook (read: “five-finger discount” at Greyson’s  up that same Center), appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of finding-out-about-girls –and-their-workings worthiness.

Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billy’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billy commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series.

But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standards his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billy’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billy’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations (somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billy, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billy I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

*********

Billy, William James Bradley, comment:

What the hell’s going on? It is almost like I can’t even listen to my transistor radio these days without wanting to throw up. Yes, that’s right throw up. And Markin, Peter Paul Markin, my best friend over at Adamsville South Elementary a couple of years back will back me up on this if he ever comes back around the old neighborhood to breathe some real air, some fresh sea air, and get the low-down on what is good in music these days. Except I won’t have much to tell him right now. Like I said I feel like throwing up most of the time when I listen to the radio.

Nothing righteous. Nothing like Elvis when he was righteous, hungry and righteous, a few years back. Or Jerry Lee before he got into cousin-marrying trouble or Chuck Berry when he got into no-no white girl trouble. Fabian, Conway Twitty, Duane Eddy, Ricky Nelson, jesus, even Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers and on and on with twaddle, yes, twaddle about this and that oddball thing about teen life. And girls, girls with money to buy the records, who seem to just want dreamy stuff about sad movies, some sad-sack boyfriends, johnny, jimmy, joey angels, following guys to the end of the earth, and all that. No more be-bop-a-lula. I tell you we are in the dumps and it ain’t getting better, if anything worst.

Here is what I am up to these days, and maybe you should be too. I am starting to listen and listen hard to doo wop stuff. The stuff that came out of the street corners of New York City and other big town places where you had guys (and chicks too) singing, no instruments, or maybe some low-down, low-key piano, just doing harmonies, and doo wop background responses. Cool. Yah, I know I got in trouble, musically anyway, trying to cover righteous Bo Diddley down here in the white projects playing off “colored” music that really, really I say, drove early rock. Just ask Elvis, if he is in a truthful mood.

But this stuff, this doo wop stuff, if it gets around more, can break the pretty boys and their dreamy girl thing up. So here is what I am doing now that it is summer, school is out, it’s hot, and we haven’t got a damn thing to do, and no money to do it with if we had that damn thing to do. I have been listening to doo wop records like crazy, right now I am concentrating on the Crests and their great harmonies on Step by Step. Here is what I want to do just like we tried last summer when Markin was around more. A few guys, a few of my guys, my hanging-around-waiting-to-do-this-and-that-but-just-now-waiting-fire-guys, would get together around dusk in back of the old school around the playground area and start practicing harmonies. Markin scoffed at the idea at the time, as usual. But then, just as the sun started going down, a couple of girls would come by to listen and not “dogs” either, or “sticks.” Then a couple more, and a couple more, and there you have it.

Of course after that success Markin wanted to do it every day, all day, even in the afternoon heat, and Markin hates the heat. So I figure that we can try it again this year and maybe we can break out of the Bobby Vee mold. But see here is where I am on the hook. If you can believe this I need Markin, need him bad. Last summer when he was around more I tried to keep him in the background as his voice was starting to change. Yah, I tried to ship him and his voice to Chicago if you want to know the truth, best friend and all. But lately I have been having trouble on the call and response side of Step by Step and now that Markin has a more bassy voice I sure could use him otherwise I will never break out into my proper place in the doo wop world. Got it, Markin.

[I never got Billy’s message or it got lost or something but I did not show up to do back-ups for that mad monk. Since you have never heard of Billy James Bradley and the Teenagers or any group like that in doo wop heaven you also know Billy never made that bust-out he was always dreaming of before things went haywire for him -Markin]

 

The Crests

Step By Step lyrics

Step, step. Step, step. Step, step... Step, step

Step by step I fell in love with you

And step by step it wasn't hard to do

Kiss by kiss and hand in hand

That's the way it all began

Soon we found the perfect plan for love

Side by side we took a lovers walk

Word by word we had a lover's talk

One word led to another and then

Then in no time we're up to ten

My heart knew it was gonna end in love

1st step, a sweet hello

2nd step, my heart's aglow

3rd step, we had a date

4th step, we stayed up late

5th step, I walk you home

6th step, we're all alone

7th step, we took a chance

One kiss and true romance

Step by step we climbed to heaven's door

Step by step, each thrill invited more

Then you promised faithfully

All your love belonged to me

Now I know we'll always be in love

Step, step. Step, step. Step, step. Step step

During The 150th Anniversary Commemoration Of The American Civil War –In Honor Of The Union Side-In The Beginning-The Massachusetts Sixth Volunteers

