(Charles Erskine Scott Wood was a West Point graduate and ...)
Charles Erskine Scott Wood was a West Point graduate and an Army officer, who took part in the Nez Perce war. This long anti-war poem deals with his horror at the slaughter as the Army chased Chief Joseph and his tribe of Native Americans out of Northeast Oregon across Idaho and Montana, where Joseph delivered his now-famous "I will fight no more forever" speech, recorded at the time by Wood himself.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood was an American author, civil liberties advocate, artist, soldier and attorney. He was also known as a supporter of Georgism economic ideology. However, Wood is best known as the author of the satirical bestseller, "Heavenly Discourse", which was published in 1927.
Background
Ethnicity:
Charles' mother, born in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, was of Scottish ancestry, while his father, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, was of English descent.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood was born on February 20, 1852, in Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the second child of seven children of William Maxwell Wood, a physician, and Rose (Carson) Wood. A physician, who served in the navy during the Civil War and later became surgeon general, William Wood, Charles' father, ruled his sons through military discipline, which he considered character building, but which Erskine (as Charles was called), who had literary inclinations, detested.
Education
After the Civil War, the Woods family moved from Erie to a farm in Owings Mills, Maryland, not far from Baltimore, where Erskine attended the Baltimore City College. In 1870, his father secured the youth's appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point, where Wood made a mediocre showing and often threatened to leave, but graduated in 1874.
Later, in 1881, Wood entered Columbia University, where he received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1882 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1883.
In 1874, Wood was assigned to the 21st Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. After service in Fort Bidwell, California, and Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, he became aide-de-camp, in 1877, to General Oliver Otis Howard. This was during the campaign against the Nez Percé tribe, led by Chief Joseph, whose moving surrender speech Wood personally took down and the two men even became close friends. The following year, in 1878, Wood served with Howard in the campaign against the rampaging Bannocks and Paiutes.
Later, Wood was sent to Washington with a special report, and while there, on November 26, 1878, he married Nannie Moale Smith. Wood brought his wife to Fort Vancouver, where he remained the aide of General Howard, who commanded the Department of the Columbia (a major command (Department) of the United States Army during the 19th century). When Howard was transferred to West Point, Wood accompanied him and served as adjutant of the Military Academy there. In 1881, Wood enrolled at Columbia University. The next year, he secured a leave from service to attend classes full time. Charles earned a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1882 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1883 from the educational establishment.
In 1884, Wood resigned from the army and settled in Portland, Oregon, where he established himself in the practice of law. Through intense application, he made a substantial success as an expert in maritime and corporation law and sometimes practiced before the United States Supreme Court. He also became a crusader for justice, working tirelessly for such causes, as those of Tom Mooney and Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and becoming known as a philosophical anarchist.
While practicing law, Wood continued creative work he had begun during his military days. He wrote sporadically, contributing poems, articles and stories to Century Magazine and the Pacific Monthly, sometimes under a pseudonym.
Besides, during his lifetime, Wood's recreation was painting in oil, watercolor and pastel. He often painted the Native Americans. Wood also memorialized some of his favorite places, including John Keats' grave and vistas from his home in Los Gatos, California. His works were exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco. It's also worth mentioning, that Charles helped found the Portland Art Museum and was instrumental in making the Multnomah County Library a free and public institution.
At sixty-six, Charles retired from law practice and was succeeded in his practice by his eldest son, Erskine. Wood then went to San Francisco, where, having separated from his wife, who refused to grant him a divorce, he began living with Sara Bard Field, a poet. Wood now entered the most creative period of his life, constantly writing both prose and poetry, often with no idea of publication. Of his published works, the best known are "The Poet in the Desert" (1915, with later versions in 1918 and 1929) and "Heavenly Discourse" (1927), the latter having undergone more than forty reprintings. Other works include "A Book of Tales: Being Some Myths of the North American Indians" (1901), "A Masque of Love" (1904), "Maia: A Sonnet Sequence" (1918), "Poems from the Ranges" (1929), "Too Much Government" (1931), in which he set forth his anarchistic political thought, and "Earthly Discourse" (1937).
In 1896, Wood was Oregon's sole representative on the National Committee of the National Democratic Party, known as the Gold Democrats. The party, which had the blessing of Grover Cleveland, championed defense of the gold standard and free trade. Also, like many Cleveland Democrats, including his long-time friend Mark Twain, Wood joined the American Anti-Imperialist League. The League called for the United States to grant immediate independence to the Philippines and other territories, conquered in the Spanish-American War.
Views
Wood believed, that the United States needed a new economic system. He was a proponent of Georgism economic ideology. It's also worth mentioning, that Charles opposed state power. He advocated such causes, as civil liberties for anti-war protesters, birth control and anti-imperialism.
Wood's philosophy brought him into contact with muckrakers, like Lincoln Steffens, and reformers, like Emma Goldman, and he was often described as an anarchist. As an attorney, Wood often defended labor unions and "radicals", including birth control activist Margaret Sanger. He even wrote articles for radical journals, such as Liberty, The Masses and Mother Earth.
Membership
Wood was a member of the Bibliophile Society of Boston and Grolier Club in New York City.
Personality
Wood counted among his friends and acquaintances such renowned people, as Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, Woodrow Wilson, Chief Joseph, Langston Hughes, Ezra Pound and Ansel Adams, among others.
Physical Characteristics:
Wood was a tall man, with curling brown hair and beard, that turned gray in his later years. His eyes were large and luminous, and he made a dramatic appearance in the long military cape, that he habitually wore.
In 1937, Wood suffered a coronary thrombosis and was never again in good health.
Connections
On November 26, 1878, Charles married Nannie Moale (Smith) Wood. Their five children, who lived to maturity, were Erskine Wood I, Berwick Wood, Nan Wood Honeyman, William Maxwell Wood and Lisa Wood. Nan Wood Honeyman was Oregon's first United States congresswoman.
After the separation from his wife Nannie, who refused to grant him a divorce, Charles began living with Sara Bard Field, a poet thirty years his junior, who had divorced her husband in order to marry Wood. After Mrs. Wood's death, Sara and Charles married on January 20, 1938.
Two Rooms: The Life of Charles Erskine Scott Wood
In this captivating, highly readable biography of Wood, Robert Hamburger presents both the life and the times, Wood's work and the intellectual, political and cultural crosscurrents of his era.