Rhoda Smith Nicholas

Rhoda Smith Nicholas

birth: 1823
location: Tennessee
death:
location: Texas

father: Phelps Smith
mother: Elizabeth

spouse: Wiley Theodore Nicholas

Aroma Catherine Smith Hodges Hardwick

Aroma Catherine Smith Hodges Hardwick

birth: August 4, 1840
location: Giles County, Tennessee
death: After Sept 1915 but before 1920
location: Texas

father: Phelps Smith
mother: Elizabeth Unknown

spouse: David Hodges

spouse: William Leonard Hardwick

1850 census

marriage to David Hodges

1860 census

marriage to William Leonard Hardwick

1870 census

1880 census

burial

children with David Hodges:

1. Jessie David Hodges

Aroma Catherine Smith and David Hodges - marriage

location: Nacogdoches County, Texas
date: August 18, 1859

"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V2MM-K6J : accessed 07 Jul 2014), David A. Hodges and Anoma C. Smith, 18 Aug 1859; citing , Nacogdoches, Texas, , reference ; FHL microfilm 25310.

Aroma Catherine Smith Hodges marriage to William Leonard Hardwick

location: Nacogdoches County, Texas
date: December 23, 1866

"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FXQK-45L : accessed 07 Jul 2014), William L. Hardwick and Aroma C. Hodges, 23 Dec 1866; citing , Nacogdoches, Texas, , reference 2:JRTBR2; FHL microfilm 25312.

David Hodges - 1860 census

1860 census
location: Briley Town, Nacogdoches County, Texas
date: June 20, 1860

David Hodge  26  male  farming  value of real estate: $525  value of personal estate: $287  Tennessee
A C Hodge  29  female  housekeeping  Tennessee
W H Grimes  23  male  farming

Year: 1860; Census Place: Beat 6, Nacogdoches, Texas; Roll: M653_1301; Page: 169; Image: 344; Family History Library Film: 805301.

William Leonard Hardwick - 1880 census

1880 census
location: Nacogdoches County, Texas
date: June 18, 1880

W L Hardwick  white  male  45  married  farmer  Tennessee
R C Hardwick  white  female  39  wife  married  keeping house  Tennessee
J D Hodges  white  male  19  stepson  single  at home  Texas

"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MFJ3-XXK : accessed 07 Jul 2014), W L Hardwick, Wonders Beat, Nacogdoches, Texas, United States; citing sheet 266B, NARA microfilm publication T9.

The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner - Book Review

Eric Foner serves as the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Perhaps even more noteworthy, Foner is one of a handful of authors to have been the recipient of the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.1 His latest book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, gives a rare glimpse at Lincoln amidst the backdrop of slavery. Foner aims to elucidate the private Lincoln’s thoughts on slavery, from his numerous speeches and correspondence, and locate the Great Emancipator on the broad spectrum of antislavery thought. Over one hundred and fifty years after his death and the end of the American Civil War, many Americans are blinded by the near-deism and God-like elevation of Lincoln as the liberator of one eighth of the population in 1863. Although they will not gain an understanding of Lincoln the person, readers might be surprised to learn about the true aspects of Lincoln’s feelings on race and slavery, most especially his gradualistic emancipation policies, compensated emancipation, and colonization.In Lincoln’s evolving theories on slavery, Foner makes clear that he was always against the institution of slavery itself. “Lincoln criticized slavery as unwise and unjust” at a time when antislavery thought, and especially abolitionism, was unpopular in his part of the country.2 In fact, Foner correctly argues that Lincoln’s refusal to see the expansion of slavery in the Western United States led to the outbreak of the Civil War.3 However, Lincoln could hardly be called an abolitionist: for a major portion of his political career, Lincoln was against black suffrage. Despite Lincoln’s shortcomings as a true abolitionist, Foner gives credit to Lincoln’s evolving views on slavery and persistence that the institution must end.

With heavy influence from Henry Clay, his political idol, Lincoln was a proponent of gradual emancipation. Foner explains that “during his first two years of the Civil War, he would present for the approval of slaveholders a number of plans for gradual, compensated emancipation.” For Lincoln, gradual emancipation was also tied to apprenticeship. Foner contends that Lincoln held on to his ideas of gradual emancipation up until the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, and even after January 1863, he would occasionally speak of gradual emancipation and apprenticeship to ambassadors and cabinet members.4The second major premise of Lincoln’s views on slavery is his plan of compensation to the slaveholders, with major focus on border states. Foner especially details Lincoln’s presidency in 1862 as sincere confirmation of the compensated emancipation plan. “Lincoln asked Congress to adopt a joint resolution pledging to provide financial compensation to any state that enacted a plan for the gradual abolishment of slavery.”5 Even though compensated emancipation had been successful elsewhere, Lincoln was unable to carry out his compensation plan.Again drawing from Henry Clay, Lincoln took up the plan of colonization. Foner contends that an early connection with colonization also helped to inspire an almost permanent advocacy of colonization. After representing the Anthony Bryant family in a legal case in 1847, the Bryant family eventually relocated to Liberia. 6 It was not until after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued that Lincoln publicly abandoned his efforts to colonize ex-slaves in Africa or South America. 7 Foner paints Lincoln’s colonization efforts as the belief that remained unchanged until the end of the Civil War neared. With much naiveté, Lincoln had a firm belief that colonization was a viable solution once emancipation was granted.

