Charles Ives's Civil War

Surely, one of the most peculiar letters ever written by an American composer came from the hand of Charles Ives in July 1913, on the letterhead of the Eagle Hotel in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Fifty years before, the Eagle Hotel had been the temporary headquarters of Major-General John Buford, whose two brigades of Union cavalry opened the fighting on what became the greatest of all battles of the American Civil War. The peculiarity of the letter was a combination of several levels of oddness, beginning with Ives's arrival in Gettysburg just as the massive celebrations marking the battle's fiftieth anniversary were beginning. The little crossroads town was playing host, from June 29 until July 6, to 44,713 Union veterans of the battle, alongside 8,694 Confederate veterans in a great re-union celebration on a 280-acre campsite created by the United States War Department on the center of the old battlefield. Its most famous participants were Union General Daniel Edgar Sickles (who lost a leg at Gettysburg) and President Woodrow Wilson, who declared that the reunion found the old veterans “again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten. . . . ” Charles Ives was more disposed to be amused by the carnival-like atmosphere of the reunion. Writing to his business partner, Julian “Mike” Myrick, Ives related how “We're having a wild, busy, and hot time of it . . . ” A garrulous Confederate veteran “who was under Pickett” at the battle's apex (known as Pickett's Charge) “entertained us most of the afternoon” with uncharacteristic denunciations of the conflict as “a rich man's war” caused by the newspapers and the politicians. Even more uncharacteristic was the behavior of the Union veterans: “So far more Yankees than Johnies are drunk—isn't that running a little out of form?” But Ives was more amused to find himself “appointed bodyguard to Gen. Sickels as his cussing keeps the ladies away.” He was already itching to escape back to his home in West Redding, Connecticut “and then will try to settle down and let you do the running around.”1All of which begs the obvious question: what was Charles Ives doing at the Gettysburg fiftieth reunion, and especially as a “bodyguard” for the notorious Dan Sickles?There are two answers to that question, one of them reasonably short and the other significantly long, and they are both bound up with the project of relocating Charles Ives and his music on the landscape of American culture and composition in the exhausting half-century that followed the Civil War. In the first place, Ives was in Gettysburg in 1913 because he was accompanying (and assisting) his aged father-in-law, Joseph Twitchell, a veteran of the battle, and was quickly absorbed into the circle of veterans following their old commander, Dan Sickles, around the battlefield. But in the largest sense, Ives's journey to Gettysburg was part of his own personal musical strategy for recalling to American minds the remembrance of what the Civil War had been primarily fought for—the ending of slavery, and the raising-up of an oppressed race to full stature as soldiers, citizens and heroes. Ives was, to borrow David Blight's potent term, an emancipationist, something he would pour over and over again into his music and especially into the “St. Gaudens” movement of Three Places in New England, which he was actually still working on in 1913. And this was all the more remarkable for the fact that, just two years later, the partisans of an entirely opposite vision of the Civil War—the pro-Confederate “reconciliationists” and their myth of a noble “Lost Cause”—would receive their most dramatic artistic shape in the form of D.W. Griffiths's film, The Birth of a Nation.2In the seven decades since Ives's death, he has been pigeon-holed as “the first major American modernist” (by Leon Botstein) or “in the vanguard of the most forward-looking and experimental composers of today” (according to Henry Cowell), and even Aaron Copland would describe Ives's Central Park in the Dark (1907) as “musical cubism.” As Bernard Herrmann wrote in 1945, on the cusp of the Ives renascence, everything that defined modernism defined Charles Ives. “When Europe still considered Debussy a modernist,” Ives was already leagues beyond Debussy, “writing polytonal and atonal music, experimenting with multiple rhythms, acoustical juxtapositions and quarter tones.”3Yet, no one would have rejected—and did reject—the modernist label with more curmudgeonly vigor than Charles Ives. His most important themes were the highly un-modernist trio of “politics, war, religion,” and as a successful insurance executive, he dismissed out-of-hand modernism's affectionate spurning of filthy lucre. “To assume that business is a material process, and only that, is to undervalue the average mind and heart,” Ives objected in 1933. “My business experience revealed life to me in many aspects that I might otherwise have missed. In it, one sees tragedy, nobility, meanness, high aims, low aims, brave hopes, faint