The Murder of Albert D. Richardson

Republicans Lost their Most Influential Writer

The Evening Telegram Weighs in on the Richardson Imbroglio with Damning Cartoon of Beecher and his role in it, December 10, 1869, p. 1. Rare cartoon posted here.

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I know, I know, I promised the next essay would be about 1870. Bear with me, we will get to 1870 before the conclusion. As I was about to wrap-up the 12th chapter, I ran across this story. I was reading the most excellent and politically astute George Templeton Strong diaries, and he wrote on December 4:

The Reverend Henry Ward’s indiscretion in marrying [Richardson] on his death bed, to the wife of his murderer—for she was his wife, barring a worthless Western divorce—is pretty generally denounced.

This sent me on a bunny trail. I knew of Richardson because he wrote a most positive book on Grant. He was an important, persuasive, and influential writer, who was also a Republican. If anyone wanted to know what orthodox Republican Party ideals were, Richardson was your man. We hear very little of him or about him because Democrats and progressives (but I repeat myself) devoted many years to running down his name (see the rebel favoring The Tragic Era as just one example). Academics through their institutions fairly disregarded his works, and hence, sentenced him to a life of silence in the halls of the university. He was not read; southern historicists were. Woodrow Wilson would approve. Hence his name is basically unknown. The university, same as it always was!

Albert D. Richardson

If anyone wants to know how the Lost Cause lost the war but won the argument, look no further than what the colleges and intellectual classes did after the war—they relegated the Founders to passè status and buried their promoters. Richardson was one of them.

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The story of Richardson’s death is full on scandal. The apparent immorality that surrounds it caused his reputation, and those around him, to be sullied to the point of forgetting that there was an actual murderer, who appeared to get off scot free. We can thank the Democrat press, and Tammany Hall for this unjust feat.

So, let’s start at the beginning.