Briefly, Foner’s point that Lincoln was racist, even mildly so, falls short of full proof. Foner indicates that Lincoln used the word “niger” and “darkie” in everyday language. However, this alone can not prove that Lincoln was racist.8 That type of terminology would have been standard speech in Lincoln’s time. Foner also states that Lincoln did not embrace racism but also did not condemn it either, a thought that can be made in reference to anything. It is simple to remain unconvinced that Lincoln was racist based on this point alone. Also, Lincoln’s treatment of his servant, William Johnson, cannot fail to be mentioned. Not only was this servant black, but Lincoln signed for several recommendations and paid for Johnson’s funeral expenses. Had Lincoln been severely racist, it is very hard to imagine he would have accorded Johnson these respectful measures. This is the only area Foner falls short in his biography of Lincoln’s views on slavery. In his Preface, Foner admits that The Fiery Trial would not be a biography of Lincoln, but without knowing the personal Lincoln it is hard to understand his slavery positions.
Like a wave extending from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and his Gettysburg Address, after Lincoln’s death so carried on the emancipationist vision of the Civil War as laid out in David Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Blight argues that in the Gettysburg Address Lincoln “seemed to see fitfully that rebirth would be rooted in the challenge of human equality in a nation.”9 Memory of the Civil War would have been drastically different had Lincoln not been assassinated. As Andrew Johnson took over the Presidency and issued his own Reconstruction policies that were lenient to Southern former slaveholders, many Northerners and former slaves used the emancipationist memory as something that could have been. Pushed aside were Lincoln’s gradual emancipation and colonization efforts, and instead to be remembered was his greatest accomplishment: the Emancipation Proclamation. Emancipation would be Lincoln’s lasting legacy.

1 EricFoner.com. “Eric Foner.” accessed June 23, 2014, http://www.ericfoner.com/index.html. 
2 Foner, The Fiery Trial, 26.3 Ibid., 165.
4 Ibid., 258. 
5 Ibid., 195. 
6 Ibid., 47.
7 Ibid., 258. 
8 Ibid., 120.

9 Blight, Race and Reunion 13-14. 

Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War

Drawing on letters, diaries, and poetry from Southern women belonging to the elite class of slaveholders, Faust attempts to examine how these women were transformed during the Civil War. At the onset of war dainty ladies were happy to send the menfolk off to battle, little expecting four long years of war and personal hardship. As the war raged on, elite southern women were forced to take up the slack of their missing husbands, sons, and brothers. Women came to know a different social order, one without their husbands and sons, and for single ladies, an entire life without men. Faust pens the biography of high society Southern women during the Civil War years to give historians and readers an idea of the transformations their lives went through in just over four years.
 Anyone searching for understanding of what women in the slaveholding class of the South during the American Civil War experienced would find use of this book. While interesting, Mothers of Invention leaves the reader feeling that something important was missed in Faust’s portrait of Southern slaveholding women. As president of Harvard University, Gilpin Faust’s other books specializing in the Civil War South include James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery and The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South.1
 With men running off to fight, women wanted to feel useful and needed something to keep them busy. Faust points to the desire of many women to find productive use of their time. In a precursor to the Reconstruction years and memorializing Civil War soldiers and Southern history, most elite women felt that they could contribute to the war effort in some way. According to many, teaching was a natural fit. The Augusta Daily Constitutionalist boldly proclaimed that “Women are peculiarly fitted, naturally and morally, for teachers of the young.” Faust argues pressingly that the advent of female teachers spurred a movement for the reform and upgrading of women’s education. Although there were educated women in Southern aristocracy, it was noted that the education of women was not substantial enough, particularly if they were to educate men.2

In general, women’s entire lives were turned upside down when their men left to defend the South. From managing plantations and droves of slaves, to adjusting to life across the board without their partners, women at first looked at the change in their lives as badges of honor. With capital and investments to sustain upper-class families, Faust contends that the effects of the mass exodus of so many men was delayed and less direct.3 However, as the Civil War would eventually come to an end women were beyond ready for their men to return home. Faust notes from the diaries and letters of many Southern women the entreaties for the men to return. A Texan wrote her husband, “The truth is . . . you must come home.”4
Mothers of Invention fails to mention another group of “Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War.”: the slave women themselves. Living right alongside white women during the Civil War were female slaves. The experiences of these slave women during this period would have changed greatly, just as significantly as those of the slaveholding women. Surely their ‘inventiveness’ would have been just as great as white women of the ruling class. Without the capital and investment Faust notes of white women, slave women and newly emancipated women would have faced even greater challenges. The mention of Lizzie Neblett and her repurchase of her own clothing from a slave does not begin to shed light on the changing lives of slave women.5

