quiet kanawha

Posted on May 15, 2015 by SUMPTER

It had been real quiet for the New York First Veteran Cavalry in the Kanawha Valley, but our SENECA correspondent was able to report the April surrender of a small rebel force at Lewisburg on Appomattox terms. The veterans in the Veteran cavalry weren’t sure when they could come home but were going to make the best of the wait with strawberries and ice cream.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1865:

From the First Veteran Cavalry.

KANAWHA VALLEY, W.VA.,
May 15, 1865.

FRIEND STOWELL: – The great events which have been crowded into the past few weeks, the glorious victories of Grant and Sheridan, the triumphant entry into Richmond, the surrender of Lee, the wonderful achievements of Sherman and the atrocious murder of our President and Commander-in-Chief have so filled and excited the public mind that accounts from a single regiment attract but little attention. Yet there may be some who still feel an interest in the veterans, and for their gratification I will give you a few items.

800px-Gauley_Bridge-27527-2

pretty peaceful today, too (2008 photo by Ken Thomas)

During the last three months everything has been remarkably quiet in the “District of Kanawha.” Now and then a flag of truce has come down from Gauley. Here and there a little scout of fifty or sixty miles, and that is about all that has occurred to relieve the tedium of camp life, and remind us that we really are in the field.

While upon one of these scouts, however, soon after the news of Lee’s surrender had been received, your correspondent had the honor of meeting Col. Hounshell the commandant of the Rebel Port of Lewisburg who had come down to make terms for his command, and if possible for the numerous independent or Guerrilla bands that have operated in this part of the country. Information was immediately sent to Department Head Quarters, instruction received, and negotiations opened at Gauley Bridge, the result of which was that Col. H. surrendered his entire command upon the terms granted by Grant to Lee and a party was soon sent to Lewisburg to receive the arms and to grant the necessary paroles. Over fifteen hundred men have already been paroled including several Colonels, Majors, and any number of Line Officers. Quiet and order are restored to this section of the country and citizens are rapidly resuming their accustomed avocations. We carried with us to Lewisburg the mournful intelligence of the infamous murder of our President and the dastardly attempt upon the life of Secretary Seward. The citizens of Lewisburg with officers and men of the Confederate army were earnest in their expressions of deep regret at these wicked crimes, and seemed to feel that they had lost a friend. The kind and generous policy which Mr. LINCOLN had adopted, had endeared him to all, and many have learned his worth only too late. It is to be hoped that President Johnson will pursue the same course marked out by our late President and soon restore peace and quiet to our distracted country.

Gen. William T. Sherman

loved and venerated (said to be an 1865 photo of General Sherman wearing a mourning ribbon for Abraham Lincoln)

What a tremendous furore has been raised against the gallant SHERMAN by the rabid papers and fanatics of the north. – Set on by such men as Halleck, they seem to ignore entirely all the wonderful achievements and mighty victories of that great commander, and because he differs with them in politics, or has in their profound judgment, committed a single error, they denounce him in the most bitter terms and seem bent upon his utter ruin. It is some satisfaction to know that the more respectable portion of the Republican Press still support and defend this gallant man who has done so much to bring the war to a close, but it is more to know that all the execrations of these fanatical cowards are in vain and that to-day General Sherman stands among the first in the love and veneration of the American people.

Whether our regiment is soon to come north or not, of course no one knows. We did expect a speedy return to our homes but an order has just been received to muster out immediately all whose term of service expires before October 1st, 1865, so we infer that the veterans are to be retained a while longer. By this arrangement we lose a little over three hundred in all – Company K. about twenty – Recruits who joined us last fall. This will reduce the regiment to less than eight hundred men, and of course several officers will have an opportunity to go home.

800px-Gauley_Bridge-27527-1

Bridgeless Gauley Bridge in 2008 (by Ken Thomas)

A Board of examiners is now in session at Charleston, of which Lieut. Lightburn is President and perhaps this may have something to do in deciding who are to remain.

Rev. Father McKerwan of Mason city visited the various camps of our regiment a few days ago, and celebrated Mass at Camp Piott [Piatt], Loup Creek and Gauley Bridge. Large numbers of the soldiers attended the solemn services of the church, and many a one was carried nearer home than he had been before for many a day.

Mr. R.F. Taylor, a citizen of Rochester, N.Y., was here not long since and conducted himself in a very ungentlemanly and disgraceful manner. He attacked without provocation, our commanding officer (Col. Platner) and abused him in a most outrageous way. Mr. Taylor has merited and fully possesses, I assure you, the utter contempt of every officer in the regiment, and it is a wonder to all that Col. Platner has treated him with such great forbearance and leniency – But more of this anon.

The weather is getting to be extremely warm in the Valley, the thermometer nearly reaches a hundred already. Vegetables of all kinds are in perfection and it really appears like summer. Roses are in full bloom, soda fountains in full blast and before this reaches you strawberries and Ice cream will be all the rage. So you can easily imagine what we are at just now.

Yours ever, SENECA.

The photo of the town of Gauley Bridge by Ken Thomas looks “across the Gauley River at the town of Gauley Bridge. The pilings in the foreground are the remains of the Civil War-era covered bridge that gave the town its name. The original bridge was destroyed by retreating Confederate troops in 1861.”

Robert F. Taylor led the 33rd New York Volunteers for its entire two year term. In the latter half of 1863 he organized the First Veteran Cavalry but was dismissed from the service in 1864.

Lest I forget, SENECA might have had a bit of a wait, as the New York State Military Museum points out:

Commanded by Col. John S. Platner, the regiment was honorably discharged and mustered out, July 20, 1865, at Camp Piatt, W. Va., having, during its service, lost by death killed in action, 4 officers, 32 enlisted men; of wounds received in action, 15 enlisted men; of disease and other causes, 87 enlisted men; total, 4 officers, 134 enlisted men; aggregate, 138; of whom 32 enlisted men died in the hands of the enemy.

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

it’s a wrap?

Posted on May 14, 2015 by SUMPTER
Confederacy Dead 9LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28rbpe+07103000%29%29)

no hope beyond the grave for little CSA

Posted in Aftermath, Confederate States of America, Northern Society | Tagged | Leave a comment

just another rebel?

Posted on May 13, 2015 by SUMPTER
NY Times 5-14-1865

NY Times 5-14-1865

NY Times 5-15-1865

NY Times 5-15-1865

If it turned out that Jefferson Davis was not implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, why should he be punished any more severely than all the other rebels who fought the United States for over four long years?

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in May 1865:

The capture of Jefferson Davis.

The capture of Jefferson Davis was announced by telegraph at a late hour on Saturday night. He was taken near Irwinsville, Geo., on the 10th inst., by a detachment of the 4th Michigan Cavalry, under Lieut. Col. Pritchard. His captors report that when made aware of the close pursuit of our cavalry, Davis hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses and started for the woods. This part of the story is very doubtful, if not a positive exaggeration. The news of the capture of the rebel chieftain created something of a sensation. That a fate so humiliating and disastrous should overtake the man who for over four years had waged gigantic war; who, for so may campaigns, had held at bay the greatest armies the world has ever seen; that he should be hunted down with a price upon his head, is certainly a most significant finale of the great tragedy that has cost us so much in blood and treasure.

jeffdavis reward (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28rbpe+23502300%29%29)

reward for Davis as co-conspirator

What will be done with Davis now that he is a prisoner is a question somewhat difficult to decide. His capture seems to lend additional complications to the national problem. Despite Mr. Stanton’s assurances, not one intelligent man in ten believes that Jefferson Davis had any complicity in, even the remotest knowledge of, the designs of the assassins now on trial. Yet it was not for Davis, the rebel, but Davis the accomplice of Booth, that the reward was offered. It is presumable, therefore, that as the accomplice he is to be tried. If he really is guilty of complicity in the assassination, and if it can be shown before a proper tribunal – the civil courts – then let him suffer the extreme penalty due his crimes. But if the evidence does not inculpate him, then, should Davis be tried on any other charge? The question is not whether he has forfeited his life by treason to the government, but whether exacting the forfeit is for the best interest of the nation. Had the rebellion been put down in its early stages, to have tried and adjudged to death its leaders, might have been wise and necessary. But the rebellion became a great war, the rebels belligerents, and in the judgement of Congress and the judiciary “alien enemies” even. The rebellion embraced nine-tenths of the people of the eleven States; a fifth part of the population of the country. – Now, can a civil war of this magnitude be considered at its ending a mere revolt, whose leaders are to be tried and punished as criminals?

http://www.loc.gov/item/2005697086/

would only whet the North’s appetite for revenge?

Is there any reason why Jefferson Davis should suffer death rather than any one of a thousand or ten thousand others? Is he any more of a rebel or traitor because the votes of his fellow citizens advanced him to the front of the rebellion? And will his death glut the popular desire for vengeance, or will it rather only whet the taste and lead to a demand for more victims? And will the execution of one or one hundred rebel leaders do aught to reunite the long-warring sections? Will it cement the Union the firmer, or in any way advance the good of the Nation? These are serious questions, and the officers of the government and the people as individuals are interested in discussing and answering them, calmly, dispassionately and judiciously.

The true story of the capture of Jeff. Davis (Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1865 by Gibson & Co. in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-23849)

his “Brogans Betray Him”

The chas-ed "old lady" of the C.S.A. (1865; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/2008661686/)

The Library of Congress explains that according to Davis’s autobiography: “at the time of his capture he was wearing his wife’s raglan overcoat, which he had mistakenly put on in his haste to leave, and a shawl, which his wife had thrown over his head and shoulders.”

JD last proclamation

sing along with Jeff

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lashless society

Posted on May 12, 2015 by SUMPTER
[Portrait of Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, officer of the Federal Army] (Between 1860 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-06599)

General Howard to lead the Freedman’s Bureau

150 years ago today: “President Andrew Johnson appoints General Oliver O. Howard to head the Freedman’s Bureau.”[1]

A May 12th editorial argued that, just as the conduct of black soldiers upset preconceived Southern notions of African-American competence, free black labor could be productive, but only if Southern employers got over their prejudices about the abilities of blacks. Proper training – not whipping – was mandatory. And besides, employers the world over were dealing with and profiting by a much less docile workforce.

From The New-York Times May 12, 1865:

The Negro Question–its New Phases.

Southerners as well as No[r]therners have learned a great many things during this war. They have learned, for instance, that commercial nations are not necessarily unwarlike; that man may be very successful and eager in making money, and yet make a good soldier; that it is an exceedingly exhausting and troublesome job for “one southerner to whip three Yankees;” that cotton is not king, and that slave society is not likely to spread itself over the earth; and though last not least, that negro troops do not run away, and howl when they hear a shot.

These have all been useful lessons; but it is future generations rather than the present one which will profit by them. There is one other which this generation will do well to learn as speedily as possible; it is one by which its own comfort and prosperity will be largely increased; and that is the art of managing negroes as paid laborers, and without the aid of the lash.

Glimpses at the Freedmen's Bureau. Issuing rations to the old and sick / from a sketch by our special artist, Jas. E. Taylor. (llus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, v. 23, 1866 Sept. 22, p. 5. ; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/2009633700/)

Richmond’s “Freedmen’s Bureau. Issuing rations to the old and sick…” (Frank Leslie’s 9-22-1866)

There are very widespread indications that the old planters are about to treat us to as striking an exhibition of prejudice on this point as on the others already mentioned. Prejudice on other subjects carried them into the war; and prejudice on this one, if cherished much longer, will prevent their recovery from the consequence of that tremendous disaster. If there be one thing more than another on which your genuine Southerner prides himself strongly, it is his knowledge of the negro, of his feelings, character and capabilities. He laughs the a priori conclusion of the men of other countries about him to scorn. He will never admit that any deductions about the black man drawn from principles of human nature are worth a straw, and always believes himself able to upset them by some bit of plantation experience. When, for instance, people at the North argued from the fact that the black’s being a man, that he could by proper training be converted into a soldier who would stand fire and follow his officers, the Southerners, who of course “knew the negro well,” were prodigiously amused by it. He was to throw down his musket and run the moment he came in sight of the enemy. A Confederate officer was simply to shake a whip to make the knees of a whole battalion tremble. Some of the finest bits of facetiousness which appeared in the Southern newspapers, two years ago, were pictures of what was to happen on the battle-field when our negro regiments were brought into action. Those “sons of thunder,” the Richmond editors, roared over the whole scheme of negro enlistment till their sides ached, and those of their readers as well.

Howard University, Washington, D.C. (by Carol M. Highsmith, 2010; LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/2010641989/)

at Howard University (by Carol M. Highsmith, 2010)

It turned out, however, that they were on this point egregiously mistaken; that the plantation theory of the absence of physical courage from the negro’s composition was totally incorrect; that those who presume that in this, as in other things, he was constituted like other men, were quite right. The negro has made an excellent soldier, and has done invaluable service, and has stood the severest tests of military efficiency with perfect success. It is now positively maintained with equal pertinacity that the free negro will prove as useless in peace as those “who knew him well” were sure he would prove in war. We hear from this “respectable source,” that he will starve sooner than work; that he cannot be educated; or that if he can be, his conceit will be so great that he will go clean daft, and be as useless to himself as to everybody else; that wages are no temptation to him, and that no Southern farmer can possibly conduct his business properly without the power of whipping his laborers. As, however, the labor of free negroes is the only labor the South is likely to have for a long time to come, if not forever, those Southerners who wish to see industry revive, and who are anxious to restore their plantations to cultivation and attempt to reconstruct their fortunes, would do well to avoid acting in this matter, also, on a foregone conclusion. They have proved mistaken in so many things since the war began, that they ought to mistrust their judgment in this one, and try to scrape together for the occasion some of the real philosophic spirit, and experiment on the negro. A little common sense, however, is all that is necessary to teach a man that if the negro really will work at all, it will never do to treat him now as he was treated when a slave. It may be shockingly impudent in him to expect that he shall now be treated with the consideration in manner and language usually accorded to other laborers, but his impudence being one of the facts of the day, all sensible men will take it as it stands, and make the best of it. The demeanor of all servants and laborers toward the employer has changed prodigiously within the last century or two. A master of the year 1700 would be shocked beyond measure by the “airs” assumed by the “lower classes” in all countries in our day. The change may be, and is, in the eyes of many an old Tory, a shocking one; but the work of the world has to go on, and has gone on in spite of it. Employers have had to adapt themselves to the altered circumstances of their work people, and make the best of them as they are. The Southern planters, unless they have made up their minds to starve themselves in order to spite the negroes, must do the same thing. Not being able to secure the services of the faithful, submissive and docile slaves, they must put up with those of “insolent free follows.” We venture to predict, however, that the corn and cotton raised by the latter will sell for just as much, and the fields they plow remain just as fertile as if they had been handsomely “paddled” at the end of every furrow.

According to the Library of Congress:

The University charter of March 2, 1867, designated Howard University as “a University for the education of youth in the liberal arts and sciences.” The Freedmen’s Bureau provided most of the early financial support and in 1879, Congress approved a special appropriation for the University. The charter was amended in 1928 to authorize an annual federal appropriation.

  1. [1]Fredriksen, John C. Civil War Almanac. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Print. page 591.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Richmond rubble

Posted on May 11, 2015 by SUMPTER

According to the Library of Congress photographer Andrew J. Russell spent some time at the corner of Carey and Governor streets 150 years ago this month.

"Ruins in Richmond, cor. Carey and Governor Sts." (May 1865, Library of Congress)

“Ruins in Richmond, cor. Carey and Governor Sts.” (May 1865, Library of Congress)

Ruins in Richmond, Va.

“Ruins in Richmond, Va.” (May 1865, Library of Congress)

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mutual respect society

Posted on May 9, 2015 by SUMPTER

An editorial wasn’t too happy that William T. Sherman kept reporters away from General Johnston’s April 26, 1865 surrender; apparently General Sherman thought the Confederate officers would be embarrassed giving up in front of the gawking Yankee press. America would never be reconstructed if the North remained servile to the South. The nation needed to be re-founded on mutual respect.

From The New-York Times May 10, 1865:

Rebel Sensitiveness.

Our government was conducted for eighty years on the principle that the great object of its existence and the first duty of every good citizen at the North was to keep Southerners in good humor. To say anything that hurt their feelings, to refuse them anything they demanded, to hint even in the mildest manner that the Free States could exist without them, that the withdrawal of their custom or countenance would not ruin everybody at the North and bring up the grass in all our streets, came at last to be considered little short of fratricidal. The theory of the advocates of this policy was, that it was thus and only thus that brotherly feeling between the people of the two sections could be kept up and the Union be preserved.

Richmond ladies going to receive government rations (by A. R. Waud published in harper's Weekly June 3, 1865; LOC: vLC-USZ62-116427)

still high-toned Southern ladies? (by Alfred R. Waud in Harper’s Weekly, June 3, 1865)

The actual result was that the mass of the Southern people conceived for the people of the North a contempt and hatred, for which there are few, if any, parallels in history. The very name of “Yankee” came to be a synonym in the Slave States for meanness and cowardice; and by a diligent nursing of these feelings on the part of the leaders, the whole South worked itself up into the belief, first, that it was impossible to live under the same government with such miserable wretches, and second, that there would be no difficulty in breaking-loose from them.

Now, although we have taken in these columns the strongest ground against all displays of vindictiveness against the Southern people, and although we would not willingly see the slightest trace of conquest linger either in our legislation or our manners, we have no hesitation in predicting, that unless Northern generals and politicians, and the Northern public, make up their minds that the “feelings” of the people in South Carolina or Virginia are of the same degree of respectability as those of the people in Massachusetts or Ohio, and no greater, and do not deserve and ought not to receive one whit more consideration, we shall never be able to live together in peace and harmony. There can be no sure and lasting foundation for union except mutual respect. It there is to be on our side the old fawning and servility and deference, and on the side of the South the old arrogance and assumption which fawning and servility always either breed or nurse, mutual respect cannot grow up, and we can never become in feeling, as we are in fact and in law, one people.

Lieut. General W. T. Sherman and staff (May 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-34053)

sensitivity training (General Sherman and staff, May 1865)

These remarks have been suggested to us by the extraordinary precaution adopted by Gen. SHERMAN to save the feelings of the officers of JOHNSTON’s army from being “hurt,” by refusing newspaper correspondents permission to be present at the formal surrender. These officers, have, without the smallest provocation, and in defence of a cause in which the civilized world, has been for very shame, if for no better reason, compelled to set the seal of execration, deluged this continent for four years in blood; have slain and crippled the flower of our young men, have witnessed, if not with approval with perfect indifference, the slow torture of unarmed prisoners, and have, during all that period, we venture to say, never put pen to paper without pouring out a flood of abuse on this people and government. They have protracted their resistance, too, as long as was possible. They lay down their arms now, simply and solely because the further prolongation of hostilities would entail their total destruction. Our armies have hunted them down; the people of the North have kept the ranks of these armies full; have supplied without stint everything that the struggle called for; have fought on for four long years in silence, under a great cloud of misrepresentation and misconstruction, with the whole of Europe uniting with the Confederacy in reviling and slandering them, without ever abating one jot of heart or hope.

The Bennett place, North Carolina , House and barn(?) near Durham Station, North Carolina, where General Joseph Johnston surrendered to General Sherman, April 26, 1865. (c1904.LOC: LC-USZ62-108506)

what the surrender house looked like (photo c.1904)

And now, when the long agony is over, when this desperate horde has been driven to the wall, and forced with the bayonet at their throats, to agree to go home and earn a peaceful livelihood and obey the laws, their nerves are discovered to be so exceedingly delicate, their temperament so sensitive, and their pride a thing so tender, so worthy of our respect and consideration, that a newspaper cannot be permitted to report how they looked when they signed the capitulation, or even to describe the house in which it took place. And what makes this squeamishness all the more singular is that these very men, whose surrender has to be made pleasant for them in this way, are persons for whose “feelings” Congress has had so little respect as to confiscate their property, to declare them incapable of holding office, and who are, under the late President’s proclamation, stripped of all civil rights, and exposed to all the pains and penalties of treason. Can there be anything more maudlin than the tenderness which shrouds in mystery the surrender of his sword by a rebel, whom you have already outlawed, and on the atrocity of whose crime the press, the pulpit, and every member of the government, from the President down, have for years past been incessantly ringing changes?

Gen. Lee's quick march (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000560/)

no remorse (Library of Congress, Music Division.)

We could excuse this scrupulous deference to their pride and fastidiousness, if their surrender were really an expression of contrition. We should be sorry to advocate, for anybody’s gratification, the exposure of any penitent to the gaze of unfriendly curiosity. But neither LEE nor JOHNSTON, nor any of their officers, have given the smallest sign of repentance. They have never uttered one expression of regret for the breach of their oaths, the desertion of their colors, and their four years’ struggle to destroy the government under which they were born, which educated them, and from which they had received nothing but kindness and consideration. They boast to this hour that they give up their swords only in obedience to stern necessity; because fighting has become useless, defeat certain. Under all these circumstances, we confess we can see in the pains taken to conceal the final evidence of the triumph of the law from the gaze of the public nothing but an unworthy and unbecoming revival of the flunkeyism which so long disgraced us, and something very like an impertinence to the army and the people.

Died, near the south-side rail road, on Sunday April 9th, 1865, The Southern Confederacy, aged four years. (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/scsm000502/

CSA’s death “gave freedom to the slave.” ( Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana. )

The June 3, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South) described Alfred R. Waud’s sketch: Southern ladies were “somewhat more inclined to insolence, peevishness, and an insulting manner and bearing toward those they please to call Yankees—which is, in fact, the highest tribute they could pay to the chivalry and good temper of the Northern man, who can exercise forbearance and make allowance even to those who …”
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Confederate States of America, Northern Society, Reconstruction, Southern Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

America still shackled …

Posted on May 8, 2015 by admin
Interesting questions & answers relative to the 7-30 U. S. Loan ... For sale by Jay Cooke & Co., at the Philadelphia and Washington Office ... [1865]. (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28rbpe+2350210a%29%29)

7-30 Q&A (( Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.)

… by a whole lot of debt

A British publication related the American Civil War debt to the “the safety and expediency of democratic rule.” – especially given a democracy’s aversion to free trade. From The New-York Times May 8, 1865:

THE FINANCIAL PROBLEM IN AMERICA.

From the London Times, April 25.

The war excitement in America being now at an end, the finance question becomes the grand one. During the next three months the most extensive speculative operations of the two hemispheres will depend upon it, and a correct resume of its present position in therefore a critical requirement. On the 31st ult. the United States debt was £473,000,000, of which £290,000,000 bears interest payable in coin, and £105,000,000 consists of currency. Of this total £70,000,000 had been created during the preceding five months, and as there are immense arrears due to the army and in other quarters, and the existing rate of expenditure cannot be immediately stopped, it may be assumed as a moderate estimate that, even supposing everything now to progress quietly toward a general adjustment, the aggregate must on the winding up be raised to at least £550,000,000. At present the portion of debt consisting of currency bears no interest, but it is admitted that a large part of this must be funded, and even if we allow £50,000,000 to be kept out, we have a total of £500,000,000 left, on which, under the most favorable circumstances, it is impossible to calculate that an interest less than six per cent. will have to be paid. The annual burden, therefore, will be equal to that of a three per cent. debt of a thousand millions sterling, or about one-fourth more than that of Great Britain. Thus, supposing the disposition and ability of the people of each country to meet their obligations be the same, the United States would still stand at a great disadvantage. It is next to be borne in mind that the South having been vanquished, more than one-fourth of the population of the rehabilitated Union will be in the position of having to pay interest on a debt created exclusively for their own subjugation, and that this pressure will have to be sustained not only under the suffering occasioned by the destruction of their principal cities and public works, but by the non-recognition of their own property in the shape of Confederate currency and bonds, as well as by the extinction of slave labor, and the consequent peril of results in that respect more or less analogous to those that for a time fell upon our West India Islands. And while one section of the people will have to contribute under these circumstances, the entire Union will, according to English notions, be compelled to struggle under hindrances and disabilities to which even such difficulties would seem light. Although negro slavery is abolished, the Union throughout its whole extent is bound in the shackles of protection and prohibition. The leaders of free trade have been accustomed to paint these as far more destructive to human advancement than any other form of evil that tyranny or selfishness could devise; but the worst shape in which they ever existed in this country was mild in comparison with the fiscal theories now in operation at Washington. Next to these obstacles to the ability to pay, we have to consider the disposition of the people. Of course the natural resources of the United States are such that if the people are prepared to submit to any hardship rather than make default to the public creditor, no mistakes of fiscal or other policy can render them unable to do so. But while it is pleasant to anticipate a course of noble fortitude, we must reason not from sentiment, but experience. Previously to the commencement of the war, five of the thirty-three States of the Union, North and South, had for more then a quarter of a century persisted in the practice of open repudiation, and the total for which this discredit in the eyes of the whole world was deliberately incurred was only about four or five millions sterling. Since the commencement of the war Pennsylvania, the second State in the Union, has distinctly legislated for repudiation by repealing the law under which all her debts were contracted, and by which she was bound to pay interest in coin. In the Western States protests have been put forth that the war debt, having for the most part been raised to promote the gains of the protected manufacturers and contractors of the New-England States, will not be regarded as binding whenever a question on the subject can be discussed, and in New-York the principal and most respectable journals have for weeks past been engaged in pointing out that unless some means can be devised for clearing off the whole debt in two or three years it will certainly be repudiated, since the people will never bear the hopeless continuance of such a weight. Meanwhile, California, whose power and wealth are growing rapidly, wholly ignores all the Federal currency orders, and the Washington government find it prudent not to enforce them. Hence, however much we may desire to feel confidence, it is plain that the prospects of a harmonious determination on the part of Congress for the future to uphold the public credit are not encouraging. It may be urged that the fact of the debt being to a great extent held in small amounts among the American people themselves is favorable, but at least sixty or one hundred millions sterling are held in Europe, and even among the Americans the number of holders compared with non-holders is slight. Already the customs’ duties are inadequate to meet the interest of the proportion if the debt payable in gold, and excise duties and direct taxation of all kinds must not only be continued but greatly increased to supply other wants. It is a peculiar feature of the war that its cessation must be followed, not by lightening, but by a tremendous increase of taxation. Hitherto loans have been obtained for all emergencies, but these must now be discontinued, and in the face of their cessation it is impossible to conceive how the government is to obtain an adequate revenue. All these considerations present themselves, even supposing that henceforth the South is no longer troublesome, that, as far as the internal quiet of the country is concerned, no exceptional expenditure will again be necessary, and that there will be no outlay or armaments to overawe Mexico or Canada. In any case, they form such a combination of trials to be surmounted as has never vet been encountered by any people, and should they be honorably overcome, every friend of civilization will have not merely to rejoice, but to dismiss for the future all fears with regard to the safety and expediency of democratic rule. Hitherto democracies have disappointed their most ardent champions by their uniform and uncompromising hostility to free trade and their proclivities to war; but if the democracy of America now rise to the height of the obligations before them they will set an example of prudence, honesty and self-denial such as the world has never yet witnessed.

stimulating subscriptions (LOC: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28rbpe+2350210f%29%29)

Jay Cooke on stimulating subscriptions to the loan (Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division)

From The New-York Times

OUR POPULAR LOAN.; A WONDERFUL WEEK’S WORK. More than Forty Millions of Dollars Taken in Six Days–More than Twenty-eight Thousand Subscribers for Small Sums:

PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, May 7.

The country will hear with pride as well as with surprise, that the voluntary subscriptions of the people to the seven-thirty loan for the six workingdays of the last week amounted to the immense sum of $40,387,000.

The amounts daily subscribed throughout the country and reported to JAY COOKE & CO’s agency, were as follows: May 1, $5,175,900; May 2, $5,231,100; May 3, $7,261,300; May 4, $6,103,200; May 5, $7,457,100; May 6, $9,158,400; total, $40,387,100. The number of fifty dollar, one hundred dollar and five hundred dollar contributions to the above amount was 28,240.

The daily subscriptions of working men and women for the week were in number as follows: May 1, 3,625; May 2, 3,652; May 3, 5,081; May 4, 4,271; May 5, 5,210; May 6, 6,401; total, 28,240.

The largest single subscriptions of Saturday were $700,000 from Philadelphia; $350,000 from the National Bank of the Republic, of Boston; $300,000 from the National Bank of the Metropolis, of Washington; from New-York, the Fourth National Bank, $500,000; from the First National Bank of Providence, $140,000; from the Second National Bank of New-Haven, $100,000; from the First National Bank of Baltimore, $100,000.

You can read a 2012 analysis of American Civil War debt here: the debt crisis was political; the American people were willing to be heavily taxed to pay down the debt.

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brass wall

Posted on May 7, 2015 by SUMPTER
Wilderness battlefield, April 1866 (LOC: LC-DIG-stereo-1s03980 )

“Wilderness battlefield, April 1866 ” (Library of Congress)

After waxing poetical about the horrors of May 1864, an editorial from 150 years ago seemed to be thankful for peace and quite certain that a positive result of the war was that foreign nations would never dare invade the re-united United States.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in May 1865:

American Juggernaut (London Punch, September 3, 1864)

London Punch, September 3, 1864

Peace.

What different month of May from the last now breaks upon the woods and valleys and streams of the Wilderness and Spottsvlvania. Where peace now reigns alone in blossom and song, there the armies ef [sic] the Potomac and Virginia, in one continued “red shock of battle blent,” together strewed the field, and crowded the hospital, with the wrecks of fifty thousand men. What a contrast now to that high carnival of death in which the rifle proved more deadly than the cannon, in which men shot at each other with deliberate aim, or in sweeping volley, from amidst thickets of brushwood, from behind sheltering trees, from across narrow brooks – in which hundreds fell at a blow, and blows ceased not for hours, and the fire flashed less in jets than in sheets of flame, and the bullets raised a tempest from side to side, wherein nothing mortal could live, until at last the storm was exhausted by its fury, with its purpose unfulfilled. And yet all that was month’s work of a four year’s war.

Lincon as Mars (LOndon Punch, March 25, 1865)

London Punch, March 25, 1865

It is a privilege beyond all estimate that we are at last permitted to reckon this war among the things of the past. God grant that this fair continent may never again be reddened by the like of it – that the peace which we have no conquered shall be perpetual against rebellion and all internal violence. Foreign invasion can never happen to us. A wall of brass, reaching to the clouds, could not shield us from that more completely than will the memory of American prowess displayed in this war. There will never be blood stains here that are not made by our own rebellious hands. After the horrors which have been experienced, how can that be? It seems beyond the utmost limits of human madness. – Elmira Gazette.

Fifty-four years later, in the introduction to From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign (page xii), Thomas Nelson Page agreed that the Civil War developed America’s military prowess but not just to defend itself – America had been able to proactively rescue the world at war:

American Gladiators (LOndon Punch, April 29, 1865)

London Punch, April 29, 1865

Thus, it came about that I promised that when he [William Meade Dame, D.D.] should be ready to publish his reminiscences I would write the introduction for them. My introduction is for a story told from journals and reminiscent of a time in the fierce Sixties when, if passion had free rein, the virtues were strengthened by that strife to contribute so greatly a half century later to rescue the world and make it “safe for Democracy.”

It was the war—our Civil War—that over a half century later brought ten million of the American youth to enroll themselves in one day to fight for America. It was the work in “the Wilderness” and in those long campaigns, on both sides, which gave fibre to clear the Belleau Wood. It was the spirit of the armies of Lee and Grant which enabled Pershing’s army to sweep through the Argonne.

Rome, March 27, 1919.

The cartoons from London Punch would seem to indicate that Britain was aware of America’s increasing might. Nevertheless, in its May 6, 1865 issue it was able to commiserate with America in mourning the assassination of President Lincoln:

Britania sympathizes with Columbia (LOndon Punch May 6, 1865)

cousinly love

Well, speaking of peace, I just want to say I’m overjoyed that there are no entries for May 7, 1865 in John C. Fredriksen’s Civil War Almanac. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Print. page 590.)
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Northern Society, Overland Campaign, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

germ warfare?

Posted on May 6, 2015 by SUMPTER
Yellow Jack monster (1873; LOC: LC-USZC4-9408)

“Yellow Jack monster”

From The New-York Times May 7, 1865:

THE YELLOW FEVER PLOT.; Judicial Investigation at St. George’s–The Evidence Against Blackburn Conclusive.

HALIFAX, N.S., Saturday, May 6.

The Bermuda papers contain long accounts of the judicial investigation, now being held at St. George’s, of the attempt of Dr. BLACKBURN to introduce yellow fever into New-York, Philadelphia and other Northern cities.

BLACKBURN visited Bermuda ostensibly on a philanthropic mission in connection with the causes of yellow fever.

The evidence shows that be collected while there, bedding and clothing taken from fever patients; that he purchased and infected new clothing, which he packed in trunks and left in charge of parties with orders to forward them to New-York in the Spring.

One witness testified that BLACKBURN represented himself as a Confederate agent, whose mission was the destruction of the Northern masses. It was also shown that several persons connected with the agency of the Confederate States were cognizant of these facts.

It is stated that there were ten trunks, three of which have been found and their contents buried by the Board of Health.

BLACKBURN is well known in these Provinces as a leading and ultra rebel.

Luke Pryor Blackburn was a physician and Confederate sympathizer from Kentucky. In 1864 he worked in Bermuda to help victims of a major Yellow Fever outbreak. Bermuda was a base for Confederate blockade runners. A Confederate double agent in Canada accused Dr. Blackburn of the plot to send contaminated clothing to the northern United States. Bermuda authorities found trunks of contaminated clothing in a hotel in St. George’s. Dr. Blackburn had allegedly contracted with the hotel owner to temporarily store the trunks. The Times report must be about the hotel owner’s trial in Bermuda. Canadian authorities arrested Dr. Blackburn on May 19, 1865. He was acquitted; much later in his life he said the charges were “preposterous”. Historians disagree about the strength of the charges.

The doctor would later serve as Kentucky’s 28th governor. In 1900 Walter Reed proved that yellow fever was caused by mosquitoes, not contact with contaminated clothing.

You can read about the yellow fever cartoon at the Library of Congress
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the right executive’s in the mansion

Posted on May 5, 2015 by SUMPTER
View of the Bennett House, four miles west of Durham, N.C. The house in which Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Gen. W.T. Sherman, April 26, 1865 (by R.D. Blacknall, c1876.; LOC: LC-DIG-pga-05349)

Bennett House where Johnston surrendered

The Democrat Reveille found some kind words to write about Abraham Lincoln after his death. It seems that Southerners and Northern Democrats appreciated President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and the lenient terms of surrender offered Southern armies. Here a presumably Democrat newspaper (and probably the Reveille) pinned the entire blame for the war on Abolitionism and was certain that Reconstruction would go much better because Andrew Johnson was president. Unlike Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Johnson would not become beholden to the abolitionists.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in May 1865:

The War Drawing to a Close.

NY Times 4-29-1865

NY Times 4-29-1865

Thank Heaven this monstrous war is drawing to a close. The surrender of the rebel army under Gen. Johnston, to Sherman, virtually ends the contest so far as military force can end it. The South desire peace and are willing to yield to the Government, when they become convinced that the Government will not be wielded to oppress them. Thus this long, bloody war terminates, by negotiation, by concession and compromise. The same end could have been attained without the shedding of human blood, but Abolitionism in control of the Government willed otherwise. Had Mr. Lincoln and his advisers pledged themselves, upon their accession to power four years ago, to administer the Government as did their predecessors, and in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Court, Secession and Southern resistance would not have been heard of. What a horrible truth to realize! What an absolute and unavoidable fact, that every life sacrificed and every dollar wasted, was therefore to overthrow the government of Washington, of Jefferson, of Jackson and their successors!

Andrew Johnson (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/2003664866/)

least likely to become a tool of abolitionists (Andrew Johnson)

But the war draws to a close. The Southern States will return to the Union, not as conquered provinces, but as independent sovereignties, possessing all their rights and prerogatives under the Constitution. Abolitionism, thank heaven, has not accomplished its fell purpose, in the subjugation and degradation of the Southern States. Andrew Johnson and not Abraham Lincoln is President. We have little doubt or misgivings in regard to the course of President Johnson. He, above all other men in the country, is least likely to become a tool of the abolitionists in the work of reconstruction. Never before had any man such a splendid opportunity to write his name upon the brightest page of his country’s history as he. He stands between the living and the dead. He steps upon the stage of action when his country lies torn and bleeding at every pore. His task is to pacify that country – to bind up its wounds and heal its sores, regardless of all interests of party, of all personal feelings and of all past differences. He knows just what this country needs to secure its instant pacification. He must be President of the whole country, and not of the one third, and all will be well.

The reign of monstrous faction that has drenched the country with blood [draws to a close!] ANDREW JOHNSON is President!

The last paragraph is difficult to make out.
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Month, Lincoln Administration, Northern Politics During War, Northern Society, Reconstruction | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment