bait and scalp

Posted on December 21, 2016 by SUMPTER
The Indian battle and massacre near Fort Philip Kearney, Dacotah [sic] Territory, December 21, 1866 ( Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. 11, no. 534 (1867 March 23), p. 180; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2001700334/)

ambushed near the Bozeman Trail

On December 21 1866 a small band of Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne lured a force of about 80 United States soldiers away from the confines of Fort Phil Kearny, which was there to protect the Bozeman Trail, and into a trap. An estimated 1,000 American Indians won the resulting Fetterman Fight by killing the entire United States contingent. First reports apparently had the battle on December 22nd. Here’s one section of the coverage in The New-York Times of December 28, 1866:

THE INDIAN TROUBLES.
          ________
THE FORT PHILIP KEARNY MASSACRE.
          ________

…The Indian Troubles at Fort Philip Kearny – Slaughter of United States Troops – Eighty-seven Killed.

FORT LARAMIE, Thursday, Dec. 27.

The Indians are very troublesome, and the troops at Fort William Kearny have been almost in a state of siege for weeks past. On the 22d a number of Indians came near the post, and Brevet Lt.-Col. FELTMAN [Fetterman], Capt. J.H. BROWN and Lieut. GLUMMOND [Grummond], all of the Eighteenth Infantry, gathered hastily 39 men of Company C, Second Cavalry, and 45 men of the Eighteenth Infantry, and went after the Indians. The troops were gradually drawn on until at a point four miles from the fort, when they were surrounded and slaughtered. Not a man escaped to tell the story of disaster. The bodies were stripped of every article of clothing, scalped and mutilated. Thirty bodies were found in a space not larger than a good sized room. Nearly all the bodies were recovered and buried in the fort. …

William Judd Fetterman enlisted in the Union army on May 14, 1861 and seems to have served in the Eighteenth U.S. Infantry throughout the Civil War and beyond. The Fetterman Fight was part of Red Cloud’s War, which is considered an American Indian victory, albeit a short-lived one. Red Cloud was living on a reservation after the Treaty of Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

[Red Cloud, Oglala division of Lakota, Sioux, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right wearing suit] / Trager and Kuhn, Chadron, Neb. (c1891; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c04561/)

Red Cloud c1891.

Red Cloud (c1905 December 26.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719668/)

Red Cloud c1905 December 26.

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

firewall

Posted on December 13, 2016 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this month an article about Reconstruction by Frederick Douglass was published in The Atlantic Monthly. In the first section Mr. Douglass asserted that the only way to protect the rights of ex-slaves in the South without creating a despotic federal government was to ensure that the ex-slaves had the right to vote.

From The Atlantic Monthly, VOL. XVIII.—DECEMBER, 1866.—NO. CX:

Statue of Fred. Douglass (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2006013463/(

long federal arm not long enough

RECONSTRUCTION.

The assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress may very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest words on the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.

Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude more intense, or of aspirations more sincere and ardent. There are the best of reasons for this profound interest. Questions of vast moment, left undecided by the last session of Congress, must be manfully grappled with by this. No political skirmishing will avail. The occasion demands statesmanship.

Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so victoriously ended shall pass into history a miserable failure, barren of permanent results,—a scandalous and shocking waste of blood and treasure,—a strife for empire, as Earl Russell characterized it, of no value to liberty or civilization,—an attempt to re-establish a Union by force, which must be the merest mockery of a Union,—an effort to bring under Federal authority States into which no loyal man from the North may safely enter, and to bring men into the national councils who deliberate with daggers and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal their deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or whether, on the other hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over treason, have a solid nation, entirely delivered from all contradictions and social antagonisms, based upon loyalty, liberty, and equality, must be determined one way or the other by the present session of Congress. The last session really did nothing which can be considered final as to these questions. The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. While there remains such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local affairs,—an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the country than perhaps any one other political idea,—no general assertion of human rights can be of any practical value. To change the character of the government at this point is neither possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

ballot_man_hand (http://www.wpclipart.com/holiday/election_Day/ballot_man_hand.png.html)

“a wall of fire for his protection”

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law. Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road. This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could. The true way and the easiest way is to make our government entirely consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise,—a right and power which will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for his protection. …

The image of the ballot box comes from WPClipart. The Library of Congress provides the photo of the statue, which appears to be located in Rochester, New York. You can get more detail at RIT
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

standing pat

Posted on December 8, 2016 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this week President Andrew Johnson delivered his second annual message to Congress. Despite the overwhelming Republican victory in Northern states in the 1866 midterm elections, President Johnson did not alter his position: Southern states should be readmitted to the Union and representation in Congress regardless of whether or not the state ratified the would be Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Here’s one Northern newspaper’s view, from The New-York Times of December 4, 1866:

Our presidents (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2006676651/)

“he has learned nothing from the elections”

The President’s Message.

