As the culture wars rage on, I was sad to read that Trinity College’s student government, under the guise of its “Primus Project,” is advocating for the removal of two cannons salvaged from the Civil War flagship USS Hartford. These cannons are arguably the most tangible physical evidence Hartford has of an important connection to the world’s first war to end legal human bondage — one of the pillars of our national greatness.
Why is this important? There is a bigger picture, literally, on the walls at Wadsworth Atheneum. William Overend’s “An August Morning with Farragut” (Battle of Mobile Bay),” painted in 1885, features these very cannons. Front and center is a Black sailor, a likely tribute to John Lawson who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism on board that day. That alone speaks volumes. It captures the spirit of the hour as the Hartford’s commanding officer Rear Admiral David Farragut, the most decorated Naval figure from the Civil War, uttered his famous line for the ages: ”Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” — words school children learned and memorized for generations.
In a public statement, the student government president singled out a plaque memorializing “Trinity men who fought … with the Union and Confederate forces…. who gave ‘the last full measure of devotion’” and advanced the absurd notion that the cannon’s orientation is aimed at the Hartford community.
The cannons are memorialized with three other plaques. One honors Henry Brownell (TC ’41), nephew of Trinity’s founder Rev. Thomas Brownell. Described as “Our Battle Laureate,” Brownell served as Admiral Farragut’s secretary and was present on the foredeck in the hours of the Hartford’s greatest peril.
The figurehead of the USS Hartford is displayed in the State Capitol. Its bell found a home at Constitution Plaza. Other relics are in the collection of the State Armory. Admiral Farragut and his wife Virginia joined Elizabeth Colt and her son Caldwell for a trip to Mt Washington the year the Cog Railway opened in 1868. Farragut was a familiar and celebrated figure here.
“An August Morning” has a fascinating back story. The London artist’s masterpiece, it depicts the meeting of Flagship USS Hartford with the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Tennessee in Mobile Bay, Alabama on Aug. 5, 1864. It was purchased, with funds raised by public subscription, including donations from black and white school children, as well as Hartford’s elite. Its purchase was the first step on a journey that transformed Hartford’s atheneum into the art museum we know today.
Overend visited Mobile, collected and studied uniforms and weapons, sketched the ship, interviewed survivors and met with Farragut’s son. The officers and men were painted from photographs taken after their arrival in New Orleans in 1862. It was an epic two-year project.
Shouldn’t colleges and universities charged with liberal arts education present a plurality of views on contentious religious, racial and political questions? Grappling with perplexing issues ought to be foundational to higher education.
Statuary and artifacts are tangible reminders of who we once were. They help us better appreciate the progress and milestones along our journey of freedom. Erase them and we erase the potential to learn from them. History is like an onion. Each layer deepens and enriches our capacity for empathy and understanding.
Back to the advocates for removal. Why memorialize both Union and Confederate soldiers? Ask Lincoln whose Second Inaugural, six weeks before his assassination, called on us “to bind up the nation’s wounds…With malice toward none with charity for all.”
It took another century to reconcile the tensions between North and South and to become the more perfect and inclusive union the founders intended. Surely we have come a long, long way. Fraught with mis-steps as our journey has been, its arc bends toward progress.
The issues raised by this kerfuffle could make for an outstanding seminar or panel discussion. Trinity’s administration is contemplating just that. We deserve no less in these polarized times.
William Hosley is an historian, preservationist, writer, and photographer. He lives in Enfield.