Ebony Idol

Posted on October 22, 2012 by SUMPTER

Racial Politics in the 1862 Elections

Lincoln's Last Warning [Pres. Lincoln about to cut down tree (slavery) - warning a man to come down from the tree] (Harper's Weekly, v. 6, (1862 October 11), p. 656; LOC: LC-USZ62-48218)

Republicans show true colors

From a Democrat-oriented Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1862:

Abolition and Amalgamation.

These beautious and fragrant twins, – offsprings of the Republican party, have taken a fixed position among the political facts of the day. President LINCOLN, after a season of heartless coquetry with the conservative sentiment of the country, has finally proclaimed the end aim of this war to be the abolition of slavery; and the establishment of the negro element, as an independent governing power in the far off South. To accomplish this, the blood and treasure of the north is to be poured out like water. For this end, thousands of the best lives in this country are to be sacrificed and tens of thousands of millions of dollars wrested from the people by a hungry hoard of Republican tax-gatherers, are to be spent. – One tenth of the proceeds of the industry of the country are to be annually taken from the people to pay the interest on current expenses; and a debt, as unending as the returns of the seasons, is to be fastened upon the future. Verily, the good time foretold by songsters, has come. Free speech and a free press, aye, even free white men, have ceased to be; but in their place we have free plunder for partizans, free taxes for the people, and free negroes to support. Let no Republican henceforth utter the stereotyped lie, that he is not an abolitionist, and that he detests political amalgamation. We do not mean that the rank and file of the Republican voters intend to favor these things, but we do mean, and the result proves that we are right, that every vote cast for the Republican ticket, with Abolitionist WADSWORTH at its head, promotes this end and nothing else. Look at Massachusetts, – the advance guard of the party. At the late Republican State Convention, two or more full-blooded negroes were accredited as delegates. Is this not amalgamation with a vengeance? Let the worshippers of the Ebony Idol deny it, if they can. We trust the people, while marking these events, will not forget the cost. To the taxes direct and indirect, greater than any other nation on the globe, now about to be collected, must be added, not only the expenses in life and time and treasure of the war, and the cost of slaves LINCOLN proposes to buy of his favorites, but also the increased price of the necessaries of life – 30 cents per pond for coffee – 30 cents per yard for sixpenny cotton goods, &c., &c., &c. Verily, are not the good people paying pretty dear for this Republican whistle? Farmers and laboring men, how do you like it? Just ask your Republican neighbor how he likes it, and see how he will grin, though he bears it, for bear it he must.

Emancipation of the slaves, proclamed [i.e. proclaimed] on the 22nd September 1862, by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of North America (J. Waeshle, [ca. 1862]; LOC:LC-DIG-ppmsca-19391)

then comes amalgamation .. and a seat at Republican convention

The Ebony Idol was an anti-Uncle Tom’s Cabin novel published in 1860. The University of Virginia site is one place it is reproduced.

So far the only other use of the term amalgamation I have seen is in an editorial in the Richmond Daily Dispatch from October 8, 1862. The editors’ point is that conservative Democrats are greater hypocrites than cowardly abolitionists because Democrats in the Union army are just as likely to help “contrabands” escape their masters: “Wherever the Federal conservative armies have come, they have swept the land clean of the negroes and set an example of amalgamation which any decent Abolitionist would have shrunk from. ”

A month ago Seven Score and Ten posted an editorial from a Ohio newspaper that had a similar tone to the Seneca County Democrat opinion. The Ohio paper did not use the term amalgamation, but it was concerned about farmers employing black men to take the place of white men presumably serving in the Union military.

The following cartoon from the 1860 presidential campaign expresses a similar concern to the Seneca County editorial from 1862.

"The nigger" in the woodpile (by Louis Maurer, New York : Currier & Ives, c1860; LOC: LC-USZ62-8898)

can’t trust Republican words

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Northern Politics During War | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

On the Waterfront and Elsewhere

Posted on October 20, 2012 by SUMPTER

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 20, 1862:

Scarcity of laborers at the North.

–In some portions of the State workmen are scarce, in consequence of the drain for the war. The laborers upon the wharves of this city have a society which numbers over 500 members, who are pledged not to work for less than 25 cents per hour. Shoemakers are in demand in all the manufacturing towns, and we hear of places where masons and other mechanics cannot be obtained at any price.–The same state of affairs exists in other States, and especially in large cities.–Boston Traveller.