President Johnson’s Message has the merit of comparative brevity. It discusses the aspect of the restoration question, embodies the salient points of the Departmental reports, offers suggestions on minor matters of practical legislation, and glances at our foreign relations – all with moderation and good temper, though not with uniform good taste.

On the exciting question of the day – the restoration of the Southern States and the relation of the Executive to Congress – the President has disappointed those who anticipated a change of tone or position. He has neither modified his views not [sic] given any indication of a readiness to concede aught of principle or policy to the demands of the governing States or Congress. He reviews the bearings of the question precisely as he reviewed them more than once during the last session. … He urges the immediate admission of “loyal members from the now unrepresented States” as a measure “imperatively demanded by every consideration of national interest, sound policy, and equal justice.” And he appeals to maxims of WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON and JACKSON to show that the course he recommends is in conformity with the lessons of illustrious statesmen.

It will be seen that the President offers nothing new. His statement of the case is a reiteration of the statement heard many times within the last nine months; his arguments have all been used before; and his recommendation is chiefly noticeable as evidence that he has learned nothing from the elections, and forgotten nothing in connection with his struggle with Congress. The pending Constitutional Amendment is not noticed in the Message, though of course the tenor of the whole argument is adverse to the principle on which the measure rests, and the purposes it is intended to serve. Negro suffrage, universal or qualified, is passed over untouched, and there is not the remotest allusion to an amnesty. In no respect does the President attempt to meet, or even indirectly to recognize, the recent manifestations of public opinion throughout the States which elevated him to office. On the contrary, he explicitly declares that his “convictions heretofore expressed, have undergone no change,” and that “their correctness has been confirmed by reflection and time.”

This exhibition of unyielding purpose on the part of the President may not occasion surprise to those who know the firmness of will which marks his character. We cannot but consider it, however, a serious error of judgment, and a source of difficulty which we would gladly have seen adverted in the session now opened. It has suited the Democratic Press to belittle the significance of the recent elections; but only something a little short of judicial blindness can have led Mr. JOHNSON to rely upon the Democratic rendering of popular opinion. He, of all men, should be able to estimate correctly the import of the verdict pronounced at the polls. He cannot complain of having been misrepresented or misunderstood. He was the exponent of his own case – the active, energetic champion of his own cause. He submitted his policy, in contradistinction to the policy of Congress, to the people of the North and West, everywhere avowing confidence in the rectitude of their intentions and in the sagacity of their judgment. When they decided against him, therefore, – when they repudiated his policy and ranged themselves on the side of Congress – it became his duty, not indeed to abandon his convictions, but to accept the will of the people as the law of his Administration, and either to withdraw all opposition to the Congressional plan, or to propose some new basis of adjustment. By neglecting to pursue one or the other of these courses he has lost the last opportunity of effecting a reconciliation with the great majority of the party that elected him, and has furnished a weapon to his adversaries which they wield to his detriment.

The South, already obstinate to the verge of insolence, will plead the weight of the Executive example. North Carolina has just exemplified its fitness for restoration by electing a conspicuous rebel, Judge MANLY, to the Senate. Alabama has illustrated its abounding loyalty by choosing as United States Senator another conspicuous rebel – Ex-Governor WINSTON. Texas testifies to its acceptance of the situation by tolerating – according to Gen. SHERIDAN – the killing of freedmen as of no more moment than the killing of dogs. And this state of things, bad as it is, and widespread as it seems to be, will grow worse under the influence of the feeling that the President is on the Southern side, and is fighting Congress in their behalf.