David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory provides readers with three leading memories of the Civil War. Significantly for Mothers of Invention is the reconciliationist vision that extolled the dedication of Union and Confederate soldiers without entertaining discourse on the causes and motives of the Civil War, largely promoted by women. With their self-aggrandizement during The War, women felt they could also contribute something after the Civil War. Women felt they had suffered right alongside their men, and knew acutely the heroism and bravery of their men. Women, especially the female group, United Daughters of the Confederacy, were adept at raising money to memorialize the men who had fought in the Civil War. Blight posits that the United Daughters of the Confederacy even tried to control historical interpretation of the Civil War by managing student textbooks. 6 “As guardians of piety, education, and culture,” women channelled their war experiences into Reconstruction activism.7
A transformation signifies something that was, but has now been changed. Mothers of Invention does not look back at the women and the Civil War years after time had passed. Did the feelings and experiences these women experience carry on throughout the years of reconstruction? What were the significant aspects of transformation after the war in their relationships with men? Did the women bring back their beloved fashions? Faust alludes to soldiers experiencing post-traumatic stress but for all the reader knows it was business as usual for the Southern women after the men returned. Reflections along this vein would have allowed the reader to make a better conclusion on the effect of the American Civil War on women of the upperclass South. 

1 Harvard University. “Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust.” accessed June 9, 2014, http://www.harvard.edu/ president/biography.
2 Faust, Mothers of Invention, 83-84. 
3 Ibid., 32.4 Ibid., 241.
5 Ibid., 222.6 Blight, Race and Reunion, 273. 
7 Ibid., 273.

James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design For Mastery - Book Review

Drew Gilpin Faust provides the definitive account of James Henry Hammond’s life. Instead of the subtitle A Design for Mastery, Gilpin Faust could have chosen Great Expectations. Hammond’s father had great expectations for him as a young boy, and Hammond had extreme great expectations for himself. Born into humble beginnings, Hammond would go on to marry well and become one of the wealthiest planters of the Old South in South Carolina. Hammond expected great things of himself and of his surroundings based on his ability to control them. Attempting to realize these great expectations, Hammond became a leading political leader of South Carolina as governor, and the United States as senator. Hammond’s father instilled in him at an early age that he would be ambitious and successful. To do so, Hammond would need to master every aspect of his life. But, Hammond’s inability to completely master himself and attain his lofty ambitions would eventually contribute to his death. As Hammond died, so did the Old South.
 Anyone searching for understanding of the rich planter class of the Old South would be fascinated with this book. Hammond’s attention to detail regarding his plantations and personal life gives clarity into the Old South period of American history. Gilpin Faust seamlessly guides the reader through Hammond’s life and career, leaving the reader to hate Hammond on one page, and cheer him on the next. As president of Harvard University, Gilpin Faust’s other books include Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War and The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South.1

Gilpin Faust uses communication between Hammond and his children as primary evidence of his controlling nature. With his children dependent upon him for financial assistance, “Hammond employed his financial authority to reinforce his psychological dominance.”2 Hammond’s children were never able to feel like adults because of Hammond’s need to control. Gilpin Faust convincingly maintains that Hammond wanted his children to be dependent upon him, while at the same time attempting to make their own way.3 For instance, when Hammond reached his fifties, he was ready for his sons to take over the plantation. When the Civil War broke out and Hammond’s eldest son, Harry, enlisted for the Southern cause, Hammond complained at all the plantation work Harry would be neglecting.4 Hammond did not stop there. In a particularly memorable passage, Gilpin Faust transcribes a portion of a letter Hammond had written to his brother about controlling their own bowel movements.5 In Hammond’s world, every action, involuntary or not, could be controlled.
Gilpin Faust explains Hammond’s desire to master his surroundings using his own detailed plantation records. Hammond was a meticulous record keeper, especially when it came to his plantations. In his plantation journals, Hammond tracked crop output, crop experiments, slave efficiency, and agricultural economics. It is easy for the reader to comprehend Hammond’s attempts at mastery solely based on Gilpin Faust’s use of the Hammond plantation journals. The Appendix may also be referenced for better understanding of Hammond’s plantation records.