But the labor scarcity did not lead directly to higher wages. In Battle Cry of Freedom[1] James M. McPherson discusses inflation in the North. On the whole, wages did not keep up with price inflation, even though it would seem as if there would be labor scarcity because immigration subsided and huge numbers of men served in the military. There were three reasons for the wage lag: 1) some slack in the economy from the Panic of 1857 and the secession crisis 2) mechanization – unfortunately for the shoemakers in this story, the Blake-McKay machine for sewing uppers to soles greatly reduced the time required for that process 3) the employment of women in all sorts of occupations. However, the dock workers in this story might have been better off. Strikers in skilled trades and heavy industries did achieve some wage increases, especially in 1863-64.

Occupational group portrait of four shoemakers, one full-length, standing, other three seated, holding shoes and shoe making equipment (between 1840 and 1860; LOC: LC-USZC4-3946)

endangered species?

Shoemaker cutting out an upper leather of a shoe and journeyman joining the upper leather to the sole of a shoe(1807; LOC: LC-USZ62-95355 )

Cobblers in 1807

___________________________________________________

  1. [1]New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Print. pages 448-50.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Northern Society | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How suspenders worked

Posted on October 19, 2012 by SUMPTER
Judge Joseph Holt (between 1860 and 1875; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpbh-00547)

new Judge Advocate General writes a letter

In August 1862 Secretary of War Stanton ordered arrests for disloyal practices and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in those cases. Here’s how that worked out in practice at least in this case (and to the extent that the Richmond Daily Dispatch is telling it straight). [1]

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 18, 1862:

Tyranny at the North–military Vs. Judiciary.

Lincoln and his soldiery are triumphant — that is, over their own Constitutions, laws, and people.–A case in point has just occurred. which we find recorded in the Northern papers. A Mr. Nathaniel Batchelder having been arrested for alleged disloyal practices, a writ of habeas corpus was issued by Judge Bell, Chief Justice of New Hampshire, on the return of which the following was read:

Judge Advocate General’s Office, September 13, 1862.

Hon. J. H. Ela, U. S.Marshal, Rochester, N. H.:

Sir:

Your telegram to the Secretary of War, under date of the 10th inst, relative to the write of habeas corpus, issued in the case of Nathaniel Batchelder, arrested for disloyal practices, has been referred to this office for reply.

Edwin M. Stanton (c1898; LOC: LC-USZ61-985)

don’t be afraid to call on military against the civil authority

The Secretary of War directs me to inform you that, by an order issued under the authority of the President of the United States, a printed copy of which is enclosed, the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended in all cases of arrest for “disloyal practices” to which class of offences that of Nathaniel Batchelder manifestly belongs. The Secretary instructs me to say that to the writ of habeas corpus, issued by Chief Justice Pell (Bell) you should return these facts as your warrant for holding the prisoner in custody. Should any attempt be made, after the return, to release the prisoner by the civil authority, which is not anticipated, the Secretary directs that you appeal for support and protection in the discharge of your duties to the military force of the United States in your vicinity.

Very respectfully, your ob’t servant.

J. Holt, Judge Advocate Gen.

The New Hampshire Patriot reports the decision thus:

After argument by counsel, the Chief Justice said that it seemed to him inexpedient, and useless to the prisoner, to issue an order for an attachment which could not be enforced; that the Government of the United States had plainly expressed its determination to resist by force any attempt of the civil authority to deliver the prisoner, and that he received this not as a threat, but as the announcement of a settled resolution, which, with the vast armies under their control, they had the ability to execute against any power which the State can command for the enforcement of the law. He therefore declined to take further action in the case.

Joseph Holt, who was appointed Judge Advocate General on September 3, 1862, got right to work – in this case he seems to be mostly conveying Secretary Stanton’s decision.

The Davis administration suspended habeas corpus in the Confederacy at various times and places, too.

  1. [1]10-20-2012: It looks like the Dispatch is telling it as straight as The New-York Times.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Lincoln Administration, Northern Politics During War, Northern Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Friday Three Pack

Posted on October 18, 2012 by SUMPTER

It’s been a shooting war cum blockade for well over a year. Nevertheless, on a Friday night in Richmond 150 years ago this week you could still catch a show at a local theater – and in this case ticket proceeds will help people suffering in Wilmington.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch Friday, October 17, 1862:

For the benefit of the Wilmington sufferers.

–The proprietor of the Varieties intends to devote the proceeds of to night’s performances to the benefit of the sufferers by the yellow fever now raging at Wilmington, N. C. The plays on the occasion are “Green Bushes; or, One Hundred Years,” and the well known nautical drama of “Black Eyed Susan.”

According to NCPedia the yellow fever that raged through Wilmington in 1862 was probably caused by sick crew members on a blockade runner (mosquitoes transmit). Wilmington had become an important base for blockade runners. And blockade runners were having some success – General Beauregard (based in Charleston 150 years ago) was getting some merchandise from Paris.

