The Letter That Helped Reconcile a Nation

"The time has now come when we can all of us be proud of the valor shown on both sides in the Civil War."  In September 1901, just days after Roosevelt was sworn in as President, the text of this very letter was released by the Associated Press as a way to promote national unity and healing. It ran in publications throughout the South.

A popular slogan used to describe the Civil War is “brother against brother.” The Roosevelt family embodied this predicament as Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, grew up on a Georgia plantation and her family owned slaves. She maintained her Southern sympathies, and initiated efforts to support the Confederacy, frequently sending care packages of medicine and supplies as well as food and clothing through Confederate agents in New York. Several of her family members fought for the Confederacy; including her brother, Irvine S. Bulloch, and half-brother, James Dunwody Bulloch. Through her stories, her children came to know their uncles as larger-than-life heroes. Roosevelt’s father, also named Theodore Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of the Union. He was a member of the Union League Club, which raised money to for food and supplies for the Union forces, and worked as an Allotment Commissioner during the war, helping soldiers send some of their pay back home to support their families. Like many in his social circle, the elder Roosevelt hired a substitute in order to avoid being conscripted into military service. His family situation, including the potential of meeting his in-laws on the battlefield, likely played a role in this decision.

James Dunwody Bulloch, a ship captain at the outbreak of the war, and Irvine S. Bulloch, a college student, joined the Confederate Navy. Irvine began as a midshipman and would serve on several ships during the war, including the Confederacy’s most feared commerce raiders CSS Alabama and CSS Shenandoah. According to family lore, Irvine stoically maintained his gunnery post as the Alabama fought a losing battle against USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France, ultimately firing the stricken ship’s final shots. He was one of the survivors to be rescued by a British yacht, Deerhound, which was in the area. Irvine ended the war on board Shenandoah, which fired the last shot of the Civil War over a month after hostilities had officially halted. The ship had been preying on Union whalers in the Bering Sea and only learned of the Confederacy’s defeat in August 1865 from a newspaper onboard a captured whaling ship. Shenandoah surreptitiously returned to Liverpool, England, but hoisted the Confederate flag while entering the port. Thus the Shenandoah’s crew was the final Confederate unit in service, and the ship was surrendered to the British government.

James Dunwody Bulloch was in the Confederate Secret Service and was the Confederacy's primary naval agent in Europe. Based out of Liverpool, he had the difficult task of building a navy for an unrecognized country that could offer few resources. Constantly opposed by the American ambassador and the American consul at Liverpool, he was able to purchase a ship that ran the Union blockade with the largest cargo of military supplies to ever reach the Confederacy. James secretly made arrangements for the building of two commerce raiders, Alabama and Florida, and converted an existing ship into another, Shenandoah. The three raiders devastated the Union merchant marine and diverted resources from the Union blockade of the South. His activities raised significant animosity in the Union, where Confederate commerce raiders were considered akin to pirates, and created tension between the Union and the United Kingdom.

Typed letter signed, on his Vice President's Chamber letterhead, Oyster Bay, N.Y., June 4, 1901, to Nutting, making statements that would have a national impact. "I am in receipt of your letter of the 31st ult. It gave me real pleasure and just as soon as the Cromwell comes I shall put in the inscription and send it to you. How did you address the book? I am out here at Oyster Bay, N. Y. now.

"I am extremely proud of the fact that one of my uncles was an admiral in the Confederate Navy and that another fired the last gun fired aboard the Alabama. I think the time has now come when we can all of us be proud of the valor shown on both sides in the Civil War. In my regiment [the Rough Riders] I had more men whose fathers fought in the Confederacy than I had men whose fathers fought for the Union. I am anxious to visit Roswell, and if I get the chance I am going to stop at Atlanta sometime next fall or winter. Then I shall hope to have the chance of seeing you. I also want to see Joel Chandler Harris." Harris was a journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. James R. Nutting was an Atlanta real estate tycoon and city alderman who had a strong interest in education and libraries. He was instrumental in bringing public libraries to Atlanta.

Just eight days after Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President, the Associated Press published this letter on its wire, under the heading "Roosevelt Glories in Fact That His Uncle Was an Admiral in Confederate Navy". The purpose was to promote healing and show the degree of reconciliation abroad in the land, as the first president too young to serve in (or even clearly remember) the Civil War took office. The story was picked up in the South and ran in the newspapers and in an article in the "Southern Historical Society Papers" as evidence that the Confederate position in the Civil War had been a respectable one, and that Confederates were not traitors or rebels. Since the publication of this information would have boosted the Republican Roosevelt's standing in the Democratic South, one suspects that his administration released the letter rather than the recipient.