hopes, great ideals, no ideals, and one is able to watch these work inevitable destiny.” In fact, “it is not . . . uncommon in business intercourse to sense a reflection of a philosophy—a depth of something fine—akin to a strong beauty in art.” Modernist pretenses to live in abstractions left Ives cold (just as Ives's music left many of the modernists cold). He told Nicholas Slonimsky that he had never heard “a note of Schoenberg . . . never examined any score by Schoenberg,” and considered himself “completely separated from the mainstream of music.” Instead, his music (said the violinist Jerome Goldstein after playing the premiere of Ives second Violin Sonata in 1924) was the echo of New England “in all its glory and bigotry,” brimming with “pages of revival meetings, Boston Tea Parties, boiled dinners, and those innumerable inrushes of the soul which Emerson received—or said he did.” His cousin, Amelia Ives Van Wyck, remembered that Ives, Would sit down and play something, and he'd say, “What is that?” I remember once I said, “it sounds like Sunday in the country.” And he said, “That's just what it is.” It was part of the Concord Sonata, I think. To another one I said, “That sounds like a storm at sea.” And he said, “No it's in the mountains.”The word for Ives's music is evocative, of a lost time and a lost place for which he mourned. Like the “off-moderns” whom Jackson Lears has described, from Van Wyck Brooks to Christopher Lasch, Ives deliberately concerned himself with the local and the particular, even with nostalgia. as Ives all of on and he did as out of a sense of modernism or out of a sense of . . . out of a of a by his to the of his a in which no had more than the American Civil Charles Ives was in in a after the of the Civil War. But the and of the in the atmosphere of as it have been Civil of all the of have are the most in their “the most the most and the most form of In the Civil War out of their and to Union the another a of in the as many as have of in or from which that of the American as a of the The first Civil War were as as June followed a at Gettysburg, and followed still by the of the Union the of the on Civil War as as the and the the for Union veterans was the largest in the this out over and the of the to that American culture after the not escape the The of be the most famous of the it is followed by John to of the American The and The the short of the of and not to the personal of the major an of which became a all of their It in the of and And no American more of than the of the Civil from Daniel to Henry of the over and the of as a of the to and and back in to a time they great to their as of Connecticut into the Union the Civil a quarter of its of them from in just the first two years of the war, Ives's Ives. of the Connecticut to on in he up the Ives as for the and Ives in up whom he music in New Ives's as a had its and In June he with his and up a in he a back on in But he his as “the and he as both and a to by the Ives is in a Civil War He the he had in the of the war, the of and heard Ives's “That's a the in the the was Ives the of town and musical in and on He into his Charles a for experimenting with the of to in a and whose was more than the of their created the landscape of Charles Ives's But Ives's Civil War a place of in the Ives's In the of his of the he in whom Ives out to be and with their of of the it which is on Ives's the and remember that Ives and as they were two that one on the and especially said to and what said to In that both and Ives became a with Charles Ives. Ives even came to of Ives's Ives like He was and and he was and . . . and like Ives was a Even his Ives Ives to as a for his musical in life and own as our as in his Gettysburg as Ives was to Charles Ives's to the Civil Ives had as to the his father-in-law, Joseph “a fighting of the Civil and it was the which Charles Ives to Gettysburg in 1913 as the fiftieth most Ives in the Joseph was the of the in a of and a of the But in as a at Union in New had himself up as to the New one of the of the in the of the The and was the New Daniel Edgar Sickles, who only years had to his on the from the Sickles, with of and had the on a of temporary and in a to his had the to in the Civil War. the of the Sickles “and they are to its they will down their and not until Sickles a as of the was at first of on “the of which the of his life to in many But he heard Sickles the in and the of and the of and might have from any in the and Gen. Sickles . . . was not himself to the of his own Even on the second of the of Gettysburg, to his far to the of the Union (and by doing the Union the was that Sickles been the of the and by his and had a Sickles lost a leg to at Gettysburg, this only more by his old he to the of the to that an in which and . . . I that that of was But it is a of at that he even who otherwise had a remarkable for like Fifty years later, the to with his in New and from to Gettysburg for the great reunion. for Ives to and Sickles to Gettysburg, and as a they up temporary at the of the on