Howard Coffin Challenges Danville

“Let’s Hon­or Thad­deus Stevens In Our Statehouse”



By Sharon Lakey

On Jan­u­ary 10, Howard Cof­fin rose to expec­tant applause after the first annu­al meet­ing of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety held at the new­ly-ren­o­vat­ed His­tor­i­cal House. Cof­fin, a well-known writer on Ver­mont and the Civ­il War, had been in Danville dur­ing the sum­mer, speak­ing on what he called “a mag­i­cal night at the Old North Church.” His pres­ence was also an appro­pri­ate pre­cur­sor of the com­ing sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al (150 years) cel­e­bra­tion and remem­brance of the War between the States, which will begin in 2011.
He held a sheaf of papers in his hand when he approached the lectern and, with the light from the fire­place behind him, began to speak about the sac­ri­fices the small town of Danville made dur­ing Amer­i­ca’s Civ­il War. “Accord­ing to Kee­gan, author of the most recent book I’ve read on the Civ­il War,” said Cof­fin, “it was the third blood­i­est war per capi­ta ever fought in the world.” The sheaf of papers in his hand were of some of the 194 indi­vid­u­als from Danville who had served, and he began a slow march through them. The papers were state­ments of fact, leav­ing the lis­ten­ers to fill in gaps with the aching human sto­ry that went with every one of them.
The list­ing began with Danville’s most famous sol­dier, Addi­son Pre­ston. “A man whose body the infa­mous Custer leaned over on the bat­tle­field and said, ‘there lies the best fight­ing Colonel in the Cav­al­ry Corps,’ ” said Cof­fin. Pre­ston’s wid­ow would not allow a mil­i­tary funer­al, but the local funer­al pro­ces­sion includ­ed many from afar and stretched from the Vil­lage cen­ter to the grave site. Name after name Cof­fin read aloud from his pages, many of them sur­names you still hear today in Danville. One of the most mem­o­rable facts for this lis­ten­er was about a young man from West Danville whose death upon return­ing home was attrib­uted to eat­ing too much. He had just been released from Ander­son­ville. That pris­on­er-of-war camp was often men­tioned on the pages he held. Of the 44,000 Union sol­diers held there for less than a year, 13,000 died, most from star­va­tion and disease.
For 47 years, a week a year, Cof­fin has vis­it­ed Amer­i­ca’s Civ­il War sites. “Remark­able things hap­pen when you search for his­to­ry at those places,” said Cof­fin, and he shared a few of them with the audi­ence. He walked the path of Pick­et­t’s charge at Get­tys­burg and just as he reached Ceme­tery Ridge, where the south­ern line met a blis­ter­ing north­ern bar­rage, a thun­der­strom arose and show­ered Cof­fin with hail the size of mus­ket balls. Anoth­er time, he stood gaz­ing up at Lit­tle Round Top, where the 20th Maine under Cham­ber­lain saved the union line from break­ing by mount­ing a hero­ic bay­o­net charge downs­lope. “Sud­den­ly hun­dreds of lights appeared,” said Cof­fin, “and in waves they came down the slopes. On the flat, they swirled around me before disappearing–fireflies!” And on the night of May 2, 1988, he walked the hills where Stonewall Jack­son bat­tled to rejoin the Union army. “A full moon rose and I heard the haunt­ing sound of whip­poor­wills, the same sound Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers wrote back home had made them so home­sick.” On a walk up Chin Ridge, “I saw a men­tal image of a Con­fed­er­ate sol­dier pass me, so vivid that I still see his face today, dis­gust­ed at the fail­ure of the sec­ond bat­tle of Bull Run.”
At this point, Cof­fin seemed to switch top­ics, but assured us, “don’t wor­ry, I’m going to tie this togeth­er.” He then began speak­ing with emo­tion about Thad­deus Stevens, who was born in Danville, grad­u­at­ed from Peacham Acad­e­my and attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ver­mont for two years before trans­fer­ring to Dart­mouth. “You nev­er know where you’re going to find Beth­le­hem,” he said. “From hum­ble begin­nings arose this man, in truth, who dwarfs all the Civ­il War heroes.”
This sum­mer, Mary Pri­or escort­ed him along the Thad­deus Stevens trail, includ­ing a pos­si­ble cel­lar hole of the place of his birth. “He was rev­er­ent there”, shared Mary. “It can be argued,” said Cof­fin, “that Stevens rivaled Lin­coln.” He is cred­it­ed for the draft­ing and dogged deter­mi­na­tion to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion dur­ing Recon­struc­tion. These amend­ments guar­an­teed equal­i­ty for all Amer­i­can cit­i­zens under the law.
“He was a man before his time,” said Cof­fin. And then he laid before the audi­ence a chal­lenge. “We have a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty here, and I throw it out to you today. There is no sculp­ture or por­trait of Stevens, one of our native sons, in our State­house. Why not?”
After the meet­ing, a light sup­per was served, and much inter­est was gen­er­at­ed by dis­plays that includ­ed arti­facts of Addi­son Pre­ston’s, most of them passed down to the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety by Pre­ston’s wid­ow. Cof­fin stayed as well, and many were able to shake his hand in thanks and share thoughts on how Thad­deus Stevens might best be honored.
This writer was able to tell him how much she enjoyed hear­ing about the strange events he had expe­ri­enced while stalk­ing his­to­ry. “There are many more,” he con­fid­ed qui­et­ly. “Some of them are so strange, I don’t repeat them. Peo­ple might think I’m crazy.” When pressed, he shared just one more. Some­day, if you have the chance to speak with Howard Cof­fin, ask him about the time he saw John Brown on a lone­ly, win­try Ver­mont highway.
This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the Feb­ru­ary, 2010 issue ofThe North Star Monthly
For more pic­tures of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety annu­al meet­ing, click here.
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