From the same issue of the Dispatch:

Present from Beauregard to Stonewall Jackson.

–Gen. Beauregard has presented to Gen. Jackson a splendid silver mounted pistol, of a new pattern, made in Paris expressly for Jackson. It is a revolver, navy size, constructed to threw balls as a caution throws grapeshot. With this formidable weapon an officer hard pressed in action might destroy half a dozen enemies at a single discharge. An appropriate inscription is engraved on the silver plating.

Every issue of the Dispatch seems to have notices of rewards paid for the apprehension of runaway slaves. My take on this one: it’s not just the Lincoln administration – there were other stakeholders that would have appreciated it if the beleaguered General McClellan had his army farther south:

Runaways. three hundred Dollars reward

Left my dwelling, in Richmond, SundayeveningOctober 12th, my negro man, George Yaies about 20 years old, yellow complexion, about 5 feet 8 to 10 inches high, a scar on his nock under his jaw, and has a cock of cross eye.

Also, two Negro men left my farm, about two miles out of town about the same time of day-One man, Morton, aged about 24 or 25 years, black, about 5 feet10 inches high; no scars recollected; and boy, Dick, 18 years of age, about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, black, and had on when he left a deep blue jacket, with brass buttons, and black glaze cap.

Morton is recently from Culpeper county, Va. and Dick I bought from Feigner county, near Warrenton, Va., last January. George was raised by me in Richmond.

I have no doubt but all three are aiming to make their escape to the Yankees by way of Gordonsville and Culpeper. I will give $100 for neck of the delivered to me in Richmond or secured in get them again.

Silas Conomundeo.

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Confederate States of America, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

For the Union at the Union

Posted on October 17, 2012 by SUMPTER
- Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art, Third & Fourth Avenues, Astor Place, Seventh Street, New York, New York County, NY (LOC: HAER NY,31-NEYO,81--31)

Big site of the big Dem meeting

During the 1862 election season Democrats in the small town of Seneca Falls, New York formed a McClellan Club. A couple weeks later Democrats in the big town of New York had a big rally. The resolutions adopted by the two meetings were similar. However, the New York City Democrats did not mention General McClellan, but they did argue that the Supreme Court should decide on the constitutionality of the Lincoln administration’s suspension of habeas corpus. They strongly support a war to preserve the Union and the Constitution but not a war to interfere with any existing (peculiar) institutions.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 17, 1862:

Great Democratic meeting in New York.

The New York Herald, of the 14th, has an account of a Democratic mass meeting there the night before, with the following caption:

“The Unterrified in Council — Immense Gathering of the Democracy at the Cooper Institute–The Hall of the Union and the Surrounding Streets Crowded — The New Wide Awakes — Bonfires, Bengola Lights, Torches, Calcium Lights, Rockets and Roman Candles to Brighten the Path of the Union for the Democratic Masses — Speeches of Horace F. Clark, Horatio Seymour, John Van Buren, and Richard O’Gorman.”

Peter Cooper, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right (by John Chester Buttre (from Brady photo), between 1850 and 1890; LOC: LC-USZ62-112198)

no spitting, please

The meeting opened with the following incident:

Capt. Rynders read a note from Mr. Peter Cooper, requesting that the audience would abstain from spitting on the seats or carpet. “Knowing you all,” said the Captain, “to be gentlemen who are to be hung shortly, I thought I would make known the request.”

The following resolutions were then read and adopted as the resolutions of the meeting:

Resolved, That as we desire a vigorous prosecution of the present war, the conservative citizens of this city will continue cheerfully the support already given to it, by contributions of men and treasure; but we will at the same time insist on the fulfillment by the present Administration of the solemn pledge almost unanimously given by the Congress of the United States: “That this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights and established institutions of the States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired, and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.”

- Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art, Third & Fourth Avenues, Astor Place, Seventh Street, New York, New York County, NY (LOC: HAER NY,31-NEYO,81--30)

Cooper’s Institute being repaired

Resolved, That the investigations by Congress and the State Legislatures have disclosed the existence of fearful and unexampled corruption and extravagance; that unless these enormous frauds be checked the whole country must be involved in bankruptcy and dishonor; that we would be faithless to the principles of honesty and economy in the administration of public affairs if we did not expose and denounce these wrongs on the industry of the great masses of the people, and that, in the language of our friends of New Jersey, we solemnly protest against such reckless extravagance and in famous peculation.