Charles Keck's statue honoring three North Carolina-born U.S. presidents: James K. Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, outside the state capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina (by Carol M. Highsmith (between 1980 and 2006); LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011632478/)

“He defended the Constitution”

The Radicals in Congress, meanwhile, are not slow to avail themselves of the pretext which the Message affords them. … How much further the attack upon his position may be carried, we venture not to prophesy. Enough that this renewal of the argument against the policy of Congress will assuredly be used to feed and intensify a most disastrous conflict of authority. …

According to Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson didn’t always prioritize state representation in Congress. In 1841 the Tennessee state legislature had to elect two U.S. senators. The Whigs would have controlled the joint session. Andrew Johnson, as a first-term state senator, joined twelve other Democrats who prevented the election of two Whigs by not showing up for a vote. Without a quorum no one was elected to the federal senate. The way I’m reading Wikipedia: Tennessee was completely unrepresented for about a year and a half until October 1843.[1] It wouldn’t have seemed to work out that well for the Immortal Thirteen in the long run: “No senators were elected before the session’s adjournment, and Tennessee remained unrepresented in the U.S. Senate for two years. The controversy proved a major liability for Democrats in the 1843 state elections, in which Whigs won control of both chambers and subsequently elected Ephraim Foster and Spencer Jarnigan to the U.S. Senate.”

From the Library of Congress: seventeenth; Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph of the three native North Carolinians
  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 46-47.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

thanks for the schooling

Posted on November 29, 2016 by SUMPTER
The Union must be preserved, Fabrica de Tabacos ... Habana (c1860; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/96516068/)

mission accomplished

The seventh Thanksgiving since Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. President Andrew Johnson unobstreperously followed Mr. Lincoln’s example by proclaiming a national commemoration. According to an editorial in The New-York Times all the states went along, except for Mississippi, whose citizens were “called to observe a fast and not a feast.” Another Times article that Richmond, the ex-Confederate capital, observed Thanksgiving with most shops being closed. Henry Ward Beecher delivered another Thanksgiving sermon at Plymouth Church, just as he did in 1860. The Times covered many of the sermons in the metropolitan area, including one from a Unitarian church in Manhattan.

From The New-York Times November 30, 1866:

The American Mind Under Six Years’ Schooling.

DISCOURSE IN THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH BY REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD.

For God has not given us the Spirit of peace [sic], but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind – 2d Epistle of Timothy, 1st chapter, 7th verse.

The boyhood of Lincoln--An evening in the log hut / E. Johnson 1868 ; W. Harring. (Boston : Chromo-lithographed and published by L. Prang & Co., c1868.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/99405503/)

“a learner like the rest of us”