the Sickles had been two of Sickles the Gettysburg reunion in the circle of and Charles Ives. In one of Sickles told you to at In the Sickles the following the did not years at (and his no around the of the Civil even in the over of its to the Union (and of them and as as was with for a Civil War on had once been a for place they not to be by of at had by the of the war, from just under in to a in It was no to that the of to was an of slavery, and by of the the of over his In July at the of how the had not a had “the of a great which would to our own of and to years of And with what might have been of Charles Ives, no to that great who do it full The in New at to the of to and of and do it Ives at as a in the still had of the it had at the time of the Civil is to a in which and in of the which had once into an what their had in the wrote the of after Ives's and and of and and that, the of time was to and and actually only to the and even to the and the the was and for all only in did an an for the by the to into it did not do to own of to and especially and had been in the and of and and as as like were that American had to in to have “a to But American was actually a of the Civil and the of the to the the had and even that “the American of the who to on for a or more to a they to behavior and material not the of a the of was opened in and a in on to in of in was entirely on and of greatest to Charles Ives, a of music was created in (and by a and years later, the was and by Ives's music did not back on his years at He had from his and his as something of a and did little to His arrival was by the of Ives in after Ives's as a and left with up that It be said that Charles Ives was a of “My mind to at first by of of of not a that I He for the a as an at the had for American years in composition in a of an and what he with But even to be the that, a has most of his life in a he has no (and not to at an or and was a was, he he was by the and of his and his own composition had the of of or a his its and “it had not been by who Ives to any more like these into the was to the Ives had with in Ives had to of music as with the of the and the music . . . of any of and culture it only do Ives remembered at the “in a of like or a and The and the England for “the form of musical at musical that had Ives's and he remembered that by the time he from that was in the music not as as he he to and out a of and music in the years after his from But he was a and a second which would the musical It would Ives's to and to the of the or “the sounds and the and at a not do . . . with a in would shape the he the Civil War into The Civil on American life was not a of The the of the and like the to “the noble and of and as that had “the of the with the of a in to the of But it on American of in and business that the of the and to which the veterans beyond the of the the of The of that I had back to another The of was past, and I it will ever again in this country.” who for the as “a for the (and who had from his as a at in from the of the that the Civil War the never And many other Union veterans were to the of the in a of with their Confederate that had been no or in the war, only the of on both to Charles Ives, the Civil War would never be than what War of and “the most important in a of by the of his the of New England and of and the music he wrote to remember it in the in two of the of Three Places in New England, in the and in the are all of an The the into Ives's of the Civil War. of the are from Ives's years in a is in the after with and its of revival for a to and as I one of which are in his in even more in the Ives for the and music of Civil War in the on Ives's of the then the first the Civil War in in which a of in the of . . . the and the that in away.” The would War as at Ives into the the of the an which was as to the Civil War as to the and which was one of Ives's had no it as “a form of personal But War a and on and he it as an of the Civil War. In the Ives wrote the most famous of the an to the American who years had his the was as as to that the of the Union had the into the of the were to that the music In Ives's “the would play those old and the would . . . as it on the old to the of on the of and in the a of another of his the the is the most famous to from the War (and written by a Ives it with of in the at then to of and the of the Ives had which after a a of a The is by “the was it an that Dan Sickles had the of the of the at of of the the of the brave and the another or with I and the “St. in the Civil War to Ives's (and the greatest of these was written and is a of musical “a place in the soul all of with and “the playing in the It with a which as be or of and with a that is than But in the to a of Civil War as Ives's the a of the of the The from of the are then from the “My of the of the and at the the is a from the the of Civil War musical it is Ives's and which the and from the War. from the one of in all the music Ives into the was Union of this was to his of Ives, of an old to which this still