The Destruction of the "Clothilde", Mobile Bay, 1859

Kay Callison, who does blog interviews for the American Audio Prose Library at           americanaudioprose.org, sent me the following today.  I had never heard of this incident, nor of the Clothilde. Can anyone fill me in?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

"Saw a powerful documentary film that made me think of you this past weekend, at our annual True/False Film Festival (regarded as the best in the world, I might add, right here in Columbia, MO.!) It is called "The Order of Myths", and is about the oldest Mardi Gras in the country, in Mobile, AL, which dates back to 1703, as I recall. It is still totally segregated. The whites have theirs, the blacks, theirs. Key to the narrative is the story of the slave ship Clothilde, which the 3rd great grandfather of the 2006 white Mardi Gras queen (the one in the film) had brought into Mobile with 500 slaves aboard in 1857, on a bet. When he arrived, he went into town to collect on his bet. He left instructions that if he weren't back in one hour, to run the ship aground and set it on fire. As he did not return within the hour, his first mate did just that. Fortunately, all the 600 slaves aboard the ship escaped into the surrounding woods, and they and their descendants formed what they called Africa Town on that site, which remains. The Black 2006 Mardi Gras queen learns during the filming of the documentary that she is directly descended from one of those slaves. This is a very fine documentary, and I hope you get a chance to see it. The films which get brought to True/False are usually getting their debut here. Margaret Brown is the filmmaker. Her mother was the 1966 (very reluctant) White Mardi Gras Queen."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Reminds me of Henry Louis Gates' documentary on PBS of a couple of weeks ago, "Black Americans 2", tracing the ancestry of 8 prominent African Americans back to their earliest origins in this country and then--through DNA--to their African tribal roots. Very moving to see them take in this completely new--sometimes wonderful, sometimes challenging  information on camera, in real time.

Dangerous parallels? or instructive?

It seems to me that the situation in our country in the past few years has been eerily like that of the years leading up to the Civil War. Views that would have been considered moderate and entirely reasonable (e.g., the widespread southern belief in the inevitable demise of slavery, in the 1830's) have for a variety of reasons been pushed to the sidelines, drowned out by the voices of the extremes. Things are better at the moment [I write this before either party has selected their candidate for the general election of 2008], but with all the usual uncertainties factored in between now and November, who knows?

I have always believed that the War was inevitable; perhaps I still do. But in light of current events, I find myself thinking backwards more and more, to those alarmingly parallel tangles of emotion. Could anything have headed off the American Civil War? Should it have? And what lessons (one way or the other) does our knowledge of the run-up to that war teach us about the proper use of military force? As just one example, might Lincoln have acted differently after Sumter? 

I invite your comments with the hope that any who choose to enter the discussion will resist the temptation to make partisan points; let's stick to what we know of the events of 150 years ago, whose anniversaries are fast upon us. 

Note: if this is too macro- for some of your tastes, I'm also interested in:    the war west of the Appalachians, 1961-63; anything new about Albert Sidney Johnston; any new psychological/ character insights into U.S. Grant [let's get familiar and subjective here, as if we'd known him personally]; the geography of the Tennessee and Cumberland river basins and their relation to events in 1862; and that hardy perennial, How Ignorant Today's Young People Are of History (but, I am convinced, would want to know more if their imaginations could be tweaked--say, through intelligent fiction.)  I get the feeling there are some high-school history teachers out there. What do you think?

New to the Game

As this is the first time I've ever posted on any blog, Civil War or not, I hope any possible readers will correct my habits and give me tips on how better to connect. Thanks in advance!