managing well in North Carolina

Posted on November 27, 2013 by SUMPTER
Zebulon B. Vance, Representative from North Carolina, Thirty-fifth Congress, half-length1859; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-26688)

Beware Pharaoh Seward

150 years ago today a Richmond newspaper published a portion of an address by North Carolina Governor Zebulon Baird Vance to the state legislature.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 27, 1863:

Governor Vance’s message.

–The North Carolina Legislature assembled at Raleigh, N. C., on Tuesday last. We make some extracts from Governor Vance’s message:

The very important subject of feeding the poor, whose supporters and protectors are in the army, again demands our attention. The results the past year’s operations are most encouraging, and should serve to give our people confidence in the resources of their State. Great anxiety was fell last fall, as you know, on the subject of food, and fears were entertained that suffering, if not actual starvation, would be witnessed in many quarters. Under the authority conferred upon me by your body I purchased and stored away about 50,000 bushels of corn, 250,000 pounds of bacon, quantity of rice, &c., which I expected would go but little way in supplying the general wants. When the season closed and the new crop came in, however, to my surprise and gratification, I found that Major Hogg, Commissary of Subsistence, had only issued to the County Commissioners about one-third of the bacon less than one-half of the corn, and but very little of the rice. He reports still on hand some 70,000 lbs. of bacon, having fed a number of negroes engaged on the public works and sold to the army 100,000 lbs., with 20,000 bushels of corn. I have reason to believe that from various causes the crops this year have not been as abundant as usual, and that the public will be called on to do more than last season. But still I see no cause for alarm, and my last year’s experience has encouraged me to believe that all can be fed from our own resources by proper prudence and economy. I respectfully recommend a liberal appropriation among the several counties, according to population, for this purpose — at least double that of last year — and that I be allowed to buy and store away corn, flour, and bacon, as heretofore.

Reports are submitted herewith of the operations of the Ordnance, Subsistence, and Quartermaster Departments, which I trust you will find satisfactory. The enterprise of running the blockade and importing army supplies from abroad has proven a complete success. You will see from the report that large quantities of clothing, leather and shoes, lubricating oils, factory findings, sheet iron and tin, arms and ammunition, medicines, dye stuffs, blankets, cotton bagging and rope, spirits, coffee, &c., have been safety brought in, besides considerable freight for the Confederacy. Two thousand and ten bales of cotton have been sent to Liverpool, the proceeds of which are deposited to the credit of the State, less the amount of expenses of the vessel. With what we have imported, and the purchases in our home markets, I think I can safely say that the North Carolina troops will be comfortably clothed to January, 1865–should God in his providence so long see fit to afflict us with a continuance of the war — except as to shoes and blankets. Neither the Ordnance nor Quartermaster’s Departments placed too much reliance on foreign importation, but every effort has been made to stimulate home production.–Both the quality and quantity of arms and munitions manufactured have been improved in the past twelve months.

We know at last precisely what we would get by submission, and therein has our enemy done us good service — abolition of slavery, confiscation of property, and territorial vassalage! These are the terms to win us back. Now, when our brothers bleed and mothers and little ones cry for bread, we can point them back to the brick kilns of Egypt — thanks to Mr. Seward–plainly in view, and show them the beautiful clusters of Eschol which grow in the land of independence, whither we go to possess them. And we can remind them too, how the pillar of fire and the cloud, the conch safe guidon of Jehovah, went ever before the hungering multitude, leading away, with apparent cruelty, from the fullness of servitude. With such a prospect before them our people will, as heretofore, come firmly up to the full measure of their duty if their trusted servants do not fail them.–They will not crucify afresh their own sons, slain in their behalf, or put their gallant shades to open shame, by stopping short of full and complete national independence.

You can read the governor’s complete address at UNC. The Dispatch omitted that Mr. Vance’s request that the legislature write laws to encourage the raising of sheep because the fall of Vicksburg cut off supplies of Texas wool.

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NYC “wore a holiday face”

Posted on November 26, 2013 by SUMPTER

president-lincolns-hymn

A “purposely observed” Thanksgiving

President Lincoln proclaimed it back in October. 150 years ago today the North celebrated a “day of thanksgiving and prayer”. Here’s a bit from a pretty much pro-Lincoln Administration newspaper in New York City. It was a holiday that included public worship, acts of charity, and amusement. The good news from Chattanooga made it all the better.

From The New-York Times November 27, 1863:

THANKSGIVING.; THE OBSERVANCES YESTERDAY. GRATITUDE AND JOY Discourses of Right Rev. Bishop Potter, Rev. Dr. Bellows, Rev. Dr. Potts, Rev. Dr. Chapin, Rev. J.P. Thompson, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. Dr. Tyng, and Others. WHAT WAS DONE AT THE INSTITUTIONS. Discourse of Bishop Potter.

It is doubtful whether any day of Thanksgiving has been so generally, so purposely observed as yesterday. It broke upon us bright, clear and beautiful, and it really did seem as though Heaven designed participation with the prevailing happiness. At an unusually early hour all business was suspended, and long before the appointed time the several churches were filled to overflowing by those anxious to hear the words of religion and of loyalty-Yesterday they were made, as will be seen by the reports of the sermons we publish, almost synonymous terms. There appeared to be a general disposition to make the day one of thanksgivings, one of reverential enjoyment.

