dime_novel_hero | 1 May 2011

Cordelia set up a second annual photo shoot, this year at the Phipps Conservatory, a wholly appropriate 19th Century edifice. My initial intention was to attend but not in costume because, having obtained a nice digital SLR camera, I expected to be taking more pictures that I had taken the previous year. However, a friend of mine coincidentally scheduled a party for the 189th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant. Wearing my Union Aeroship Cavalry uniform was thus a requirement.

I arrived near to on time at noon but the few of us there waited for well over an hour in an effort to allow for those late to arrive.

Phipps Conservatory was built in 1893 and is representative of the Victorian Glass Houses of the second half of the 19th Century. In talking to other attendees at the event I mentioned the great Crystal Palace of the London Exhibition of 1851 as the model but, in looking up a bit of the history, it is similar to many glass houses, including the Crystal Palace, going back into the 1840s but looks almost identical to the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, completed in 1858.

A lot of regular people asked if we were part of a wedding and we all spent a lot of time explaining what steampunk was. I took plenty of pictures and while I can take a decent photograph of extant composition, I have yet to take the next step in truly composing a picture. I have a certain aesthetic sense of lighting, color and some composition but most of my pictures are of the "stand there and I'll take your picture" or "that angle and lighting is really nice" type. I've done a little of "turn your head" and "look over there" in posing things a little better but I am nowhere near where the good photographers are in telling a story in a single frame. Which was part of the reason I had initially thought about not being in costume. In that instance I would not be a part of things and, as an outsider rather than a participant, I could have focused more on the act and art of photography.

Perhaps next time.

After Phipps, everyone else went to the Church Brew Works and then to Art All Night. I went to a birthday party for Ulysses S. Grant. I had initially thought that it was the host's idea, given that he is the historian and wargamer but it was actually the hostess who was the driving force. She had become tired of people waving the Confederate flag, even here in the North, and talking about states rights and the noble lost cause and all the other historically ignorant crap that the tea party have replicated in their waving of the Gadsden "Don't Tread On Me" flag when, in fact, the Civil War was completely about slavery.

Really. If you doubt that, take a look at the constitution of the Confederacy compared side by side, article by article, to the constitution of the United States. If it was really about states rights, one would expect the constitution to have had a much weaker federal government, much like as was enumerated in the failed 1781 Articles of Confederation. But that's not what is seen. For all intents and purposes, the two constitutions are nearly identical when it comes to the basic functionings of government and the authorities granted to the states and to the federal government. The differences are obvious, first in the repeated invocation of God by the Confederates and secondly, the codification of slavery into the constitution. Even to the point that any state that would want to join the Confederacy would have to be a slave state. The state would not have the right to not have slavery legal within their borders.

So much for states rights.

I have gotten a copy of the New York Times "Complete Civil War" and have been reading it in real time. Each day I turn a page and read today's news from 150 years ago. In catching up, reading articles from the several years proceeding the Civil War, it was abundantly clear that slavery was the issue.

The Missouri Compromise. The Compromise of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Act. The Dred Scott decision. When it came to slavery, everything the South wanted, they seemed to get. Even Lincoln dialed back his rhetoric. The South had their institution of slavery secured. They had the North as their fugitive slave hunters. They had the backing of the Supreme Court saying that slaves were property. They even went through the process of seceding from the Union without Lincoln raising a finger to stop them. But what they didn't have was the silence of the Northern citizenry. Their obstinate neighbors simply wouldn't shut up about it.

So they attacked Ft. Sumter and reaped what they had sown.

The newspapers were filled with the issue of slavery on a daily basis in the years leading up to the war and the only talk about states rights was about the rights of states to have slaves. Only the deluded or willfully ignorant could make the claim that it was about anything other than that.

So, I sang happy birthday to General Grant, gave three cheers to the Union and had myself a few slices of cake.

Which leads to the question of a less serious topic, what would be an appropriate birthday song? While the tune to "Happy Birthday to You" originated in the mid-19th Century, it wasn't until 1912 that the tune was published with the birthday lyrics. So, were there birthday songs before that? What were the traditions for birthday celebrations during the Civil War?