Resolved, That we highly approve of, and cheerfully endorse, the truthful arguments against wholesale emancipation presented by President Lincoln, in his interview with the “Chicago delegation” in the month of September last, satisfied as we are, in the language of the President himself, “that the measure must be necessarily inoperative” and inexpedient, and that “no possible good can result from the issuing of such a proclamation.”

Resolved, That, in the language of the revisers of the statutes of this State, “the writ of habeas corpus is the great bulwark of personal liberty to the citizen;” that of in England it points out to the humblest individual in the realm effectual means as well to release himself, though committed by the king in council, as to punish those who unconstitutionally misuse him, then in this republican country it should at least be as effective to protect an American citizen from arrest upon mere suspicion or of disloyal practices, even by the highest officers in the land; that we hold that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can only be suspended by act of Congress, and that the question of the power of the President to suspend it must be decided by the Supreme Court–a decision to which both the President and ourselves must yield.

Seymour at home (c1868; LOC: LC-USZ62-63458)

let Supreme Court decide lawfulness of Lincoln’s proclamations


Resolved, That, faithful to our own record, we renew our vows of loyalty to the Union and the Constitution, and stand now, as ever, supporting the strong arm of the Government as the only breakwater between the constitutional rights of the people of the United States and the rising flood of overwhelming force and lawlessness.

Resolved, That in the nomination of Seymour and Wadsworth by the respective parties of the State, the line is distinctly and clearly drawn between those who believe in the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was, and the men who seek to establish in their stead a new Constitution and a new Union.

Resolved, That we recommend to the electors of this State the ticket nominated at Albany, on the ground that its election will tend to check extravagance and corruption in public officers, give new vigor to the prosecution of the war, and assure the people that the Union and the Constitution for which our fathers made sacrifices still live in all their original vigor.

Gov. Seymour, the candidate for Governor, made a speech tallying with the resolutions, in which he announced that, if the Supreme Court approved Lincoln’s proclamations, the people would submit to them; if it did not, they would not submit. …

Peter Cooper (1791-1883) “was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States.” He designed and built Tom Thumb, an early American steam locomotive. He founded Cooper Union in 1859. Lincoln’s speech there in February, 1860 is considered a stepping stone toward his election as U.S. president.

Great meeting of the ladies of New York at the Cooper Institute, on Monday, April 29, 1861, to organize a society to be called "Women's Central Association of Relief," to make clothes, lint bandages, and to furnish nurses for the soldiers of the Northern Army (1958 May 10, [from an engraving done in 1861; LOC: LC-USZ62-132138)

1861 meeting at Cooper Union

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Northern Politics During War | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

‘Cause Canada’s a long way off?

Posted on October 15, 2012 by SUMPTER
Lloyd's new war map of Virginia.c.1862 (LOC: g3881s cw0464000 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3881s.cw0464000 )

gun play in Patrick County

Some Virginians use a little self-help to avoid Confederate conscription:

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 14, 1862:

Resistance to the enrolling officers — man killed, &c.

Patrick C. H., Va., Oct. 10, 1862.

We have considerable excitement here. The enrolling officers in making an arrest last Sunday night, were resisted. A pistol was snapped by a man by the name of Jack Bryant, at one of the officers, Jones, who fired upon Bryant, inflicting a mortal wound. The two prisoners arrested by them, Moore and Roarer, were started for this place in charge of one of the party, (Mr. Hatcher,) when near the top of the Bull, mountain, he was fired upon by a party of two men in ambush. He returned the fire, dismounting and taking advantage of his horse, but was forced to save himself by taking to his heels; his horse having been so badly wounded that it was with difficulty he could be gotten from the field. Young Hatcher escaped unhurt, except the effect of the race. The prisoners escaped. One of them, Rorer, is said to have received a severe wound from his friends in the bushes. The county is thoroughly aroused the sheriff is active in arresting these men. The ring leader was arrested Wednesday night, and made his escape. He was fired upon, the effect unknown.

Southern "volunteers" (Published by Currier & Ives, [1862?]; LOC: LC-USZ62-9636)

Enrolling officers – beware the ambushers

You can read about the cartoon at the Library of Congress

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Confederate States of America, Southern Society | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Pick and Choose Constitution

Posted on October 13, 2012 by SUMPTER
Cassius Marcellus Clay, half-length portrait, three-quarters to the right (between 1844 and 1860; LOC: LC-DIG-ds-01227)

Float back from Russia, sting Seymour like a bee

Native Kentuckian Cassius Marcellus Clay “was a paradox, a southern aristocrat who became a prominent anti-slavery crusader”. While attending Yale he heard William Lloyd Garrison speak and decided to become an abolitionist. He served as a Kentucky state representative and published an anti-slavery newspaper. He was frequently attacked and received death threats for his views.