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

I would not expect any average American citizen today to be familiar with the positions of the communist intellectuals and international party organizers (First International) Karl Mark and Friedrich Engels on the events of the American Civil War. There is only so much one can expect of people to know off the tip of the tongue what for several generations now has been ancient history.  I am, however, always amazed when I run into some younger leftists and socialists, or even older radicals who may have not read much Marx and Engels, and find that they are surprised, very surprised to see that Marx and Engels were avid partisans of the Abraham Lincoln-led Union side in the American Civil War. I recently placed a number of the Marx-Engels newspaper articles from the period in this space to show the avidity of their interest and partisanship in order to refresh some memoires and enlighten others. As is my wont I like to supplement such efforts with little sketches to illustrate points that I try to make.   

Given that Marx and Engels have always been identified with a strong anti-capitalist bias for the unknowing it may seem counter-intuitive that the two men would have such a positive position on events that had as one of its outcomes an expanding unified American capitalist state. A unified capitalist state which ultimately led the vanguard actions against the followers of Marx and Engels in the 20^th century in such places as Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. The pair were however driven in their views on revolutionary politics by a theory of historical materialism which placed support of any particular actions in the context of whether they drove the class struggle toward human emancipation forward. So while the task of a unified capitalist state was supportable on historical grounds in the United States of the 1860s alone (as was their qualified support German unification later in the decade) the key to their support was the overthrow of the more backward slave labor system in one part of the country (aided by those who thrived on the results of that system like the Cotton Whigs in the North) in order to allow the new then progressive capitalist system to thrive.       

In the age of advanced imperialism today, of which the United States is currently the prime example, and villain, we find that we are, unlike Marx and Engels, almost always negative about capitalism’s role in world politics. And we are always harping on the need to overthrow the system in order to bring forth a new socialist reconstruction of society. Thus one could be excused for forgetting that at earlier points in history capitalism played a progressive role. A role that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and other leading Marxists, if not applauded, then at least understood represented human progress. Of course, one does not expect everyone to be a historical materialist and therefore know that in the Marxist scheme of things both the struggle to bring America under a unitary state that would create a national capitalist market by virtue of a Union victory and the historically more important struggle to abolish slavery that turned out to a necessary outcome of that Union struggle were progressive in our eyes.

Furthermore little is known about the fact that the few Marxist supporters in the United States during that Civil period, and the greater German immigrant communities that had spawned up when radicals were force to flee Europe with the failure of the German revolutions of 1848 were mostly fervent supporters of the Union side in the conflict. Some of them called the “Red Republicans” and “Red 48ers” formed an early experienced military cadre in the then forming Union armies. Below is a short sketch drawn on the effect that these hardened abolitionists had on some of the raw recruit who showed up in their regiments and brigades during those hard four years of fighting, the third year which we are commemorating this month.      

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I have spilled no little ink extolling the exploits of the now well-known Massachusetts 54^th (and later the 55^th) Volunteers-The first black regiment organized as such in the American Civil War commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and commemorated to this day by a famous frieze by Augustus Saint-Gauden across from the State House in Boston. Less well-known and also worthy of note was activity of the Massachusetts Sixth Volunteers who when summoned to defend the capital moved out in mid- April 1861. Here is a capsule summary of that story-   

The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers...

      ...in 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. With war approaching, men who worked in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence joined this new infantry regiment. They were issued uniforms and rifles; they learned to drill. They waited for the call. It came on April 15th, three days after the attack on Fort Sumter. They were needed to defend Washington, D.C.. The mood when they left Boston was almost festive. When they arrived in the border state of Maryland three days later, everything changed. An angry mob awaited them. In the riot that followed, 16 people lost their lives. Four were soldiers from Massachusetts. These men were the first combat fatalities of the Civil War.

 

In early January 1861, as civil war approached, the men of Massachusetts began to form volunteer militia units. Many workers in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence were among the first to join a new infantry regiment, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, when it was formally organized on January 21, 1861.

 

All through the winter and early spring, the men met regularly to drill. In March, they were issued uniforms and Springfield rifles and told to be ready to assemble at any time. When Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12th, the men of the Massachusetts Sixth knew their days of drilling were over.

Three days later, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months. They were ordered to Washington, D.C. to protect the capital and lead the effort to quash the "rebellion."

Years later the men from Lawrence and Lowell remembered their hurried visits to say good-bye to loved ones and gather supplies before meeting their regiment in Boston. One man from Lowell recalled, "I was working in the machine shop at the time . . . I got my notice at the armory that we were going in the morning. I hired a horse and buggy at a livery stable and drove to Pelham, N.H. where I bade farewell to my sister. I then drove to Tingsboro, as I wanted to see my brother who. . . came with me to Lowell. The mill bells were ringing as we reached Merrimack St."

 

The Sixth Massachusetts gathered with other regiments in Boston on April 16th. The Lowell Daily Courier published one soldier's letter home: "We have been quartered since our arrival in this city at Faneuil Hall and the old cradle of liberty rocked to its foundation from the shouting patriotism of the gallant sixth. During all the heavy rain the streets, windows, and house tops have been filled with enthusiastic spectators, who loudly cheered our regiment . . . The city is completely filled with enthusiasm; gray-haired old men, young boys, old women and young, are alike wild with patriotism."

Not everyone was celebrating. A corporal from Lowell was more subdued. He wrote to his wife at home, "My heart is full for you, and I hope we may meet again. I shall believe that we shall. You must hope for the best and be as cheerful as you can. But I know your feelings and can judge what they will be when you get this. . . ."

 

The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers boarded trains the next day. One soldier reported, "Cheers upon cheers rent the air as we left Boston . . . at every station we passed anxious multitudes were waiting to cheer us on our way." In Springfield, Hartford, New York, Trenton, and Philadelphia, bells, fireworks, bonfires, bands, booming cannon, and thousands of supporters greeted the Massachusetts men as their train passed through.

 

The mood changed dramatically when the train arrived in Baltimore on the morning of April 19th. Although the state had not seceded from the Union, many Baltimoreans were sympathetic to the Confederate cause and objected strenuously to the presence of northern soldiers.

 

Steam engines were not allowed to operate in the city limits, so the regiment crossed the city in train cars drawn by horses. Most of the men made it before a growing mob threw sand and ship anchors onto the tracks. At that point, the soldiers had no choice but to disembark and begin marching.

The commanding officer ordered the men to load their weapons but not to use them unless fired upon. An anxious corporal sent a note to a friend, "We shall have trouble to-day and I shall not get out of it alive. Promise me if I fall that my body shall be sent home."

 

Four companies of men from Lowell and Lawrence were separated by the crowd from the rest of the regiment. As they attempted to make their way through the city, angry citizens began to shout insults. As one soldier later told a reporter, we "were immediately assailed with stones, clubs and missiles, which we bore according to orders. Orders came . . . for double quick march, but the streets had been torn up by the mob and piles of stones and every other obstacle had been laid in the streets to impede our progress. . . . Pistols began to be discharged at us, . . . Shots and missiles were fired from windows and house tops. . . . The crowd followed us to the depot, keeping up an irregular shooting, even after we entered the [railroad] cars."

 

Once the surviving members of the Sixth made it to safety, the mob returned to the station on the northern edge of the city. Nearly 1,000 more Pennsylvania and Massachusetts volunteers were waiting there. When the mob attacked, the soldiers moved into the streets. Pro-Union Baltimoreans joined the fight, and some offered to shelter the northern men. In the confusion, a number of soldiers gave up on getting to Washington and walked all the way back to Pennsylvania.

 

Twelve civilians lost their lives at what was later referred to as the Baltimore Riot. Four members of the Massachusetts Sixth, all from Lowell or Lawrence, were killed, including the apprehensive corporal.

 

When the train finally arrived in Washington, two young women from Massachusetts who had been working in the nation's capital came to the station to nurse the injured — Clara Barton and her sister Sally Vassal. They took many of the wounded men to their home. Thus began the legendary nursing career of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

 

Back in Massachusetts, newspapers printed soldiers' accounts of the riot. "At Baltimore we heard no cheers, saw no waving of handkerchiefs," one man wrote, ". . . and not a smile greeted us. They gave out word that we could not pass through the city, that we should sacrifice our lives if we attempted it. But we received the order 'Forward,' and we did forward, in silence, carrying our flag unfurled. We were fired upon from all parts of the street. I heard the bullets whistle about my ears smartly. At last a stone took me in the head and knocked me down. But I got up immediately and discharged my musket at the rebels, and then kept on the march to the depot. I am here in the hospital with the rest of the wounded. My courage is still good. . . ."

In 1865, the City of Lowell erected a monument to the three local men who lost their lives in Baltimore that day.

Sources

The story of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers is documented in letters, stories and diaries published in Massachusetts newspapers. http://www.letterscivilwar.com/index.html.