FJP: New Bronze Bas Relief Portrait Created

Bronze Bas Relief Portrait of General Fitz John Porter

Strawbery Banke Museum’s cooper, Ron Raiselis recently envisioned a wood carved portrait medallion of General Porter. Once he began working with the project, the concept of creating a clay model for casting developed. After studying numerous images of General Porter, the artist’s intent was to make Porter appear a bit older than he had as a uniformed officer, in the post court-martial years, with a slightly preoccupied look and somewhat care-worn visage. The first study was very different from the final—it was more abstract. In the final version, Mr. Raiselis refined the piece to more fully reflect Porter’s personality. The sculptor of the Porter equestrian monument, James E. Kelly, had also been asked by the family to complete a portrait bas-relief, so it has been a true addition to the visual body of work on FJP.

Ron Raiselis, artist

Gift of Steve and Julia Roberts, 2011

Casting by Skylight Studios, Inc.

Excerpt from "Hero or Coward? General Fitz John Porter"

Coda:

Monument and Memory

Kimberly S. Alexander and Dane A. Morrison

New Hampshire is the State of my birth, and my daughter, Eva, desires to go and I wish to take her there, to Exeter my [very early?] school home and to Portsmouth my birth place.

Major General Fitz John Porter to General William Buel Franklin, c. 18 June 1894¹

In1894, retired Major General Fitz John Porter (1822-1901) traveled with his daughter, Eva, to revisit New England and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, places that recalled simpler times in “my boyhood home,” as he wrote to an old friend.² The decision to return to the Portsmouth that he still called “home” may have been one vexed between memories both cherished and troubled. Perhaps the 72-year old Porter thought of it as the final leg of his life’s journey. His had been unusual: Dedicated to the highest standards of soldiering, stumbling on official censure, recommitted to defending his honor, and ending, ultimately, with exoneration and public accolades.³ On his journey to Portsmouth, amidst reaquaintances and reunions, his thoughts must have returned to the single defining moment of his life, in the year 1862, the year that saw his greatest victories and rapid downfall.

* * *

Long after the final battle had been won, Porter’s wife and staunchest support, Harriet, urged the General to agree to sit for the sculptor for the statue that would later grace Haven Park in Portsmouth. As she confided to sculptor, James Edward Kelly (1855–1933), “That it was she who continually urged Porter forward saying why shouldn’t you go out and show your face—you’ve done nothing wrong. And so she had him go everywhere with her.” Harriet was instrumental in securing and working with Kelly, a renowned artist of powerful Civil War monuments, who had designed the statue of General John Buford, dedicated at Gettysburg Battlefield in 1895. Kelly, who would become a fast friend and even serve as a pallbearer at Porter’s funeral, asked what would have happened to Porter had she not been by his side to which she remarked essentially, that he would have wasted away to a shell. She discussed his casual handsomeness as a young man, but that the “trouble” had ruined his health and she poignantly asked the sculptor to show him as youthful rather than as “the wreck” he had become. During the sittings, their repartee was playful. Harriet interrupted frequently, advising, “Fitz sit up straight,” advising the General to pose as though he were in the saddle, and asking Kelly to obscure his bald spot. Clearly, she had a vision of her husband that she would present to the public.

* * *

Kelly’s grand equestrian monument to Porter at Haven Park in Portsmouth, is a complex representation of this man and his world. The dedication on 1 July 1906, three years after the General’s death and 44 years to the day of his victory at Malvern Hill, was attended by veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Spanish American War and featured a parade and an oration from his friend and comrade, General Alexander Webb. The four-sided base incorporates a plaque and three panels that commemorate highlights of Porter’s career. Nowhere does the monument attest to the greatest battle he fought—his sixteen-year struggle for exoneration. This seems perplexing until we consider the complicated aftermath of the Civil War, in which, as David W. Blight observes, survivors sought a lens through which "contending memories clashed or intermingled" around "the tangled relationship between two profound ideas¾healing and justice. This “tangled relationship” unfolded even before the planning of the site: First, Portsmouth inhabitants were reluctant to accept the $30,000 gift to the city from Porter’s closest friend and Boston cousin, Richard Henry Eddy, to erect the monument, and then, even during construction, a vandal defaced granite slabs that were being prepared. In an essay on “Myth and Memory,” Schultz and Morrison suggest why Porter’s monument tugged so powerfully on bitter memories, observing, “place takes on a particular mnemonic resonance when associated with extraordinary human events, most often involving tragic, sometimes wasteful sacrifice. A place is remembered far more vividly for those who suffered or died in it than for those who lived in it, and the most memorable places are often those where, it seems, lives were squandered. Tragedy can transform a place into a shrine.” What further complicates the issue is Porter’s grand equestrian is its lack of connection between the place and the events—not surprisingly a common feature of New England’s Civil War monuments. Forty years after the war, Haven Park had come to commemorate the complicated constellation of victories and losses that survivors remembered from the War; for some, the unstated losses—what was left out of the monument, was the more important enshrinement.

Today, most visitors to Portsmouth walk by General Fitz John Porter without a second glance. Yet, it remains an astonishing testament to the memory of a war both distant and ever present in our national consciousness.