Minute record keeping alone would not satisfy Hammond in his quest for absolute dominance in all aspects of his plantation, he also needed control over the particulars of the lives of his slaves. Shortly after taking the reins of Silver Bluff plantation Hammond set about exerting his dominance over his slaves. In order to prevent religion from becoming a vehicle for slave revolt, Hammond ordered black religious meetings stopped. Gilpin Faust argues that part of Hammond’s plan of exerting omnipotence over his slaves was taking away their religious activities, but another part was showing his slaves that he was their benefactor. So while black religious meetings were stopped, Hammond allowed white clergy members to minister to the blacks, albeit in a very controlled environment.6
In all of his efforts of mastery, Gilpin Faust points to one area Hammond was unable to control: his own sexual desires. Hammond carried on a type of concubinage relationship with two of his slaves. He even admitted to fathering several children with these two women, who also happened to be mother and daughter.7 In typical Hammond fashion, when his wife, Catherine, found out about the affairs and demanded the two slaves sold, Hammond controlled the situation and would not allow their sale.8
! In another example of Hammond’s inability to control his sexual desires, Gilpin Faust describes the mishap with Hammond and his four teenage nieces, Harriet, Catherine, Anne and Caroline Hampton.9 While Hammond admitted the indiscretion, the

repercussions to his political career were severe, not to mention his exile from his extended Hampton family. Although Hammond did not live during the Reconstruction years after the Civil War, one of Blight’s categories of historical memory in Race and Reunion is still applicable to Hammond’s life: Hammond was a virulent white supremacist. With his desire to become a man of literature in the Old South, Hammond wrote proslavery tracts. Here, “Hammond would justify slavery in terms of a hierarchical ideology that called not only for the dominance of white over black but for the preeminence among whites of men of intellectual endowments like his own.”10 Not only did Hammond believe whites should dominate blacks, but that whites, especially whites in the Southern aristocracy class like himself, were superior to blacks. Hammond took this dominant mindset to Europe during a nearly two year respite trip. Accustomed to an army of slaves to attend to his every need, Hammond was impatient with European servants and the free-labor system. Events climaxed into Hammond assaulting a servant and spending a night in a Belgian jail, in the “midst of all the felons.”11James Henry Hammond and the Old South is a great biography of one of the Old South’s true sons. James Henry Hammond exemplifies everything about the elite Old South: wealthy, intelligent, white supremacist, and a slave owner. Gilpin Faust provides readers with a riveting first-hand account of not only the life of Hammond, but of the true picture of elite Southerners in the years leading up to the Civil War. 

1 Harvard University. “Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust.” accessed June 9, 2014, http://www.harvard.edu/ president/biography.
2 Gilpin Faust, James Henry Hammond, 320. 
3 Ibid., 325.4 Ibid., 367.5 Ibid., 376.
6 Ibid., 73-74. 
7 Ibid., 87.8 Ibid., 316.9 Ibid., 241.

10 Ibid., 279. 
11 Ibid., 199. 

Ella Nevada Cates Tiffin

Ella Nevada Cates Tiffin

birth: January 9, 1887
location: Alabama
death: May 1, 1953
location:

father: John Thomas Cates
mother: Matilda Jane Smith

spouse: Orlando Tiffin

1900 census

1910 census

1930 census

1940 census

burial

Orlando Tiffin - 1930 census

1930 census
location: St. Louis, Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma
date: April 15, 1930

Orlando Tiffin  head  male  white  43  married - @ age 20  Alabama  roustabout, oil well
Ella N Tiffin  wife  female  white  42  married - @ age 19  Alabama
Glen D Tiffin  daughter  female  white  10  single  Oklahoma

"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XC4Z-BBV : accessed 04 Jul 2014), Ella N Tiffen in household of Orlanta Tiffen, St Louis, Pottawatomie, Oklahoma, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0040, sheet 17B, family 221, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 1928.

Orlando Tiffin - 1940 census

1940 census
location: St. Louis, Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma
date: April 22, 1940

Arlander Tiffin  head  male  white  55  married  Alabama  pumper, oil well
Ella Tiffin  wife  female  white  55  married  Alabama

"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VBKN-S7R : accessed 04 Jul 2014), Ella Tiffin in household of Arlander Tiffin, St. Louis Township, Pottawatomie, Oklahoma, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 63-44, sheet 19A, family 340, NARA digital publication of T627, roll 3328.

Arlando Tiffin - 1910 census

1910 census
location: Benton, Beaver County, Oklahoma
date:

Orlando Tiffin  head  male  white  24  married - 2 years  Alabama  farmer
Nevada E Tiffin  wife  female  white  24  married - 2 years  1, 1  Alabama
Loretta B Tiffin  daughter  female  white  1  single  Oklahoma

"United States Census, 1910," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MLQD-K89 : accessed 04 Jul 2014), Nevada E Tiffin in household of Orlando Tiffin, Benton, Beaver, Oklahoma, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 17, sheet 1B, family 18, NARA microfilm publication T624, FHL microfilm 1375255.