peerless plowmen?
Couldn’t folks have been a little more bipartisan 150 years ago?
From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in July 1865:
Employment for Soldiers.
The Auburn Advertiser days the scarcity of help among the farmers, should induce the returned soldiers to seek work in the rural districts. This is cool advice, certainly. The veterans who have periled their lives in the field and in so many instances returned wounded and disabled, are told by the mock patriots that they can find work among the farmers! All the offices in Cayuga county are filled with stay-at-home leaguers, not one of whom will resign in order to give the veterans places. There are some fifty or sixty places in the Prison that might be filled by returning soldiers, but we venture the prediction that not an appointment of this kind will be made. The excessively loyal office-holders of Auburn ought to imitate the “patriots” of our village, by immediately organizing themselves into an association for the erection of a Soldiers’ Monument. That might in a measure relieve them from the charge of inconsistency and hypocrisy.
Why Don’t they Resign?
work returning soldiers would do
The report that certain government officials of our county had resigned their places in favor of returned soldiers, it seems has no foundation whatever in fact. They still refuse to give way to the veterans, for whom they profess so much love and admiration. Many of these men were induced to go to war through the promises and solicitations of the Republican officials, here and elsewhere. If they would only enlist, they and their families should be amply provided for in the future. How well do they keep their promises? Of the large number of Census Enumerators recently appointed in our county by a Republican Secretary of State, not a single returned soldier was among the favored. The men who have fought so bravely and periled their lives in the defence of the government, come home to find thousands of new and lucrative offices filled by a class of “exclusive stay-at-home patriots,” whose friendship for the soldier manifests itself only in erecting monuments to his fallen associates – lip-servers who seek to adulate the dead by robbing the living.
If these Republican officials are sincere in their professions of exclusive love for the soldier, why don’t they resign in their favor? The Courier exclaims “God bless the soldier,” and yet refuses to obey the instructions of the Postmaster General in not giving him employment in his post-office! But the people understand – the soldiers realize – how false and transparent are the professions of the intriguing politicians of the “loyal league” order. Their love for the soldier is a farce; their loyalty simply means public place and public plunder. Let them resign or stand convicted as self-seeking hypocrites.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some returning soldiers were healthy young bucks willing and able to work on farms.
According to National Public Radio the United States Sanitary Commission advocated policies to re-integrate disabled veterans into society. The disabled who could return to family farms could probably help out as tasks were re-arranged according to ability. Satisfactory jobs for other disabled actually included postmen, in addition to cigar makers, newspaper vendors, whip makers, etc.
“Two unidentified soldiers in Union private’s uniforms sitting next to table with cannon ball on top; one soldier has an amputated leg and holds crutches”
The photograph, Alfred R. Waud’s drawing, and the image of the census taker in 1870 were found at the Library of Congress.