Hero or Coward? The Story of General Fitz John Porter, release July 2011. ... on Twitpic

Hero or Coward? General Fitz John Porter, release July 2011. ... on Twitpic

The Field Glasses and the "Yankee" Balloon

General Fitz John Porter's Field Glasses and the "Yankee" Balloon Episode

In 1862, as part of a new Union strategy to use gas-filled balloons both for surveillance and possible battle, it is General Porter who first scrambles into the basket of a gas-filled balloon, invented by New Hampshire native, Thaddeus Lowe. Porter made the first aerial drawings of Confederate camps at Yorktown using these field glasses. He made use of the surveying and drafting skills he learned at West Point. Note that the field glasses are well used, dented and bent, no doubt due to incidents such as the one on 2 April 1862, which are discussed below. The glasses were put on deposit at Manassas Battlefield by Porter’s daughter Eva in 1947. ( Courtesy of Manassas Battlefield National Park.)

Avidly supported by President Lincoln, who was intrigued by using balloons to spy on the enemy, the balloon was an important – though short-lived--vehicle for reconnaissance for the Union Army. The Union Army Balloon Corps was created, operated by the New Hampshire born aeronaut and balloonist, Thaddeus S.C. Lowe.

General Porter immediately recognized the benefits of balloon surveillance. At 7 am on April 12, 1862, the air of the Union camp just outside of Yorktown was tense and filled with cries of, “The balloon is loose!” In the distance, a hot air balloon floated out over the encampment and toward Yorktown, where the Confederates began firing at it. Porter, who wanted a better look at the enemy and their position, was stuck inside the basket, helpless and unarmed as he was fired upon. Although he began throwing the sand bags overboard, the ropes attached to the gas valve were tied up, about six feet above the basket and he could not control them. Lowe (who was fortunately at the scene) began shouting instructions to Porter. “Open the valve! Climb the netting and pull the valve rope!” The men below took up the call as well. Soon they saw Porter descending from above them. Having reached the rope, Porter opened the valve too much. Acting quickly, he saw a tree and took his chances, jumping into the branches, hanging haplessly tangled in the balloon, the gas filling his lungs. Even before he was safely on the ground, Porter, with his field glasses in hand, began recounting what he had learned of the enemy camp and positions. So well-known was this escapade that it is recounted on the Haven Park equestrian monument.

With scant training, the “Yankee Balloon” episode reveals much about Porter- clever, skilled, fearless with perhaps a touch of recklessness thrown in. It also reveals Porter’s calm and cool demeanor even under direct fire in an air balloon struggling to stay out of enemy terrain with a wind shift. Valor, heroism, courage under fire.

Robert Sneden, a mapmaker for the Union Army, recalled the danger of the incident:

Porter, fearing that he would be carried beyond to the James River unless he could descend, became desperate, climbed out of the car and gave the valve line a hard jerk, which opened the valve wide. It also made him lose his grip on the ropes and he fell into the basket, one half of his body hanging over the side with the balloon 2,000 feet above the earth.

FJP - Court-Martial Quotes

Conflicting Quotes on the Court-Martial of General Fitz John Porter

"...[Porter] suffered a judgment of infamy for the single offense of having been one of the wisest, noblest, and bravest of our Army's commanders." Alexander McClure

“I do not hesitate to say that, if he had discharged his duty as become a soldier under the circumstances, and had made a vigorous attack on the enemy, as he was expected and directed to do, at any time up to 8 o’clock that night, we should have utterly crushed or captured the larger portion of Jackson’s force before he could have been by any possibility sufficiently reinforced to have made an effective resistance.” General John Pope

“Pope will probably try to blame Porter, and lay the blame of the whole matter on him, on the ground of disobedience of orders. General Porter disobeyed no orders...” Stephen M. Weld, Aide de Camp

“Fitz John Porter has fought more battles, won more victories, and possesses more brains and patriotism, than every man of the court which tried him, and the hounds who assailed him.” The Laconia Democrat, 13 February 1863

“When he came back from Washington, he wanted to shrink away and hide himself. But I said to him, ‘What have you done? Why should you hide? Why don’t you go out and show yourself? Show that you are not afraid – that you are not conscious of having done anything.’ And I used to drag him out.” Mrs. Harriet Cook Porter

Images shown: Maps of 2nd Manassass showing troop locations (assumed) with actual view showing Porter and overwhelming Confederate presence; Porter in full military dress ca. July 1862, just 6 weeks prior to 2nd Manassas, Porter's court-martial.

Dr. Brent Glass, Director, National Museum of American History

Mark your calendars! Dr. Brent Glass, Director of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute, will speak on the Civil War as part of the General Fitz John Porter: Hero or Coward? lecture series. Join us on Sunday 23 October 2011, 2:00, Strawbery Banke Museum,Tyco Visitor Center.

Further details to follow.

strawberybanke.org

For Credit Course "New England in the Civil War"

Experience the Past!



HST 410/HST 709 Institute in Local History
New England in the Civil War
11-15 July 2010 8:30-4:30

Dr. Kimberly Alexander, Chief Curator, Strawbery Banke Museum
Dr. Dane Morrison, Professor of Early American History

What was New England’s contribution to the Civil War? What was the experience like for those who fought and those who remained at home? How did the great and the ordinary think and write about their experiences of victory and loss?

In this one-week Institute held at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH., we will search for the answers to these questions and more on the site of one of the country’s most respected outdoor history museums. Entering the worlds of soldiers and families, abolitionists and draft dodgers, widows and orphans, we will use Strawbery Banke Museum as text and site. The course will be of particular interest to students in Public History, Education, American and Museum Studies, and Theater, as we explore New England’s Civil War on a 10-acre site comprised of 35 historic houses, replete with gardens, archaeological discoveries, artisans and role-players—along the banks of the Piscataqua River. Through a medley of lectures, discussions, and walking tours, we will go behind the scenes and engage the best practices of museum professionals in art, architecture, education, gardening, and more.

For information on course credit for graduate and undergraduate students, contact www.salemstate.edu or www.strawberybanke.org (under "education").