President Lincoln appointed Clay as ambassador to Russia, but he returned to the United States in 1862. The following article reports on a speech gave in New York City. Mr Clay criticized Democrats like New York gubernatorial candidate Horatio Seymour for opposing Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation on the grounds it was unconstitutional – why didn’t such Democrats complain about the southern states breaking the Constitution by seceding?

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 13, 1862:

Speech of Cassius M. Clay on the proclamation.

In New York, Tuesday night, at the Academy of Music, after a red-hot speech from Gen. Duryea, Major General Cassius M. Clay, of the U. S. Army, addressed the meeting. We make a few extracts from his speech, as reported:

He confessed that, as a military measure, he had never placed much importance on a decree of emancipation; but this he did know, that the rebels and their sympathizers did. Look at the curses, the impotent rage manifested at the South, and then say whether they consider it a brutum fulmen, a useless thing or no. These men who would have the Union as it was say that the thing is unconstitutional. Ah! have they at last shown some respect for that sacred instrument? (Applause.) These servile tools of a despotic power have at last grown conscientious about the Constitution! Those who formed the Government did not speak of the independent sovereignties of South Carolina or Virginia, did they? What were the great powers of sovereignty? The power of making war and peace, making treaties, issuing coin, keeping armies and navies. &c., did not belong to the people of South Carolina, or Virginia, but belonged to us, “the people of the United States.” When the South assumed those powers, and levied war upon the Government, where were then your Seymour and these men who denounce the proclamation? (Applause; cries of “Where were they?” “Hit them again.”) He claimed that all the acts of the President were in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution of the United States. It was complained that the habeas corpus act had been suspended; but did not the Constitution say that it should not be suspended, except in case of invasion or rebellion, and he asked would it be said that there was no rebellion? (A voice–“That’s the talk.”) The President had the power to do as he had done, and if a precedent was wanted they would make this the precedent forever. So far from finding fault with Abraham Lincoln, he rather found fault with him that he had not suspended the habeas corpus, not by a dash of the pen, but by the rope round the necks of these traitors.

A voice–“We’ll hang them yet.”

Mr. Clay–“Yes, sir, the hanging of such men as Seymour and Wood would have saved thousands of honest lives.”

Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky: The champion of liberty (N. Currier, 1846; LOC: LC-USZC2-2047)

The champ

Mr. Clay–That is true philanthropy. (Applause and laughter.) Go to the battle-field and you find thousands of brave and generous men sinking into the grave through the action of this rebellion, and yet there is no cry about the Constitution being violated by the South. Life, liberty and property had been sacrificed, and yet these men are silent about it; but when we defend ourselves against these plotters and scoundrels, and seek to defend the life of the nation, we are told it is unconstitutional. Why, would we confiscate all other sorts of property and refuse to touch slavery? So far as these slaves are property — putting the question on the low material basis — we have as much right to say to these slaves, “Run for it,” as we have to take the horses and mules who draw the cannon of the rebels. But when we put the question upon a higher basis much better right have we to say to these men. “Defend yourselves and fight for you liberties” (Applause)

Mr. Lincoln, in the charity of his heart, which is a large one, and the strength of his intellect, which is a great one–he is both great hearted and great needed– (applause)–had said to these slave-holders, “I would that you would be persuaded to do right. Liberate your slaves, return to our family circle; we will share our last dollar with you, and you will be none the worse for being magnanimous and just” The rebels had ninety days to decide upon his offer. Let them return to their allegiance and be saved. They had ninety days to do it in. If New York should in the fortune of this struggle be threatened with the terrors of war, the women and children might perhaps have one hour or six hours given them to seek a place of safety.–But these rebels get ninety days to prepare themselves and to avoid the evil. They may send their women and children into the possessions of their allies, the English. (His[s]es) Was not time enough given to them? How much more did they want?–How would the proclamation affect the nation in the matter of foreign intervention? He had precious little confidence in the aristocracy, the ruling classes of England, whether the Government was against slavery or for slavery. …

Give us the Constitution as it is, the Constitution as our fathers made it, and the Union as our fathers intended that it should be — a Union of free men. –Said James Madison: “I put not again the word Slave in the Constitution, because when this institution shall have ceased to exist, then let the memory of it also be forever banished from our records”–(Applause) There is but one peace — that is the peace of justice. There is but one secure basis of liberty and union — that is the unity of a common love of humanity, and the true and faithful, open, avowed, manly declaration of our fathers again reiterated, that “all men are created free and equal, entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Applause) What a grand destiny-awaits us thirty-three States and about as many millions. Before many a man and woman who listens to me to night shall have gone to their last resting place, there will be a hundred millions of freemen bound together under a common flag and a common principle. Whose heart does not expand, whose intellect does not brighten, whose aspirations do not go up to the great and good God [ that that ] consummation may be perfected, that we may be one people, that there may prevail, not only over all this continent, but over the whole world, “liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.” …