The six years since November, 1860, have been the most memorable period in the history of America – more memorable even than the six years after the Declaration of Independence, in 1776 – since they have established the idea of that Declaration in its true meaning upon a new and immense domain, and alike in the face of home-insurrection and foreign hostility. Compare our position and temper when we met for worship Thanksgiving Day, 1860, and now. The election of President had passed, and the choice of the people called ABRAHAM LINCOLN to the seat of Government. It was generally supposed that the States in the minority would peacefully, although reluctantly, acquiesce in the decision. Alas! we little knew what was in store for us, and we turned away with incredulity, and almost with contempt, from the few, dark prophets who pointed out to us the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that was to swell into a fearful storm and break with fury upon the land. The speaker here gave some statistics showing that the country was by far more prosperous now than at any time previous to the war. The war had educated the American mind, given it experience, and rendered it practical in all things. He continued: It is hard to say what man best expresses the national idea, or embodies the American mind. We have had no WASHINGTON, HAMILTON or MADISON to guide us from the beginning, or even to tell us what was to happen. We had to make our own way, often in the dark, and our most conspicuous man was a learner like the rest of us; and honest ABRAHAM LINCOLN was willing to take his primer of patriotism and go to God’s school to learn what to do and say. He learned his lesson and said it to the people, and then died, struck by a foul hand that wrote its own doom, and the doom of its rebel crew, and turned the victim, who was sometimes the doubting patriot, into the triumphant martyr. We have had no great leader, and God means that the nation shall be great, and that the American mind itself shall be imperial, and shall need no one chief to imperil its dignity and perhaps tempt it to idolatry. Noble men we have, indeed, who have helped build up the national mind – perhaps, preachers, merchants, poets, journalists, orators, statesmen, philosophers – but the American mind is greater than them all, and follows the call of God and His providence, no matter what a President or Secretary of State, a popular preacher or a noted editor may say. The American mind has learned wisdom of God, and can say with confidence, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind.” The muscular force of the American mind tells upon its judgment, and our people judge of men and things not by the doctrinaire, but by the dynamic scale. They have been so often disappointed by mere professors, and have tried so many men, and found them wanting, that they have learned to be very discriminating, and to distinguish between the substance and the show. We ask now what a man really is and really can do, and wish to give fair play to every man, without expecting perfection from any. It is remarkable how shrewd our people are, and also how considerate. It is true that they do not mean to run into any extremes, or play the fool with zealots of any faction, or to run into the arms of sectionalists of either type. We mean to work out the problem of peace as we work out the problem of war, by wanting God’s will and doing our best as time called. The nation evidently expected to follow the lead of the President to speedy reconstruction, but they were disappointed in his temper and policy,especially in his veto of the Civil Rights Bill, and his somewhat greater disposition to fraternize with some of the old enemies of emancipation than with its friends. They are sorry that he loses his temper and dignity sometimes, and talks more vehemently than is well. Yet they give him his due and do not think that he meant to betray the old flag, little as he knows its highest worth. They take him as he is and hope to see him learn wisdom and calmness by disappointment. The party of conservative reconstruction was damaged, if not ruined, by the President’s undignified tour; and the party of progressive reconstruction may be sure of the same fate if they make the new apostle of impeachment their organ, and offend the common sense of the country by mistaking a smart lawyer or a staunch Provost-Marshal for a good General or a great statesman. The American mind has learned to like words less and deeds more. It looks with little satisfaction upon blatant orators of the stump or platform, and seems most pleased at present with that quiet man who, after doing the great thing that was to be done to make peace, and giving the order that finished the war, shut his mouth, and showed mainly by his lighted cigar that there was breath still in him and some fire too. The reverend gentleman continued at great length to illustrate how the events of the past six years had educated the American mind to rely upon itself, drawing its ideas of right and justice directly from God, and that those principles actuated it at all times. Speaking of the freedmen, he said: We are putting the dynamic estimate upon classes as well as persons. We have come to the conclusion that we all weigh something, and no useful class can be spared. The millions emancipated by the war – our freed people – are weighed and found not wanting. In 1860 they worked and gave the South its wealth and the North most of its trade. Since 1860 they have fought, and now, all free, they are mostly at work, and many of them and their children, thank God, are at school. They are free and intensely national in their feelings, and, with God’s grace, the great American mind is at work upon them and with them. Fair play for the freedmen in all respects and free suffrage – impartial, intelligent suffrage, for all our people of every hue and blood. Impartial suffrage – the ballot to all who know how to use it, but no ballot to idiots, dunces or sots, black or white.

President Johnson’s proclamation was filled with respectful references to God. According to Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, as a young Tennessee legislator in about 1840, “successfully moved to postpone a resolution calling for daily prayers to open legislative proceedings.”[1]

From the Library of Congress: advertisement; Eastman Johnson’s young Abe Lincoln
  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 41.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“pernicious isms of the day”

Posted on November 24, 2016 by SUMPTER
Charles Lenox Remond (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Lenox_Remond2.jpg)

Charles Lenox Remond

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper probably in 1866:

FANATICS IN COUNCIL. – A so-called Equal Rights Convention was held at Rochester, on Tuesday and Wednesday last, at which a strolling company of mountebank performers, half male and half female, who favor negro suffrage, woman’s rights, and all the other pernicious isms of the day, appeared. Parker Pillsbury, the negro Redmund [sic], Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and one or two other unsexed women, amused the small audience present.

I don’t think the event was held in Rochester. According to  November 21, 1866 issue of The New-York Times, the convention, with between 250 and 300attendees, was held in Albany, New York on November 19th-21st. Lucy Stone was the president of the convention. All the people mentioned in the Seneca County article attended, along with Frederick Douglass:

Lucy Stone with daughter Alice Stone Blackwell, half-length studio portrait, sitting, facing front (ca. 1858; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2005677274/)

Lucy Stone could vote AND take care of her babe

… Special Dispatch to the New-York Times
ALBANY, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 1866.

A call for a Convention of those who favor the rights of all persons to equal privileges in the eye of the law was held in Tweddle Hall, in this city, yesterday, and its sessions will continue through tomorrow. The old and shining lights of the anti-slavery rostrum, and the itinerent [sic] lecturers on womens’ rights were there, each and all ready with a panacea for the disordered condition of the country, and predicting a reign of peace and plenty when their suggestions should be heard. It will not be too much, probably, to say that FREDERICK DOUGLASS was the most distinguished in the gathering. He made a speech in his usual close and logical style, or in what his admirers term so, which was received with loud applause. …

Frederick Douglass House Parlor, Washington, D.C. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631100/)

“Frederick Douglass House Parlor, Washington, D.C.”

SPEECH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, being called on, said that he had not expected to speak, yet he was always prepared, and would comply with their requests. He had marveled that men had attempted to carry on the fabric of Government without calling in the assistance of women. He affirmed that it was impossible to think of any reason why man should construct a Government which would not apply equally to woman. We do not need government because we are men and women, but because we are human beings, capable of determining between right and wrong, and influenced by good and evil motives. All this, and more, applies to woman as well as to man, and there is not an argument which does not bear with equal weight for both. Our republican form of government is often spoken of as a masterly and unsurpassed specimen of workmanship, provided with checks and balances, which would insure its working right, and to which there is no other Government to be compared. I admit this in part, but not wholly, for there is a partial failure in that part which deprives woman of the franchises of freedom. It appeared to him that this was to be a Woman’s Rights Convention, instead of an Equal Rights Convention. He should not object to this if the women would only kindly take the negro by the hand and elevate him. For his part, he could not attend a public meeting without bringing the negro with him – in fact, he was inseparable. While he thought that the question of equal rights was of importance to women, he thought it was much more so to them. It was a question of life and death, for New-Orleans was remembered by them. Women have a hold on the affections of men, but his race had none on that of the ex-slaveholders. They disliked the black men, and it was therefore essential that they should have the power to vote. Women, if they get the power of voting, will raise the negro, and check the ravages of intemperance and degradation. They say, if woman votes, she will be indifferent to her household duties, and that she will be a mere echo of her husband. He denied this. The wife will look as tenderly on her babe as if she had not voted, and her duties as wife will be as well discharged. He did not see why she should not go with her husband to deposit a ballot, as well as to go to the Post-Office. If she commits a crime, she is punished like any other criminal, and she should have the rights of a citizen. If there was any objection in the minds of persons listening, he hoped to hear from them. He thought if the Convention which nominated LINCOLN and JOHNSON had been composed in part of women, the whole of that nomination would not have been made. …

So women could have saved the country from Andrew Johnson, who was showing himself to be opposed to freedmen aspirations. In a February 1866 meeting President Johnson told Mr. Douglass that he opposed black suffrage. According to Hans L. Trefousse, the president’s official mouthpiece, the Washington National Intelligencer, condemned the September 1866 Southern Loyalists’ Convention in Philadelphia for “welcoming Frederick Douglass. It was the first time a great party had practically carried out the theories of Negro equality,” even though the white race always considered itself superior. “It was obvious that Johnson shared this sentiment, and presumably few blacks or their supporters were taken in by his efforts to appear as their friend.” [1]

F Douglass speech (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34915/34915-h/34915-h.htm)

Frederick Douglass – abolition fanaticism in 1847

Abolitionism was certainly an ism that shook things up in the 19th century. Project Gutenberg provides a speech Frederick Douglass delivered in 1847. Here’s a paragraph:

…I cannot agree with my friend Mr. Garrison in relation to my love and attachment to this land. I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man. I am not thought of, spoken of, in any direction, out of the Anti-Slavery ranks, as a man. I am not thought of or spoken of, except as a piece of property belonging to some Christian Slaveholder, and all the Religious and Political Institutions of this Country alike pronounce me a Slave and a chattel. Now, in such a country as this I cannot have patriotism. The only thing that links me to this land is my family, and the painful consciousness that here there are 3,000,000 of my fellow creatures groaning beneath the iron rod of the worst despotism that could be devised even in Pandemonium,—that here are men and brethren who are identified with me by their complexion, identified with me by their hatred of Slavery, identified with me by their love and aspirations for Liberty, identified with me by the stripes upon their backs, their inhuman wrongs and cruel sufferings. This, and this only, attaches me to this land, and brings me here to plead with you, and with this country at large, for the disenthrallment of my oppressed countrymen, and to overthrow this system of Slavery which is crushing them to the earth. How can I love a country that dooms 3,000,000 of my brethren, some of them my own kindred, my own brothers, my own sisters, who are now clanking the chains of Slavery upon the plains of the South, whose warm blood is now making fat the soil of Maryland and of Alabama, and over whose crushed spirits rolls the dark shadow of Oppression, shutting out and extinguishing forever the cheering rays of that bright Sun of Liberty, lighted in the souls of all God’s children by the omnipotent hand of Deity itself? How can I, I say, love a country thus cursed, thus bedewed with the blood of my brethren? A Country, the Church of which, and the Government of which, and the Constitution of which are in favor of supporting and perpetuating this monstrous system of injustice and blood? I have not, I cannot have, any love for this country, as such, or for its Constitution. I desire to see it overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution shivered in a thousand fragments, rather than this foul curse should continue to remain as now. [Hisses and cheers.] …

