baseball buddies

Posted on May 29, 2017 by SUMPTER
Memorial day / Ehrhart. (N.Y. : Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann, Puck Building, 1913 May 28; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011649595/)

national pastimes

Couldn’t we just have played two back in ’61? Or even a best of seven? As much as I dream about duels replacing wars, I know I’m just dreaming. No jousts or David v. Goliath for modern times. Jeff Davis wasn’t going to be taking the mound for the Confederate nine. The South wouldn’t give up slavery without a fight; the North wouldn’t give up the southern states without a battle. Eventual reconciliation in the aftermath

Memorial Day, unknown soldiers tomb, [Arlington, Virginia] (1935; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/hec2013009053/)

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery

"Decoration Day. No. 1618" (c1914 Mar. 30.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2005693076/)

Old Glory

From the Library of Congress: baseball from the May 28, 1913 issue of Puck; Arlington in 1935; Decoration Day c.1914
Posted in Postbellum Society, Veterans | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

big milk parlor shut down

Posted on May 25, 2017 by SUMPTER
The first African church, Richmond, Virginia--Interior of the church, from the western wing / drawn by W.L. Sheppard. ( Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. 18, 1874 June 27, p. 545; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/97507948/) )

where Greeley and Smith spoke

But what should take its place?

Riots broke out in Richmond, Virginia on May 11, 1867. Two days later ex-Confederate President Jefferson was released on bail in the same city. According to the following report, two of the men who pitched in to bail Mr. Davis out spoke to a gathering in Richmond on the next evening.

From The New-York Times May 15, 1867:

Matters at Richmond – Colored Organizations Disbanded.

RICHMOND, Va., Tuesday, May 14.

Gen. SCHOFIELD has ordered the Lincoln Mounted guards (colored) to disband, and has prohibited their parades or drills. …

The negro laborers in the tobacco warehouses have struck for higher wages. no disturbance has occurred.

[Richmond, Va. First African Church (Broad Street)] (1865; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/cwp1994000694/pp/)

First African Church (1865)

The African Church was densely packed by an audience about equally divided, an assemblage equally as large was gathered outside. Judge PEIRPOINT [sic] was on the stand. Mr. GREELEY explained the obstacles that had impeded reconstruction, beginning with the assassination of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and coming down to JOHNSON’S policy.The obstacle now was, the unwillingness of the Southern people to give the negro any rights. They were not obliged to do this. If this was overcome there would be peace at the South. The South had the opportunity given it by Congress to give these rights itself, but refused to do it. Upon the subject of confiscation he was emphatic, urging the negroes not to look forward to acquiring lands that way. He wished to see them own farms, but they must work for them, and they need not expect to get them in any other way.

GARRETT SMITH followed in a short address. He said the South was not alone to blame for the war which had been brought on by the North, which had supported slavery, its immediate cause. It had supported slavery because it had profited by it. It had drawn the milk while the South held the cow. He strongly opposed confiscation and told the negoroes not to look forward to anything that was so hopeless. In allusion to the rumors of the riots which he had heard of since arriving here, he urged the negroes not to give way to lawlessness, and to avoid any approach to riotous conduct.

Judge UNDERWOOD, who was cheered and hissed as he came forward, made a short address. …

Hon. Gerrit Smith of N.Y. (between 1855 and 1865; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/brh2003004625/PP/)

dairy metaphor

According to Eric Foner, many Northern blacks “carried south the ideology of free labor, with its respect for private property and individual initiative.” Many people in the “Southern free black elite” supported those ideas and “opposed talk of confiscation and insisted that political equality did not imply the end of class distinctions.” But talk of confiscation was especially powerful in 1867 because “successive crop failures had left those on share contracts with little or no income and caused a precipitous decline in cash wages.” 1867 was a bad time to “preach individual self-help to black belt freedmen,” who felt poor and dependent. “Rural blacks raised, once again, the demand for land.” The 1867 “Reconstruction Act rekindled the belief that the federal government intended to provide freedmen with homesteads”.[1]

One member of the white Northern elite who supported confiscation was Thaddeus Stevens. The May 18, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly (page 306) thought the Pennsylvania Congressman’s version of “a mild confiscation” might be inexpedient, but it knew where he was coming from:

… But it is very foolish to speak of Mr. STEVENS’s desire of confiscation as a frantic act of vengeance. His philosophy is very far from ridiculous. Mr. STEVENS, of course, does not suppose that the late rebels, as a rule, are friendly to the freedmen. He sees them soliciting the freedmen’s votes because they are essential to their political success. He knows that the white leaders who are hostile to the Union party will use every means to obtain control of the colored vote. He also sees that no provision whatever has been made for giving the freedmen land; and he knows, as every reflecting man knows, that without land they lack a vital element of substantial citizenship. Now voters who must work upon the land every day to live are immediately dependent for bread upon the landholders; and where, as in the South, the late masters are the landholders and the late slaves are the laborers it is easy to see what an influence can be exerted. …

According to a letter Congressman Stevens wrote to local officials, confiscation for the benefit of the southern freedmen was only a part of a larger confiscation scheme. From The New-York Times June 2, 1867:

Thaddeus Stevens (https://www.loc.gov/item/2003664854/)

would-be confiscator

A New Phase of Confiscation – Another Letter from Hon. Thaddeus Stevens.

From the Bedford (Pa.) Inquirer.

LANCASTER, Thursday, May 23, 1867.

[To various county and town officials]

GENTLEMEN: As I am about to prosecute the claims for confiscation at the next session of Congress, if I should be permitted to appear there, I desire to ascertain certain facts. Will you aid me in procuring them in a small part of our own State? Invite returns from all the people in each township of the amount of property which the rebel raiders, or the armies of the so-called “Confederate States,” destroyed or appropriated to their own use during their several incursions into Pennsylvania, and hand the same to the Assessors of the different townships, who are requested to return the aggregate to the Chairmen of the respective parties of the different counties. May I here ask that the various newspapers of the counties above named, publish this notice for a few weeks in aid of the object specified as I intend to press the payment of the damages done to loyal men, out of the confiscated property of the conquered belligerent. …

THADDEUS STEVENS

P.S. [He would like all the people of all the loyal states to eventually tally up their losses and be recompensed from the confiscated property.]

… I trust that it will not be supposed that I have abandoned the determination to procure small homesteads for the freedmen, to be furnished by the rebel masters whom they conquered at our request – homesteads earned by the late slaves and annexed to their master’s estates. Let them now be severed by partition. …

Journalist and abolitionist Horace Greeley wearing hat ([between 1860 and 1872]; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016652257/)

Whiggery ascendant?

Could Horace Greeley’s opposition to confiscation be a symptom of his strong Whig values? Adam Tuchinsky [2] wrote that “[p]erhaps the most dramatic example of the postwar revival of Greeley’s Whiggery was his role in securing the release of Jefferson Davis from jail. Greeley’s gesture to Davis reflected his fervent hope that that the ‘better classes’ of the North and the South could be reconciled.” Even though his newspaper was “packed with reports of Southern racism and violence,” Mr. Greeley’s benevolence toward Jeff Davis was an example of “one more eruption of his intrinsic Whiggery, his faith that all conflicts, social and sectional, could be reasonably harmonized.” His opposition to confiscation might also come from the Whig view that society is organic. Individuals and institutions have different abilities and different roles to play, which can work together. “This Whig sensibility recoiled in horror from violence, passion, conflict, crime, and especially insurrection and war – all represented a breakdown of discipline and reason.”

From the Library of Congress: inside the First African Church from the June 27, 1874 issue of Harper’s Weekly; outside in 1865 (original building not torn down until 1876); Gerrit Smith, Thaddeus Stevens, and Horace Greeley
  1. [1]Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperPerennial, 2014. Updated Edition. Print. pages 289-290.↩
  2. [2]Tuchinsky, Adam. Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune: Civil War-Era Socialism and the Crisis of Free Labor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Print. page 221.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mobile targets

Posted on May 18, 2017 by SUMPTER
Harper's_weekly_(1867)_(14596297980)(June 1, 1867 HARPERS WEEKLY; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harper%27s_weekly_(1857)_(14596297980).jpg)

incendiary

150 years ago earlier this week a riot broke out in Mobile, Alabama. From The New-York Times May 15, 1867:

RIOT IN MOBILE.

Attack by Secessionists upon Judge Kelley – Several Men Shot.

MOBILE, Tuesday, May 14.

A large number of negroes met to night at the corner of Government and Royal streets, to hear Judge KELLEY, of Pennsylvania. A number of whites were also present, and everything was remarkably quiet until Judge KELLEY began speaking, saying he had come to discuss the rights of negroes. He declared he was entitled to a hearing, and bid defiance to all interruptions and to the world. He had the Fifteenth Regiment at his back; if they proved inadequate, he would have the whole United States Army. Judge KELLEY continued this strain some minutes, using language and expressions of an incendiary character, and sentiments which were calculated to lead and invite riotous demonstrations. He was interrupted by a white man on the outskirts of the crowd, whom the Police promptly arrested. The first shot was fired at this point. It was impossible to say who it was fired by; instantaneously shots followed from the negroes, who were all armed. The firing then became general. Immediately after the firing began, an alarm was rung, and continued ringing during the progress of the riot, which lasted about an hour. A large majority of the shots were fired by negroes, as but very few of the whites present were armed. The police succeeded in quelling the riot before the arrival of the companies of the Fifteenth Regiment, who were ordered out by Col. SHEPHERD, and appeared on the ground as soon as possible, but not until the meeting had been dispersed. They now guard the streets. Everything is quiet, and there was little or no excitement at midnight. It is impossible to state positively the number of killed and wounded.

Battle House, Mobile, Ala. (c1901; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/det1994014624/PP/)

Battle House in Mobile, around 1901

Three men are known to have been killed, one a white man, and two negroes. A number are wounded, among them one policeman and a white boy.

Judge KELLEY is at the Battle House, and leaves to-morrow for Montgomery.

The same correspondent provided further particulars the next day, including the fact the army was posted throughout the city, including a squad of soldiers guarding the Battle House. An editorial in the May 16, 1867 issue of The New-York Times was concerned about the violence and black demands for confiscation and political supremacy extreme radicalism was stirring up in various southern states. The editorial maintained that, although free speech was fundamental and everyone had the right to say whatever they wanted wherever they wanted without fearing for their life, Mr. Kelley and other radicals speaking in the South should be more prudent:

Here, we take it, is the fundamental error of the extremists as agitators at the South: they forget that political discussion, to be useful, should be temperate and reasonable, and they disregard the prudence which dictates courtesy and conciliation as the surest avenues to the judgment of the Southern people. They make the mistake of imagining that to be preëminently loyal it is necessary to be preëminently abusive, and that the pacification and reorganization of the South may be promoted by scolding and threatening rather than by forbearance and generosity.

mobile and defenses (The Philadelphia Inquirer, [newspaper]. April 18, 1865; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/scsm001262/)

siege mentality?

Walter L. Fleming in his 1905 Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (page 509) laid the blame for the Mobile riot directly on Mr. Kelley:

On May 14, Judge “Pig Iron” Kelly of Pennsylvania spoke in Mobile to an audience of one hundred respectable whites and two thousand negroes, the latter armed. His language toward the whites was violent and insulting, an invitation for trouble, which inflamed both races. A riot ensued for which he was almost solely to blame. Several whites were killed or wounded and one negro. From the guarded report of General Swayne it was evident that the blame lay upon Kelly for exciting the negroes. It was a most unfortunate affair at a critical period, and the people began to understand the kind of control that would be exercised over the blacks by alien politicians.

On the other hand, the June 1, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly copied a report from another newspaper and maintained there wasn’t much inflammatory in Mr. Kelley’s speech – at least by the time he gave it Montgomery (page 339):

ALARMING.

Kelley, Hon. W.W.D. of PA. (between 1870 and 1880; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/brh2003000362/PP/)

“radical incendiary”?

WE find the following atrocious sentiments in the speech delivered at Montgomery a day or two after the Mobile riot by that fanatical incendiary and radical disorganizer, Judge KELLEY. We quote from the report in the New York Herald:
“He urged them to build rolling-mills, erect furnaces, employ the water-power at Wetumpka and up in the other cotton districts, and to rotate their crops as we do in the North. The day will come when Alabama will not confine herself to cotton as her sole crop, but she will send her railroad iron to the Gulf. The wives and daughters of men as dusky as those around him would spin the cotton. They need not tell him they can’t do it; for he had visited the colored schools and found enough of talent and intelligence there to convince him that they had the laborers at hand if they only trained them. Addressing the white people, Mr. KELLEY said he failed to find any other reason for the difference between the North and South than their contempt for the rights of man as man. He urged them to set aside their prejudices and reconstruct the South promptly and willingly. If that were done he would declare, in behalf of the whole country, that the present laws of Congress would be a finality unless it was driven to enact harsher measures, and before many years the South would be more liberal and as prosperous as the North. He then addressed the freedmen, reminding them that their freedom meant the right to toil for their living and get paid for it, but in doing so they must be just to all. Freedom means that a good man is better than a bad man, and the smart man wins the race. They were at liberty to protect their wives, and they should take care of them, and send their children to school, that they might have a lighter task to endure than their fathers. They must live in peace with the people of Alabama. They will have to pay taxes and study the politics of their country. Let those who were mechanics try to start for themselves, and those who were farm-laborers should avail themselves of the homestead law; or, if the government lands were too far away, Congress would see that land-offices should be brought nearer to the people. He was not the agent of a party, but he loved the party he belonged to because of its great principles. Devotion to the Union and belief in the rights of man were its two bases.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, [newspaper]. April 18, 1865. (https://www.loc.gov/resource/lprbscsm.scsm1262/?sp=1)

The North mourns as it continues to wrap up the war

Mardi Gras, Mobile, Alabama (by Carol M. Highsmith, 2010; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2010637324/)

riotous Mobile

Mardi Gras, Mobile, Alabama (by Carol M. Highsmith, 2010; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2010637182/)

more from the Mardi Gras

Sumpter chuckled a few days ago when he read about something else he apparently has in common with President Trump. Lexington reported (The Economist May 6, 2017 page 30) that “Trump aides have warned that their boss does not respond well to detail-heavy briefings, preferring stirring stories, pictures and maps.”
The cartoon from the June 1, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly can be found at Wikimedia Commons. From the Library of Congress: Battle House from around 1901 – it is written that the hotel was built in 1852, renovated in 1900, and then burned to the ground in 1905 Stephen A. Douglas was a guest election night 1860; the map from the April 18, 1865 issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer The front page included information about the assassination of President Lincoln and the capture of Mobile;William Darrah Kelley, who was a proofreader for the The Philadelphia Inquirer early in his life; Thanks to Carol M. Highsmith’s photographs, I found out what a colorful event the Mardi Gras in Mobile is. There are many pictures at the Library, including left, right (Sumpter likes flags, too.) According to the Library of Congress: “Mardi Gras began in Mobile, Alabama in 1703 when it was a colony of French soldiers. Colorful beads and Moon Pies (two large cookies with marshmellow in between and covered with various flavors of chocolate) are thrown from the floats.”; cotton cart c1906.
A Typical cotton cart, Mobile, Ala. (c1906; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/det1994012053/PP/)

Driving King Cotton

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

free at last

Posted on May 13, 2017 by SUMPTER
Scene at the U.S. District Court, Richmond, Va., Monday, May 13th - Mr. Jefferson Davis brought before the court by Gen. Burton, on a writ of habeas corpus / from a sketch by our special artist. ( Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, 1867 June 1, p. 168.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/93510099/)

“Scene at the U.S. District Court, Richmond, Va., Monday, May 13th – Mr. Jefferson Davis brought before the court by Gen. Burton, on a writ of habeas corpus”

Having been imprisoned for nearly two years in Fortress Monroe, Jefferson Davis, the one and only Confederate president, was bailed out 150 years ago today. Here’s a summary from the June 1, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly (page 338):

TRIAL OF JEFF DAVIS.

CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE issued a writ of habeas corpus on May 8, requiring the person of JEFFERSON DAVIS to be brought before the United States Circuit Court for the District of Virginia. The writ was served on General BURTON, the commandant at Fortress Monroe, on May 11, and the same day the prisoner was taken to Richmond, where a mounted guard received him and held him in custody at the Spottswood Hotel until May 13. During Sunday he held a levee, to which his friends were admitted without any restriction. On May 13 he was brought by General BURTON before Judge UNDERWOOD and delivered up to the civil authorities, thus finally releasing him from military custody. Judge UNDERWOOD ordered his arrest on the indictment found against him in his court a year ago, and the prisoner was at once taken in charge. The attorneys of the Government having announced that they were not prepared to prosecute at this term of the court, a motion was made to release the prisoner on bail. The motion was granted, and the bail fixed at one hundred thousand dollars. HORACE GREELEY, AUGUSTUS SCHELL, JOHN MINOR BOTTS, and thirteen others were accepted as securities. …

You can read a more complete account of the proceedings in the May 14, 1867 issue of The New-York Times.

Born, raised and educated in New York State, John Curtiss Underwood “was one of the most conspicuous antislavery activists in Virginia during the 1850s, one of the first members of the Republican Party in Virginia, a federal judge from 1863 to 1873, and the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868.”

Peace_Meeting_of_Horace_Greeley_and_Jeff_Davis_at_Richmond1 (Harper's Weekly June 1, 1867; http://dig.library.vcu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/rpr/id/77)

“in the court-room at Richmond”

The bail bond of Mr. Jefferson Davis, late president of the Confederate States, with all the original signatures thereto. [Richmond, 1867]. (https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.1870400a/)

freedom for $100K

From the Library of Congress: scene at court from the June 1, 1867 issue of Frank Leslie’s; bail bond; Carol M. Highsmith’s photo at the Richmond Confederate White House. You see the picture of Messrs. Davis and Greeley from the June 1, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly at VCU.
Confederate White House, Richmond, Virginia (by Carol M. Highsmith; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011630929/)

Confederate White House, Richmond, Virginia

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

riled in Richmond

Posted on May 12, 2017 by SUMPTER
Riot in Richmond, May 11, 1867—The Soldiers Dispersing the Mob (Harper's Weekly, June 1, 1867, p. 341; http://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/items/show/621)

rabble aroused?

From The New-York Times May 13, 1867:

More Trouble with the Negroes in Richmond – Arrest of a Speaker at a Freedmen’s Meeting.

RICHMOND, Sunday, May 12.

Another riot occurred in the lower portion of the city last night. The negroes attempted to rescue a drunken negro from the police, and bricks, clubs and pistols were used. Four policemen were badly beaten and one was severely injured. A company of soldiers, who were guarding the Libby Prison, were called out, and captured eighteen of the rioters. While this was going on another difficulty occurred on First-street, but it was quieted by the persuasion of a colored juryman.

To-day mounted soldiers patrolled the streets to keep order, and squads of policemen were placed at all of the churches in view of threats of the negroes to force their way in among the white people.

A large procession of negro societies attended a funeral to-day accompanied by an unarmed company of colored militia, the officers of which carried swords. There was no disturbance.

JEDEKIAH K. HAYWARD, of Massachusetts, was arrested last night for using language at a negro meeting on Friday night, calculated to create a riot. His language was as follows: “After Judge UNDERWOOD leaves you can hold high carnival on what you please. I need not advise you what to do, for great bodies do as they have a mind to.” He was arrested on a warrant from the Mayor, and was released on $3,000 bail to appear to-morrow.

According to The Yale Courant Volume II (1866-1867 page 274 at Google Books:

Jedekiah K. Hayward, who has appeared as an incendiary speech-maker in Richmond, was in Dartmouth College the first year of the war, but did not graduate in consequence of an unpleasantness with his fellow students and the Faculty.

The June 1, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly (page 341) provides an image “soldiers dispersing the mob” and notes “a bitter feeling prevailing against the police, who are former rebel soldiers appointed by the Mayor, who is also an unreconstructed rebel.”

Richmond, Virginia. Washington monument (1865 Apr.; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-01277)

in more peaceful times?

The Harper’s image is provided by Virginia Memory at the Library of Virginia.The photo at Washington’s Monument in Richmond comes from the Library of Congress. It is said to be from April 1865, presumably after the Confederates fled and federals moved in.
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

southern radical Republicans

Posted on May 3, 2017 by SUMPTER

Mobilized in Mobile

From The New-York Times May 4, 1867:

Colored Convention in Mobile.

MOBILE, Ala., Friday, May 3.

A colored mass convention of the State has been in session here for two days, and adjourned to day. The delegates stated that the negroes, in many instances have been cheated out of their earnings, molested and badly treated in the districts they represent; but in some places they were treated well. The Convention declared itself radical. …

The convention resolved to become part of the Republican party after declaring that the political oppressors of the blacks tried to keep them out of the Republican party. The convention endorsed the actions of the area’s military commanders – Generals Pope and Swayne. It called for a standing army to protect black rights and was especially opposed to ex-slaves being terminated from employment for their political views. The convention called for inter-racial peace. It also called for schools, military courts to try violations of the Civil Rights bill, and a Union League in every county.

The following additional resolution was then adopted:

“That it is our undeniable right to hold office, sit on juries, ride in all public conveyances, sit at public tables and visit places of public amusement.”

Great naval victory in Mobile Bay, Aug. 5th 1864 (New York : Published by Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St., [1864?]; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2001704280/)

federal presence about three years earlier

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Sickles’ salient

Posted on April 27, 2017 by SUMPTER
"The tyrannical military despotism of our Republic" / Th. Nast. ( Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. XI, no. 543 (1867 May 25), p. 324.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016651391/)

veneration issues

After the war General Daniel Sickles commanded the army in South Carolina area. On March 11, 1867 he was appointed commander of the second military district (North and South Carolina) under Congress’s Reconstruction Acts. 150 years ago today he halted a parade in Charleston until an American could be procured and displayed. He detailed exactly how the marchers were to respond to the national banner.

From The New-York Times April 28, 1867:

Fireman’s Parade at Charleston, S.C. – No Stars and Stripes in the Procession – Gen. Sickles Stops the Parade until one is Procured.

CHARLESTON, S.C., Saturday, April 27.

The annual parade of the Fire Department of Charleston was to have taken place this morning at 10 o’clock. The procession was about starting, but here [sic] being a total absence of an American flag in the column, notwithstanding the great number of all sorts of other banners, Gen. SICKLES addressed the Post Commandant, Brevet Brig. Gen. CLITZ, the following letter, and ordered the column not to move until the requirements of this letter were complied with:

Major General Daniel Edgar Sickles of 70th New York Infantry Regiment and General Staff U.S. Volunteers Infantry Regiment in uniform] / From negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016646188/)

march choreographer

GENERAL: You remember the regrets we expressed to prominent citizens on the day of the last firemen’s parade, that the American flag was not seen in the column. It was then said to have been an inadvertant omission. It is reported to me this morning that among the various emblems borne by the several companies at the rendezvous on the citadel parade ground the flag is not there. I desire that you will at once send for the Chief of the Fire Department, and inform him that the national standard must be borne in front of the column; that an escort of honor, to consist of two members of each company present, will be detailed by himself to march with the colors; that the colors be placed opposite the reviewing personages on the ground designated for review, and that every person in the column shall salute the colors by lifting his hat or cap on arriving at the point three paces distant from the colors, and carrying the cap uplifted, marching past the colors to the point three paces distant from the same.

The Mayor of the city, the Chief of the Fire Department and the foremen of the companies will be held responsible for the observance of this order, and they are hereby authorized and required to arrest any person who disobeys it. You will take such measures as you may find to be necessary to insure the execution of this order. Very respectfully,

D.E. SICKLES, Major-General Commanding.
To Brevet Brig. Gen. H.B. CLITZ, United States Army. Commanding Post of Charleston, S.C.
Official: J.W. CLOUS, Captain Thirty-eighth Infantry, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

When informed of this order by Gen. KLITZ, the Chief of the Fire Department expressed, on behalf of the Fire Department, cheerful obedience, and the procession is now waiting until an American flag can be procured.

                Later.

A flag has been procured and the procession is now moving.

Stonewall

An editorial denied that General sickles’ order was arbitrary authoritarianism. The commandant knew best. From the May 25, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly (page 323):

MAJOR-GENERAL SICKLES AND THE FLAG.
THE action of General SICKLEs in ordering the National flag to be carried and respected by the Firemen’s procession in Charleston has been severely criticised by the Copperheads as the “iron heel,” and by some Union papers as an unnecessary and therefore impolitic stretch of authority. Now it is precisely such details of conduct which can not be judged at a distance. The wisdom or impolicy of such an order depends entirely upon the information of the commander upon the spot. Of course it seemed at first sight harsh that the General should have ordered the flag to be borne in a procession which, as it was reported, never carried any flag. It appeared to be as arbitrary as an order to any private person or corporation to display the flag upon his dwelling-house or office. But if the General had issued such an order as that, have we not had experience enough to know that probably it would not have been without reason?

The state bank at Charleston, S.C. (- Illus. in: Harper's Weekly, v. 15, 1867; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002736335/)

no national banner at the state bank in Charleston

So it proves in the present case. It appears that at the Firemen’s parade of last year the American flag was not seen; the General expressed his regrets, and the omission was reported to him by the authorities and citizens as an inadvertence. When the column was assembling upon this occasion, instead of appearing without flags or emblems, which was stated to be the rule, the companies carried various emblems, but the American flag was omitted. The Stonewall Fire Engine Company appeared in the rebel gray uniform, and with a full-sized portrait of STONEWALL JACKSON suspended over their engine. It was plain that the parade was to be a covert ovation in memory of the rebellion, and the Major-General of the United States commanding the district therefore said to the proper authorities: “I shall not forbid the honor you wish to show in this way to a man whom you respect, but it certainly shall not be done at the expense of the honor of the United States; you will also carry and respect the National flag.”

Such an act of firmness shows to the mourners of the “lost cause” that the United States are in earnest. When a State is under military rule it is so because the State is in a condition in which words and forms are deeds. The commanding General, who understands exactly what public demonstrations mean, is the best judge what shall be allowed to be said and done.

Authority is an interesting thing. It’s already been almost four years since Day 2 at the Battle of Gettysburg. Without General Meade’s authorization General Sickles moved his Third Corps to the Peach Orchard about .7 miles ahead of the main Union line on Cemetery Ridge. A salient was born. Although the Third Corps was routed and Sickles lost his leg, some historians believe the unexpected position in the Peach Orchard may have confounded and somewhat disrupted the rebel assault.
Gettysburg_Battle_Map_Day2 (Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW)

got ahead in the field

Gettysburg battlefield / Jno. B. Bachelder, del. ; Endicott & Co. lith, N.Y. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/93517377/)

Bird’s Eye View of Gettysburg Battlefield

The battle of Gettysburg (by Edwin Forbes; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004661440/)

temporary insanity?

April 28th: Yesterday I forgot to mention what originally forgot to mention last month. Thomas Nast’s cartoon of the firemen venerating the Stonewall Jackson portrait reminded me that On March 24, 1867 John Decatur Barry died. It is written that at the time Major Barry gave the order to fire that wounded Stonewall Jackson at Battle of Chancellorsville. According to the Wikipedia link “Some of his friends and family said that Barry “died of a broken heart” for his role in Jackson’s death.” The North Carolinian was 27 tears old when he died.

 

John D. Barry, 1839-1867 (https://www.loc.gov/item/2002710119/)

John D. Barry

Hal Jespersen’s map is licensed by Creative Commons
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good rebellion, bad rebellion

Posted on April 19, 2017 by SUMPTER
Civil War Memorial, Monument Square, Concord MA (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Civil_War_Memorial,_Monument_Square,_Concord_MA.jpg)

Faithful Unto Death

Ninety-two years after militia in Lexington and Concord started the shooting rebellion against Great Britain a monument was dedicated in Concord. The monument honored those who gave their lives putting down the South’s more recent rebellion.

From The New-York Times April 21, 1867:

Dedication of a Soldiers’ Monument at Concord.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON delivered the address at the dedication of a Soldiers’ Monument at Concord, Mass, the 19th inst. It was mainly devoted to items of personal history of the men of the town who fell in the war, attesting their heroism and touchingly detailing their sufferings, privation and dangers in the war, introduced in the orator’s most pleasing and eloquent manner, together with a running commentary upon the education which the suffering of the war gave the people of the country; alleging that it conclusively proved that that State only could live in which injury to the least member is a damage to the whole. In conclusion Mr. EMERSON said: “The obelisk records only the names of the dead. There is something partial in this distribution of honor. Those who went through those dreadful fields and returned not deserve much more than all the honor we can pay. But those also who went through the same fields, and returned alive, put just as much at hazard as those who died, and, in other countries, would wear distinctive badges of honor as long as they lived. I hope the disuse of such medals or badges in this country only signifies that everybody knows these men, and carries their deeds in such lively remembrance that they require no badge or reminder. I am sure I need not bespeak your gratitude to these fellow citizens and neighbors of ours. I hope they will be content with the laurels of one war.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right (https://www.loc.gov/item/96510824/)

“the cannon volleys have a sound of funeral echoes”

But let me, in behalf of this assembly, speak directly to you, our defenders, and say, that it is easy to see that if danger should ever threaten the homes which you guard, the knowledge of your presence will be a wall of fire for their protection. Brave men! you will hardly be called to see again fields as terrible as those you have already trampled with your victories.
There are people who can hardly read the names on yonder bronze tablet, the mist so gathers in their eyes. Three of the names are of sons of one family. A gloom gathers on this assembly, composed as it is of kindred men and women, for, in many houses, the dearest and noblest is gone from their hearth-stone. Yet it is tinged with light from heaven. A duty so severe has been discharged, and with such immense results of good, lifting private sacrifice to the sublime, that, though the cannon volleys have a sound of funeral echoes, they can yet hear through them the benedictions of their country and mankind.”

I took the final quotation directly from Bartleby.com, where you can read the entire address with tons of notes and addenda. You can read more about Concord’s Monument at CT Monuments.net. In addition to being the date of the Pratt Street riot, April 19, 1861 was also the day volunteers from Concord first departed for the Civil War.

John Phelan’s 2010 photo of the Concord Civil War monument is licensed by Creative Commons
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a war welcome

Posted on April 13, 2017 by SUMPTER
NY Times 4-6-1917

NY Times 4-6-1917

In April 1917 the United States entered World War One. 100 years ago today New Yorkers could read a sort of welcoming poem hot off the cable from a famous British writer.

NY Times 4-13-1917

NY Times 4-13-1917

Rudyard Kipling had personal experience of the war-related dying flesh. His “son John was killed in action in the First World War, at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at age 18.”

Leviathan HistofWorldWar (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18993/18993-pdf.pdf?session_id=8888ab8537470fcd1cc33bf0c1457dcc7d09d349)

big doughboy conveyor

Rudyard Kipling (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2004003724/)

“For Freedom’s Brotherhood”

______________________________________________

Thanks to The Economist for explaining that the U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917; I didn’t have the month down. In his column Lexington wrote about President Calvin Coolidge at the dedication of a World War I monument in Kansas City, Missouri in 1926. It doesn’t seem that the president took the part of or spoke as if he were The American Spirit, but he did refer to it: “If the American spirit fails, what hope has the world?”
Lexington also mentioned that members of the 69th New York State militia (“the fighting Irish”) were so angry to be issued uniforms with British brass buttons when they got to Europe in 1917 that they tore the tunics up. The 69th eventually fought alongside the British against the oppressive tyrants of the world. This gives me a chance to mention that the 1867 St. Patrick’s Day celebration in New York City, not included a serious riot initiated by marchers from Brooklyn, but also the presentation of a “stand of colors” to the 69th. The mayor complimented the regiment for its Civil War service. Lt. Col. James Cavanagh thanked the city for the colors and pledged that he and his men would defend the “emblems of a nation’s life and power.”
Uncle Sam shaking hands with the marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) (Paris : Cornille & Serre, [1917]; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/99613683/)

“Uncle Sam shaking hands
with the marquis de Lafayette
(1757-1834)”

To France (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47484/47484-h/47484-h.htm#Page_100)

“To France!”

From the Library of Congress: Rudyard Kipling, Lafayette and Uncle Sam, Liberty Memorial. The image of Leviathan née Vaterland was published in History of the World War, by Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish at Project Gutenberg, where you can also view the American political cartoon
Liberty Memorial, 100 West Twenty-sixth Street, Kansas City, Jackson County, MO (1936?; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.mo1855.photos/?sp=1)

Liberty Memorial, K.C

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atrocious

Posted on April 8, 2017 by SUMPTER
NY Times April 2, 1867

NY Times April 2, 1867

I can’t keep up, and I’m getting slower. This has been a great hobby, and I am learning some facts about the Reconstruction era, but there seems like so much to try to understand. And I keep getting distracted. I was looking through some headlines trying to find something about Generals Ord and Pope as they took over their new military districts in the South, but I was drawn to a headline that said natives killed about eighty occupants of a fort out West, so I investigated.

From The New-York Times, April 2, 1867:

[Headlines]

WASHINGTON, Monday, April 1.

A letter from a wife of a distinguished Army officer at St. Louis, received here this morning, confirms the report of the capture of Fort Buford, at the mouth of the Yellow Stone, on the upper Missouri. Col. RANKIN, his wife, a child and the whole garrison were slaughtered, in all about eighty souls. …

Fort_Buford_2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fort_Buford_2010.jpg)

*all that’s left*

The Philadelphia Inquirer of Monday morning, publishes the following extract from a private letter, dated Fort Sully, Dakotah Territory, Feb. 25, and received in that city on Saturday, concerning the affair mentioned above:

“There has been quite a stirring excitement in this part of the country with the red skins. I suppose you know of the Fort Kearney affair also. You ask me how far it is from us? It is about 1,500 miles northwest from here. By the upper mail, which arrived here to-day, we heard some very bad news from Fort Buford. There was one company of our regiment stationed there, under the command of Col. RANKIN. The Indians made an attack on that little band, and it appears from all accounts that they fought bravely until outnumbered by the red skins, who killed them all but the Colonel and wife. They then took them a few yards from the post, and having built a fire, tied the Colonel’s hands and feet and put him in the fire, while his wife was compelled to see him burning. After that was done they maltreated her in a shameful manner, and having rolled her up in a buffalo robe, they fastened her on a wild [?] horse and turned him loose. God only knows how long she was on the prairie, but it happened, very fortunately, that the mail carriers for that fort encountered her in that condition, and after they had heard who she was they took her in charge and returned with her and the mails to Fort Rice.

- Fort Buford, Old Powder Magazine, Buford, Williams County, ND (Documentation compiled after 1933; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/nd0066/)

*remains of Fort Buford’s powder magazine*

The Indians were 1,800 strong – our men only ninety-six. They fought them three days; but on the third day the Indians took the place, scalped all the dead, and those who were officers they cut up into small pieces and ate them. That is considered bravery. It will not be good for them if they make their appearance around this fort. We are very well guarded. There are six companies here – four of infantry, one of cavalry and one of artillery. The weather has been very cold. We have lost nearly all of our stock – frozen to death. …

What a horrible story … but it turns out that it was just a story. The letter was fictitious. I did some de facto fact-checking at Wikipedia’s article about Fort Buford; it seems that the reported massacre was a hoax:

Sitting Bull / photographed & published by Palmquist & Jurgens, St. Paul, Minn. (c1884.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3g07960/)

forked tongue white skins

The harassing raids and resulting lack of communication from the isolated post led to the perpetration of a hoax, the “Fort Buford Massacre”, purporting that the fort had been wiped out, Capt. Rankin captured and tortured to death, and Rankin’s wife captured and abused. The episode began when the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story April 1, 1867, based on a letter allegedly written from the fort, which was then picked up and run the next day nationwide. It was given “legs” by a letter published April 6 in the Army and Navy Journal, attributed to the wife of a prominent Army officer, confirming the massacre. Although by April 4 many newspapers had begun to question the validity of the report, The Chicago Daily Times, Detroit Free Press, New York Daily Tribune, New York Times, and Boston Herald, among others, continued to feed the rumors with further stories for another month, many of them accusing the Army and the Johnson Administration of covering up the massacre. The hoax was eventually exposed by Rankin himself in correspondence to the war department.

Although the general harassing by the Lakota of Fort Buford lasted until the early 1870s, the worst was during that first year, June 1866 to May 1867. In May, the Missouri River thawed allowing the sternwheeler steamboat Graham to reinforce the garrison with additional riverboats arriving in June carrying Companies B, F, G, and part of E thereby enabling the garrison to better defend itself and allow for more permanent structures to be built.

Actually the New-York Times began publishing a few articles that doubted the truth of the massacre starting April 6th. By May 19th the paper had no doubt that the letter was false:

The Reported Massacre at Fort Buford

Map14-35 (http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH/Map14-35.jpg; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Western_Indian_Wars.jpg)

plenty of real violence

It is now authoritatively settled that the reported massacre at Fort Buford was a deliberate misrepresentation. Advices have been received from Col. RANKIN, bearing date subsequent to that of the alleged massacre. It is almost impossible to conceive a mind base enough to invent so malicious a falsehood, one so calculated to wring the feelings of those who had friends in that isolated garrison.

The story probably had its origin among emigrants’ agents, who were interested in turning the tide of emigration from the Northwest to points further South, and for the few weeks during which the reports of Indian outrages were uncontradicted it probably had its effect. The fact, however, that the garrison at Fort Buford was not massacred, as reported, does not lessen in the slightest degree the force of the criticism which that report revoked. … [The Indians are threatening and have killed some whites. There are many soldiers idling around Eastern states. They should be sent west to protect the emigrants.]

The Indian is naturally a coward when brought in conflict with the white man, and never attacks unless the superiority of numbers is with him. To save the Indians as well as the whites, troops should be sent to the plains. [especially cavalry. The garrisons are “baits to whet the bloody appetite of the Indians”. The Government hasn’t done anything to prevent a real massacre.]

Wikipedia’s Fort Buford article does say there was sporadic fighting with casualties between Lakotas (at least once led by Sitting Bull) and the garrison at Fort Buford from its beginning in June 1866.

FlintWestwood’s 2010 photo of Fort Buford is licensed by Creative Commons. *According to this link at Wikipedia all the main structures still remaining at Fort Buford were built after 1867, including the stone powder magazine, the photo of which I got at the Library of Congress. Also from the library: Sitting Bull portrait (c1884) and with family (c1882). The United Sates Army provides the map (Fort Buford in modern North Dakota) via Wikipedia
Sitting Bull, squaw and twins (c1882; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2005684832/)

“To save the Indians as well as the whites, troops should be sent to the plains”

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