Detail of Preamble to Constitution of the United States

Madison didn’t put “slave” in Constitution

More notes: 1) We mentioned a surprisingly well-received anti-slavery extension speech Clay gave in Washington City back in January, 1861. 2) Clay would go back to Russia from 1863-1869. 3) In the New York speech we linked to here Clay gave kudos to Russia’s Alexander II who emancipated the serfs in 1861.

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Northern Politics During War, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Pinpoint the problem

Posted on October 12, 2012 by SUMPTER

It’s not a surprise that were issues with medical care in the Confederate armies. Here the Confederate administration is asking for more specifics about bad surgeons and pointing out that disease is rampant in the Union military as well.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 13, 1862:

The Medical staff of the army.

–The following is the copy of a letter writer by an aid decamp of President Davis to a prominent physician of Macon county, Ala., and will explain itself:

Richmond, Sept. 1, 1862.

Dear Sir.

–I am directed by the President to inform you that your letter of August 21, 1862, is received, and the suggestions in it considered. Your strictures on the management of the medical staff of the army are perhaps severe, but not uncalled for. Many incompetent men have doubtless been appointed surgeons, but where is a competent surgeon or physician whose services have been rejected? The trouble is partly owing to the insufficient supply of medical and surgical skill in the country for an army of the size of that in the field. If, however, instead of a general censure, you would take the pains to single out and fix on any one or more surgeons the charges you make against them all, the public service would be subserved thereby.–If persons, who are aware of acts of negligence or brutality on the part of surgeons would trouble themselves to establish the fact by proof, the offender would receive the punishment due his crime or error, and become an example and a warning.

It is to be doubted whether our armies have suffered more than other armies in like situations. In less than three months McClellan has lost in front of Richmond, principally by disease, soldiers variously estimated by the Yankees at from 100,000 to 170,000 men. He has, by the most favorable accounts to him, lost two thirds of his army. This has occurred, too with unlimited resources and supplies for the care and preservation of health and mastering disease. I merely mention this to show you that disease which afflicts us does not space the enemy.

Your letter has been laid before the Surgeon-General for his information.

I have thus answered your letter at length by instructions from the President, and am directed by him to thank you for your interest in the health and welfare of our soldiers in the field.

Very respectfully, your obd’t serv’t,

Wm Preston Johnston,

Aide-de-camp to President Davis.

William Preston Johnston was captured with Jefferson Davis at the war’s end and sent to Fort Delaware. In the 1880s he worked as president of Louisiana State university and then as president of Tulane University.

Surgeon General Samuel Preston Moore “transformed the medical corps into one of the most effective departments of the Confederate military and was responsible for saving thousands of lives on the battlefield.” And he had some really cool mutton chops

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Confederate States of America, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The New Wide-Awakes?

Posted on October 11, 2012 by SUMPTER

During the 1860 election campaign the Wide Awakes “was a paramilitary campaign organization affiliated with the Republican Party”. The following editorial is concerned that the Republican-led federal government is wide awake to punishing dissenting opinion.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 11, 1862:

The horrors of Fort Lafayette–a Bold voice at the North.

The New York Weekly Caucasian, published by the former proprietors of the Day Book and News, has not yet been suppressed by the Lincoln Government, though, from the following article, we should think its season will be brief:

Few people know, or even think, of the suffering men, pining for liberty, in Fort Lafayette, and none realize how cruelly and harshly they are reported to be treated. …

Edson Baldwin Olds (June 3, 1802 – January 24, 1869) Engraved by J.C. Buttre, http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/images/B20287