There was much good, too, done yesterday. All the charitable and benevolent institutions were supplied from kindly quarters with enough wherewith to feed those under their charge, and many with enough to clothe. Charity seems to have walked abroad; and, oh! did those who are able to secure it know at how little cost how much of joy could be purchased, we are sure they would buy it by the wagon-load, and go through the highways and the by ways and throw it broadcast for those who so seldom see it to secure. Many a heart beat loudly yesterday, to the music of joy and gratitude, in haunts where naught but silence and sorrow had prevailed. Many a sad and desolate home was invaded by the kindly, and help brought to the sick, and words and acts of comfort to the distressed and sorrowing. Much good was done yesterday — much more than past years have record of — and may it be the initiative of what makes thrice blessed and thrice happy those who administer it.

Battle of Missionary Ridge - fought November 23-25, 1863 (byKurz & Allison, c.1886; LOC: LC-DIG-pga-01854)

Happier Thanksgiving!

Everybody wore a holiday face. In the afternoon all the places of amusement were crowded to overflowing, and in the evening an outsider was the one who came half an hour before the time. There was no room in any place for such a laggard.

Space prevents our enumeration of all the specialties of the day. The war news so opportunely arriving, gave renewed zest to the thankfulness and enjoyment, and it was considered a glorious [???] that when a nation was in prayer its gratitude and supplications were illumined by the [???] of Promise in the West. …

The December 5, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly at Son of the South celebrated the day with a reproduction of “The President’s Hymn: Give Thanks, All Ye People” and a full page illustration by Thomas Nast. As you can see, both images refer to emancipation. Nast’s Thanksgiving includes an image of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer.

thanksgiving-day-750

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“glorious victory”

Posted on November 25, 2013 by SUMPTER
NYT11261863Chattanooga

Union “in entire possession of the field”

The only extant cutting in the Seneca Falls, New York library’s big notebook of Civil War local newspaper clippings regarding the late November battles around Chattanooga is a reproduction of General Montgomery C. Meigs’ official report to Secretary of War Stanton, which you can read here. He referred to Joseph Hooker’s successful assault on Lookout Mountain on November 24th as being fought “above the clouds.”

As always Seven Score and Ten and Civil War Daily Gazette post excellent accounts.

Here’s a Northern newspaper’s early take: General Grant is all ready to take Atlanta.

From The New-York Times November 26, 1863:

GLORIOUS VICTORY!; GEN. GRANT’S GREAT SUCCESS. Bragg Routed and Driven from Every Point. SUCCESSFUL BATTLE ON TUESDAY. Gen. Hooker Assaults Lookout Mountain and Takes 2,000 Prisoners. General Sherman Finally Carries Missionary Ridge. Gen. Thomas Pierces the Enemy’s Centre. Forty Pieces of Artillery Taken. Five Thousand to Ten Thousand Pris- oners Captured. Flight of [th]e Rebels in Disorder and Confusion. Probable Interception of the Rebels at Rossville.

[Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General, full-length portrait, standing, facing slightly left, wearing military uniform] (1861 March; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-07785)

General Meigs had good news for Secretary Stanton

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE N.Y. TIMES.

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Nov. 25.

Dispatches giving details of recent operations before Chattanooga were received to-night from Gen. GRANT. He is in happy spirits and confident of success.

Atlanta he declares to be a prize already within his grasp.

DISPATCHES TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

CHATTANOOGA, Wednesday, Nov. 25.

We are completely victorious. The enemy is totally routed and driven from every position. Our loss is very small and the enemy’s is heavy in prisoners. Finding Gen. HOOKER so successful in his movements against Lookout Mountain, the enemy evacuated that position during the night.

Gen. HOOKER took possession early this morning. The enemy moved south and got on Missionary Ridge on the battle-field somewhere near Chickamauga. He is expected to intercept the flying foe. Gen. HOOKER is said to have captured 2,000 prisoners in his magnificent assault of Lookout Mountain.

Gen. SHERMAN being all prepared to begin an assault at 8 A.M. to-day, upon the strong position of the enemy at the north end of Missionary Ridge. He had the day before taken a hill near the position of the enemy, but commanded by their artillery. He had to descend into a valley, and he then made another ascent to the position held by the enemy. Two unsuccessful assaults were made by Gen. SHERMAN, but, with the cooperation of the centre, he ultimately gained the position, and completed the great victory.

The brigade of Gen. CARSE, with a portion of Gen. LIGHTPEWS brigade, composed the storming party in the first assault. They were repulsed with quite a heavy loss after an attack persisted in for an hour; but being reinforced they, were enabled to hold a part of the hills. In this attack Gen. CARSE was wounded quite severely in the thigh. The Thirty-seventh Ohio and Sixth Iowa and One Hundred and Third Illinois regiments were in the attack. A second assault was made at 3 1/2 o’clock, in which MATHIAS’, LOOMIS’ and RAUL’S brigades were engaged. The force reached within twenty yards of the summit of the hill and the works of the enemy, when they were flanked and broke, retiring to their reserves.

battleschatt

In this assault Gen. MATHIAS was wounded and Col. PUTNAM, of the Ninety-third Ohio, killed, their persistent efforts compelled the enemy to mass heavily on his right in order to hold the position of so much importance to him. About 3 o’clock Gen. GRANT started two columns against the weakened centre, and in an hour desperate fighting, succeeded in breaking the centre, and gaining possession of the ridge in which the enemy was posted, the main force was driven northward toward Gen. SHERMAN, who opened on them, and they were forced to break, and seek safety in disordered flight down the western slope of the Ridge, and across the western ridge of the Chickamauga. We have taken not less than 5,000 prisoners and perhaps 10,000. Gen. HOOKER will probably intercept the flying enemy in the vicinity of Rossville and the region east of it.

There are reports that we have taken a whole corps.

Among the casualties are Lieut.-Col. ESPY, of the Sixty-eighth Indiana regiment; Major MCCAWLEY, of the Tenth Iowa; Col. OMARS, of the Ninetieth Illinois; Lieut.-Col. STUART, of the Ninetieth Illinois; Major WALKER, of the Tenth Missouri; Major WELSE, of the Fifty-sixth Illinois; Major INNISS, of the Sixth Iowa, wounded; Major IRWIN, of the Sixth Iowa, killed.

Full reports of the killed and wounded cannot be attained, as most of the killed were in Gen. SHERMAN’s corps, and remained at dark in the hands of the enemy. The list will be telegraphed to-morrow. The prisoners say that BRAGG was on the Ridge just before they were taken.

The successful storming parties consisted of WOOD’s and BAIRD’s divisions on the left centre and JOHNSTON’s and SHE[R]IDAN’s on the right centre. Some of our wounded were left in the hands of the enemy after Gen. SHERMAN’s unsuccessful assault, but were ultimately recovered.

CHATTANOOGA, Wednesday, Nov. 25 — 10 P.M.

The captured artillery is reported at about forty pieces. Gen. HOOKER captured five boxes of new muskets on Lookout Mountain.

We are in entire possession of the field. We have control over the railway and river to Bridgeport. Two boats came through this morning. Our loss will not amount to more than 300 killed and 250 wounded in the three days operations. The success has been most brilliant.

The enemy is reported to be bivouacking two miles beyond Missionary Ridge. Col. PHELPS, of the Thirty-eighth Ohio, and Major GLASS, of the Thirty-second Indiana, are killed. Gen. JOHN E. SMITH is reported wounded. Col. AVERY, of the One Hundred and Second New-York, lost a leg, and Major ELLIOTT is the same as dead.

LC-DIG-ppmsca-32399

Grant on Lookout – Atlanta on his mind?

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railroaded in Ireland?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by SUMPTER

A Southern editorial that found the British hands-off policy regarding Union recruiting efforts in Ireland not exactly neutral:

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 23, 1863:

Yankee recruiting in Ireland.

From the intercepted letter of Mr. De Leon, which the Yankees published, we learn that [ that ] interesting nation have been recruiting in Ireland at a great rate. During the current year they have been able to procure twenty thousand recruits only, leaving it to be inferred that in former years their success had been much greater. These proceedings are perfectly well known to the Palmerston Ministry–Mr. De Leon had a conversation regarding them with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland — many attempts have been made, we are told, to stop them, but without effect. Russell finds that the foreign enlistment law is not sufficiently comprehensive to embrace them. Were the party engaged in them the Confederate Government, no doubt it could be stretched so as to catch the delinquents; or, If that failed, Russell would “go down to Parliament,” as the phrase is, with a law sufficiently broad and long to secure the culprits, as in a net. But they happen to be Yankees, and to interfere with them in the prosecution of their upright designs would be to wound the susceptibilities of Secretary Seward. Anything rather than that. Submission, humiliation, a total surrender of British policy into the hands of Adams, rather than encounter that terrible misfortune. Neutrality, Vattel tells us, consists in rendering no assistance of any kind to either belligerent party. The British Government is neutral after a fashion. It certainly renders no direct assistance to the Yankees by sending them recruits. It contents itself with merely permitting them to recruit on their own account. It does nothing more than throw the door open; they walk in and help themselves. …

Here’s a bit of the letter Edwin de Leon wrote to Judah Benjamin.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 21, 1863:

Intercepted Correspondence — effect of the withdrawal of Mr. Mason from London — the emigration from Ireland to. The United States.–the feeling in France towards the Confederacy.

The Northern papers publish the following letter from Mr. Ed. de Leon to Secretary Benjamin. It was captured on the Ella and Annie, a blockade running steamer; which was intercepted on her way from Nassau to Wilmington. They say that there are a great many more letters, which have been sent to Washington, and which will be published as soon as Lincoln is through with them:

Paris, September10, 1863.
Hon. J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, Richmond, Confederate States America:
[No. 10.]

Sir

“Your dispatch No. 3, 15th August last, was delivered to me by Dr. Charles Girard, on the 16th instant, and in conformity with the instructions therein contained I write you, via Bermuda, by the first post, and shall continue my communications by each successive steamer for that port. …

After the disposal of the Roebuck motion, the rapid increase of Federal recruitment in Ireland attracted much attention, and I deemed it advisably to visit that country to see if anything could be done to check it. During three weeks residence, chiefly in Dublin, with a visit to Belfast, in the north of Ireland, I succeeded in unmasking and exposing the enemy’s battery, and enlisted the aid of some powerful auxiliaries in the press and pulpit to stop this cruel and cowardly crumping of recruits under pretext of employment on Northern railways. Many knew the real nature of the services required of them, but many more were entrapped by promise of high wages, their contract containing a clause that they would take the preliminary “oath of renunciation” on their arrival in America. This at once would make them subject to the draft.

Another drag put upon them was the exhortation to the women to accompany their husbands, as the promised wages were so high, so that the Yankees now get a good deal of dross with their good metal. The number of actual recruits thus obtained from Ireland, for the past year, up to August, cannot have exceeded twenty thousand able-bodied men, but has probably reached that figure. When the harvest time is over the Yankees hope to make a grand haul, but we hope their nets will not hold. The men of intelligence who see the drain thus made of the very bone and sinew of the country, resist it from policy and patriotism. The priests, who are generally conscientious and earnest men, and who live on voluntary contributions of their parishioners, are bent on arresting the exodus.

The only party favorable to the Yankees is the silly and mischievous clique of demagogues who style themselves “Young Irelanders,” of whom General Meagher used to be one of the shining lights, and these men make themselves busy in selling their countrymen for the Yankee shambles. No step has been or will be taken by the British Government to stop this wholesale deportation, for two reasons. First, from the difficulty of proof of actual enlistment; and second, because of the unwillingness of Lord Russell to wound the susceptibilities of Mr. Seward, of whose conduct he has “no complaint to make.”

The priests, the press, and the public opinion, may supply the shortcomings of the Government in this respect. At least the attempt is making and shall continue to be made. …

Here, in France, I see no change either in the attitude of the Government or in the popular sentiment. In fact, until the arrival of the Florida at Brest, allusions to the Confederacy (except those supplied by our friends in the press) were becoming very rare. …

I remain, very respectfully,

Edwin de Leon.

The New-York Times opined about the intercepted letters here Apparently in another letter Mr. de Leon likened Jefferson Davis to Joshua leading his people into the promised land.

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pasteboard nation

Posted on November 22, 2013 by SUMPTER

From Harper’s Weekly November 21, 1863:

A QUESTION OF ENDURANCE.

THE war has now reached a point at which the continued resistance of the rebels is a mere question of endurance. They are suffering privations as severe as were ever borne by a belligerent people, Their currency is depreciated in the ratio of 12 to 1, and while the soldiers and civil employes of Government are paid in this depreciated currency on the scale which was fair when that currency was at or near par, provisions, clothing, and all the necessaries of life have adjusted themselves to the depreciation, so that it takes a soldier’s wages for a month to support his family for a day. Of manufactured articles—boots, shoes, dry goods, hardware of all kinds, agricultural implements, etc. —the stock has fallen so low that fabulous prices are asked and obtained by its fortunate possessors. The capture of Morris Island has nearly closed the port of Charleston, and within a month the blockade of Wilmington—the only port at which any considerable blockade running is now done—will also be sealed. When this happens, no more foreign goods will enter the Confederacy till the peace. …

This picture is not exaggerated. Yet it is hardly possible to conceive a more complete aggregate of wretchedness. Without food, without clothes, without coal, without hope of succor from abroad, and with the ever-present Federal anaconda tightening its grip round them week by week and month by month, sometimes moving fast, sometimes slowly, but never losing an inch of ground once occupied, can it be possible to conceive a people in more cruel straits than the rebels? Hew long can they endure such a complication of miseries? To which side shall they look for relief? …

[not to Europe, General Lee, General Bragg, cavalry and guerrilla raids, or Northern Copperheads. And after Chattanooga “the next move in the game will be a “resistless “unconditional surrender” movement on Atlanta.”]

They may burn a few trains, “gobble up” a few commissaries, surprise a few helpless detachments of Union troops—nay, even win a pitched battle or two here or there; but what then? In the truthful language of the Richmond Examiner, “Our [rebel] victories are somehow always fruitless and unproductive of results; they leave the great question of the war where they found it.” How long will the rebels continue to struggle under such privations, against such odds, in so hopeless a cause?

[Unidentified soldier in Confederate pullover hunting-style shirt with dark military-type trim with double barrel shotgun, revolver, and side knife] (between 1861 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-32605)

Union target: “our duty to destroy”

The time has not come yet for an honest Northerner to express his opinion of the courage and fortitude which the rebels have displayed in this wretched contest. So long as the red hand of battle is uplifted they are our enemies, whom it is our duty to destroy—nothing more. When the time does come—as come it must—that failure and disappointment and privation and despair compel these poor people to abandon the struggle into which a blind and brutal oligarchy precipitated them, they may rely upon it that, in the words of that great and good man, Henry Ward Beecher, they will find the fatted calf ready for them throughout the North, and none more ready to relieve their wants than the very soldiers who are now crushing in the sides of the pasteboard Confederacy.

_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Andrew Johnson (c.1865; LOC: LC-DIG-pga-02640)

almost lynched in Lynchburg

In those troubled days before the Civil War, … only Andrew Johnson, alone among Southerners [in the U.S. Senate], spoke for the Union. When his train, as he returned home to Tennessee to fight to keep his state in the Union, stopped at Lynchburg, Virginia, an angry mob dragged the Senator from his car, assaulted and abused him, and decided not to lynch him only at the last minute, with the rope already around his neck, when they agreed that hanging him was a privilege of his own neighbors in Tennessee. Throughout Tennessee, Johnson was hissed, hooted, and hanged in effigy. Confederate leaders were assured that “His power is gone and henceforth there will be nothing left but the stench of the traitor.” Oblivious to the threat of death, Andrew Johnson toured the state, attempting in vain to stem the tide against secession, and finally becoming the only Southern Senator who refused to secede with his state. On his return trip to Washington, greeted by an enthusiastic crowd at the station in Cincinnati, he told them proudly: “I am a citizen of the South and of the state of Tennessee. … [But] I am also a citizen of the United States.”

John F. Kennedy wrote quite a bit about Civil War themes in Profiles in Courage[1]

  1. [1]Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage – Memorial Edition. New York: Harper & Row Perennial Library, 1964 (original 1955). Print. page 200.↩
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Confederate States of America, Military Matters, Northern Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“axes and shovels are in demand”

Posted on November 21, 2013 by SUMPTER

Tools of War

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1863:

From the 1st Veteran Cavalry.

CAMP STONEMAN, D.C.,
Nov. 21st, 1863.

FRIEND STOWELL: – Although nothing extraordinary has transpired to disturb the even tenor of our camp-life during the two or three weeks past, yet several incidents have occurred that may be of interest to our friends at home. Presentations have been the order of the day, and not long since Capt. Brett was the recipient of of a very fine sabre, sash and belt from the members of Co. K. The presentation was made by the 1st Lieutenant in behalf of the Company. Capt. Brett responded in an appropriate manner, and the whole affair passed off “in due form.”

In true soldier style, the boys have been hard at work digging cellars, logging up their tents, and preparing for the winter; planting cedars, pines and firs in the company streets, and otherwise decorating the camp, until now it looks like a forest of evergreens, interspersed here and there with hung wreaths and immense triumphal arches, presenting a beautiful appearance, and adding much to the comfort of the inhabitants of our cotton city. It is proverbial how invariably our soldiers set about preparing for a permanent abiding place, although morally certain that a few days will find them on the march again. No sooner is the camp located than axes and shovels are in demand, and hundreds of busy hands are immediately, as a novice would think, preparing to settle down for a term of enlistment. But to-morrow they are off again. No matter, the experience will be repeated; and so they go.

The health of the company has generally been very good. Charley Wisewell has had a slight turn of camp fever, but is out again “right side up.” Our Regimental Hospital Steward, Columbus R. Deppen, is winning golden opinions by his untiring fidelity to the duties of his office, and the kindness with which he cares for those under his charge. All speak well of him, and the sick appreciate his good offices in their behalf, I assure you.

Columbus Deppen

“untiring fidelity”

Capt. Brett has been sitting upon a Regimental Court martial for some time past and Lieut. Guion has been in command of the company, but now he is detailed as Judge Advocate of the Court, and the command devolves upon Lieut. Bacon.

Yesterday quite an addition was made to the regiment, consisting principally of those who forgot to come on when we left Geneva, among them were seven for Co. K, leaving only two more to be “accounted for.”

Since I wrote you last the U.S. Paymaster has given us a call and paid the advance upon the U.S. Bounty, from which our company has forwarded home over $2500, making in all the handsome amount of nearly $7000 sent to those “we left behind us.”

SENECA

[Unidentified soldier in Union cavalry uniform, on horse, with cavalry saber, in front of encampment with winter chimneys (between 1861 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-33337)

“Unidentified soldier in Union cavalry uniform, on horse, with cavalry saber, in front of encampment with winter chimneys” (Library of Congress)

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“dignified address”

Posted on November 20, 2013 by SUMPTER

This is the first review I saw of November 19th’s Gettysburg cemetery dedication in the Richmond Dispatch. It focused on Lincoln’s and Seward’s responses to serenaders the evening before and the main speech by Edward Everett on the 19th.

Gettysburg, Pa. (day of Lincoln's address) (photographed 1863 November 19, printed between 1880 and 1889; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-32849)

Yankees “on hand in large quantities”

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 25, 1863:

The Gettysburg cemetery Celebration — the speeches.

The Gettysburg cemetery dedication was entirely Yankeeish. The Star Spangled Banner was all over the ground, but was adorned with some strings of black in view of the occasion.–The soldiers, citizens, and music were on hand in large quantities. The cemetery contains one corner dedicated to Virginia, which contains two bodies which saw the light first, very likely, in Holland. The day before the dedication Lincoln arrived, and was called out for a speech, and gave forth the following dignified address:

abraham-lincoln-pictures-4

speechless

“I appear before you, fellow citizens, merely to thank you for this compliment. The inference is a very fair one that you would hear me for a little while, at least, were I to commence to make a speech. I do not appear before you for the purpose of doing so, and for several very substantial reasons. The most substantial of these is that I have no speech to make [laughter]. It is some what important in my position that one should not say any foolish things if he can help it, and it very often happens that the only way to help it is to say nothing at all. [Renewed laughter.]

“Believing that is my precise position this evening, I must beg of you to excuse me from saying ‘one word.'”

Seward was also serenaded, and made a speech, in which he announced that he was “sixty years old and upwards,” and that forty years ago he fore saw, “opening before this people, a graveyard that was to be filled with brothers failing in mutual political combat.” Attending to his hope that this would be the last “fraternal” war on this continent, old Peckeniff [Pecksniff] gave the following picture of the expected subjugation of the South:

Seth_Pecksniff_85 (A photograph of an engraving in The Writings of Charles Dickens by Halbot Knight Browne)

pity the “misguided brother”

“Then we shall know that we are not enemies but that we are friends and brothers. Then we shall know that this Union is a reality, and we shall mourn, I am sure, with sincerity, equally over the grave of the misguided, whom we have consigned to his last resting place, with pity for his error and with the same heartfelt grief with which we mourn over his brothers, by whose hand, raised in defence of his Government, that misguided brother perished.”

The big gun of the occasion, of course, was the Hon. Edward Everett, of “Boasting,” that secondary and most disgusting edition and representative of the Pilgrim Fathers. After giving three columns to the battle of Gettysburg, he mentioned the question of “State Rights,” which caused that battle, in very few words, and begged his hearers pardon for noticing “this wretched absurdity.” About the present feeling in the South this man said:

“I do not believe there has been a day since the election of President Lincoln when, if an ordinance of secession could have been fairly submitted to the mass of the people, in any single Southern State a majority of ballots would have been given in its favor. No, not in South Carolina. It is not possible that the majority of the people, even of that State, if permitted, without fear or favor, to give a ballot on the question, would have abandoned a leader like Pettigrew, and all the memories of the Gadsdens, the Rutledge, and the Colesworth Pinckneys of the revolutionary and constitutional age, to follow the agitators of the present day.”

388px-Edward_Everett (from Carl Schurz, Reminiscences, Volume Two, McClure Publishing Co., 1907, facing p. 136 (162 according to the table of contents); scanned by Bob Burkhardt)

the big gun from Boasting, Mass.

With the stiff corpses of one thousand two hundred and eight eighty men lying in a semi-circle around him, killed dead on the field for the express purpose of giving the lie to all such statements, this Massachusetts Yankee stood on the platform at Gettysburg and read aloud this printed folly. He follows it by a little truth, however which we credit to his account:

“In the next place, if there are any present who believe that, in addition to the effect of the military operations of the war, the confiscation acts and emancipation proclamations have embittered the rebels beyond the possibility of reconciliation, I would request them to reflect that the tone of the rebel leaders and rebel press was just as bitter in the first months of the war, nay before a gun was fired, as it is now. There were speeches made in Congress, in the very last session before the rebellion, so ferocious as to show that their authors were under the influence of a real frenzy. At the present day, if there is any discrimination made by the Confederate press in the affected scorn, hatred and contumely with which every shade of opinion and sentiment in the loyal States is treated, the bitterest contempt is bestowed upon those at the North who still speak the language of compromise, and who condemn those measures of the Administration which are alleged to have rendered the return of peace hopeless.”

Exactly. The hatred and contempt for the North has not in three years abated one jot or tittle, nor will it in three hundred. There are refugees and exiles from the frontier who have not had a home for three long years, and who have suffered untold privations, and who to-day couldn’t buy a good sized pocket-handkerchief with all the money they have in the world, and yet these men have not abated a shade in their hatred — that is the word — for the North. Everett thinks the old flag and Butler are very desirable to the South:

“The weary masses of the people are yearning to see the dear old flag floating again upon the Capitols, and they sigh for the return of the peace, prosperity, and happiness, which they enjoyed under a Government whose power was felt only in its blessings.”

He forgets the “weary masses” of the North who are having daily strikes for wages that they may get food, the soldiers’ wives and sewing girls in New York who, at a meeting there a few days since, said they were not getting enough to eat, and the political prisoners in the Yankee bastilles who are pining away under a Government whose power is “felt only in its blessings.”

Seth Pecksniff is a character in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit. Pecksniff “believes that he is a highly moral individual who loves his fellow man, but mistreats his students and passes off their designs as his own for profit.”

The Lincoln portrait is from U.S. History Images

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a word in edgewise

Posted on November 19, 2013 by SUMPTER
NYT11-20-1863

“President Lincoln’s Address” (NY Times November 20, 1863)

Edward Everett gave the longer speech at Gettysburg – by about two hours. President Lincoln’s remarks at the cemetery dedication made it on the front page of The New-York Times on November 20th next to three columns (and counting) of oratory by another great speech-giver, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. The proceeds of Reverend Beecher’s Brooklyn speech on U.S.-British relations were donated to the Sanitary Commission. The Times found enough space for Edward Everett’s speech on page two.

From The New-York Times November 20, 1863:

THE HEROES OF JULY.; A Solemn and Imposing Event. Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburgh. IMMENSE NUMBERS OF VISITORS. Oration by Hon. Edward Everett–Speeches of President Lincoln, Mr. Seward and Governor Seymour. THE PROGRAMME SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT.

The ceremonies attending the dedication of the National Cemetery commenced this morning by a grand military and civic display, under command of Maj.-Gen. COUCH. The line of march was taken up at 10 o’clock, and the procession marched through the principal streets to the Cemetery, where the military formed in line and saluted the President. At 11 the head of the procession arrived at the main stand. The President and members of the Cabinet, together with the chief military and civic dignitaries, took position on the stand. The President seated himself between Mr. SEWARD and Mr. EVERETT after a reception marked with the respect and perfect silence due to the solemnity of the occasion, every man in the immense gathering uncovering on his appearance.

The military were formed in line extending around the stand, the area between the stand and military being occupied by civilians, comprising about 15,000 people and including men, women and children. The attendance of ladies was quite large. The military escort comprised one squadron of cavalry, two batteries of artillery and a regiment of infantry, which constitutes the regular funeral escort of honor for the highest officer in the service.

After the performance of a funeral dirge, by BIRGFIELD, by the band, an eloquent prayer was delivered by Rev. Mr. STOCKTON, as follows:

Federal dead on the field of battle of first day (1863; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-31298)

“The Heroes of July”

O God, our Father, for the sake of the Son, our Saviour, inspire us with thy spirit, and sanctity us to the right fulfillment of the duties of this occasion. We come to dedicate this new historic centre as a National Cemetery. If all the Departments of the one Government thou hast ordained over our Union, and of the many Governments which Thou has subordinated to the Union be there represented; if all classes, relations and interests of our blended brotherhood of people stand severally and thoroughly apparent in Thy presence, we trust it is because Thou hast called us, that Thy blessing awaits us, and that Thy designs may be embodied in practical results of incalculable, imperishable good. And so with thy holy Apostle and with the Church in all lands and ages, we unite in the ascription: Blessed be God, even the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Moses, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. In emulation of all angels, in fellowship with all saints, and in sympathy with all sufferers, in a remembrance of Thy works, in reverence of Thy ways, and in accordance with Thy word, we love and magnify Thy infinite perfections, Thy creative glory. Thy redeeming grace, Thy providential goodness, and the progressive, richer and fairer development of thy supreme, universal and everlasting administration. In behalf of all humanity, whose ideal is divine, whose first memory is thy image lost, whose last hope is thy image restored; especially in behalf of our own nation, whose position is so peerless, whose mission is so sublime, and whose future is so attractive; we thank Thee for the unspeakable patience of thy compassion and for the exceeding greatness of thy loving kindness. In contemplation of Eden, Calvary and Heaven, of Christ in the God on the cross, and on the throne — nay, more — of Christ as coming again in all-subduing power and glory; we gratefully prolong our homage by this altar of sacrifice, on this field of deliverance, on this mount of salvation, within the fiery and bloody line of these mountains and rocks, looking back to the dark days of fear and of trembling, and the rapture of relief that came after, we multiply our thanksgivings and confess our obligations to renew and perfect our personal and social consecration to thy service and glory. O, had it not been for God! for our enemies, they came unresisted, multitudinous, mighty, flushed with victory and sure of success; they exalted on our mountains; they reveled in our valleys they feasted, they rested, they slept, they awakened, they grew stronger, prouder and bolder every day; they spread abroad, they concentrated here; they looked beyond this horizon to the stores of wealth, to the haunts of pleasure and the seats of power in our Capital and chief cities; they prepared to cast the chain of Slavery around the form of freedom, and to bind life and death together forever. Their premature triumph was the mockery of God and man. One more victory, and all was theirs. But behind these hills was heard the feebler march of a smaller but still a pursuing host; onward they hurried, day and night, for their country and their God; footsore, wayworn, hungry, thirsty, faint, but not in heart; they came to dare all, to bear all, and to do all that is possible to heroes. At first they met the blast on the plain, and bent bebefore it like trees; but then led by Thy hand to the hills, they took their stand on the these rocks, and remained as firm and immovable as they. In vain were they assaulted; all art, all violence, all desperation failed to dislodge them. Baffled, bruised, broken, their enemies retired and disappeared. Glory to God for this rescue! But, Oh! the slain, in the freshness and fullness of their young and manly life! with such sweet memories of father and mother, brother and sister, wife and children, maiden and friend. From the coasts beneath the Eastern star; from the shores of Northerm lakes and rivers; from the flowers of the Western prairies; from the homes of the midway and the border, they came here to die for us and for mankind! Alas How little we can do for them! We come with the humility of prayer, with the pathetic eloquence of venerable wisdom, with the tender beauty of poetry, with the plaintive harmony of music, with the honest tribute of our Chief Magistrate, and with all this honorable attendances; but our best hope is in Thy blessings. O Lord, Our God, bless us. O, Our Father, bless the bereaved, whether absent or present Bless our sick and wounded soldiers and sailors. Bless all our rulers and people. Bless our army and navy. Bless the efforts to suppress this rebellion, and bless all the associations of this day, and place, and scene, forever. As the trees are not dead, though their foliage is gone, so our heroes are not dead though their forms have fallen. In their proper personality they are all with thee, and the spirit of their example is here. It fills the air, it fills our hearts, and as long as time shall last it will hover in these skies and rest on these landscapes, and pilgrims of our own land, and of all lands, will thrill with its inspiration, and increase and confirm their devotion to liberty, religion and God.

Mr. EVERETT then commenced the delivery of his oration, which was listened to with marked attention throughout. [The oration of Mr. EVERETT will be found on our second page.]

Although a heavy fog clouded the heavens in the morning during the procession, the sun broke out in all its brilliancy during the Rev. Mr. STOCKTON’s prayer and shone upon the magnificent spectacle. The assemblage was of great magnitude, and was gathered within a circle of great extent around the stand, which was located on the highest point of ground on which the battle was fought. A long line of military surrounded the position taken by the immense multitude of people.

The Marshal took up a position on the left of the stand. Numerous flags and banners, suitably draped, were exhibited on the stand among the audience. The entire scene was one of grandeur due to the importance of the occasion. So quiet were the people that every word uttered by the orator of the day must have been heard by them all, notwithstanding the immensity of the concours.

Among the distinguished persons on the platform were the following: Governors Bradford, of Maryland; Curtin, of Pennsylvania; Morton, of Indiana; Seymour of New-York; Parker, of New-Jersey and Tod, of Ohio; Ex-Gov. Dennison, of Ohio: John Brough, Governor Elect, of Ohio; Charles Anderson, Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio; Major-Generals Schenck, Stahel, Doubleday, and Couch; Brigadier General Gibbon; and Provost-Marshal-General Fry.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN’s ADDRESS.

The President then delivered the following dedicatory speech:

abraham-lincoln-civil-war-6

Fourscore and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth upon this Continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [Applause.] Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate. We cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. [Applause.] The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. [Applause.] It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the refinished work that they have thus so far nobly carried on. [Applause.] It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; [applause] that the Nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom, and that Governments of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth, [Long continued applause.]

Three cheers were then given for the President and the Governors of the States.

After the delivery of the addresses, the dirge and the benediction closed the exercises, and the immense assemblage separated at about 4 o’clock.

About 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the Fifth New York regiment of heavy artillery, Col. MURRAY, was marched to the temporary residence of Gov. SEYMOUR, where they passed in review before the Governor, presenting a handsome spectacle. Upon the conclusion of this ceremony, which attracted quite a crowd of sight-seers. Gov. SEYMOUR presented a handsome silk regimental standard to the regiment, accompanying the gift with the following speech: …

A subscription of $280 was made by the Marshals attending these ceremonies, to he devoted to the relief of the Richmond prisoners.

In the afternoon, the Lieutenant-Governor elect of Ohio, Col. ANDERSON, delivered an oration at the Presbyterian Church.

The President and party returned to Washington at 6 o’clock this evening, followed by the Governors’ trains. Thousands of persons were gathered at the depot, anxiously awaiting transportation to their homes; but they will probably be confined to the meagre accommodations of Gettysburgh till tomorrow.

So the opening prayer was even longer than the now famous address by Mr. Lincoln.

National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pa. (by Simon & Murnane c.1913; LOC: PAN US GEOG - Pennsylvania no. 87 (E size) [P&P])

at Gettysburg, c.1913

The Lincoln picture is from U.S. History Images

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(rail) road trip

Posted on November 18, 2013 by SUMPTER
NYT 11-19-1863

dignitaries departing from Harrisburg and Washington

From The Papers And Writings Of Abraham
Lincoln, Volume Seven:

TO SECRETARY CHASE
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 17, 1863.

HON. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.

MY DEAR SIR:—I expected to see you here at Cabinet meeting, and to say something about going to Gettysburg. There will be a train to take and return us. The time for starting is not yet fixed, but when it shall be I will notify you.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

The only cabinet members who accompanied the president to Gettysburg were Secretaries Seward and Usher and Postmaster General Blair.

steamtrain

The train image is from wpclipart

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surgeon swap

Posted on November 18, 2013 by SUMPTER

The prisoner parole and exchange system had not totally broken down by 150 years ago this week.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 16, 1863:

Exchange of Surgeons.

The exchange of Surgeons, we learn, has been agreed upon by the C. S. and U. S. Governments. The next flag-of-truce boat will bring our Surgeons to Richmond. We have nearly one hundred of theirs to deliver.

An editorial in the same issue looked at the breakdown of the Dix–Hill Cartel from a Southern perspective: paroled Union prisoners at Gettysburg were immediately put back in the army.

The Abolition of the cartel.

No person can read the correspondence between Commissioners Ould and Meredith without becoming convinced, if he had any doubt before, that the Yankee Government acted in bad faith in the matter. Mr. Ould, in fact, does not hesitate to make the charge in direct terms, and he is borne out so fully by the facts of the case that even the New York World–a paper not very friendly, it is true, to Lincoln’s Administration, yet still as warmly in favor of reconstructing the Union by force as Seward himself — is obliged to admit it. The whole transaction is eminently characteristic of Seward, and not less so of the Yankee nation, whose peculiarities have become proverbial all over the world. It was, in a word, an elaborate attempt to take an advantage — a thorough Yankee trick — an exhibition of contempt for good faith when it stood in the way of a low scheme for getting the better in a trade — a substitution of low cunning for genuine ability — a mistake of policy common to knaves, who cannot be taught to look beyond their noses or to see that rascality, though successful for the moment, puts an extinguisher upon all future hope of advantage by the distrust which it engenders. A large number of prisoners was taken at Gettysburg and paroled by the officer to whom they surrendered, as had always been the practice under the cartel. They were passed through our lines and into those of the enemy. It struck Meade that they would be very useful in the battle then raging, and he made them fall into the ranks. An apology had already been provided for him. The Yankee Government, in view of this very thing, had decided that paroles to be binding must be signed by the Commander-in-Chief. An honorable man would have scorned to profit by such knavery. But Meade is not an honorable man. He is a Yankee. He took advantage of it, and put the men to work at once. It so happened that a very few days after Port Hudson surrendered to the Yankees. The officer commanding had heard nothing of the new interpretation put upon the cartel. He paroled the prisoners; he was not the Commander-in Chief; and so by the rascality of the Yankees themselves we recovered a brave army of seven thousand men. Knavery thus reacted upon itself, and recoiled upon the heads of those who first set it in motion. The cunning Yankees were too “smart” for themselves.

The reasons why the Yankee Government put an end to the cartel are obvious enough. They believe their own supply of men to be inexhaustible. The degeneration, therefore, of the prisoners they lose can easily be cured by fresh recruits. At the same time, they think our means of recruiting are exhausted. Every man they retain, therefore, they regard as a drain to that extent which cannot be made up. They think it is the same thing as killing the like number in the field of battle. At the same time they hope to gain another advantage by leaving their men with us. They think they will assist them in their favorite policy of starving us out. They are mistaken in this, but that is the true interpretation to be put upon their conduct. The whole transaction is genuine Yankee–utterly base, as everything originating with the Yankee is — wretchedly short sighted, as knavery always must be — miserably awkward and bungling, as all things originating in falsehood must be. Dean Swift says he never heard more than three well constructed lies in his life, and he was the most acute of observers.–Meredith’s defences of the rascally conduct of his Government are certainly not among the most ingenious of inventions.

There is no evil out of which good may not come. Our troops have been in the habit of surrendering too easily heretofore. The object, in too many instances, has been to get exchanged, and pay a visit to their homes. Under the present system they will have no chance to see home during the war if they are taken prisoners. Besides, the Yankees are preparing to make their prisoners more unendurable than they have ever been. Our men in future will not be taken so easily.

The parolees at Gettysburg are referenced at Civil War Chronologies for July 4, 1863: “At Gettysburg, Lee offers to exchange prisoners with Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, but Meade declines. Confederates parole their prisoners before retreating, but the paroles are declared invalid by Federal authorities and the men are returned to duty.”

More prisoners probably meant more escape attempts. The November 16th Dispatch detailed an escape from Richmond’s Castle Thunder.

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