I know I must live too much in the past … I was surprised to discover that there was a birthday party for Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls on November 12th this year. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass attended. Mrs. Stanton sure is holding up well for being 201. During her speech she alluded to her winter wheat quote. One advantage to living in the past – I discovered that public birthday parties for Elizabeth Cady Stanton were also a thing of the past.
The image of Charles L. Remond is licensed by Creative Commons. The cover from the abolition speech is at Project Gutenberg. From the Library of Congress: Lucy Stone and daughter, Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph at the Douglass house, 80th birthday souvenir
80th birthday bash (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbcmil&fileName=scrp1017501/rbcmilscrp1017501.db&recNum=0&itemLink=h?ammem/rbcmillerbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(rbcmiller001467)))

80th birthday bash

  1. [1]Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & company, Inc., 1997. Print. page 269.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

another Gettysburg dedication

Posted on November 20, 2016 by SUMPTER
Inauguration ode. Composed by Mrs. Isabella James. November 20, 1866 (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/amss.cw102700/)

quoting Lincoln

Evidence (to the left) indicates that three years and a day after the National Cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated another dedication was held in the town – this time for the National Soldiers’ Orphans’ Homestead. The orphanage was inspired by the story of Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry Regiment. On July 1, 1863 the 154th was trying to help cover the retreat of the 11th Corps. Their position was soon attacked by a much larger Confederate force, which soon surrounded and captured most of the 154th. Sgt. Humiston was shot dead as he tried to make his escape. In the days before dog tags the only identification found on the corpse was an ambrotype of the soldier’s three young children, which Sgt. Humiston was clutching in his hand. A huge publicity campaign was launched to try to find the dead soldier’s family, and eventually Philinda Humiston and her three children were identified in Portville, New York. The Humistons’ story inspired the founding of the Gettysburg orphanage. You can read a very good article about Amos Humiston, his family, and the orphanage at Historynet. The Humistons stayed at the Gettysburg orphanage from October 1866 until Philinda remarried in October 1869. After a few successful years, the orphanage eventually closed because of mismanagement and mistreatment of the children.

There is currently a monument commemorating Sgt. Humiston and his children in Gettyburg.

amos-humiston ny 154th

Amos Humiston, 154th NY Infantry

"The children of the battle field" / Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown, 912-914 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2012650047/)

“The children of the battle field” (front)

"The children of the battle field" / Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown, 912-914 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. (LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2012650047/)

proceeds for the orphanage (back)

_______________________

154th Regiment Battles and Casualties (http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/infantry/154thInf/154thInfTable.htm)

154th decimated at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg

154th Regiment Monument at Gettysburg (http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/infantry/154thInf/154thInfMonument.htm)

154th Regiment
Monument at Gettysburg

The image of the 154th’s monument, the losses table, and the roster all come from New York State Military Museum, which also provides several letters home from the regiment’s major, Lewis D. Warner. A July 10, 1863 letter discusses the disaster at Gettysburg and the difficulty of accurately reporting the losses: “As we did not recover this ground [where the 154th was captured on July 1st] until the 4th, and as the dead were by that time under the intense heat, so swollen and disfigured that recognition was impossible, we cannot, until the return of the prisoners, make an accurate report.” The Library of Congress provides the images of the poem, children, Frank Leslie’s. There seem to be a couple factual discrepancies in the accounts I linked to.
An incident of Gettysburg - the last thought of a dying father ( Illus. in: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, (1864 Jan. 2), p. 236. ; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709419/)

anonymous Amos Humiston in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, (1864 Jan. 2)