opinions have consequences

A few days since some Black Republican speculators in the substitute business, who had violated the orders of the War Department, were sent to Fort Lafayette. The Abolition papers, however, made a great howl over it, and they have been released. There are, however, scores of better men and truer patriots in there than those released, in whose behalf not a word is uttered. There is Judge Carmichael, of Maryland, Guilty of what! Why, of the gross crime (1) of telling the Grand Jury of his county what the law in relation to arrests was. For months has Judge C. suffered the horrors of the Bastile, for simply doing his duty. Is it possible, therefore, that the recent Republican outburst of indignation against arbitrary arrests proceeds from any regard for the principles of civil liberty? No, it is the grossest hypocrisy. They wish only Democrats to be imprisoned. If they are sincere, why do they not ask for the release of Dr. Edson B. Olds, of Ohio, now in the fort, for simply expressing an opinion against the Administration?–How many more good and true men are also in the same gloomy prison walls, against whom no charges are preferred, we can only conjecture. We hear every day of men arrested in different parts of the country. They are spirited away, their friends and their families know not whither. Some dark and no some prison vault receives them, and they are buried alive! Where is D. A. Mahoney, Esq., of the Dubuque Herald, the central organ of the lowa Democracy? Where is Mr. D. Sherwood, editor of the Fairfield (Iowa) Union, recently snatched from his family by the Lincoln Kidnappers? Where is Judge Allen, member of Congress recently elected from Southern Illinois? We might increase this list indefinitely, but it is not necessary.–If there is but one man unjustly deprived of his liberty, it ought to arouse every American to instant action. The principle is the same. Our liberties are overthrown, and the rights of the individual are left to the whim or caprice of some upstart official. There is a day of retribution coming, however, for the murderers of liberty and the persecutors of Democrats amongst us. As Mr. Valiandignam says in his excellent speech, which we publish this week, “the measure they have meted out to us shall be measured to them again.” Yes, that it will, “shaken down and pressed together.””The arrest of Dr. Olds,” chuckles the Abolition tyrants of the Evening Post,”and the summary squelching of Charles Ingersoll, show that the Government is wide awake!” Yes, indeed, it is wide awake. It can conquer unarmed men, and that seems to be about the extent of its victories. It can send posses of kidnappers to the houses of quiet citizens in the North, gag them, and bind them, and immure them in forts and fortifications; but it has not the ability, with hundreds of thousands of troops, to keep the Confederates from besieging the National Capital. It can wreak a petty vengeance upon some individual, who has had too much honesty to bend before its usurpations; but it is incompetent to save the country from the calamities which menace it. It loves duplicity and deceit, and pays a high premium for them, in the person of the renegade Democrats who go over to it for plunder and pelf; but it especially hates manliness and honesty, and persecutes every individual who possesses enough of these qualities to tell it of its faults or rebuke its follies. It has finally convicted itself of party favoritism by releasing from imprisonment men of its own party and retaining Democrats in custody, though the offences charged were the same in both cases. Dr. Olds, of Ohio, is charged with discouraging enlistments, yet he is imprisoned, while Black Republicans are released! It is no wonder that some of its own party papers are calling for the resignation of a President who has allowed the Government to degenerate into an organization which would seem to exist, just now, mainly for the persecution of those who have intelligence enough to see the truth, and manliness enough to utter it.

New York weekly Caucasian, “An Anti-abolition, Democratic Union paper”, was published from 1861-1863.

Edson Baldwin Olds had been a Democrat Representative from Ohio mostly during the early 1850’s.

Richard Bennett Carmichael was a Maryland judge who got into trouble for instructing a grand jury to indict the federal officers who arrested hecklers at a Unionist rally. In May 1862 federal troops entered Carmichael’s courtroom. the judge was pistol whipped and dragged off. He was detained in various prisons until December 1862.

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Civil War prisons, Lincoln Administration, Northern Society | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stop Drunk Ambulance Driving

Posted on October 10, 2012 by SUMPTER
Unknown location. Zouave ambulance crew demonstrating removal of wounded soldiers from the field; another view (Between 1860 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-04095)

goal: a better-trained and more professional ambulance service

According to Civil War Home, in August 1862 General McClellan ordered the creation of a more professional ambulance corps for the Army of the Potomac under the supervision of the army’s medical director. Apparently the results were still not too good. Here are some excerpts from an editorial arguing for the creation of an ambulance corps under the direction of the Surgeon General.

From The New-York Times October 10, 1862:

An Ambulance Corps.

We have every reason to expect that the hardest fighting of the war will occur within the ensuing ninety days. We sometimes talk of a million of men in arms, and of the movements of such columns as have never before been seen in hostile array, as though so many complicated masses of inanimate machinery were about to be brought into collision, to settle some mooted question of physical force, merely. How many of us attempt to estimate the amount of human suffering that must ensue? How many realize the fact that in less than ninety days from this time sixty or seventy thousand of our friends and brethren may be stricken down in battle — thousands to find soldiers’ graves, and more, by their wounds and sufferings, to become the objects of an anxiety and solicitude which shall sadden thousands of households. When our relatives are about to go forth to the fight, we are clamorous in our demands that they shall be armed and equipped with all the appliances of sturdy soldiers. Government gathers its stores of food, clothing and ammunition, and distributes them by the usual avenue. Hospitals are erected at points more or less remote from the scenes of probable conflict in obedience to the dictates of sanitary science, and thousands of medical men are drawn from the pursuits of peaceful practice to contribute their skill upon the battle-field.

