break before more war

An officer who completed his three year gig with the Infantry and then signed back up – with the Engineers. He was able to take a break sometime 150 years ago this month. From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in December 1864:

IN TOWN. – Lieut. Arthur S. Baker, formerly of the 86th N.Y.V. is in town. He has served out his time in the 86th, and recently has been commissioned First Lieutenant in the 50th N.Y. Vol. Engineers.

Arthur S. Baker - 86th NY Infantry

Arthur S. Baker – 86th NY Infantry

Arthur S. Baker - 50th NY Engineers

Arthur S. Baker – 50th NY Engineers

The 50th NY Engineers seem to have been one of the most photographed regiments. These pictures relating to the 50th New York Engineers from November 1864 indicate a little of what headquarters might have been like when Lieutenant got down ’round Petersburg.

Surgeon's Quarters, camp of 50th New York Engineers in front of Petersburg, Va., November, 1864 (photographed 1864, [printed between 1880 and 1889]; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-33117)

“Surgeon’s Quarters, camp of 50th New York Engineers in front of Petersburg, Va., November, 1864” (Library of Congress)

[Petersburg, Va. General view of the commissary department, 50th New York Engineers] (1864 November; LOC:  LC-DIG-cwpb-03676)

“Petersburg, Va. General view of the commissary department, 50th New York Engineers” (Library of Congress)

And this is said to be Colonel Ira Spaulding of the 50th NY Engineers in front of his winter quarters 150 years ago this winter (I think he was Lieutenant Colonel):

Winter quarters of the Engineer Corps. ( Hartford, Conn. : The War Photograph & Exhibition Co., No. 21 Linden Place, [between 1864 and 1865]; LOC:  LC-DIG-stereo-1s02721)

Lieutenant Colonel Ira Spaulding and his winter digs

(LOC: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011649997/)

“hansomest, most attractive camp in the Army of the Potomac” winter 1864-65

IRA Spaulding 50th NY Engineers

IRA Spaulding 50th NY Engineers

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right to privacy?

The Civil War was hugely expensive for the federal government, and various tax schemes were imposed to generate the necessary revenue, including an income tax. Here Gotham’s Times was concerned that tax assessors did not keep citizens’ incomes secret: “We live too much in public already.” Moreover, the paper believed that income publicity would have the unintended consequence of making those who owed taxes falsify their income so that their neighbors would not know how much they made.

From The New-York Times December 29, 1864:

The Internal Revenue Law-Telling Other People’s Secrets.

Amongst the many imperfections of the Internal Revenue Law, the failure to impose secrecy on the assessors of the income tax is certainly not one of the least important. The Evening Post commented a few days ago in severe terms on the smallness of the amount returned as their yearly income by great numbers of persons whose style of living unquestionably proves the receipt of five or six times as much, and it recommends sarcastically that Mr. PUTNAM should use the records in his possession to make up a book exposing the fraudulent concealments and evasions of some of our wealthy citizens in their dealings with the Government. It says:

“One man, who was supposed to have an income of over $100,000 from unencumbered real estate, lives like an English nobleman on about $2,800 per year, and another supports a luxurious town house and country place on the prodigious income of $98 02, from which is to be deducted the sum of $2 94 for his bleeding country. Such thrift and executive capacity are unsurpassed in ancient or modern times, and they place many of our fellow citizens high above that celebrated individual of antiquity who was detected flaying a parasite for his oleaginous deposit and cuticle.”

This is doubtless all true, and if true, very disgraceful; but we think that it is also disgraceful that either the Evening Post or any-body out of the Assessor’s office should know anything about it. In England, the Income Tax Commissioners and their employes are sworn to secrecy, and any revelation of the facts intrusted to them by the taxpayers respecting their private affairs, would certainly insure their dismissal as well as their disgrace.

There ought to be a similar rule here, and that there is not is another illustration of the hasty and slipshod way in which our system of taxation has been formed. Instead of perfecting the details of the tax law, Congress was last session a great part of its time occupied in discussing the origin of the war, and devising means to punish gold speculators. Forcing men to state under oath how much money they have, how much their wives have, and where they got it, is a sufficiently inquisitorial measure in itself, and its execution ought to be surrounded by every precaution that can tend to render it less odious. Nobody likes to reveal the exact amount of his income to the public, or to anybody from whom it can be concealed. The general feeling of the civilized world on this subject is evidenced by the social usage which makes it a gross impertinence to ask for information on this subject, even from one’s intimate friends, and a piece of folly to give it unasked. And this feeling of delicacy, so far from being assailed by legislation, ought, we think, to be encouraged and fostered. We live too much in public already. The public morals and manners would both be better than they are if people’s private affairs were held in greater respect, and if what passed in people’s houses was less frequently looked on as fair matter for street and newspaper gossip.

There are a thousand reasons, which we need not enumerate, why both persons with small and large incomes should, in the great majority of cases, desire to keep all information both as to their amount and their source confined to the family circle. And although the necessities of the Government call for its communication to certain Government officers; we maintain that both policy and morality require that these officers should keep it to themselves, that they should not impart it to anybody except those who are connected with the work of assessing or collecting the taxes, and that they should not make it the subject of gossip, or even of comment to anybody but their own superiors.

Now this rule has not been adhered to here, in New-York. Returns of income are communications as strictly confidential as any communications can be; but they are not treated as such; and are, though not actually on public file, we believe, for all practical purposes open to public inspection. If A wants to know how much B has a year, or how much he made last year, he has little difficulty in finding out, and the whole ward very soon knows it, and is very soon divided into two parties of tattlers about it, one maintaining that he has made false returns, the other that he is an extravagant dog who lives beyond his income; the fact being that it is nobody’s business, except his creditors, how he lives.

It is no wonder that there are plenty of false returns, when everybody feels that everything he puts down will be known to the whole city; that his affairs, if he is a man of mark, may be the talk of all his neighbors the day after he swears to his statement, and — what is, perhaps, fully as important, no wonder there are such a large number of persons who make no return whatever, when those whose income is small, feel that in stating the amount they expose themselves to sneers or depreciation in a place in which wealth is every day becoming more and more the measure of position and respect.

Strict secrecy ought, in short, to be imposed on the assessors by law; their records ought to be made confidential communications, and all revelation of their contents punishable; and until this is done, the assessors themselves ought to act like gentlemen, and keep what they know to themselves.

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it’s the rebel armies, stupid

Graves for the invaders. A fragment. Savannah, Ga., 1863 (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/amss002770/)

the invaders just kept coming

A Democrat publication looked at the undoubted brilliance of General Sherman’s campaign through Georgia – and found the Lincoln administration wanting. From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in December 1864:

The Capture of Savannah.

The War Department received dispatches from Gen. Sherman on the 25th inst., announcing the occupation of Savannah and the capture of 150 guns, 25,000 bales of cotton and plenty of ammunition. The city was occupied by our army on the 21st., the rebel Gen. Hardee with his infantry and artillery making their escape the night before, after blowing up the iron-clads and burning the Navy Yard.

The enemy, it seems, have made a very poor campaign against Sherman, and if Hardee had a force of 12,000 behind the works at Savannah, as it is estimated, it was a singular proceeding on his part to evacuate the city, without an effort to defend it. That he left 25,000 bales of cotton to fall into our hands is a very improbable story.

Savannah siege 12-1864 (LOC: http://www.loc.gov/item/gvhs01.vhs00180/)

new base on the Atlantic

Gen. Sherman’s campaign has been a very brilliant one, and the occupation of Savannah furnishes him a new base upon the Atlantic coast, from which he can draw supplies, in his future movements against the enemy. The mere taking of Savannah is of no particular consequence, except in its prestige or moral effect. The success of the rebel cause by no means depends on the possession of cities, nor are they its principal strength. Until the rebel armies are wholly destroyed we will look in vain for peace under the policy of the present administration. Until our rulers are imbued with a wise statesmanship in the conduct of the war, all our victories will be in vain.

Actually, after he received news of the Union success at Antietam, President Lincoln did urge the Democrats’ beloved General McClellan to “Destroy the rebel army if possible.”

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boxing day thanks

In didn’t take President Lincoln long to get to his Christmas thank you notes in 1864. Of course, when someone gives you an entire city, it’s probably not a bad idea to make sure you show your gratitude. From The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Seven:

SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA
TO GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, December 26, 1864

MY DEAR GENERAL SHERMAN:—Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah.

Abraham Lincoln, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right ( engraving after painting by Marshall. Date Created/Published: c1898; LOC:  LC-USZ62-94587)

“But what next?”

When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that “nothing risked, nothing gained,” I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce.

And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages; but in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole,—Hood’s army,—it brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next?

I suppose it will be safe if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide.

Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army of officers and men.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

Thanks to the Library of Congress we can view the original analog version of the letter (apparently a copy in John Hay’s handwriting).

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dinner plans changed

General Braxton Bragg (photographed between 1861 and 1865, printed late; LOC: LC-USZC4-7984)

Good News Bragg

Two big war events 150 years ago this week were the capture of Savannah and the attempt to capture Fort Fisher. It took a while for the news to make its way up to upstate New York. Here’s an article about Fort Fisher from a Seneca County, New York newspaper in January 1865:

Congratulatory Order of General Bragg.

The Richmond Sentinel of the 31st ult., has the following dispatch from Wilmington, N.C., from which it will be seen that that the rebel Gen. Bragg claims a great victory over our land and naval forces under Butler and Porter:

Gen. Ben. Butler (between 1855 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpbh-00894)

hungry?

General Bragg has issued a congratulatory order on the defeat of the enemy’s grand armada before Wilmington, paying a merited compliment to Generals Whiting and Kirkland, Colonel Lamb, and the officers and men engaged. the enemy’s attack on the first day lasted five hours; on the second day, seven hours – firing, altogether, over twenty thousand shots from fifty kinds of vessels. The confederates responded with six hundred and sixty-two shots on the first day, and six hundred on the second. Our loss is three killed and fifty-five wounded. The ground in the front and rear of the fort is covered with shells, and is torn in deep pits. Two guns in the fort burst, two were dismounted by ourselves, and two by the enemy’s fire, yet the fort is unhurt. Scouts report that Butler made a speech at Newbern saying he would eat his Christmas dinner at Wilmington. It is reported that a part of a negro regiment and the fifth regiment of regulars were lost in the gale. The expedition up the Roanoke has returned.

I don’t know if General Butler really boasted that he would enjoy his Christmas repast in Wilmington, but Civil War Daily Gazette reports that the general spent December 25th aboard the Chamberlain managing the rather half-hearted and failed Union ground assault.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast used Christmas 1864 to portray a victorious and yet conciliatory Union in the December 31, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South):

christmas-dinner (Harper's Weekly, 12-31-1864 by Thomas Nast)

Good Will

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Spontaneous peace broke out along parts of the Western front around Christmas 1914. The Christmas Truce was far from universal. The December 26, 1914 issue of The New York Times reported that French guns were shelling Metz and a sea battle was raging off the Chilean coast. And a Christmas Day air battle over England:

ny times 12-26-1914

New York Times 12-26-1914

The Fortresses on the German-French Frontier. (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28257/28257-h/28257-h.htm)

no peace at Metz ( The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) at Project Gutenberg)

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Merry Christmas (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17382/17382-h/17382-h.htm)

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‘vacant chair’ Christmas

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch December 24, 1864:

Saturday morning….December 24, 1864.
Christmas.

Christmas has come again, and though shorn of some of its old accessories of feasts and frolics, it is Christmas still in all that constitutes its essential glory. Its light shines through a clouded sky; but it is the light of the Star of Bethlehem, which is only more luminous and beautiful when earthly hopes have set, and are no longer able to rival or eclipse its calm and benignant radiance.

This time-hallowed festival, the oldest and most universal in the Christian world, has been ever cherished with peculiar love and reverence by the people of our sunny land. Whilst Puritanism has always frowned upon it with a sour and austere visage, as it has upon every cheerful and innocent enjoyment of man, Christmas has come down to us from a Cavalier ancestry with untarnished honors, and is welcomed as the Queen of Festivals in every heart and every home. It may be that we cannot celebrate it now with the profusion and revelry of former days; but it never ought to have been a day of revelry, and enough is left us of the necessaries of life to minister to our wants and the demands of hospitality and charity. This is the season, above all others, when we should remember the poor and suffering, and prove by our own experience how much more blessed it is to give than to receive.

Scene of Ewell's attack, May 19, 1864, near Spottsylvania [i.e. Spotsylvania] Court House. Dead Confederate soldiers ([photographed 1864 May 19, printed later; LOC:  LC-USZ62-104043)

dead Confederates near Spottsylvania, May 1864

Incongruous and inconsistent as excess and intemperance have ever been in the celebration of such a festival, they would be peculiarly disgusting and shocking in this hour of national trial. There is a time for all things — a time to laugh and a time to weep — certainly this is not the time for insensate joy. There is scarcely a fireside in the Confederacy which has not a vacant chair in the Christmas circle. The father, the husband, the brother, gone forever, or miserable captives in Northern prisons. The very homes of thousands have disappeared from the face of the earth; fruitful regions transformed into deserts; battle-fields white with the bones of the unburied dead; hospitals crowded with sick and dying, and countless hearts breaking with the agonies of late bereavement. Or, if the sorrows of others cannot touch our sensibilities, the possibility that their fate may be our own should serve to chasten the exuberance of natures which have never known affliction, and which can fill high the cup of revelry and dance with light hearts amidst such calamities as have rarely visited the human race. With a vast army at our very doors thirsting for our destruction, and a powerful Government preparing to strike one more, and that a colossal blow, it would better become us, like the people of Nineveh, to wear sackcloth and ashes, and, upon our bended knees, invoke the Almighty to spare his people, than to mark the hallowed festival of Christmas by scenes of intemperance and dissipation. Common respect for the sorrows of those who have suffered so fearfully by this war, and an intelligent love of our own future happiness, alike teach us to be moderate in our enjoyments, and to remember the words of the prophet, reproving the Jews for their worldly joy during the invasion of their country by the Persians: “And in that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in nine years by the Lord of Hosts. Surely, this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of Hosts.”

If ever, then, Christmas should be observed in its true character of a religious festival, it is the present anniversary. Amid all our tribulations, one deep, unfailing fountain of joy and consolation remains — that Christ was born. Amid the overhanging darkness shines a light which may cheer the saddest and calm the gayest heart. Amid the tumult of human passions and the clangor of battle, still sound those angelic strains which ravished the shepherd’s ears, heralding the birth of the Prince of Peace. Peace! Blessed word! What richer gift could Heaven have offered to earth? We, at least, can appreciate the full significance of such a gift, and with lowly adoration bend at the altar of the Lamb of God, and, while We lament these evil passions which have disowned his benignant sway, beseech Him that when another Christmas comes we may be able to echo from earth to heaven the song of Bethlehem–“Peace on earth, good will among men.”

The Dispatch.

As to-morrow will be Christmas day, no paper will be issued from this office until Tuesday next.

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shaming the abolitionists?

General George H. Thomas, U.S.A. (between 1860 and 1875; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpbh-00679)

General Thomas sent good news from Nashville

A Democrat publication wondered why, if over two million adult men voted for President Lincoln’s re-election, the President had to threaten a draft to come up with 300,000 more soldiers.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1864 or early 1865:

Three Hundred Thousand More!

Notwithstanding the assurances given us by the abolition press of the country that the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, would result in immediate peace to the nation, and the consequent disbanding of our armies, the President finds it necessary to call for 300,000 more men. The demand is for volunteers to serve for one, two or three years. In case quotas are not filled by the 15th day of February next, a draft will take place to fill up all deficiencies. The President complains in his proclamation, that but 280,000 men were realized by his last call for 500,000 – partly owing to “credits allowed, in accordance with the act of Congress,” and partly on account of “the action of the enemy in certain States,” which rendered it impossible to procure from such States their assigned quotas.

We think this call for more men will not come unexpectedly to the mass of our people. The Administration has been laboring as earnestly since election to prepare the public mind for it, as as its organs did previously to divest the minds of the voters of the country of any such apprehensions, as an inducement for them to cast their ballots for Mr. Lincoln.

General Sherman's army entering Savannah, Georgia, December 21, 1864 (Illus. in: Harper's Weekly, 1865 January 14, p. 17; LOC:  LC-USZ6-1548)

“General Sherman’s army entering Savannah, Georgia, December 21, 1864”

Such news, says the New York World, in refering [sic] to this subject, as we have just received from SHERMAN and THOMAS we should have supposed might have led the administration to rely on the noble and spontaneous enthusiasm of the people. If there be any honesty in the boasted ‘patriotism’ of the Loyal Leagues, any meaning in the clamorous ‘loyalty’ of the Tribune’s ‘nine hundred thousand’ men of New England, let them now be proved! To arms! The country waits to hear your martial tramp upon a thousand roads. – Volunteers! You have demanded a policy of uncompromising war! Shame, a thousand times shame upon you, if you render to that policy only the compulsory service expected by a remorseless conscription!

Apparently, back in 1862 the Tribune claimed 900,000 men would volunteer if President Lincoln issued an emancipation proclamation.

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Hardee not Lincoln

When a Richmond paper heard the news about the fall of Savannah, it spun it positive – unlike American forces in Charleston during the Revolutionary War, General Hardee’s army escaped. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch December 29, 1864:

Thursday morning…December 29, 1864.

The capture of Savannah has not yielded the Yankees all the fruits they anticipate from that enterprise. They believed that Hardee would shut himself up in that city, with fifteen thousand men, and wait the event of a siege, which could not be doubtful since they have the command of the sea. They even anticipated the capture of Beauregard, with his forces; and their journals made themselves quite merry on the occasion.–They expected, in a word, another Vicksburg and Port Hudson affair at Savannah. But they have been disappointed. Hardee did not remain to be captured. He carried off all his men, all his magazines, and all his munitions of war. He left only his siege guns, which were too heavy to be transported, and which were, no doubt, rendered unfit for service. Every man, well or sick, was transported beyond the reach of Sherman. The army has been saved, and will add to our troops in the field a force of which they are in much need.–In the Revolutionary war, the American general — Lincoln — committed the folly of shutting himself up in Charleston with the entire army destined to defend the South. The consequences might have been foreseen. The enemy, having the entire command of the sea, shut up the harbor of Charleston, and landing forces at Beaufort, invested it by land. The city not only fell, but it carried the army along with it. Every man was captured, and the Southern States left entirely without an army. It was then that the spirit of the people rose to supply the place of a regular army. It was then that Marion, Sumpter and Clarke first began to teach the British that though they had conquered Savannah and Charleston, they had not conquered South Carolina and Georgia. The dispatch from Sir Henry Clinton to Lord George Germania, the British Secretary of War, announcing that South Carolina was completely subdued, had hardly been published in the Gazette, when news arrived that these bold partizans had already rekindled the war. Cornwallis, like Sherman, commenced his march northward. He overthrew the army of Gates at Camden, and, for awhile, put an end to all regular opposition. But Marion and Sumpter were still at work, and in less than two months after Camden, came King’s Mountain; and in three months more, the defeat of Tarlton at the Cowpens by Morgan’s regulars and militia. We are more fortunate than were our forefathers. They lost Charleston, and with it a whole army. We have simply lost Savannah, which had been blockaded and rendered useless for two years. The army is safe, intact, and existing, to serve as a nucleus around which reinforcements may rally.

The column which Sherman has sent to the South is supposed to have gone in search of the prisoners, which, thus far, he has failed to capture. We do not think he is likely to find them. With his main force he is already moving north; his object being, no doubt, to pass through South and North Carolina, and, as far as he can, destroy all the communications between those regions and General Lee’s army. It appears to be thought by many that the winter, and the bad weather, will impede his advance to unite with Grant. We are not of that opinion — at least, we place no great faith in such allies as wind and weather. They have proved treacherous too often since the commencement of this war. Besides, we read that in the campaign of JanuaryFebruary, 1781, between Cornwallis and Green — over this same ground — the rains and the high water did, by no means, put an end to military evolutions. Cornwallis pursued Green, and Green retired before him with the most unremitting vigilance, and the most untiring activity, although it was raining incessantly nearly the whole time, and the waters were everywhere up, for several weeks, from the borders of South Carolina, into Virginia. We rather hope that military means will be found to hold Sherman in check, and to protect the country and delay his advance as much as possible.

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reconstruction bill

Great mass meeting to endorse the call of the Legislature of South Carolina for a state convention to discuss the question of secession from the Union, held at Institute Hall, Charleston, S.C., on Monday, Nov. 12, 1860 (Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, vol. 11, no. 261 (1860 Nov. 24), pp. 8-9; LOC: LC-USZ62-62193)

“Great mass meeting to endorse the call of the Legislature of South Carolina for a state convention to discuss the question of secession from the Union, held at Institute Hall, Charleston, S.C., on Monday, Nov. 12, 1860” (Library of Congress)

Four years to the day after South Carolina officially seceded from the United States, Richmond citizens could read about a bill in the Yankee Congress to manage the return of the rebel states: slavery would be forever abolished; provisional governors would enforce U.S. and antebellum state laws; high level Confederate military officers would not be citizens of the United States. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch December 20, 1864:

“reconstruction” of the Confederate States.

The bill for “reconstructing” the Governments of the “rebellious States” was introduced in the Federal Congress on Friday. We find the following summary of its provisions in the Tribune:

It provides for the appointment by the President of provisional governors of rebel States, who shall see that the laws of the United States and of the States before the rebellion are enforced. But no law or usage recognizing slavery shall be recognized by any officer or court in such State. It emancipates all slaves in such State and their posterity forever, and provides for the discharge, on habeas corpus, of persons held to service on pretence of ownership.

nterior of Secession Hall  (December 1860; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-19336)

Charleston’s Secession Hall, December 1860

It provides for the punishment of attempts to re-enslave emancipated persons. It declares that officers of the rank of colonel, or higher, in the rebel service, are not citizens of the United States. The bill further provides for the calling of conventions in States whose governments have been usurped and overthrown as soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed and the people shall have sufficiently returned to their allegiance. The conventions are required to provide that persons in rebel civil and military service of, and above, the grade of colonel, shall not vote for, or be, a member of the Legislature or Governor.

Involuntary servitude is prohibited, and the freedom of all persons to be guaranteed in the said States. No debt, State or Confederate, created by the usurping power is to be recognized. If the convention shall refuse to re-establish the State government upon the above conditions, the provisional government is to declare it dissolved, and another election of delegates is to be ordered.

On December 20, 1864 everyone North and South knew that Sherman’s Union army was closing in on another hotbed of secession:

The first flag of independence raised in the South, by the citizens of Savannah, Ga. November 8th, 1860 (Savannah, Ga. : s.n., 1860; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-19610)

“The first flag of independence raised in the South, by the citizens of Savannah, Ga. November 8th, 1860” (Library of Congress)

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2 + 2

As Democrat paper in the Finger Lakes region of New York State absorbed a couple of the significant events that occurred 150 years this week – the Union victory at Nashville and President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 more volunteers – it came up with some doubt about how well the war was really going for the North. From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in December 1864:

Battle of Nashville (by Kurz & Allison, c1891.; LOC:  LC-DIG-pga-01886)

“rose-colored dispatches” ?

The Battle at Nashville.

The recent battle near Nashville seems to have been very disastrous to the enemy. Gen. Thomas attacked Hood and succeeded in driving him back beyond Franklin, a distance of some miles. From all the accounts received the enemy lost most of his artillery, and one fourth of his effective strength. Too much reliance, however, must not be placed on the rose-colored dispatches from that vicinity. There is no doubt but that the rebels were signally defeated, but we do not believe that Hood’s army is used up, or destroyed even for the time being. The battle, unquestionably, was a severe one, and our own loss heavy. It is reported at from three to four thousand. The enemy must have lost heavily in prisoners, if not in killed and wounded.

The sensation dispatches of victory from every quarter, must be taken with great allowance, for it is a significant fact that upon the heels of nearly all of our great victories – or reported such – comes a conscription. The back-bone of the Confederacy may be effectually broken, and it may require only a few more men – just a few more at this particular time – to disperse and utterly route the rebel armies, and possibly it may require years, and a dozen calls of 300,000 men, to finish a task deemed so trifling by our Abolition friends. No one, we venture to say, except the most ignorant of our opponents, can be made to believe that this is the last call for men.

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171 years ago today Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was first published.

Scrooge and marley's ghost

A Scrooge is born …

Scrooge and Cratchit

and reborn

titlepage 1843

12-19-1843

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