Hurlbert's Charms

William Henry Hurlbert, according to Looby in "Hurlbert's Charms," was described by his ardent admirer Thomas Wentworth Higginson as “a young man so handsome in his dark beauty that he seemed like a picturesque Oriental;... [ view full abstract ]

William Henry Hurlbert, according to Looby in "Hurlbert's Charms," was described by his ardent admirer Thomas Wentworth Higginson as “a young man so handsome in his dark beauty that he seemed like a picturesque Oriental; slender, keen-eyed, raven-haired, he arrested the eye and the heart like some fascinating girl.” This formulation emphasizes the power residing in Hurlbert to elicit the desires of others, men and women alike. Three novels (per Higginson) attested to Hurlbert’s sexualized charms: Kingsley’s Two Years Ago (1857), Winthrop’s Cecil Dreeme(1861), and Higginson’s own Malbone (1869). Hurlbert eventually earned a widespread reputation for want of moral principle, and became scandalous for various financial and sexual improprieties. His equivocal status with respect to the Civil War—a South Carolinian from a slave-owning family, supporter of Douglas over Lincoln in 1860, imprisoned in Richmond in 1861-62 because of a murky personal peacemaking effort, journalistic scourge of the “moral twaddle” of abolitionism, and author of the anonymously-published “Diary of a Public Man” purporting to reveal the inner workings of Lincoln’s cabinet—interacted alchemically with his famously alluring erotic charm. Literary depictions of Hurlbert offer important insights into masculinity and sexuality in the Civil War