Now, what does all this mean, unless it be to put our brave soldiers in fighting trim and to provide for them when they fall at the post of duty? …

Portrait of Brig. Gen. William A. Hammond, Surgeon-General, officer of the Federal Army (Between 1860 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-05202)

600 untended wounded still on ground at Second Bull Run a week later

We hear a good deal from very high sources about discouraging enlistments, and all good citizens acquiesce in the exercise of the War Power to prevent such treasonable operations; but if the scenes of the second Bull Run and Antietam battle-fields are reenacted, verily an outburst of popular indignation, taking its keynote from the unavailing groans of the wounded and dying, will do more to discourage enlistments in one moment, than substitute associations and the schemes of rebel sympathizers could in forty years. The wounded must be cared for, — the Surgeon-General has indicated how it may be done by the organization of an Ambulance and Field Hospital Corps.

The Sanitary Commission has written, talked and worked for a similar plan for more than a year. The argument brought against the plan, that it will add to the already monstrous transportation of the army, is devoid of foundation. …

It is preposterous, it is criminal, to deny to the Medical corps a sufficient number of vehicles to insure the transportation of the means for saving life and alleviating suffering. It is cruel and barbarous to deny to the wounded the means of conveyance from where they fell like heroes to where they can be treated like Christians. For nearly a week the wounded lay upon the second Bull Run field, starving and dying, awaiting the arrival of ambulance trains, and when they came they were made up of hacks, omnibuses and ambulance wagons, manned by men and boys, all of whom were ignorant of the first principles of the ambulance practice, and many utterly inhuman, and not a few drunk.

Citizen volunteers assisting the wounded in the field of Battle (by Alfred R. Waud, 1862 September 17; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-21468)

citizens helped out at Antietam

After Antietam, nine or ten thousand wounded men lay for days, mostly unsheltered, in the open air, awaiting the arrival of aid and comfort, ministered to by surgeons not one of whom would have had the appliances most essential to their art and efficiency if it had not been for the Sanitary Commission. Life was lost that might have been saved, and yet no blame must attach to the Medical Bureau. Without an ambulance corps, it cannot perform its high functions. You might as well expect a crowd of eager miners, with their bare hands and no tools, to penetrate the beds of an exploded coal mine in search of dying comrades, as to expect surgeons to meet the demands of suffering upon the battlefield without the facilities of an organized ambulance corps.

The Ambulance Corps. (bt William Frank Browne, between 1861 and 1869; LOC: LC-DIG-stereo-1s02808)

The Ambulance Corps.

The corps should consist of picked men, drilled for the work and officered by medical men. Instead of being an incumbrance to the army, it would not only return to the ranks ten or twelve thousand men, who now, in response to the dictates of humanity, or upon pretence of helping a stricken comrade, straggle to the rear, but relieve our commanders from a vast deal of the irregular but otherwise necessary assistance of an endless number of volunteer and temporary helpers. Such a corps could carry shelter, food, stimulants and surgical appliances, and answer at once the cry for help which now arises in piteous accents from every new battle-ground.

The following letter from the Surgeon General also appears at Civil War Home:

SURGEON-GENERAL’S OFFICE,
September 7,1862.

HON. EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.

SIR : I have the honor to ask your attention to the frightful state of disorder existing in the arrangement for removing the wounded from the field of battle. The scarcity of ambulances, the want of organization, the drunkenness and incompetency of the drivers, the total absence of ambulance attendants are now working their legitimate results-results which I feel I have no right to keep from the knowledge of the department. The whole system should be under the charge of the Medical Department. An ambulance corps should be organized and set in instant operation. . . . Up to this date six hundred wounded still remain on the battlefield, in consequence of an insufficiency of ambulances and the want of a proper system for regulating their removal in the Army of Virginia. Many have died of starvation ; many more will die in consequence of exhaustion, and all have endured torments which might have been avoided. I ask, sir, that you will give me your aid in this matter ; that you will interpose to prevent a recurrence of such consequences as have followed the recent battle-consequences which will inevitably ensue on the next important engagement if nothing is done to obviate them.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM A. HAMMOND,
Surgeon-General.

William Alexander Hammond served as Surgeon General from 1862-1864. Union field commanders gradually improved the quality of the ambulance services under their supervision. Congress acted to officially establish an ambulance corp in March 1864.

Washington, D.C. Workmen in front of the Ambulance Shop (1865 April; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-04256)

putting the ambulance in ambulance corps – at Washington City, April 1865

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Military Matters | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment