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ess is exactly what happened, in greater or less degree, to each
foreign-born participant in the war. Friendships between men
of differing European races and of foreign-born with American were cemented.” Another aspect of the question is answered by the sentence, “All the various racial groups in the
population of the North presented to the world a striking and
thrilling example of devotion and loyalty to the government
which had welcomed the exiles of the world, as well as fidelity
to political principles which they had embraced.”
Indiana. University
Kenneth P. Williams
Correspondence of Governor Samuel Ward, May 1775 - March
1776, with a Biographical Introduction Based Chiefly on
the Ward Papers Covering the Period 1725 - 1776. Edited
by Bernhard Knollenberg. Genealogy of the Ward Family
-Thomas Ward, Son of John, of Newport and Some of
His Descendunts. Compiled by Clifford P. Monahon.
(Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1952, pp.
ix, 254. Notes, bibliography, index to Genealogy, index to
Correspondence. $7.50.)
In the story of securing and consolidating American independence, Rhode Island too generally is featured as an obstructionist, blocking the way to a more perfect union. The
tone of Madison’s reproachful question at the Virginia ratifying convention in 178%-’Would the honorable gentleman
agree to continue the most radical defects in the old system,
because the petty State of Rhode Island would not agree to
remove them?”-tinges many a later discussion of the climax
of the Revolutionary Era.
The Correspondence of G o v m e r Samuel Ward, skillfully
and painstakingly edited by Bernhard Knollenberg, features a
significant segment of the life and times of a Rhode Islander
who helped to bring the American republic into existence. By
so doing it enriches and clarifies the record at many points and
assists its readers ‘to a better balanced view of “That little
member” which Madison later charged had “repeatedly disobeyed and counteracted the general authority.”
Appropriate selections from the Ward Papers (a major
acquisition by the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1945)
furnish the main part of the present volume, supplemented by
Book Reviews
317
some “letters to, from or about Ward” in the Rhode Island
Historical Society collections and from half a dozen other libraries. With relatively few exceptions the correspondence
here published appears in print for the first time.
Samuel Ward (1725-1776) , writer or recipient of most of
the letters, is accorded a thirty-four page “Biographical Introduction” by Knollenberg. In this, special attention is called to
Ward’s services as Rhode Island Governor “during the critical
period of the Stamp Act [when] he acted with decision and
wisdom,” and to his membership in the Continental Congress,
1774 and 1775-1776, where he was “one of the leaders
during the critical year following the day of Lexington and
Concord.” Most of the space, however, is devoted to chronological accounts of Ward’s public life, beginning with “17561765” and continuing through “1765-1767” and “1768-1774.”
The last division merges into four final pages interestingly
concerned with John Dickinson and other public men, the progress of the War, an account of Samuel Ward, Jr., and an appeal
for information concerning other letters to or from Ward
which Knollenberg believes “have probably survived” but have
not been brought to light.
The Correspondence (pp. 37-205) is printed in four sections: “1, May 26, 1775-Aug. 31, 1775”; “2, Sept. 17, 1775Nov. 2, 1775”; “3, Nov. 11, 1775-Dec. 31, 1775”; “4, Jan. 2,
1776-March 27, 1776.” Ward’s letters to his brother Henry
(Secretary of Rhode Island, 1761-1797), most informing on
the relationships between colony and continental affairs and
on Congressman Ward’s sustained interest in affairs within
Rhode Island, are reinforced by the correspondence in which
Nicholas Cooke, Deputy Governor and subsequently Governor
of Rhode Island, plays a part. Especially important, too, are
letters to Ward from General Nathanael Greene, his kinsman
by marriage. Together with those from Samuel Ward, Jr.,
these furnish a play-by-play account of War activities in northern areas.
Aspects of Ward’s family life, business affairs, religious
fervor, and patriotic ardor are revealed through his correspondence with his flock of motherless children (the youngest
not yet ten in, 1776). His physician’s account of the circumstances of his death (from smallpox) indicate the affection
and regard in which Ward was held in Philadelphia where his
funeral, late in March 1776, was a solemn state occasion.
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Indium Magazine of History
Monahon’s Genealogy of the Ward Family (pp. 207-238
of this volume) should be useful not only to Ward family
members, geanealogists, and readers of the Ward Correspondence, but also to persons interested in the family backgrounds
and connections of such noted Americans as Julia Ward Howe,
Samuel Ward, lobbyist, and F. Marion Crawford.
The index to the Correspondence, though excellent, leaves
something to be discovered by close reading of the letters. The
addition of end maps might have added still more to the extensive interest and serviceability of this volume.
University of Illinois
Louise B. Dunbar
Whitman and Rolleston, A Correspondence. Edited with an
introduction and notes by Horst Frenz. Humanities Series
No. 26, Indiana University Publications. (Bloomington :
Indiana University Press, 1951, pp. 137. Index, frontispiece portrait of Thomas William Rolleston. $1.50.)
Thomas William Rolleston (1857-1920), Irish translator,
historian, and biographer, is of interest to Whitman students
primarily because he was an early champion of Whitman
abroad and published in 1889, with Karl Knortz, an important
German translation of some poems from Leaves of Grass.
Most of the present collection of thirty-two letters or
cards (twenty-four from Rolleston to Whitman; seven from
Whitman to Rolleston; one from J. Fitzgerald Lee to Whitman) is here published for the first time-though four of the
Rolleston letters are reprinted from Horace Traubel, With
Walt Whitman in Camden, and a part of one Whitman letter
has appeared in William Sloane Kennedy, The Fight of a Book
for the Worlrl. The original of most of the letters Frenz has
edited are in the Library of Congress. In point of time, the
published correspondence between Rolleston and Whitman
runs from October 16, 1880, to 1885 or 1886. In addition to
the letters, Frenz reprints as appendixes a summary of a
Dresden lecture on Whitman which Rolleston published in the
Camden Post, February 13, 1884, and an obituary piece which
Rolleston published in the Academy for April 2, 1892, the
former to show Rolleston’s critical approach to Whitman (favorable, but not without surprising acumen and some reservation), the latter to fill out the “full record of the literary
friendship” of Rolleston and Whitman.