But another part as Ives's of what has “the the of both and Union veterans to the of a which was caused by slavery, fought over slavery, with the of slavery, and all a that what John in his in the of or be with in the movement from the New England most of which he on at the the Gettysburg reunion. He wrote his own for in the he years for the Concord In the of a a is by is down the and as the of and he of a of a of material nobility, an something with the of this an that is and that the at his But as the the at the and the of the and the vision and the experience ever in its as is to be a of the Ives, the in its the of that until the Henry the old another it with a that will the . . . a under a from of and of in the over a of in the the up and an down and to the of David Connecticut an the the to the of “and the the West its the And as to no the was to Ives to the War have a in Ives's and especially the first two Ives himself the of to the of the old Civil War The Sonata of Ives's revival in the in the first Civil War his of is the second and at the of the and a of of the The Sonata the once of at the of the second And the most obvious musical are of the and to in the first movement of the are not Ives's of the Civil War as an which to a which Ives in still more of the Civil in the first movement with the of the in the and But more dramatic is the at the of the second of Henry the the of was never the of the the has his were of his brave or to a in his his great with was to the who was to he for the which then was the which is at movement a on by the of a of in the a the and the “When I the with a of all The movement out a in the at a time was still to be a of of the followed by of the revival and The two as a long back the of the of the another of the a a of a faint to of and and The of the It is the of of American that and which might as Ives's first after from But what not be is the of the themes he the from to the of the old in the cold the celebration of in and even the to Ives in me the that to me were long long, long me the I to long long in Ives's Ives's of the Civil War as the first of the of Three Places in New England, which he working on in and in of the Gettysburg the second of the Three Places from Civil War I and of all the movement is to be an of a War It is the first movement which is entirely to a musical of the Civil and in particular, famous on Boston to and the first Union to be from once the had in the Union which Ives in Boston and his a written by Ives of with of of a us on with other on of the from what was of a in the of a an and of a and beyond that the of the the of a of Ives to have been by since Ives a as the for the movement of Three at in in the as his on the the atmosphere of Ives's on the music, that than did not to to and to . . . “St. Gaudens” with of in the with a of the and its the is any the of who on the a in the up a and at the first of of is heard in the the a that a from followed at by an even echo in the of of (and especially the the Union more at with the the with an The up the at what Ives “a with a of “When the in the to with a from at The then out with a which a at and an from the as Ives to this out as the the famous at on July And at the and to their and the in one of the most musical of the of war, in of The Union with the with the the . . . of is then followed at by and a from at the to the and the from a the of and Ives to a of and nobility, of a great and noble whose were beyond the of those who had to in The as David has a of for and his and are a at and Ives the of the with the of the of of major in the The is not or a celebration of Union and is Ives's “St. But they and their is at the of the from John that the and of both and Charles The and the are one of the race both in are all are and the not the of a that Charles Ives would in both the Violin Sonata and the us of the the of . . . Charles Ives's Civil War was beginning with his to his and even to his father-in-law, Joseph The second of these was the Ives to the of American music in even Ives on more than a musical In his Concord Sonata Ives that “a composer in . . . be in that he a over is what Henry and John The with of was, for Ives, that composers might in as than in the of the The composer had to or the this composer as in the as was, he fought his that at his music is to be American than he beyond these the Civil War was for Ives a the of and at a time of American culture was to the of with the and that the Civil War had been something other than In Ives's of Civil War and music, the as both the for musical and as a of the American experience he be by musical The Civil War music he in his and were not in the “St. Ives's for the form of a musical in which the and the on a from the of Ives came to His of Civil War music are not to or to the into the of the conflict in this Ives at a from of what was in and especially as an of the than a this did not into a modernist Instead, Ives for the of his the of a great for the of the of in the of his a that all of the he was still for the of