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

letters to and from

Posted on November 11, 2016 by SUMPTER
Campaign sketches. The letter for home / H. (by Winslow Homer, Boston, Mass. : Lith. & pub. by L. Prang & Co., [1863]; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2013650300/)

“Print shows a nurse writing a letter for a wounded Army of the Potomac soldier in a hospital bed.” (by Winslow Homer [1863])

ww1letter (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18993)

Washington Monument on armistice night, 1921 (c1921 Nov. 25.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2010651301/)

“Washington Monument on armistice night, 1921”

Posted in Veterans, World War I | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

litmus test

Posted on November 9, 2016 by SUMPTER
Mending the family kettle (Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, v. 22, no. 559 (1866 June 16), p. 208.; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2001696151/)

it’s out of Andy’s hands now

150 years ago today a Republican newspaper responded to Democratic charges that the new Congress would only re-admit Southern states to the Union if the Republican party was assured of winning the 1868 presidential election. The Republican paper said that if a Southern state ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment, it will be re-admitted.

From The New-York Times

The Elections and the South.

[The Times quoted a paragraph from the November 9th edition of the World about devious Republican intentions]

The old story over again. Detected and defeated, the Democrats raise the cry of false pretences, and impute to the victorious party purposes wholly at variance with the truth.

On the part of the Republicans, of this State especially, the professions put forward on the question of Southern restoration have been in harmony with the action of Congress. There has been no reserve, and most certainly no deceit. The Syracuse Convention presented the Constitutional Amendment as the basis of restoration, and the address put forth as from the National Union Committee, explicitly avers that the admission of qualified members will at once follow the ratification of the Amendment. On this ground the battle was fought in this State, and in every State which was heard from on Tuesday. Massachusetts has elected at least one member who demands more than the Amendment; but we anticipate that that member will not be more potent at Washington than he was at Big Bethel. With this exception, every State in which the Republican banner has been borne in triumph has committed itself to the Amendment as a compromise, the acceptance of which will entitle the South to immediate admission. Even Mr. FORNEY, speaking for the extremists, admits this to be the case. “Such,” he says, in a letter over his signature in the Press – “such undoubtedly was the determination of a large majority of Congress when that body adjourned on the 28th of July, and such would, I believe, be the response of the triumphant people of the North and West at the present time.” Such has been their response. And the responsibility of [rejecting ?] an overture made by the Republican Party in good faith rests with the South.

The South may be ruled out at the next Presidential election. But it will be because the Southern people refuse to avail themselves of the terms of admission submitted for their adoption. If they refuse the Amendment which is declared to be the condition of immediate restoration, they will, of course, remain out of the Union. And being out of the Union, they will have no lot or part in the choice of its next President. The matter is in their hands, and as they mould it so will it be.

The same issue of the Times quoted an Atlanta’s paper endorsement of James P. Hambleton in a special election on November 28th for U.S. Congressman from Georgia’s Seventh District: “True, the member elect may not be permitted to take his seat, and in all probability will not be.” But since there were candidates running, the people should vote their preference. James P. Hambleton served the Confederacy during the war “and suffered long imprisonment for the active part he took in it [the Confederate service], and for his opinions as expressed when publishing and editing, in this city, the journal favorably known as the Southern Confederacy.”

The Library of Congress provides the political cartoon, which was originally published in the June 16, 1866 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the anonymous eight

Posted on November 8, 2016 by SUMPTER
Republican roll on (NY Times, November 8, 1866

Republican roll on (NY Times, November 8, 1866)

In 1866 Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for Congress for New York’s Eighth District as an independent – unaffiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties. She didn’t win.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1866:

AWFUL. – Our whilom towns-lady, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, announced herself a few days before election as a candidate for Member of Congress in the 8th District of New York city, but only received eight votes. This shows what a graceless set those New York “copperheads” are, and that it will take a good deal of civilizing yet to bring them up to the mark of “impartial suffrage.”

A New York City newspaper lauded the eight (male) voters. From The New-York Times, November 8, 1866:

AN EPOCH. – It appears that out of twenty-two, odd, thousand votes cast in the Eighth District for Congressional candidates, Mrs. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON received eight. If the stringent rules of the ballot did not forbid, it would be satisfactory to record and embalm the names of this independent and gallant minority. As marking an epoch in the progress of the race, their names, however, may be held of less significance by posterity than their symbolical number. Thus it has been in times past. Of the Septuagint – the seventy (or seventy-two) learned Jews to whom we all owe so much of our sacred history – not an individual name of popular significance is extant. No one of the Jewish Sanhedrim of two thousand years ago, or of the French Sanhedrim of sixty years ago, presents to-day a name to conjure by. The Venetian Council of Ten [represent an epoch?] in government, and nothing more. Few care to recall the names of OCTAVIUS, ANTHONY and LEPIDUS, in connection with the Roman Triumvirate. And yet, if there were no social and political etiquette in the way, how satisfactory it would be to call the valiant Eight who have led the way in this movement toward universal enfranchisement by their proper names! Their history will, some day, be written by some learned pundit, who may properly call it: “The Reformed Congress; or, The Modern Octatenque.”

Democrat Brooks beats Messrs. Cady Stanton and Cannon (NY Times November 7, 1866

Democrat Brooks beats Messrs. Cady Stanton and Cannon (NY Times November 7, 1866)

8th-district-ny-times-november-7-1866

third column doesn’t fit the template (NY Times November 7, 1866)

According to History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1881; pages 180-181), Theodore Tilton (I believe in 1868) had a higher vote count for Mrs. Stanton:
The New York Herald, though, of course, with no sincerity, since that journal is never sincere in anything—warmly advocated Mrs. Stanton’s election. “A lady of fine presence and accomplishments in the House of Representatives,” it said (and said truly), “would wield a wholesome influence over the rough and disorderly elements of that body.” The Anti-Slavery Standard, with genuine commendation, said: “The electors of the Eighth District would honor themselves and do well by the country in giving her a triumphant election.” The other candidates in the same district were Mr. James Brooks, Democrat, and Mr. Le Grand B. Cannon, Republican. The result of the election was as follows: Mr. Brooks received 13,816 votes, Mr. Cannon 8,210, and Mrs. Stanton 24. It will be seen that the number of sensible people in the district was limited! The excellent lady, in looking back upon her successful defeat, regrets only that she did not, before it became too late, procure the photographs of her two dozen unknown friends.
Drawing of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, art located at the Frederick Douglass home in Washington, D.C. (by Carol M. Highsmith; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011634954/)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Women's Suffrage (Harris & Ewing, photographer; LOC: https://www.loc.gov/item/hec2009000684/)

still going forward

You can find the images at the Library of Congress. Carol M. Highsmith took the photograph of the drawing of Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Frederick Douglass home in Washington, D.C. The photo of the suffragette was taken between 1910 and 1920.
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Boston Uncommon

Posted on November 7, 2016 by SUMPTER
new-york-times-november-7-1866

New York Times, November 7, 1866

There weren’t too many surprises in state elections held on November 6, 1866 – the Republican landslide continued for the most part as voters in state after northern state rejected President Johnson’s plan for rebel states to easily re-enter the Union and representation in Congress. However, two of the Republicans elected to the Massachusetts state legislature were unique – the first black men elected to that body. An editorial wondered how that type of result would work out in the South as the franchise was eventually extended to black men in the former rebel states.

From The New-York Times November 7, 1866:

A NOVELTY IN POLITICS. – The election of two colored men yesterday to seats to the Legislature of Massachusetts is certainly a novelty in American politics. The event, however, is one that will undoubtedly soon be followed by others of like character in other States, and there will be a logical advance from the struggle as to giving negroes votes to a contest as to giving them public offices. The question is a simple enough one in the New-England States, but when the principle comes to be applied to the Southern States, in some of which the negroes must possess a controlling political power, and be able to elect a majority of blacks to the Legislatures, it will be quite another matter.

According to Wikipedia, Edward Garrison Walker and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the African-American men elected in 1866. Massachusetts enfranchised black men nine years earlier. Both Mr. Walker and Mr. Mitchell represented Boston districts. Mr. Walker joined the Democratic party about a year later because of “dissatisfaction with the Republicans.”

mastatehouse62 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_State_House)

novelty in the state house

The circa 1862 image of the Massachusetts state house is from Wikipedia
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Politics, Postbellum Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment