Book Review: Delivered Under Fire: Absalom Markland and Freedom’s Mail
Book Review: Delivered Under Fire: Absalom Markland and Freedom’s Mail by Candice Shy Hooper
Review by Frank W. Garmon Jr.
Although Absalom H. Markland is an unknown figure in the twenty-first century, his life intersected with many of the leading characters of the Civil War era. As a special agent for the Post Office Department, Markland came to oversee the delivery of military mail for the Union army, and he had the opportunity to reopen post offices in the South in areas that came under Union control. In this first full-length biography of Markland, Candice Shy Hooper offers a riveting story of the war’s western theater that finally gives the special agent the attention he deserves.
Markland’s home state of Kentucky looms large throughout the book. In his youth he enrolled in the Maysville Academy where he was a classmate of Ulysses S. Grant. Although Grant attended the school for less than a year, in 1838, their early familiarity formed the basis of a lifelong friendship after they reconnected years later in adulthood. Before the war Markland worked as a schoolteacher, lawyer, and clerk for the Office of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Pensions. For five years he worked as a freight clerk on steamboats traveling between Cincinnati and New Orleans. There he cultivated the nickname “Oily Buckshot” that he would later employ as his nom de plume when writing as a correspondent for the Louisville Courier.
Markland’s local connections proved important when the South seceded from the Union and the Kentucky legislature navigated a policy of neutrality. Abraham Lincoln recognized Kentucky’s importance, and the president gave special consideration to sources of local information emanating out of that state. At the onset of the secession crisis Markland participated in an informal network of Kentuckians who collected information on southern affairs and transmitted this intelligence to officials in Washington. It was through this association that he first met Lincoln shortly after his inauguration. (Unfortunately, no detailed account of the meeting appears to survive.) By that time Markland’s political affiliation had already evolved from Kentucky Democrat to Lincoln Republican, a commitment that he maintained for the rest of his life.
Markland struggled at first to obtain an appointment in the War Department as a paymaster for the army. He wrote to the president on September 1, 1861, emphasizing his loyalty to the Union, integrity, and moral character. Lincoln endorsed Markland’s application on September 6, writing that “Absalom H. Markland is a worthy man. I believe I have before endorsed a letter sent to the Department for him as Paymaster. As a Kentucky appointment, I think it would be a good one.” Despite the president’s recommendation, however, no action was taken on the application. Five days later Lincoln sent a follow up to Simon Cameron, noting, “I have before said, and now repeat, that by the within, and other sources of information, I have no doubt of the fitness and worthiness of Mr. Markland to be a Paymaster, and I desire his appointment if it can consist[ent]ly be made.” After several more days of inactivity Markland wrote to his friend John D. Defrees to withdraw his application. In a letter uncited in the book, Markland indicated, “When the Presidents endorsement fails, the pursuit of office should end.”
Defrees forwarded Markland’s letter to Lincoln and requested that Markland not be overlooked as the president made additional appointments. Within two weeks Lincoln’s postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, appointed Markland to serve as special agent for western Kentucky. As special agent for the Post Office Department, Markland was tasked with investigating postal fraud and misconduct, but his assignment in western Kentucky placed him in a unique position to assist the Union army as it moved into Tennessee.
A fortuitous assignment in the fall of 1861 carried Markland across the Ohio River to Cairo, Illinois, and tasked him with alleviating the backlog of soldiers’ letters fast accumulating from the army headquartered there. It was in Cairo that he reconnected with his former classmate, Ulysses S. Grant, in a chance encounter that would change the trajectory of Markland’s career. Grant was so impressed with the special agent’s talent for logistics that Markland soon became his righthand man when it came to postal matters. As the pair traveled through western Kentucky in February 1862, on the way to Forts Henry and Donelson, Grant issued special orders that placed Markland in charge of all mail sent to or originating from the soldiers under his command. The army’s successes on the battlefield created new opportunities that further enlarged Markland’s responsibilities. Officials in the Post Office Department instructed Markland to reestablish post offices in the former Confederacy as the army made inroads, and even granted him the power to appoint postmasters provided that the offices were staffed with loyal Union men and the locations were not in danger of falling under enemy control. Markland reopened post offices in numerous southern cities, including Nashville, Memphis, Corinth, and Vicksburg. With Grant’s promotion to lieutenant general in 1864, Markland’s authority expanded once again as he came to oversee the entirety of the military mail service.
The illustration of Grant that appeared in Harper’s Weekly shortly after the capture of Fort Donelson has long perplexed historians and biographers. While the engraving purported to be taken “from a photograph,” the likeness bears little resemblance to the future commanding general and president. The image is a composite, featuring the face of a man with a receding hairline and a long, flowing beard superimposed on a figure sporting an officer’s uniform with large epaulets. While there has been some debate about exactly whose photograph inspired the sketch, Hooper provides evidence that the illustration actually depicts Absalom Markland while he accompanied Grant with the Army of the Tennessee. Although only three photographs of Markland survive, the engraving published after Fort Donelson does resemble him and Hooper makes a convincing case for their similarity.
Throughout the book Hooper emphasizes the importance of mail delivery for maintaining Union morale. Letters allowed soldiers to remain connected to the home front and permitted those at home to stay in touch with friends and family fighting on the battlefield. Soldiers sent and received letters frequently. At one point in the war the military mail service processed 180,000 letters per day, roughly one letter for every three men in the service. Markland’s efforts to remove bottlenecks in the postal system ensured that those letters arrived faster. Reopening post offices in the South helped begin the process of reunion and made it possible for soldiers stationed there to send and receive mail on a regular basis. Hooper emphasizes that “it is no understatement to say that from the very beginning of the war, letters were nearly as important as ammunition to men fighting in the field.”
Routing the mail could also create a diversion for the advancing Union army. As Gen. William T. Sherman’s army prepared to march from Atlanta to Savannah in 1864, Markland realized that the path taken by the train cars carrying the soldiers’ letters might signal the army’s advance. While the army remained in Atlanta the mails had been carried along the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. If the present method of delivery remained in place, Markland reasoned, Confederates might be misled into thinking that Sherman’s movements were an exercise in misdirection when he really intended to remain in Atlanta. Markland continued to send the mails along the Louisville & Nashville for fifteen days, providing enough cover for Sherman to make his advance, before ordering that all of the army’s mail be directed to Baltimore. Sending the mails to Baltimore gave the impression that Sherman did not actually mean to go to the coast, but instead planned to march north to engage Robert E. Lee’s army. These circuitous acts of subterfuge were effective in concealing the position of Sherman’s army, and Hooper notes that “even Lincoln admitted that he did not know where Sherman and his army were.”
Markland’s puckish sense of humor helps to bring the book to life. In one comical exchange Markland pretended to be a Union major general in an effort to secure dinner and drinks for himself and his staff while the group was stranded in Alabama waiting for a northbound train. In another instance Markland smoked a box of premium cigars that an associate of his planned to give as a gift to General Sherman. When the owner of the cigars discovered Markland’s mischief, the special agent retorted that Sherman did not know the difference between a good cigar and a bad one. He instructed his associate to purchase a new box and “tell him they are extraordinary cigars, and he will make a great deal of them and think them just what you call them.” Similar incidents dot the pages and help to illustrate how embedded Markland was with the Union army’s leading generals.
Markland’s career with the Post Office Department did not end with the conclusion of the war. During Reconstruction he served as a special agent in a new district encompassing Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1870 he courted controversy when he hired William H. Gibson as the first African American railway mail route agent in Kentucky. Gibson excelled in the position, and six months later Markland promoted him to serve on a more prestigious route between Louisville and Lexington. On his second day of work on the new line Gibson was violently attacked by members of the Ku Klux Klan, who dragged him from his railcar, beat him, and shot at him repeatedly. When Gibson returned to work Markland ensured that he received a military escort of ten soldiers to guard him for the next three months. As Congress debated the Second Enforcement Act the following month President Grant ordered the mail route suspended, invoking an obscure act from 1861 that allowed the postmaster general to discontinue mail service where it “cannot be safely maintained.” Gibson’s attack resulted in a congressional investigation, and played a pivotal role in the enactment of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which reinforced the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause and made it a federal crime to obstruct government officials as they performed their duties. Unfortunately, the act did not arrive in time to protect Gibson. He resigned from his post weeks before its passage once his three months of military escort ended.
Throughout the book Hooper provides detailed descriptions of events taking place on the national stage, which help to provide context for the affairs unfolding in Markland’s life. Markland related many of his exploits in the form of touching letters to his wife, Martha, who occasionally followed Absalom in his travels. In these sections Hooper draws on her prize-winning book, Lincoln’s Generals’ Wives: Four Women Who Influenced the Civil War—for Better and for Worse (2016). The Marklands’ friendship with the war’s leading generals and their families is one of the book’s strengths.
In the course of reading Hooper’s biography of Markland there are a few details that remain elusive. Although Absalom Markland had a working relationship with Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, his connection to Abraham Lincoln was more peripheral. In his later life Markland recalled meeting with Lincoln monthly, and sometimes weekly during the war, to brief the president on his activities, but the details of their conversations are not always known. Markland may have even been related to Lincoln through his mother’s side (his middle name was Hanks). After an extended discussion on the subject, Hooper found the familial connection between Markland and Lincoln to be inconclusive. However, Markland’s 1861 letter to John D. Defrees withdrawing his application as a paymaster for the army (mentioned above) reveals that he was aware of the possible connection. Markland wrote, “Abraham Lincoln is one of the Hanks stock . . . and from that fact his love of country is manifest and his integrity unquestioned.”
Delivered Under Fire offers a fascinating examination of an unfamiliar but influential figure. In bringing Markland’s career to light Hooper has written an engaging biography of a charming character. One wonders what other episodes of Markland’s life might lie waiting to be discovered.
Frank W. Garmon Jr. is assistant professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and the author of A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era and Gilded Age (2024).