Orris S. Ferry: It's all Calhoun's fault
From The New-York Times June 21, 1861:
COL. COLT’S REGIMENT.
HARTFORD, Thursday, June 20.
Col. COLT’s Regiment, which was intended for the regular United States service, has to-day been reorganized and enlisted for the war. The State will at once fill up and equip the regiment ready for active service. Hon. O.S. FERRY has accepted the Colonelship of the regiment, which is the fifth volunteer regiment from Connecticut.
Samuel Colt - didn't work out
Samuel Colt originally intended to command a Connecticut regiment armed with Colt Revolving Rifles. He was discharged on June 20, 1861 and died in 1862.
After graduating from Yale, Orris Sanford Ferry worked a lawyer and was elected to the U.S. House in 1859 as a Republican. He served on the Committee of Thirty-Three that unsuccessfully tried to patch over the North-South differences after the election of Lincoln. You can read a speech he gave in the House on January 24, 1861 at Internet Archive. I glanced through it this morning. It seems like it’s a good example of the Republican position. He seems to pinpoint John C. Calhoun as the source of the 1861 secession crisis:
Disunion, in its present shape, is of thirty years’ growth, although, until the 6th of November last, it expanded in the dark. It may be traced to the workings of a single mind, disappointed of a cherished ambition — when John C. Calhoun lost the.hope of being the successor of Andrew Jackson.
The first part of his speech is devoted to rebutting the Southern complaints. here’s an example:
But we are told that the number of the free States is increasing more rapidly than that of the slave States; that, in process of time, the former will compose three-fourths of all the
members of the Union, and will then so amend the Constitution as to secure the abolition of slavery. What if liberty is outstripping slavery in the march of empire? Will you fetter the indomitable energies of freedom, till it shall limp and halt along at the slow pace of bondage ?
Ferry would end up brevetted as a Major General for Civil war service.
And speaking of Yale – from the same issue of The Times:
YALE COLLEGE.;…
Correspondence of the New-York Times.
YALE COLLEGE, Wednesday, June 19, 1861. …
The “war feeling” to some extent has taken possession of the minds of the students of Yale. Several have enlisted, and probably many of the Senior Class will immediately offer their services to the Government. Three students have joined the First Connecticut Regiment, and a few belong to Col. DURYER’S Zouaves. One, who was recently a member of the Sophomore Class, holds an important position in FLETCHER WEBSTER’S Regiment. Among the students there are four companies organized for the purpose of perfecting themselves in drill, so that they may be prepared for any emergency. The Faculty have formed themselves into a Home Guard, and drill every afternoon. …
Ferry: South can't stop "indomitable energies of freedom" (LOC - LC-BH83- 156 )
Yale College 1807 (A. Doolittle & Son, College Street, New Haven, Connecticut)
