And The War Came: The Slavery Quarrel And The American Civil War

AND THE WAR CAME

AND THE WAR CAME THE SLAVERY QUARREL AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

by Donald J. Meyers

Algora Publishing New York

© 2005 by Algora Publishing in the name of Raymond Monsour Scurfield All Rights Reserved www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 0-87586-358-2 (softcover) ISBN: 0-87586-359-0 (hardcover) ISBN: 0-87586-360-4 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data —

Meyers, Donald J. And the war came : the slavery quarrel and the American Civil War / by Donald J. Meyers. p. cm. Summary: “This detailed account of slavery in America, from Jamestown through the Civil War, explains its economic importance in the North as well as the South, its impact on the political dynamics of the Civil War, and the moral dilemmas it posed.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87586-359-0 (hard cover: alk. paper) — ISBN 0-87586-358-2 (soft cover: alk. paper) — ISBN 0-87586-360-4 (ebook) 1. Slavery—United States—History. 2. Slavery—Southern States—History. 3. Slavery—Economic aspects—United States—History. 4. Slavery—Moral and ethical aspects—United States—History. 5. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Causes. I. Title. E441.M56 2005 306.3'62'0973—dc22 2005004580 Cover: Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia A jubilant crowd greets President Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia, soon after the surrender of the city on April 4, 1865. Image: © CORBIS Date Created: ca. 1865 Printed in the United States

This book is gratefully dedicated to those persons who have exerted a major influence on the way I have lived my life and who deserve most of the credit for the great joy I have found in it: My parents My wife of 45 years, Anne Each of our nine children A few close friends Several zealous teachers and coaches

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS OF SLAVERY

1

1. THE DECLARATION: LIBERTY, BUT NOT FOR ALL

17

2. UNITING AROUND A CONSTITUTION, AT A COST

29

3. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

37

4. A BESIEGED SOUTH CIRCLES THE WAGONS

53

5. THE “GAG” RULE FIGHT

61

6. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT: ONE PARTY DEAD, THE OTHER SPLIT

71

7. ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS

83

8. THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES: A DARK HORSE

93

9. LINCOLN ELECTED, SEVEN STATES DEFECTED

103

10. AN ACT OF WAR

113

11. FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN: DISILLUSION AND FRUSTRATION The First Battle of Bull Run, July, 1861

121 121

12. THE BATTLE OF SHILOH: LARGE-SCALE KILLING SHOCKS THE NATION The Battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862

131 132

13. THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN: MCCLELLAN SPOOKED BY LEE The Battles of the Peninsula Campaign, April 5 to July 12, 1862

139 140

14. SECOND BULL RUN AND ANTIETAM: OPPORTUNITY SQUANDERED The Battle of Second Bull Run, August 28-30, 1862 The Battle of Antietam, September 17 and 18, 1862

149 150 155

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And the War Came 15. SLAUGHTER AT FREDERICKSBURG, JUBILEE WITH EMANCIPATION The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11-14, 1862

163 168

16. THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE: LINCOLN’S DEPRESSION GROWS The Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1-6, 1863

175 176

17. GETTYSURG AND VICKSBURG: THE WRITING ON THE WALL The Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863 The Siege of Vicksburg, May 18 to July 4, 1863

183 185 194

18. THE BATTLES OF CHICKAMAUGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE: GENERAL GRANT 199 The Battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863 200 The Battle of Missionary Ridge, November 23-25, 1863 203 19. ATLANTA AND MCPHERSON FALL: SOMETHING WENT OUT OF THE WAR 211 The Battles, or “Slugfests,” of The Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor 211 20. CONFEDERATE DISASTER IN TENNESSEE, AND THE 13TH AMENDMENT 223 The Battles of Franklin and Nashville, November 30 and December 15, 1864 227 21. LEE SURRENDERS AT APPOMATTOX

235

22. LINCOLN ASSASSINATED, HIS SEVERE TASK DONE

245

23. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE MAN JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WAS LOOKING FOR 257 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

263

INDEX

277

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PROLOGUE. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS OF SLAVERY I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I?... I count four — St. Michael’s chimes. I begin to hope. At half past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed. And on my knees — prostrate I prayed as I have never prayed before.

While her friends cheered the bombardment of federal Fort Sumter, from the rooftops of Charleston’s fashionable Battery, Mary Chesnut confided her anxiety to her diary that April morning in 1861, the day of our national watershed. “And so we fool on, into the black cloud ahead of us.”1 Mary was the wife of James Chesnut, who had recently resigned as United States Senator from South Carolina. Now he was a staff officer serving Confederate General Beauregard, commander of the Charleston garrison. The cannonading was a rash act, hastily choreographed by the fledgling Confederate Government in Montgomery, Alabama. At 4:30 in the morning of April 12, 1861, in the charming and historical city of Charleston, South Carolina (where Charlestonians like to say that the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean), soldiers proclaiming allegiance to the State of South Carolina were under the command of General Gustave Pierre Toutant Beauregard, recently Superintendent of West Point, the toast of this fair town, dapper, debonair, a “fox-faced” Creole from Louisiana, who had brought a servant with him from Louisiana just to wax his 1. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 41, 46.

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And the War Came mustache every day. They arched a cannonball high in the air in the direction of “their” fort, Sumter, which was occupied by United States troops under the command of Major Robert Anderson, son of a Revolutionary War officer who had once been under a bombardment of his own, in this very city, by the British. The son, a West Point graduate, a native of Kentucky, a man of Southern antecedents, had married a woman from Georgia, and was a slave-owner and Southern sympathizer...but on this night he would be loyal to his uniform, to his flag and to the tall, homely, lonely, brooding man in Washington. As that war-birthing cannonball reached its apogee and began its graceful fall, cheered wildly by scores of defiant, confident Charlestonians, Mary Chesnut fell to her knees. Her husband, the Colonel, as instructed by Beauregard, had given the order to fire the signal shots to begin the bombardment. News of the firing on Fort Sumter reached California by Pony Express on April 24. Many Army officers stationed there would become prominent in the war. Each declared his choice, North or South, held last-minute parties, swore undying friendship to one another and left to face each other on the battlegrounds. Many Southern people thought there would be no war, or that, if one came, it would be of short duration. Any decent Southerner knew that one Southerner could lick ten Yankees. As has been observed, “The worst wars usually happen because one power believes it can advance its objectives either without a war at all or at least with only a limited war that it can quickly win — and, consequently miscalculates.”2 The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor and oppressed And, close as sin and suffering joined, We march to Fate abreast.3

How had things come to this pass? America had been grappling with the slavery issue for nearly four score and seven years, roughly three generations. Resolution of the issue, originally assumed to be “around the corner,” grew more complex, more baffling, and more frustrating with each passing decade. At long last, and perhaps inevitably, it had come to war.

2. Casper Weinberger and Peter Schweizer, The Next War. 3.Whittier, “At Port Royal,” 1862.

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Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery Slavery’s roots twist deeply into human history. Gravesites in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people of about 8000 B.C. enslaved a Bushman tribe from Africa. The Athenians possessed slaves whom they enlisted to fight for them at Marathon, but they freed them before the battle. The Athenians were the first to discuss and explain slavery. Aristotle wrote, “Humanity is divided into two: the masters and the slaves...those who have the right to command and those who are born to obey,” while affirming that “a slave is property with a soul.”4 To the Romans, a slave was an object, and could not make a will, bear witness in civil cases, or bring criminal charges. As with so many Roman customs, these restrictions survived into the nineteenth century in the New World. The criticism of slavery by the great Latin writers tended to concentrate on the opprobrium of cruel treatment by masters. Early Christians concluded that since Christ never discussed slavery, there existed no Divine condemnation of the institution. St. Paul recommended that slaves serve their masters with “fear and trepidation,” implying that liberty could only be expected in the next world. In his Epistle to Philamon the Greek, St. Paul describes his return of a slave to his master. Though the Apostle recommended leniency, his actions suggested that the early Church rejected the idea that escaped slaves had the right to sanctuary in their churches, as did common criminals. Several centuries later, St. John Chrysostom advised the slave to prefer the security of captivity to the uncertainties of freedom. In the fifth century, Pope Leo the Great proclaimed that no slave could become a priest and the Councils of Carthage refused the right of even enfranchised slaves to bear witness in court, although the Church often encouraged manumission of slaves. Indeed, St. Patrick of Ireland, in the same century, condemned all trade in human beings. Perhaps his perspective was colored by the fact that he, himself, was once seized and enslaved. Slavery persisted throughout the Dark Ages. People became slaves for several reasons: they were unfortunate enough to have been captives in endless wars; they were criminals sentenced to pay their debt to society; or they were poor and desperate people who sold themselves, or were sold by members of their families, to avoid starvation or obtain the taste of a better life. Moral anxiety over the custom had never been widespread and, when aroused, was generally focused on decent treatment of slaves. 4.Aristotle, Politics, 1st book.

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And the War Came

Over one-half of the 500 surviving Visigoth laws relate to slavery. Toward the end of the first millennium, slavery diminished substantially in Northern Europe, probably from a combination of reasons: a rise in technology replaced some labor-intensive work (introduction of the water-mill rendered obsolete the exhausting, slave-powered land mill); the reduced incidence of wars encouraged slave-owners to convert their chattel to rent-paying tenants; there were slave revolts; and, an increasingly penitent Church awakened to a more slave-sensitive morality. The fact that slaves were given baptism directly contradicted the notion that slaves were anything other than men and women with souls. The Domesday Book, in AD 1087, recorded about a tenth of the English labor force as servi, but by 1200, slavery had disappeared in England. In the countries bordering the Mediterranean, slavery prospered during the Middle Ages because the Mediterranean Sea was a permanent war zone between Christians and Muslims, who had a commercial interest in enslaving each other. The Muslims found a basis for slavery in the Koran, but that holy book also cited freeing slaves as a particularly exemplary act. Though African slaves were numerous, slaves were not identified by race. All skin pigments shared in the misery. Associating skin color or race with slavery was an intellectual sophistication only conceived in the New World in the late 18th century. In 1444, captains of Portuguese ships, sailing under the auspices of Henry the Navigator to the west coast of Africa to find gold, were offered slaves for trade. They discovered local kings who possessed large numbers of slaves who had been captured in raids on neighboring tribes. These slaves were mostly engaged in tending to their masters’ fields. “They did no more work than other members of the community, even their master.”5 Henry quickly perceived the opportunity to achieve a material and spiritual windfall with one stroke: profit from trading in slaves and harvesting their souls for the Christian God. An “African Trading Company” was established as a royal monopoly. Initially, one horse could be traded for twelve Negroes. Within 15 years, the price increased to six horses. By 1460, it became a mark of distinction to have slaves in a Portuguese household.

5. William L. Andrews and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Slave Narratives, Olaudah Equiano, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, p. 58.

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Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery In 1452, the Portuguese planted sugar cane on the Island of Madeira off the northwest coast of Africa. The island was famous as the home of the Malvoisie grape, from which Madeira wine was made (Malmsey wine, to the English). Thus was consummated the long and unhappy marriage of slaves and sugar cane that would end in Louisiana four hundred years later. In mid-15th century Europe, sugar was used only for medicinal purposes. Tea, coffee and chocolate had not yet been introduced. Sugar is an uncomplicated crop grown in fertile and well-irrigated land. From propagation (by planting pieces of stalk) to harvesting requires fifteen months. Five years before Columbus’s voyage, the Portuguese established the chief source of the future American slave trade in the Congo. By then, the right to transport slaves over water had been awarded to a succession of privileged Portuguese merchants. Exploitation of the resources of the New World would escalate the demand for slaves. During the first three centuries after Columbus’s discoveries, a significant portion of all the gold and silver that had ever been discovered on earth was transferred from the New World to the Old World (minus some 25 per cent lost in shipwrecks). King Ferdinand of Spain, responding to the clamor of his colonists for more and more slaves, authorized shipment of slaves directly from Africa rather than through Spain. Spain controlled most of the world’s silver as well as the majority of America’s indigo, tobacco, and cochineal, a prized scarlet dye for fabric. After the Portuguese royal family died out, the Spanish inherited most of the world’s gold supply, the production of salt and pepper, spices from the Pacific Islands and sugar from Brazil. Spain then placed an embargo on foreign trade with their principal European competitors, especially England and Holland. In the 16th century, Spain and Portugal regarded the Atlantic Ocean as “Mare Nostrum,” but the Northern Europeans grew ever more desirous to share in the spoils of Africa and the New World. First the French, then the English and, finally, the Dutch developed a winning strategy: piracy. Each nation preyed with great glee upon the Spanish ships, seizing gold and slaves. At times, the predators capitalized on the opportunity of seizing the cargo of other pirate vessels. England, France and Spain managed the trade of their colonists as a company manages its franchises. Sugar went only to the mother country, in her ships, to her licensed brokers. Everything the colonists bought was to be purchased from the parent. The market for sugar expanded in line with the rising

5

And the War Came income of the lower classes in the mother countries. They valued this substance for its high calorie content and the sweet taste which enlivened the monotony of their meals. By the middle of the 17th century, even the poorest took sugar in their tea and in their porridge. The pudding, traditionally made with meat or fish, became a separate sweet course. Sugar began to be used as a preservative, like salt. It was common for a poor family to spend up to six per cent of its income on sugar. Sugar was the most valuable single import, energizing conversation in coffeehouses and salons and invigorating soldiers in the Grand Armée of France. The bow wave of British naval preeminence cleared the way for England to capture most of the slave trade. In the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), following the War of the Spanish Succession, the British were awarded the “Asiento,” or the right to ship slaves to the Spanish Indies, for a period of 30 years. The captain and key members of the crews of slave ships enjoyed a profitsharing plan, with payment in slaves. This did not blind them to the horror of loading the ships: When it became obvious to the slaves that they were leaving their country, as they were herded aboard ship, they were overcome with despair. Some throw themselves into the sea, others hit their head against the ship, others hold their breath and try to smother themselves, others still try to die of hunger from not eating, yet, when they have definitely left their country, they begin to console themselves, particularly when the captain assuages them with the music of some instrument...6

Conditions on board were unspeakable. “The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died...this wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable.”7

6. Savary, Le Parfait Negociant, p. 11. 7. William L. Andrews and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Slave Narratives, Olaudah Equiano, “The Interesting Narrrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, p. 76.

6

Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery While the slaves were generally fed nearly as well as the crew and given water, disease was rampant. Death rates ran to 24 per cent in the late 17th century, declining to ten per cent 50 years later and to less than six per cent 100 years later. The worst ailment was dysentery, or “the flux,” causing about a third of the deaths. Among the slaves, smallpox would have been next. The white sailors were immune to it. Brutality, often resulting from rebellion, took many lives, with uprisings occurring as frequently as one in every eight to ten crossings. Raging storms drowned many. When the Dutch vessel, Leuden, was stranded on the rocks off Surinam, 702 slaves were left to drown when the crew, before abandoning ship, battened down the slave hold hatches to prevent pandemonium. There also lurked the pirate ships. Occasionally the slavers themselves turned pirate. Many of the slave ship’s officers saw nothing wrong in their activities and they were reassured by the idea that the pagan Africans would be given the gift of baptism, so that they might aspire to an after-life in the Christian heaven. For the English colonists, slaveholding became a way of life soon after their first landfall. Twenty years after the first settlers disappeared without a trace on Roanoke Island, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement took root at Jamestown in 1607. James I ruled England. Queen Elizabeth I had been dead only four years. Queen Elizabeth had initiated England’s role in the slave trade by sponsoring the voyages of Sir John Hawkins, who transported captive Africans to Spain’s American colonies. The Jamestown settlers could scarcely have arrived at a worse moment in the region’s meteorological history. Severe drought withered the crops grown by Indians and white colonists alike. Only 38 of the 104 first-year Jamestown residents survived. In the next 18 years, 4800 out of 6000 settlers died. In 1612, one John Rolfe, after being shipwrecked in Bermuda while sailing from England to Virginia, re-embarked with others in a homemade boat and headed for the Jamestown Colony on the mainland. Soon after his arrival, this newcomer developed an effective method of curing tobacco. The first crop was exported to England in 1614 (thus beginning another baneful industry). John Rolfe married Pocahontas, the Indian maiden who, at the age of 12, had pleaded successfully for the life of the colony’s leader, Captain John Smith, who had been captured by her father, Powhatan, the Chief of Indian Virginia. In 1619, the same year that the first legislative body met in America, twenty blacks arrived in Jamestown aboard a Dutch warship.8 They were treated as indentured servants and were the first Africans put to work by resident English

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And the War Came colonists. The first American slave ship was launched in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1636. Charleston, which would become the largest slave market in the colonies, was settled in 1670 by settlers aboard the Carolina. They left England in three ships. Two were wrecked by hurricanes, and the third was crowded with the addition of those plucked from the sea. And so it began! The haggard American colonists (frequently of humble British or Irish origin, and obsessed with survival in their harsh environment) became masters of human beings, accepting, albeit with a tinge of reluctance, the fait accompli presented by the British Government which had kidnapped these black people and left them hopelessly bereft and unable to fend for themselves. In the beginning, there was little difference in station: the master worked alongside his field-hands doing the daily chores. He lived in a crude wooden abode while a slave lived in a lean-to or earthen hut. The status of blacks varied, initially, but it is clear that after 1640 some blacks were treated as hereditary slaves. That same year the Virginia General Court sentenced two white runaway, indentured servants to a year’s extra service while remanding their black fugitive companion to lifetime slavery. Thus, slavery was introduced to the colonies. It existed, it had existed, in many places and for many centuries, and was generally accepted. To some, perhaps, slavery appeared as the extension of indentured servitude of a people whose skin-color, background and patent lack of progress in the worldly arts naturally relegated them to the condition in which they found themselves. In the first quarter of the 17th century, the cumulative number of African slaves transported to the New World probably reached 200,000. Half of these unfortunates had been shipped to Brazil. Most of the rest were carried to Spanish America. John Winthrop, educated at Cambridge, was appointed as the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He wrote an essay (“A Modell of Christian Charity”) during the pilgrims’ turbulent voyage across the Atlantic in 1630: God Almighty in His most holy and wise Providence has so disposed the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection.9

In the second quarter of the 17th century, another 200,000 Africans slaves were sent to the Americas. Holland had emerged as the world’s major economic 8.James Mellon, ed., introduction to Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History. 9.John Winthrop, A Modell of Christianity, An Essay, 1630.

8

Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery power and she dominated the slave trade to the West Indies. Dutch planters introduced sugar cane production in Barbados. The number of slaves there increased from 6,000 to 80,000 in the space of 22 years. In the third quarter of the 17th century, it is estimated that 375,000 Africans were exported as slaves to the Americas. In the next 25 years, 600,000 more Africans were forcibly migrated. The natives of Africa’s Gold Coast “were no longer searching for gold to trade but made war on each other to acquire slaves.”10 The British Royal African Company was chartered in 1672 for the purpose trading English goods in West Africa for slaves primarily and then gold, ivory, and hardwood dyes. Their license extended for a thousand years. Evaluating their opportunity, West Africans determined that trading for European arms would enable them to become better armed than their prey in interior Africa. Kidnapping increased, and fueled wars of revenge. Young African boys hid in trees as lookouts to alert their villages to the approach of human predators. In the slave-pens of the coastal cities, frightened African prisoners, awaiting sale to the European slave traders, were approached by strange-looking men with long hair and pale skins who examined them closely for signs of poor health. Some Europeans went so far as tasting the sweat of a captive, a procedure that they believed could tell them if a person was sick. This did little to reassure the petrified captive, who was already afraid he would be eaten by the pale strangers. In England’s American colonies, the indenture system of apprenticeship in skilled trades coexisted with slavery. The favorite voluntary method of escaping from poverty or oppression in England and Europe, in the 17th century, was to attach oneself to a colonial tradesman or master as an indentured servant for a number of years. In return for labor the servant was housed, fed and clothed, and he learned a craft. The master, in return for paying for passage, not only received the term of service but also a land-grant of 50 acres per individual. After his term matured, the servant received a grant of land and could offer his craftsmanship as a skilled workman to a growing community. This was often a win-win situation, providing inexpensive labor for the aging craftsman and training for the fledgling artisan who then could offer his products to an expanding market. 10. Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1879, pp. 226-227.

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And the War Came In the early decades of settlement, the distinction between blacks and lower-class whites was not clear; but as opportunities in America proliferated, it became more difficult to attract indentured servants. Their conditions and treatment improved as their numbers declined. Meanwhile, the masters found an attractive alternative to indentured servants. They could take on slave laborers. The slave-owner might even have considered that he was a benign influence, providing food, shelter and care for someone who had been retched out of hell ships onto the American continent and was incapable of surviving unaided. The slave was his obligation for life, and also the slave’s wife or husband and children. Children required food, clothing, and care for years, before they became productive workers. And eventually, they all would become old, useless, and a burden on the household. All of this expense and responsibility the slaveholder had to bear, in exchange for work that might be grudgingly performed, without loyalty or gratitude. Many masters saw this exchange as more than fair. In the South, the accumulation of large land holdings in the hands a few proprietors, along with the munificent growing climate, led to the development of a primarily agricultural society. Slavery became fundamental to plantation economics. This divergence from the North, with its myriad of small farms and industrializing cities, eventually fostered two very distinct cultures. Around Charleston, South Carolina, land was valued at a penny an acre in 1690. A future planter did not require a fortune to become a great landowner and slaves virtually assured economic success to the venturesome. The growth of the plantations transformed the South from a society with slaves into a slave society, combining European capital, slave labor and American land to transform the landscape, create new classes, restructure social relations and establish new centers of wealth and power. The master’s authority spread from the plantations to the statehouses, courtrooms, counting houses, churches, colleges, taverns, racetracks, and private clubs. The concept of class distinction and “place” in society became as firmly rooted in the colonial society as it was in England. Masters invoked the Bible and the precedent of history as justifications for a harsh social and economic stratification. In view of the sharp decline in the number of indentured servants coming to the Colonies after 1680, landowners residing in the Chesapeake Bay area, desperate for labor, looked elsewhere for replacements. Between 1674 and 1691 the

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Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery ratio of slave prices to indentured servant prices fell from 2.88 to 1.83, thus encouraging the purchase of slaves (slaves were owned for life). Between 1680 and 1750 the estimated proportion of blacks in the Colonial population increased from 7 to 44 per cent in Virginia and from 17 to 61 per cent in South Carolina. In 1671, Sir John Yeamans, a Barbados planter, who was raised in Bristol, England, arrived in Charleston, bringing slaves from his island plantation to clear his land on the Ashley River. He became the first Governor of the state. In 1696, the colonial legislature in South Carolina passed a law asserting new “chattel” status for “All Negroes, Mollatoes, and Indians which at any time heretofore have been bought and Sold.” “Chattel” meant a slave was movable property. Since children assumed the status of the mother, a hereditary caste of workers was created. By 1698, South Carolina had become the slave center of North America with 3000 slaves, mostly black, serving 3800 free whites. There were some who voiced their dismay. Benjamin Lay, a hunchback from Colchester, England, who had lived in Barbados and seen slavery in operation first-hand, immigrated to Philadelphia. He attended a Quaker meeting and displayed a sheep’s bladder he had filled with blood, into which he plunged a sword, saying, “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.”11 Conversely, some Baptists in South Carolina wrote home to England to seek guidance for treatment of a fellow member who had castrated one of his slaves. The reply admonished them not to risk dissension in the movement “over light or indifferent causes.”12 The slave trade burgeoned in the late 17th century. Many of the leading families in England and New England grew rich on slave transportation. Conservative estimates of the total number of slaves transported to the entire New World of the Americas range from 8 to 15 million. In later years, Southern apologists would react venomously to Northern attacks on the cruelty of enslavement, reminding their critics of the universality of guilt with examples such as that which occurred in 1781 when the captain of the slave transport Zong ordered 132 famished Africans thrown overboard 11. Clarkson, The History of Abolition...of the Slave Trade, [19, 32], i, 148. 12. Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1879, p. 459.

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And the War Came because his insurance covered death from drowning but not starvation. One Mr. Phillips, captain of a slave-ship, wrote, We have likewise seen...sharks, of which a prodigious number kept about the ships...and I have been told will follow her hence to Barbadoes, for the dead Negroes that are thrown overboard in the passage.13

In the century before the American Revolution, slavery spread to all of the colonies; but it became an entrenched labor system where there was widespread tobacco and agricultural production. In the Chesapeake Tidewater region of Maryland, Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, annual exports of tobacco surged from 20,000 lbs. in 1619 to 39 million lbs. in 1700, before peaking at 60 million lbs. Virginia and Maryland led all other mainland colonies in the value of their exports to England, providing half of the total. In the 17th century the slave population had failed to reproduce itself, but conditions conducive to fertility and, more importantly, a more propitious balance in male to female ratios gradually increased birth rates in the 18th century. At this point, slaves became a self-perpetuating labor force. An American-born master class and an American-born slave class had emerged. South Carolina was not robust economically until rice was introduced as a staple crop in 1690. By 1708, it was South Carolina’s largest export, far surpassing the earlier traffic in lumber and beef. Rice would make the fortunes of planters for six generations. Between 1720 and 1740, 40,000 African slaves arrived in South Carolina. Rice was not a food for the wealthy but it had two highly redeeming, practical qualities: It filled the stomachs of the world’s overwhelming majority of poor people, the armies of Europe and gangs of workers; and, it did not spoil. Strains of it had been grown in West Africa and, initially, some of the slaves were more familiar with its cultivation than their masters. Before long it was known as “Carolina Gold.” The rice fields were established among the forests of tupelo gum trees and cypress trunks along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers some 30 to 50 miles west of Charleston. In March, the field hands planted corn and sweet potatoes to feed the plantation and, in April, the rice fields were prepared. Rice exports from South Carolina soared from 12,000 lbs. in 1698 to 83 million lbs. in 1770 (including Georgia, after 1750). From the middle of the 18th century Carolinians also began to produce indigo. With every passing year, as 13.Phillips, Journal, in Dow, Slave Ships, p. 71.

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Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery first tobacco, then rice, then indigo and finally cotton exports grew exponentially, the fortunes of more and more slave-owners became dependent on the slave labor system. Slavery developed, therefore, into an essential element of Southern economic life and survival, rendering the philosophical niceties of Enlightenment Europe, with the sense of the intrinsic rights and value of all human beings, an unaffordable luxury. Charleston, the warehouse of the Deep South, had a population of 12,000 in 1770, placing it fourth behind Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Large profits enabled the master to quit manual labor, to hire overseers to supervise and discipline the slaves, to build a “big house” on the plantation, to utilize household servants to perform domestic labor, to build a town house in Beaufort or Charleston to escape the summer malaria, to enjoy the comfort and pastimes of men of leisure, to buy the accoutrements of success and status, and to affect some of the ways of the English nobility. “The gentlemen planters are absolutely above every occupation but eating, drinking, lolling, smoking and sleeping, which five modes of action constitute the essence of their life and existence,” carped a doctor in Charleston.14 In the North, since manufacturing was much less labor intensive than agriculture, slaves were engaged in household services and, as such, they were luxuries for those who could afford them. On the eve of the American Revolution, slaves were a declining portion of the Northern population. Thus the dividing line was already established between entrenched slavery that was an essential underpinning to the economy of the South and sparse slavery that was a luxury in the North. As the “fathers” of their plantation families, masters granted themselves the right to meddle in their slaves’ most intimate affairs, demanded obedience, and relegated the slaves to permanent childhood. While the North did not foster plantations, its people also prospered from Southern plantations as suppliers of ships for slave transport, exports for slave trade, capital, factorage, draft animals, food, and technology. In Virginia, in 1705 and again in 1723, laws were passed requiring slaves to carry a pass when they left their owner’s estate and which denied them the right to meet in groups of more than four.

14. Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, p. 49.

13

And the War Came The struggle with an overseer often was not as unequal as it might appear. Many overseers lost their jobs when slaves employed the weapons of slowdown, truancy (especially at critical times in crop processing) and sabotage. Some overseers were even killed by the overseen. Some Negroes became slave “drivers” for the overseers and others became artisans in the increasingly technological approaches to farming. Thus, an elite group was formed among the slaves, both needed and feared by the plantation owners. Between 1701 and 1775, 46 per cent of the black people entering the American colonies disembarked in South Carolina. In the last half of that period, 1,108 slave ships arrived in Charleston harbor. Slaves also were landed in Rhode Island (particularly Newport), New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Aside from Rhode Island, few slaves were sold in New England — but investment in the slave ships and enterprise was a major industry in Massachusetts. In 1740, South Carolina’s Negro Act took away the right of masters to free their slaves. Henceforth, such action would require a petition to the colonial legislature, a cumbersome process. In 1750, following a decade in which English ships brought 20,000 African slaves to the Americas, a new English Act made it “lawful for all His Majesty’s subjects to trade and traffick to and from any port in Africa...”15 That year, the population of the colonies was 1.5 million, of which 300,000 were black slaves, 90 per cent of whom resided in the five Southern colonies of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Georgia had forbidden the import of slaves until 1751, when slave-owning was permitted to allow for the cultivation of rice along the Savannah River. Since rice grain was so versatile, durable and filling, the need to feed large numbers of troops during the French and Indian War of the 1750s created a boom for the foodstuff. Escalating British demand nearly doubled the price of the crop late in the decade. For some 50 years before the Revolution, many slave-owners seriously considered abandoning slavery. They could have done so without great remorse, but they did not — perhaps out of habit, as much as anything else. Through time, as slavery came to provide the slaveholder with increasingly abundant material welfare as well as social and political status, abandonment came to mean a great 15.Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, pp.474-484.

14

Prologue. Eight Thousand Years of Slavery deal more than conducting business without slaves. It would have meant a lifestyle change, a change which would bring about deterioration in one’s standard of living and loss of prestige and power when other careers in the South held little promise. It would have meant becoming a “nobody.” Public opinion was far from monolithic. In 1758, the Annual meetings of the Society of Friends, in Philadelphia and in England, condemned slavery and trafficking in slavery. The slaves themselves were in transition in their strange environment. Africans became African-Americans as their masters became European-Americans. The slaves were developing occupational diversity and were introduced to Protestant Christianity by their masters. This glorified the slave-owner’s position as a vehicle for conversion of the pagans with the bonus of teaching the slaves passive acceptance of their station in life in order to attain the joys of the next life. Many blacks enthusiastically identified with the “glory to be found in the next life,” while never losing hope for “the day of jubilee” in this one. At the end of the French and Indian War, in 1763, the British resorted to taxation of the colonies to help defray the costs of the war and the garrisoning of British soldiers to maintain the peace. While this decision infuriated colonial leaders in the North, these taxes had little effect on Southern plantation owners because most of what the plantation consumed was manufactured on site, and was not taxed. In 1774, the First Continental Congress voted to ban most trade with Great Britain. The five South Carolina delegates threatened to walk out unless an exception to the embargo was made for rice exports. The exception was made. It would become a major argument used by Southern apologists that the slaves were far better off toiling for, and being maintained by, their white masters than to be left to fend for themselves, in view of their perceived inexperience and inability to survive as free men. How the slaves felt about their condition was put rather succinctly by a recruit to an aborted uprising: “I could kill a white man as well as eat.”16 A large number of slaves escaped slavery during the Revolution by running off to join the British or the Colonial army, or by taking advantage of the local chaos and “marooning” with other slaves in swamps or forests. Between 1770 and 1790, the proportion of blacks declined from 61 to 44 per cent in South Carolina. Blacks comprised about one-third of the Southern population in 1790 (about 16. Mullin, Flight and Rebellion, p.145.

15

And the War Came one-half in the lower South). Reduction in the number of slaves was further abetted by the intense awakening to the spirit of freedom in the rebellious colonies. A number of slaves were freed by emancipation in the North and manumission in the South. In 1776, the local plantation owners deliberated over revolt against their absentee master, England — a similar move would have meant instant death for any slave espousing similar options in his master’s domain.

16

1. THE DECLARATION: LIBERTY, BUT NOT FOR ALL In 1776, more than a year after hostilities had erupted with the British at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress of the American Colonies convened for the second time at the State House on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Despite repeated armed clashes during the past year, the colonies had not yet declared war nor proclaimed their independence. To debate this stupendous issue, upon which the leaders, as well as the populace, were ardently divided, was the purpose of the meeting. Philadelphia had been cleared on the shores of the Delaware River in 1682 by followers of William Penn, who had received the Land Grant from the British Crown in lieu of money owed to his dead father. The city now boasted 40,000 inhabitants, and was the largest, richest city in the New World. Due to unsettled political conditions and the increasing fear of British invasion, approximately one-half of the inhabitants had left the city by the end of 1776. Ben Franklin was 70 years old. He was the tenth son of a tallow chandler, having arrived in Philadelphia around 1726, a runaway printer’s apprentice from Boston. He arrived, with one Dutch Dollar in his pocket, at the city of then 10,000 souls. It occurred to some Southerners that fomenting a rebellion might involve a threat to slavery. Arthur Lee, a Virginian known to have rebel sympathies, was visiting London and reported that King George’s ministers were considering a new tactic against the Colonists: that of offering freedom to the blacks who deserted their masters and joined the British troops bivouacked in the cities.

17

And the War Came There was a rumor that the British crown planned to arm slaves in revolt against their Colonial masters. What began as a tax quarrel in the North became, in the South, a matter of defending their homes against a slave insurrection fomented by London. Southern planters had not forgotten that, in 1772, a former slave named James Somerset, taken by his master to London, had won his freedom in a British court that ruled that as soon as a slave set foot on British soil, that slave became free. Before the second session of Congress convened, 500 vessels had sailed from England with 30-50,000 soldiers to put down the rebellion. King George was growing increasingly impatient with the American Colonies. When a British ship landed in Boston with three British major-generals. A local wit was moved to poetry: Behold the Cerberus the Atlantic Plough Its precious cargo, Burgoyne, Clinton, Howe Bow! Wow! Wow!17

Six months before, Thomas Paine had published his blockbuster, Common Sense, trumpeting to the world, “The birthday of a new world is at hand. We have it in our power to begin the world all over again.” Thomas Jefferson, 33, six feet tall, a rangy, red-headed provincial lawyer born in Shadwell, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (known as the “Blue Wall,” until Daniel Boone found a gap through them), had been assigned the task of writing the draft of the Declaration of Independence for consideration by a committee of the Congress. A “declaration” was a traditional English vehicle for an emphatic statement or proclamation, dating as far back as the 14th century. Declarations were intended to enlist broad public support. They also referred to a legal instrument, including a written statement of claims, served on the defendant at the commencement of a civil action. These summaries of wrongs were supposed to be presented in a “plain and certain manner”.18 A copy of Jefferson’s draft had been submitted to the Congress and its President, John Hancock of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard and heir to Boston’s largest shipping firm. He had tabled discussion until Monday, July 1. Hancock was one of two men the British soldiers were looking for when they marched to Lexington Green during the previous April. 17.Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution, p. 524. 18. Lois G. Schwoerer, Declaration of Rights, pp.16-17.

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1. The Declaration: Liberty, but Not for All

John Adams of Massachusetts, 38, had attended Harvard in the 1750s when it was an institution sporting thirty students and a faculty of six, with all classes taught in Latin. His family was now living on short rations in Braintree, Massachusetts (renamed Quincy), which was enemy-occupied territory. He was ready to fight for the break. Adams’ bother, Samuel, was the other man upon whose head the British had placed a bounty. Their great-grandfather, Henry Adams, had sailed to the colonies from England in the 1630s, bringing with him his wife and nine children (eight sons and a daughter). He became the first town clerk in Braintree. There John Adams was born. He attended the free Latin school before attending Harvard. In 1764 John married Abby Smith (her mother was a Quincy), a girl full of gaiety but deeply committed to living a purposeful life in accordance with her concept of her obligation to God. They would transmit this philosophy through five generations of their progeny. Recalling the days of tension between the colonies and England, some fifty years after the Continental Congress, John Adams would write fellow congressman Elbridge Gerry: “Five and forty years ago, when any terrible news arrived from England of their hostile designs against our liberties when the people, gaping and staring, pale and trembling, asked me, ‘What I thought of the news,’ my invariable answer was, ‘the worse, the better.”19 In late May, Adams was distraught. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania (for whom Dickinson College is named) was temporizing about declaring independence. He was, Adams wrote to a friend in Boston, “A man of great fortune and piddling genius.”20 Dickinson had sided with the patriots before the Revolution but opposed separation now if it meant war with Britain. Most of the states favored moderation with Massachusetts and Virginia being of radical bent, hawking separation. Adams was tireless. He badgered delegates, pleading for them to vote for independence. On the floor he urged the assembly to call the troops a Continental Army, to name a general to lead it, to arm and sustain it and to tell England what they were about. He asked the assembly to warn England that if she continued the hostilities, the Colonies would seek alliances, even with France, England’s perennial enemy, or any other country in Europe who might be disposed to oppose her. 19. John Adams, letter to Elbridge Gerry, July 14, 1814. 20. John Adams, letter to James Warren, July 24, 1775.

19

And the War Came A newspaper article signed, “Republicus,” declared, “I would...choose rather to be conquered as an independent State than as an acknowledged rebel.” The time had come “to call ourselves by some name,” for which the author proposed, The United States of America.”21 The four strong middle colonies, led by Dickinson of Pennsylvania, were ready to break with the bellicose men from New England and Virginia. John Adams agonized over the challenge of coordinating the war effort of the thirteen colonies. His cousin Sam Adams (in recent years hailed as the “Patriot-Brewer”) had been the organizer of the Boston troublemakers, the “Sons of Liberty,” as well as the manager of the Boston Tea Party. He had done his work before the Revolution, writing thousands of letters to the world at large trying to fire the egalitarian spirit in readers’ minds.

John Adams and Ben Franklin reviewed Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of independence. Adams admired its lofty tone and was particularly pleased with its strong indictment of slavery, but he realized that this might be a stumbling block to the adherence of the Southern colonies. He also wondered about the passages denouncing George III as a tyrant. Ben Franklin offered a few modifications to the declaration draft. He proposed “We hold these truths to be selfevident” in lieu of “…sacred and undeniable.” The four South Carolina representatives to the Convention belonged to rich plantation families. They had studied law at the Temple in London and were strong local patriots who disliked the idea of putting authority in the hands of Congress. One of them, 26-year-old Edward Rutledge, was the youngest delegate in Congress and a bit of a dandy. Two years earlier, Rutledge had married the sister of his colleague, Arthur Middleton. The Middletons owned 800 slaves. Arthur would be taken prisoner by the British at Charleston in 1780 and would be released a year later. In reply to the earlier proposal for independence made by Virginian Richard Henry Lee, Rutledge had objected because he thought it folly to give an enemy advance notice of their objectives. He blamed the New Englanders for the state of affairs that he thought would bring ruin to the colonies. Richard Henry Lee, a scion of one of the preeminent First Families of Virginia, rose to speak in a session on June 7. Acting upon the instructions of the Virginia Assembly, he proposed, “That these United States colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all

21. Peter Force, ed., American Archives, vol. VI: 1131.

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1. The Declaration: Liberty, but Not for All allegiance to the British Crown: and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” The majority was hostile to this intemperate outburst, but both the Adams men and Wythe of Virginia fought for it. A few days later, a shift occurred toward support of Lee’s resolution and now the issue depended upon the vote of Joseph Hewes of North Carolina. Adams had been working indefatigably on this delegate. His ardor was rewarded. Suddenly, Hewes declared his support of Lee’s resolution. It would carry. Adams later recalled, with relish, the horror, almost terror, on the faces of the old majority at that moment. John Dickinson was distraught. He thought the weak American forces would be crushed by the might of Great Britain and that this Congress had lost its mind. John and Abigail Adams had been apart for one-half of the first eleven years of their marriage. At the approach of spring, 1776, he wrote to her, “Is it not intolerable that the opening of spring which I should enjoy with my wife and children upon my little farm should pass away and laugh at me for laboring, day after day and month after month, in a conclave where neither taste nor fancy nor reason nor passion nor appetite can be gratified?” Adams summarized his mature political views in another letter to Abigail: I believe there is no one Principle, which predominates in human Nature so much in every Stage of Life, from the Cradle to the Grave, in Males and females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as this Passion for Superiority...Every human Being compares itself in its imagination, with every other round about it, and will find some superiority over every other...or it will die of Grief and Vexation.22

Abigail, in turn, unburdened herself in her own correspondence with him: I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping and like the grave, cries, “give, give.” The great fish swallow up the small; and he, who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but, at the same time, lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances. You may as well hope to bind up a hungry tiger with a cobweb as to hold such debauched patriots in the visionary chains of decency, or to charm them with the intellectual beauty of truth and reason...23

Abigail took the long view of the struggle of the colonies with their mother-country. 22. John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, May 22, 1777. 23. Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, November 27, 1775.

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And the War Came “If we expect to inherit the blessings of our fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive simplicity of manners, and not sink into inglorious ease. We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”24

For their part, Southerners were apt to be scornful of both New Englanders and Quakers. The women in Philadelphia were “homely, hardfavored, sour. The men were pious frauds.” The well-fed Pennsylvania Dutchmen had “too great a regard for ease and property to sacrifice either on the altar of the unknown goddess, Liberty.” As for the New Englanders, “they can neither fight nor pray without rum. No meaner, whimpering wretches in this universe than sober New Englanders.” Indeed, spirits had always provided a popular escape for the colonists from the danger and drudgery of subduing the wilderness and defending against Indian raids, provoked or otherwise. The legal definition of drunkenness in this age was, “where the same legs which carry a man into the house cannot bring him out again.”25 The British were convinced the colonists could never put aside their rivalries long enough to form a united front. The North and the South were like England and France, close geographically but disparate culturally. On July 2 at 4:00 p.m., the Secretary of the Congress was asked to read Richard Henry Lee’s resolution of June 7, with its empire-shattering rhetoric. John Adams seconded the motion. The roll call began. New Hampshire...Aye! Massachusetts Bay...Aye! Connecticut…Aye! ...Rhode Island...Aye! “New York?”...”Abstaining.” Their delegates were still awaiting instructions. If there had never been enmity between Boston and New York previously, there would be now. New Jersey...Aye. Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania had been against independence, but two of her delegates were absent and another switched sides…Aye. Delaware? This delegation had been split and no one was sure how they would vote. A clatter of hooves...Caesar Rodney, delayed by a storm, rode in, breathlessly, on his horse. He spoke in gasps, informing the Congress that the citizens of Delaware wanted Independence, that he wanted Independence and that he was voting for Independence!” Virginia had instructed its delegation to declare for Independence weeks before the Congress convened…Maryland...Aye! Georgia...Aye! South Carolina? South Carolina had been against independence...they switched! Aye! 24.Ibid., October 16, 1774. 25. Michael D. Dalton, Country Justice, London, 169, p. 29.

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1. The Declaration: Liberty, but Not for All

Twelve Ayes...one abstention. The Radicals had won. Massachusetts and Virginia had overwhelmed the moderate states and somehow seduced the Southern states. On the morning of July 3, an anonymous note was found on the speaker’s table. It claimed a plot had been formed to destroy all the representatives. It was ignored. That afternoon, Hancock recognized Benjamin Harrison, chairman of the Committee of the whole, who asked Secretary Thomson to read Jefferson’s manuscript. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the reasons which impel them to separation. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.“

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had substituted “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for John Locke’s “life, liberty and property.” Mr. Thomson continued reading: “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”

The last three-fourths of the document began with indictments against King George. Jefferson’s inflammatory word “tyrant” was changed to “king” in several places. The Secretary now read the last charge against George III: the enslavement of the Negro people and introducing slavery into the colonies against their will: Article No. 20: “Murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. In every stage of these oppressions, [21] we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

Southerners stiffened and exchanged anxious glances.

23

And the War Came Some who were present at the Convention thought Jefferson’s draft too passionate and too violent in blaming George III for the slave trade. In his notes on the debate, Jefferson thought the criticism of King George and his part in introducing slavery to the colonies was entirely political. A number of Southern delegations, South Carolina and Georgia, in particular, opposed any discussion of limiting the slave trade. He noted that their “Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”26 A crucial debate followed on the subject of slavery. Those who thought it conflicted with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and those to whom the concept of slavery was basically cruel and immoral wanted it abolished in the new Union of Colonies. Both Northerners and Southerners spoke against the practice. Those who spoke most vociferously in favor of the Institution claimed it was a matter for each state to decide for itself. They pointed out that the states represented by many of those seeking elimination of slavery were profiting significantly from goods and services they provided to slaves and slave-owners. They denied that morality had anything to do with the practice of slavery. It was a matter, simply, of the self-interest of the state. The representatives from South Carolina suggested that the Institution would probably disappear naturally, in the course of time. They played a tranquilizing sonata of reason and moderation. But, at this point in time, their crops depended on it. South Carolina and Georgia announced that they could not join the Union if slavery would not be allowed in it. The voices of slaves went unheeded for centuries, but after emancipation many of them were interviewed and a number of them are quoted throughout this book. A slave, Jack Maddox: There was a man lived neighbor to Judge Maddox named Ashberry Stegall. He had a name for being a hard-handed man. If one of his niggers did something he didn’t like, he put him in a ring made of the other niggers. Then, the nigger would have to run around the inside of the ring and let all the other niggers hit him with a stick. If a nigger wouldn’t hit hard, then he would get it himself. That way, he made the niggers beat each other. Guess he thought that kep’ his hands clean.27

John Adams was troubled. Abigail had once written: “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province; it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering

26. Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, I, pp. 314-315. 27. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History Bullwhip Days, p. 123.

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1. The Declaration: Liberty, but Not for All from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have. You know my mind on this subject.”28 He also knew of the part New England ship-owners were playing in the slave trade. John Newton, the English slave ship captain whose later remorse at his participation in the trade caused him to become a pastor and an abolitionist, wrote the words to the song, “Amazing Grace.” He insisted in his letters that no one had ever suggested to him that what he was doing was wrong; nor had he been able to perceive this for himself.29 Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now am found Was blind, but now I see.

Jefferson, who wrestled with the conundrum of slavery in his own life and never really reconciled the dilemma, noted privately, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his judgment cannot sleep forever...”30 The Congress adjourned for the day. The next day, July 4, the debate resumed. It was apparent that nothing would persuade the South Carolina and Georgia delegations to change their minds, even if they recognized some hypocrisy in their position. It was either strike out the abolition of slavery or forget the Union. The clause castigating George III for enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck. Jefferson expressed his feelings: “What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! He can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty — and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his trial and inflict on his fellow man a bondage...which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with patience the workings of an overruling Providence and hope that it is preparing the deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their groans have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice shall awaken to their distress...Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate that these people are to be free!”31 28. Abigail Adams, letters to John Adams, September 22, 1774. 29. Burnside/Robotham, Spirits of the Passage, p. 133. 30. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Q.XVIII.ME2:227. 31. Thomas Jefferson, Answers to de Meusnier, Q.XVIII.ME17:103.

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And the War Came He consoled himself, “State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor, the former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter.”32 Thomson read the closing resolution: “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” The roll call was by state, in geographical order. Every man stood and declared himself, some faintly, others boldly. Hancock announced the result: “The declaration by the representatives of the United States of America has been adopted unanimously.” Hancock signed first, in big, bold letters. “There, His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head [£500].” On July 19, the Declaration was read from the balcony of the State House in Boston. The square at King Street was jammed. People had gathered on rooftops. There were faces in every window. Abigail Adams was there. She remembered that very balcony on the night of the Boston Massacre. Governor Thomas Hutchinson had stood pleading in the moonlight to the upturned faces of an angry mob shouting for blood. A group of perhaps a hundred Americans had taunted a British sentinel. His call for help brought seven more soldiers and a Captain Preston to his aid. The crowd threw oyster shells, pieces of ice and wood at the soldiers, while yelling insults and challenges. One soldier lost his footing under the bombardment and guns went off. People in the crowd swore they heard the Captain order it. Afterward, five colonists lay dead or mortally wounded. Hutchinson pleaded for the law to prevail and British troops restored a tenuous order. The next day, Samuel Adams led a large protest meeting demanding that all British soldiers be ordered out of Boston. Governor Hutchinson reached an agreement with the army commander for the troops to be removed to an island in the harbor. As they paraded out of Boston an angry crowd lined the streets and cursed the departing Redcoats. John Adams was in his office when a Boston merchant named Forrester, a friend of British Captain Preston, burst in begging him to defend Preston. No one else would do so, he blurted. He had been to the Crown Lawyers. They wouldn’t touch the case. Despite his Patriot bias, Adams believed in the rule of law and that the British soldiers deserved a fair trial. The trial was conducted for seven days amidst mob activity and threats. Adams and his partner, Josiah Quincy, based their case on self-defense. They

32. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

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1. The Declaration: Liberty, but Not for All won acquittal for the soldiers. The populace was not happy. Adams’ law practice dwindled to half its former size. His reputation, however, was enhanced. Abigail’s attention returned to the spectacle at the State House balcony, Tom Crafts (the Adams’ house painter since 1754, now Colonel Crafts), read the Declaration. “Endowed by their Creator with sart’in unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” When the Declaration had been read, someone in the square yelled, “God save the American States,” and the crowd moved forward, cheering. That night, Abigail wrote John: “The Bells rang, privateers fired the forts and batteries, the canon were discharged, the platoons followed and every face appeared joyful...After dinner the Kings arms were taken down from the State House & every vestige of him from every place in Which it appeared & burnt...Thus ends royal Authority in this State, and all the people shall say Amen.”33

Thus the new “states” could now ponder the ringing affirmations of the Continental Congress of 1776, including the assertion that “all men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the declaration that, “whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of these people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” A more obvious challenge to the existence of slavery could hardly be conceived. The men who voted “yea” to this treasonous document were not drawn from democracy’s masses, the men in the street. They were influential and often affluent pillars of the new society. Most of those from the North and some of those from the South viewed slavery as inherently evil, absolutely antithetical to the principles upon which they were now staking their own lives. But this supreme challenge to the institution of slavery was blunted by a major dilemma. The continuance of the union was the first and foremost concern. The great good of colonial independence from tyranny could not reasonably be discarded because of a debatable issue that could be solved later. And there was a belief that, “In time, it will disappear of its own accord.” The Declaration was created primarily as a document to justify a revolution, and the question of slavery was incidental. The Revolutionary War rambled up and down the colonial countryside, with the outgunned, inexperienced, unpaid colonials being forever rallied by 33. Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, July 19, 1776.

27

And the War Came their officers, following repetitive defeats. The British could not close. They were also fighting France and Spain, who exulted in compounding England’s frustration with the escalating long-distance quarrel which was draining her treasury. In 1781, the colonials, with substantial help from the French fleet and French army, bottled up General Cornwallis and his 7,241 men at Yorktown, Virginia. The war soon ended with the British surrender on October 17. It would be two years before a peace was signed between a grudging England and the American Confederation, a tenuous amalgamation of States with divergent aims. What passed for a central government of colonies was financially destitute, organizationally weak and lacking in authority. Its task was to forge a nation capable of survival in a chaotic domestic and international political environment. Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies, Washington’s aide-decamp, the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, fretted over the jealousy and bickering among the states and the obvious weakness of the Federal Government at home and abroad. Washington himself thought the young nation was verging on anarchy. Foreign leaders anticipated early dissolution of the United States. In England, author Samuel Johnson posed a barb that was difficult to avoid: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”34

34. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, p.275.

28

2. UNITING AROUND A CONSTITUTION, AT A COST In early 1787, Alexander Hamilton recommended that 55 delegates from all states gather at Philadelphia later that year to propose changes to the way the system of government worked. He did not think it was working at all. The Articles of Confederation of 1778, which were ratified in 1781, let each state retain “its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States.”35 The central government was prohibited from levying taxes or raising armies except by voluntary action. This inadequate federation nearly collapsed after the war as states came near to fighting each other over boundary disputes, tariffs aimed at each other, river navigation and a host of other petulancies. What the states really wanted was to govern themselves. They did not want to trade British domination for domination of an American central government. Hamilton and Washington, however, recognized the need for a strong central government if this loose agglomeration of overly proud, contentious pseudo-satraps was to survive. In 1786, a conference of all states was scheduled to discuss trade issues at Annapolis, Maryland. Only five states sent delegates. A report was drafted, recommending a convention of delegates from all states to meet in Philadelphia later that year. Its purpose was to make “alterations and provisions” in the Articles of Confederation. George Washington was named chairman of the meeting. He left retirement reluctantly to so preside. 35. Articles of Confederation of the United States, Article II.

29

And the War Came Another document was needed, a document that would form the basis of law fundamental to operation of the new government, a document that would tend to guarantee, in so far as guarantee was possible, the application of the principles that “all MEN are created EQUAL...they are ENDOWED by their CREATOR with certain INALIENABLE RIGHTS...AMONG THESE are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.” The purpose of the Constitutional Convention was to create a constitution for the country, not to make laws. Successive generations have made a virtual profession of interpreting and explaining the precise meaning of the words in the Declaration and the Constitution. “This is because,” historian Thomas Cahill has pointed out, “like any effective declaration or constitution, they do not say too much, which enables them to be elaborated and interpreted by later ages in contexts that would have been unimaginable [at the time of their writing].36 Three of the thorniest issues to be resolved were: (1) which powers were to be granted to the federal government and which to the states; (2) the conflict between large and small states (who resented their big brothers) as to who would control the government; and (3), the position of the federal government with regard to slavery. At that time, the idea was widespread in America that the end of slavery was only a matter of time. The Upper South’s economy had been altered by the Revolution and would be further jolted by the European war of the 1790s, when the French market for tobacco collapsed. That crop never regained its preeminence. The tobacco region of the Upper South turned to mixed farming, growing wheat, corn and other vegetables. As a consequence, there began an exodus of slaves from the Upper South to the Deep South and to the West. Slave families who had worked the Tidewater region of Virginia for one hundred years were uprooted. Between 1780 and 1810, some 115,000 slaves involuntarily made the trek south or west. The price of slaves in the Southern colonies had always moved in parallel with real wages in Europe and in the Northern colonies. During the late eighteenth century, slave prices had declined sharply, as had real wages for free laborers in Europe. This trend would reverse itself in the 1790s. Prices would bottom out at $300 per slave in 1795. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, only about one in five Southern households owned slaves and three-fourths of these households had 36. Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews, p. 147.

30

2. Uniting Around a Constitution, At a Cost only one or two slaves. The great majority of slaves lived on holdings of less than fifty. One of the paradoxes of the times was that the concept of “natural rights,” which fueled emancipation thinking, also declared “property rights” sacred providing both slave owners and abolitionists with arguments in their favor. In the Deep South, after the Revolution, rice production regained strength quickly. Indigo demand languished for several reasons: the British eliminated their subsidy for the dye; competition from Louisiana and South America became formidable; and, Southern production suffered a series of natural disasters. Searching for a substitute, planters “discovered” cotton, which slaves had grown in patch gardens during the war. The slave population in the Deep South, bloated by the thousands exported by the Chesapeake planters, still could not satisfy the exploding demand for cotton. Planters purchased slaves from Northern states, where the emancipation movement drove down prices (although the Southerners claimed the Yankees were dumping “infamous and incorrigible” slaves on them). Even this failed to fulfill demand. Consequently, South Carolina, having barred international slave trade in the year of the Constitutional Convention, would reopen it in 1803, and a burgeoning slave import market arose in Charleston. In the three most productive parishes in the South Carolina low country, the black population exceeded 90 per cent of the total. Prior to the Revolutionary era, the South had championed liberal, social thought in America, espousing an egalitarian republicanism, but during the post-Revolutionary era the South began to distance itself from this liberalism and commenced a steady progress toward entrenched conservatism. At the Constitutional Convention, one pivotal issue would be the basis of representation in the National Legislature. Thus were pitted the ten small states against the three large states. The small states balked at proportional representation, as proposed in the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan proposed a legislature composed of two houses, an upper and a lower. This was modeled after the English bicameral system. There was, however, no royalty in America to populate a House of Lords, at least not the official royalty conferred by a crown. It could be argued that American royalty was conferred by economic status, then even more than now. The purpose of the legislature was to make laws on matters impossible for the states to accomplish, such as defense of the nation and to nullify all state laws which were in opposition to the Constitution.

31

And the War Came

Following spirited debate between the large and small states, it was agreed that each state would have equal representation in the upper house and that representation would be proportionate to population in the lower house. What did “population” mean? What about indentured servants? What about Indians? What about slaves? Only 2% of the people in the North were enslaved, compared to 33% of the Upper South (led by Virginia, with 39%) and 41% in the Lower South (led by South Carolina, with 43%). The slave, Henry Gladney: Old Marster had so many slaves he don’t know what to do wid them all. He give some of them off to his chillun...I was give to his grandson, Marse John Mobley McCrory, just to wait on him and play wid him. Little Marse John treat me good sometime’ and kick me around sometime...I was just a little dog or monkey, in his heart and mind, dat it ’mused him to pet or kick, as it pleased him.37

Most of the fifty-five delegates had also attended the Second Continental Congress. They had thrown the dice of rebellion against the most daunting power of the western world and made the craps of victory. Now they were trying to make the rules of governance for a fractious bunch of jealous entities, each of whom envisioned the sword of Damocles in the potential to be outvoted by a combination of enemies, if not now, then in the future,. Equal representation in the upper house meant that on major issues, such as slavery, “pro” and “con” states must be kept equal.” Proportionate representation in the lower house was a threat to the South whose population was growing more slowly than the North which was burgeoning from surges of immigration. The South wanted slaves counted as population. The Northern delegates countered by claiming the South designated slaves as property. If that were so the property of Northerners, such as cows and horses (that did the work of slaves in the South), should be counted as population. James Wilson of Pennsylvania attempted conciliation and moved that the “three-fifths” rule should be adopted, as proposed four years before by the Confederation Congress of 1783. This rule stipulated that the vote should be in proportion to the “whole number of white and other free citizens and three-fifths of all other persons except Indians not paying taxes...”38 Who, specifically were ‘all

37. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p. 149. 38. Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia, p. 95.

32

2. Uniting Around a Constitution, At a Cost other persons?’ They were the slaves — a word carefully omitted from the Constitution. The formula “Person[s] held to service” was used, instead. Rufus King of Massachusetts, 32, affable and wealthy, a moderate except on the subject of slavery, which he detested, said that, “He could never agree to let them (slaves) be imported without limitation & then let them be represented in the Natl. Legislature…At all events, either slaves should not be represented, or exports should be taxable.”39 Dissident representatives, who ran counter to the main current within the territorial blocs of the North and the South, were exceptions. The mainstreamers would shape the debate in this Convention. Roger Sherman of Connecticut, a somber puritan, regarded the slave trade “as iniquitous.”40 Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, 35, debonair, peg legged, said, “he would never concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution… It was the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed. Upon what principle is it that slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and let them vote. Are they Property? Why then is no other property included?”41 Southerners were more laconic and earthy, and spoke of local interests and social and political reality. To the sanctimonious they pointed out the truth that northern states had significant interest in the slave trade even though their number of slaves was few. John Rutledge of South Carolina, elder brother to Edward, a delegate in the Continental Congress, and whose property in Charleston the British had seized during the Revolution, stated the Southern case: “Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to this Union. If the Northern states consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of Slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.” This stung. The Northerners knew well their merchants’ proclivity to place profit above principle. But Sherman maintained the high road. He “disapproved of the slave trade… it was expedient to have as few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of Government…the abolition of slavery seemed to be

39. James Madison, The Debates in the Federal Convention 0f 1787, August 8, 1787. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.

33

And the War Came going on in the U.S. and the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees compleat it.” A Northern moderate, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, a profound thinker who left a trail of snuff everywhere he perched, tried to find a basis of compromise: “let every state import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves.” Rutledge reinforced the point: The people of the Carolinas and Georgia would “never be such fools as to give up so important an interest.” Roger Sherman agreed: “It was better to let the Southern states import slaves than to part with them, if they make that a sine qua non.” Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, who was nineteen years old when he became a delegate and who had once been captured by the British and then released at Charleston, sensed victory and reinforced the Southern phalanx by stating: “South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade…If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world,” adding the justification that got abolitionists off the hook, “If the S. States were let alone they will probably of themselves stop importations….S. Carolina may perhaps by degrees do of herself what is wished, as Virginia and Maryland have already done”42 In the end, both sides yielded on cherished concepts. The North conceded: (1) that the Constitution would permit the importation of slaves until the year 1808; (2) that slaves would be counted, for purpose of representation and taxes, in the proportion of five slaves equaling three free white inhabitants, the “federal ratio” (Constitution, Article I, section 2, paragraph 3 — “three-fifths of slaves to be counted for representation [in the House]”). This proposal became law until the Fourteenth Amendment overruled it in 1868. (The number of votes allotted to a state in the Electoral College was thus affected and the three-fifths rule probably cost John Adams the presidential election of 1800, which went to Jefferson); and, (3) recognition the right of masters to reclaim fugitives (This right became the most emotional issue for Northerners who lived out of the sight of slavery. Enforced searching of one’s home, for anyone or anything, was certain to raise libertarian hackles). The South conceded: (1) that the authority to create laws on the subject of slavery would be transferred from local to central authority; and (2), that the importation of slaves would cease in the year 1808. 42. Ibid., August 21-22, 1787.

34

2. Uniting Around a Constitution, At a Cost Hamilton said later that, without the “federal ratio,” no union could possibly have been formed. The question before the Convention was not, Shall slavery be abolished? Somehow, some way, the nation would have to deal with that question later. In the future, both sides of the slavery question would claim support in the Constitution. The document deliberately avoided either sanctioning or condemning slavery. On balance, however, the Constitution bolstered slavery by throwing the power of the federal government behind it. The basic, sectional positions had not changed since the Second Continental Congress of 1776. The union of states was drifting and a Constitution was sought to cement the parts into a cohesive whole. Once again, the greater good of securing a more viable Union precluded any fundamental confrontation over slavery, a confrontation that might sever the Union. In eleven years, that had not changed. Abolition was less essential at this juncture than the survival of the Union. And so a Union of thirteen states was founded, in part, on a compromise over “free” and “slave,” with an implied understanding that representation in the Senate would be maintained equally between “free” and “slave” states. Of the original thirteen, seven were “free,” but by 1796, after the federal government was safely established, the count was even: eight “‘slave” and eight “free” states (Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee had been admitted into the Union). This agreement insured, at the very least, that slavery would go on, where it already existed. In the House, the “free” and “slave” votes were skewed slightly toward “free” despite the application of the “three-fifths” rule. The arrangement mollified Southerners for the time being. They were, after all, comforted by the clear dominance of Southern men in the positions of leadership in the nascent government. This was equality with a spin and that spin must be maintained. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, North America absorbed only some six per cent of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the cumulative total of involuntary migration of Africans exceeded the cumulative total of voluntary immigration, from all lands, until the 1830s. The cumulative total of forced African migrants exceeded that of Europeans until the 1880s. It is significant to note that Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island, in their acts of ratification of the Constitution, affirmed that the powers granted by them to the federal government could be withdrawn by the states. Author Shelby Foote has written that, “Not one of those thirteen colonies would have joined the Union if they hadn’t believed they could get out of it.”43 43. Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, p. 152.

35

And the War Came Crucial among the language of the document was Article X of the “Bill of Rights”: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since the Constitution is a flexible, elastic document, open to varied interpretations, the momentous issue of whether the federal government or the states had authority in any area of governance, not specifically delineated in the Constitution, would lead to an unending argument over the source of jurisdiction in a host of critical matters, probably for the duration of the nation. The convention culminated in the drafting of a document that enabled an impoverished, unlikely coalition to survive, prosper and become great. William Gladstone, an illustrious prime minister of England, and many others, have cited the U.S. Constitution as one of the most remarkable products of the human intellect in all history.

36

3. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE Boundary disputes in the Northwest Territory (which would eventually become the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin) were addressed when the Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which also established the format for governance of territories and preparation for statehood. It also banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. This major event was not welcomed by many Easterners, who feared that the “over-mountain,” back-country people would soon outnumber and outvote them in matters inimical to their interest. Southern leadership must have thoroughly relished the Yankee consternation. Now, the shoe was on the other foot, and the Northerners were squirming. The 1787 Ordinance created a political imbalance of “free” versus “slave” states that would, in the Southern view, require redress. And what would be more natural than the westward extension of Southern influence? This would, however, require the Southern states to abandon certain territorial claims to the federal government. Left to themselves, the coastal states would wish to extend their territory to the Pacific shores. In 1790, an estimated 700,000 blacks were slaves in America. America took its first census and counted 3,929,000 souls. The House of Representatives denied that it had the power to declare emancipation. By 1800, slaves numbered 900,000 and still demand was not being met. More slaves entered the U.S. between 1787 and 1807 than in any other two decades in history. The slave population of the nation had doubled from 1770 to 1810.

37

And the War Came The North had begun to abolish slavery for lack of utility and concern over its morality. Within three decades after the Revolutionary War, all the Northern states had emancipated their slaves. There was also a significant increase in the number of free blacks in the Upper South. Two decades after the war, in compliance with the dictates of the Constitution, Congress put an end to the African slave trade. This was a period of history wherein attitudes were changing significantly, perhaps due to the momentum of the Enlightenment. Concern about human rights, desire for fair play and revulsion to cruelty were surfacing. Seventeenthcentury settlers took for granted “stocks and tongue-borings, religious proscriptions, fear of witches, and savage repression of the lower orders.” By 1800, there had been a decrease in corporal punishment of white adults and a growing sense that it was improper to maltreat slaves. There was a growing consciousness that slavery was immoral, a deepening perception that it was inefficient and degrading to society at large and that it induced masters’ families to laziness. A growing body of critics at the time thought slavery constituted an artificial restraint of trade. Peter Kolchin suggests that the spread of capitalism substituted “the physical coercion of the lash for the economic coercion of the marketplace.”44 But, in the Deep South, the economics of the planter society and the culture it nurtured relied on the entrenchment of slavery. As international demand for indigo dye ebbed, its cultivation declined on the coastal islands of South Carolina. The replacement crop was cotton. British Loyalists who fled to the Bahamas during the Revolution had raised cotton there. Discovering that the sandy soil became barren after a few crops, they sent their cotton seeds and know-how, especially the technology of the roller gin, to relatives and acquaintances in the Sea Islands. Cotton production was labor intensive and ideally suited to the soil and climate of the South Carolina low country. The coveted long-staple variety could not be grown “up country.” “King Cotton” was born in the sea island marshes. It would become the most important staple crop in the South. Unlike tobacco, it was economical to grow on smaller land holdings. In the North, the most prominent citizens of the new nation were generally lawyers and self-educated artisan-intellectuals. In the South, they were wealthy planters. These planter-politicians led the states to independence, created a new government and dominated that government in its early years. 44. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877, pp. 67.

38

3. The Missouri Compromise George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason and Edmund Randolph were all slave owners. Eight of the first twelve U.S. presidents, who held office during 49 of the nation’s first 61 years, were slaveholders. And not only the presidents: the Office of Speaker of the House was held by a slaveholder for 28 of the nation’s first 35 years. The president protem of the Senate throughout this period was a slaveholder. The majority of the cabinet members and of the justices on the Supreme Court were slaveholders. In 1793, a Connecticut Yankee, Eli Whitney, sealed the future of slavery in the South with his invention of an improved saw-tooth gin (a word derived from “engine”) for separating the seeds from the fiber of short-staple cotton. This invention occurred at Mulberry Plantation on the Savannah River, in Georgia, and resulted in a cotton productivity bonanza. In cotton, “staple” is the fiber or wool in the boll. Short staple cotton required much more handwork to cull the seeds, a problem solved by Whitney’s gin with its revolving cylinder lined with teeth. A slave could now separate 50 pounds of fiber from seed per day in contrast to one pound before the introduction of Whitney’s gin. Yankee ingenuity would help petrify Southern intransigence. The introduction of steam power in England and the evolution of the Industrial Revolution sharply lowered the cost of spinning cotton into yarn and weaving yarn into fabric, thus providing cotton goods at affordable prices. In 1790, 9840 lbs. of cotton were exported from the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Eleven years later, exports exceeded 8 million pounds. Prices, which averaged about $0.35/lb in the first decade of the nineteenth century, rose to $0.63 per pound in 1818. The cherished Sea Island long-staple cotton sold at two to four times the price of short-staple cotton. Cotton became the leading export of the United States, exceeding, in dollar value, all other exports combined. It provided the basis for the first significant growth of the factory system in New England. Any possibility that the South might accommodate the demise of slavery vanished. Most of the landholdings were in the hands of a small number of landowners, the few who ran the South, financially, politically and socially. In the early nineteenth century, a reaction occurred against the more radical tendencies of the American Revolution along with revulsion over the excesses of the French Revolution. This fueled a conservative republicanism which emphasized the protection of property, and order over equality.

39

And the War Came South Carolina rice planter John Ball wrote to his namesake son, a student at Harvard in 1800: By being at such an University, you have the best chance in the United States for Education, & Boston & its vicinity may properly be class’d among the most polite & hospitable people in our States. As it is [however] you are in danger of imbibing principles in the Eastern states that will be against the interest of the southern states, tending to the ruin of your own family and fortune — however liberal those ideas may appear, the carrying of them, into practice would be attended with the most direful effects. Carry in your mind that whenever a general emancipation takes place in S Carolina and Georgia, you are a ruined man and all your family connexions made beggars.45

Economic conditions in the lower South reinforced the new conservatism. The cotton boom dramatically increased the demand for slave labor at the very time that federal law prohibited slave importation. Slave prices soared. But salvation was at hand. A surge in the natural population growth among the slaves ensured that slavery could continue to flourish even after slave imports became illegal. By 1816, the cotton boom had vaulted South Carolina to second place in the entire Union in the value of its exports, exceeded only by New York. The nation’s population in 1800 was 5,038,000, an increase of 28% from the 1790 census. In 1810, it grew to 7,239,000, a further increase of 44% and in 1820 it reached 9,638,000, a jump of 33%. The slave, Harriet Robinson, noted: Whenever white folks had a baby born, den all de old niggers had to come though the room, and the master would be over ’hind the bed, and he’d say, “Here’s a new little mistress or master you got to work for.” You had to say, “Yessuh, Master,” and bow real low, or the overseer would crack you. Them was slavery days, dog days.46

The fast-growing nation was pressing hard on its western boundaries. The Louisiana Territory ran up the Mississippi River and stretched west into vast, uncharted lands which had first come under French control, and then Spanish. Early in Jefferson’s first term as president, the Spanish closed the port of New Orleans to American shipping, imposing great hardship on the nation’s western settlers. Then the Spanish secretly ceded the whole region to the French, reports of which soon reached Jefferson. In 1803, he dispatched James Monroe to France with an offer to buy New Orleans and, if possible, West Florida, for two million

45. Edward Ball, Slaves In the Family, p. 254. 46. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p. 149.

40

3. The Missouri Compromise dollars. Monroe was unable to negotiate for Western Florida but returned with an opportunity to acquire the entire Louisiana Territory at a cost of 13 million dollars. Jefferson was in a quandary. The Constitution said nothing on the acquisition of foreign territories and the president was a strict constitutionalist. At first, he thought to legalize the purchase through a constitutional amendment, but was advised that any delay could allow time for Napoleon to change his mind. Pragmatism led Jefferson to justify the purchase under the Constitution’s treaty-making and war powers clause. The Louisiana Purchase roughly doubled the size of the Republic, at a cost of approximately three cents an acre. This gift, together with a brusque appropriation of Indian lands in Georgia and Alabama, opened vast areas for planting. Cotton required a growing season of at least 200 frostless days. The new territory’s southern area would provide such a climate. In addition, the Louisiana delta was ideal for growing sugar cane. More and more slaves were needed. Diversification of the Southern economy was postponed. As Southerners moved west, so did cotton. The share of the cotton crop produced by the Carolinas would decline from 60% in 1801 to 10% in 1859.47 But migration of the “King” Cotton bonanza improved the economy in all Southern states because the sharp increase in the demand for slaves catapulted their price and the value of slave owners’ property everywhere. In the Lower Mississippi Valley, sugar-cane planting was abetted by a windfall in the form of a slave rebellion in sugar-producing Saint Domingue in 1791. A few Louisiana planters who were already experimenting with cane received a jolt of capital and specialized technology from the former planters in Saint Domingue. Further north, where the weather was not conducive to growing sugarcane, planters opted to plant cotton. More than a million slaves, nearly twice as many as had been cumulatively imported into the United States, were moved from the coastal states to Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. Mississippi became a state in 1817, followed by Alabama in 1819, and the Southern landscape was dotted with long columns of blacks tramping in chains (slave coffles) through the back country “traces” on a forced march from South Carolina to the new cotton plantations westward.

47. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877, pp. 96.

41

And the War Came As is common with ruling elites, the planter class gave up doing the hard work alongside their field hands for aristocratic pleasures. They wrote papers on the proper treatment of slaves while adjudicating disputes between overseers and their charges. Plantation owners now celebrated the plantation as a model community in which masters fulfilled their historic obligations to their dependents — be they women, children or slaves — the “Old South” and its plantation ideal. There was a dichotomy in the treatment of slaves which depended solely on the character of the master. Relations between master and slave were marked by affection and intimacy in many instances, and by fear, brute force and calculation of self-interest in others. The slave, Stephen William, recalled: Major Long was the one who owned the trader yard where we was put...one morning my family is all kinda huddled up together in a corner of the yard away from the rest, and ’long comes Major Long, carrying his bullwhip in his hand, with another man. He makes Mary stand up and says to the man with him, “Here’s jes the girl you want for a nurse girl.” Ma begs Major Long not to separate us folks, and hugged Mary and Jane and me to her...then the major come over to where we are and pulled Mary away from mamma, and he and the man took her off. Man, man, folks what didn’t go through slavery ain’t got no idea what it was...A trader them days, didn’t think no more of selling a baby or little child away from its mother than taking a little calf away from a cow. I rec’lec’, the night after Mary is sold away from us, the colored folk in the trader yard hold prayer meeting...Mama was very religious...didn’t do no singing, ’cause that would have ’tracted attention...But someone saw the folks praying and told him [Major Long] the next morning, and he come out in the yard with a cat-o-nine tails and rounds everybody up. Then, he said, “You niggers what was praying last night step out here.” None come out, though, ’cept Mama, ’cause they was ’fraid they was going to get whipped. Major said to Mama, “Well, you are the only truthful one in the yard, and I won’t whip you, ’cause you have been truthful. I’ll see if I can keep you and your man and your other children together and not see you separate.” Mama jes’ fell on her knees and thanked the good Lord right in front of the Major and he never touched her with his whip. The Major kept his word to Mama and sell us to Mr. Dan Sullivan, and he takes us up to Alexandria in a wagon.48

The Native Americans were driven out and the cotton kingdom absorbed their lands. The old South Carolina rice planters were becoming passé, along with the tobacco planters of Virginia. Between 1830 and 1860, these two groups would sell some 300,000 blacks to the new cotton planters west of Carolina. 48.James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, pp. 290,1

42

3. The Missouri Compromise New Orleans assumed the mantle of the most thriving Southern city (the only one exceeding 100,000 in population in 1860), while Charleston was already becoming “quaint” (there were only twelve cities in the United States with populations exceeding 100,000). The growth of slavery in the colonies/states for 130 years, beginning in 1680, is shown below:49 Table 1: Slave Population of sections/states of North America as % of total population 1680

1700

1720

1750

1770

1790

1810

NORTH

2

4

5

5

4

2

<1

New York

12

12

16

14

12

6

2

Massachusetts

<1

1

2

2

2

0

0

UPPER SOUTH

7

20

24

36

37

33

34

Virginia

7

28

30

46

42

39

40

Delaware

5

5

12

5

5

15

6

LOWER SOUTH

17

36

60

57

58

41

46

South Carolina

17

44

64

61

61

43

47

LOWER MISS. VALLEY

-

-

36

60

?

52

47

Great Britain, leading the Industrial Revolution, was flooding America with cheap goods, resulting in reduced production in, or shutdown of, hundreds of American factories and putting thousands of mill-workers out of work in the Northeast. By 1819, for this and other reasons, a protective tariff was passed to bar English cotton manufactures from the American market. Inventions continually spurred development. In 1807, Robert Fulton’s steamboat was successfully tested on the Hudson River. Sail power and soon horse power began to be replaced by steamboats and railroads. The Baltimore and Ohio became the first passenger railroad in the U.S. in 1828. Yet slavery adumbrated the glow of the new world. In 1819, on the 200-ton Rodeur of Le Havre, sailing to Guadeloupe with 200 slaves, a virulent form of ophthalmia blinded most of the slaves and crew. The ship, without a helmsman, tossed aimlessly about at sea, survived a storm and then encountered the vessel San Leon of Spain. The desperate hopes of the sightless seamen were cruelly and ironically shattered when they learned that the sailors of the San Leon were also blind. A passenger on the Rodeur recounted, “At the announcement of this horrible coincidence, there was a silence among us for some moments, like that of death. It was broken by a fit of laughter, in which I joined myself and, before our 49.Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Table I.

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And the War Came awful merriment was over, we could hear, by the sound of curses, which the Spanish shouted at us, that the San Leon had drifted away...she never reached any port.” Most of the crew of the Rodeur were eventually recovered, but only after the captain had thrown 39 blind slaves overboard.50 That same year, a debate began in Congress that lasted two tumultuous years. Alabama had applied for admission as a slave state. That was expected, because Illinois had been admitted as a “free” state the year before, tipping the scales to 11 “free” states to 10 “slave states.” The prior admission of Ohio and Indiana had been balanced by acceptance of Louisiana and Mississippi. The “code” dictated the admission of Alabama to restore the balance. But Missouri caught the North unawares by applying for statehood at the same time. Admission of Missouri would put the South one up. The “code” itself was becoming an insurmountable obstacle to settlement of the slavery issue. It would continue so as the nation expanded westward, state-pair by state-pair, while the partisans on each side of the tragic issue escalated their rhetoric and their posturing. The delicate balance was ever in danger; the House of Representatives, which had been near parity in 1790, had already tilted toward the “free” states by 24 seats, reflecting the more rapid growth, largely through immigration, of the more urbanized North. Representative James Tallmadge of New York moved to right this unexpected imbalance by proposing an amendment: that no more slaves to be brought into Missouri and the children of those already there to be freed at age 25. In time this “slave” state would be transformed to a “free” state. There it was! Uproar and chaos filled the House! The full depth of the perfidious Yankee iceberg was now exposed. For the first time in those august chambers, Southerners referred to “disunion.” The South not only fretted over Missouri, in particular, but also over the general trend of Tallmadge’s line of thinking. Unchecked, his reasoning would lead to the assumption by Congress of powers not granted by the Constitution, forcing Missouri to meet unprecedented conditions before qualifying for statehood. It would diminish the slave market. It would create a Northern majority in the Senate to match their existing majority of 24 in the 186-member House. And then, by a simple vote, it might lead to that abhorred and much feared initiative: abolition, and with it the destruction of Southern civilization. Compounding the Missouri problem was the fact that the Territory extended 50. G. F. Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving, (Salem 1927), XXVIII ff.

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3. The Missouri Compromise north of the line that had been implicitly accepted as the boundary between “slave” and “free” states. The great contradiction between the nation’s stated, and highly publicized, ideals of individual freedom and the presence, in its bosom, of slavery had been shunted off the political center stage for nearly a generation. It was observed, and at times addressed, but never commanded the full attention of the body politic. Now, the great chord had been struck. Heretofore, the North and South, harboring little affection for the customs and mores of each other’s way of life, had accepted the status quo; but the citizens of those regions felt no responsibility for the social conditions in each other’s society. Now, with respect to the territories destined to become new states, every American felt a responsibility for the kind of society the newcomers would adopt. The decision to maintain each territory as “slave” or “free” was a matter to be decided by public voice. The Missouri question moved Jefferson to exclaim, “This momentous question, like a fireball in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” When the opening of his beloved University of Virginia was delayed and students who had planned to attend continued to go North for education, he himself had commented that the education they might receive there was “the speck in our horizon which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later.”51 The senior Adams wrote to Jefferson, “The Missouri question I hope will follow the other waves under the ship and do no harm.”52 He wrote to several other friends, calling “Negro Slavery … an evil of Colossal magnitude.” In 1820, he wrote, “we must settle the question of slavery’s extension now, otherwise it will stamp our National Character and lay a Foundation for Calamities, if not disunion.”53 John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, agreed. He had defended the right of Congress to exclude slavery from the territories. Adams wrote in his journal: the discussion of the Missouri question had betrayed the secret of their [Southern] souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all on the shoulder of old grandam

51. Alan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 226. 52. Adams-Jefferson Correspondence, Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 21, 1819. 53. Massachusetts Historical Society, The Microfilm Edition of The Adams Papers, (608) Reels, Adams to Robert Walsh, January 19, 1820, Reel 124.

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And the War Came Britain, but when probed to the quick about it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence...It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? The impression produced upon any mind by the progress of this discussion is, that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles upon which alone our evolution can be justified, cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured or restored to their owners, and persons not be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of representation.”54

The younger Adams supported the Missouri Compromise because he thought it was as much as could be accomplished under the Constitution and because he could not push himself do anything that would threaten the Union. But he forever wondered, in his heart, if it would not have been wiser to challenge the slaveocracy. Would a Union of thirteen or fourteen “free” states have encouraged other states to emancipate their slaves? Jesse Thomas, of Illinois, proposed drawing an imaginary line across the continent at 36 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. Slavery would be prohibited “forever” to the north of that line, except in Missouri. Maine was to be admitted as a “free” state which would place the ship again on even keel, with twelve states on each side. But, each side was certain it had the worst of the bargain. The North now faced an extension of slavery to new territories, never heretofore contemplated. Meanwhile, the South believed it had received nothing. Most of the territory south of the line was Mexico’s, and most of the land north of the line (now the wheat belt) was thought to be useless prairie. Debate was acrimonious and, at roll call, the outcome was uncertain. The bill passed the House by three votes, and a last-minute objection by John Randolph of Virginia was evaded when the Speaker, Henry Clay, secretly signed the bill and ferried it to the Senate, which approved it immediately. This landmark legislation, the Missouri Compromise, formally established slavery beyond the Mississippi for the first time and divided the nation irreparably. 54. Alan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams, March 13, 1820, pp.231-232.

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3. The Missouri Compromise President Monroe was infuriated, convinced that the limitation of slavery, “if not in direct violation of the Constitution,” was “repugnant to its principles.” He would have vetoed the bill summarily, had he not feared the outbreak of civil war. He signed it into law on March 20, 1820. Reaction in the North was bitter. Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the measure “a reprieve only.” Whatever his moral position, Jefferson resented the growth of federal power and grew ever more wary of its encroachment on Southern rights. Resolution was not forthcoming. Both North and South were haunted by the specter of becoming a minority in Congress, through control of the “new states” by the opposition. They could neither yield in this matter nor in a wider range of matters touching the slavery issue. They could find no way to resolve the issue while facing the challenge of admitting new states; perhaps, in time, the economics of slavery would become less favorable, and other factors would allow for resolution in the years ahead. For now, some form of compromise had to be accepted to avert rupture and catastrophe. In 1820, the coastal North had about four and one half million people, the South three million (including slaves), and there were two million more beyond the Allegheny Mountains. The South was still predominantly rural, having only seven communities with more than eight thousand inhabitants. But the major growth lay to the west. At $2 an acre, cheap land in Ohio lured an ever-increasing migration from the coastal states and from abroad. These pioneers, bred in the northeast, wanted no part of slavery in building their new communities. The divide was widening between the North with its small farms and growing industrial base, and the South with its stratified plantation economy. The differences between the North and South were on course to becoming irreconcilable. The South developed a defensive ideology that resisted change. Its society resembled the rest of the world whereas the North, which was racing toward industrial capitalism, championed individual economic opportunity for those bold and swift enough to seize it. The South fought to preserve its vision of the republic as the founding fathers intended it — a government of limited powers that protected their rights of property, including slave property, and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict. By the time of Adams’ and Jefferson’s deaths, though many citizens remained indifferent to slavery, the issue was roiling in the minds of a small band

47

And the War Came of activists who promoted abolition. The abolition movement was fueled by the circulation of its ideas in books and pamphlets. There was no censorship in England or America. Abolition was jump-started by the Quakers’ reversal of their former acceptance of the institution. The apologists for slavery did not underestimate the threat. They understood the need to refine their arguments, which included the notion that: • emancipation would be disastrous to the Free Citizen, producing poverty and distress. • slavery was the best condition for the slaves, who were unable to fend for themselves. • slavery was justified by Biblical precedent; and, • abolition was a violation of the liberty of the Southern people. Denial of the right to own slaves would be tantamount to subjecting Southerners to slavery (just as the patriots had argued that the British, by infringing on their traditional liberties, were subjecting them to slavery). The movement of Southerners westward into Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, seeking plentiful land and a benign growing climate, was traumatic for the slaves. Sale was always a dreaded event, but sale to the Southwest certainly meant permanent separation from home, friends, and often family. Parents might come in from the fields at the end of the day to find that a child had been sold and sent away without a word. There were many slave owners who behaved paternally toward their charges, who lived on their property and were deeply involved in communities, governments, landholdings and with their slaves. Masters spoke sincerely of their slaves as “their people,” inferior members of an extended household from whom they expected work and obedience but to whom they owed guidance and protection. They spoke frequently and sincerely of their “love” for their slaves. Presbyterian minister (and Georgia slave owner) Charles C. Jones said blacks “were placed under our control...not exclusively for our benefit but theirs also. We cannot disregard this obligation thus divinely imposed, without forfeiting our humanity, our gratitude, our consistency, and our claim to the spirit of Christianity itself.” Rice planter P.C. Weston informed his overseer that “his first object is to be, under all circumstances, the care and well being of the negroes. The Proprietor is always ready to excuse such errors as may proceed from want of

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3. The Missouri Compromise judgment; but he never can or will excuse any cruelty, severity or want of care toward the negroes.”55 The slave, Florence Napier, noted that: Ise sho’ ’joy myse’f on de old plantation, an’ we-uns all had a good time. Allus have plenty to eat. Marster used to say, “De cullud folks raised de food, an dey’s ’titled to all dey wants.” Same wid de clothes.56

Human height is related to nutrition. While “Southern slaves were, on average, an inch shorter than Northern whites they were three inches taller than newly (illegally) imported slaves, two inches taller than Trinidad-born slaves and one inch taller than Englishmen in the nineteenth century Royal Marines.” The crude death rate among slaves in the antebellum era was 30 per 1000, slightly higher than that of white Southerners (primarily because of higher infant mortality rates) but similar to many Western European countries. 57 Slaves were dressed in rough “Negro cloth” manufactured by Northern textile mills expressly for sale to Southern slave owners. The break up of slave families was estimated by historian Michael Tadman to have been about one in three first marriages in the Upper South, with close to half of all children being separated from at least one parent.58 This practice illustrated the fragility and elasticity of slaveholder paternalism. Planter Thomas B. Chaplin, of St. Helena Island, off Beaufort, South Carolina, acknowledged something of this in explaining what happened when his hospitality exceeded his means: “Nothing can be more mortifying and grieving to a man that to select out some of his negroes to be sold — you know not to whom, or how they will be treated by their new owners, and negroes that you find no fault with — to separate families, Mothers & Daughters, Brothers & Sisters — all to pay for your own extravagance.”59

Defenders of slavery countered charges of sundering family ties, of creating “abroad marriages” where slave couples were separated and living on different plantations, by maintaining that blacks suffered only temporarily because they were incapable of forming long-lasting relationships. At the same time, they dis55. John R. Connors et al. eds., A Documentary History of American Industrial Society, Plantation and Frontier, vol. I, Ulrich Phillips, ed., “Rules on the Rice Plantation of P. C. Weston,” p. 116. 56. James Mellon , ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p.43. 57. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery — 1619-1877, p.113. 58. Ibid., pp. 125-6. 59. Francis Anne Kemble, Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839. (766).

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And the War Came missed slave-traders as coarse, crude and unfeeling, more like “Yankees” rather than true Southerners. The slave, Mary Ferguson, describes the horrible moment of sudden separation: Bout de middle of de evenin’, up rid my young marster on his hoss, an’ up-driv two strange white men in a buggy...Den one o’ de strangers said, “Git yo’ clothes, Mary. We has bought yo’ from Mr. Shorter.” I c’menced cryin’ an’ beggin’ Mr. Shorter not to let ’em take me away.... Den, dose strange mens...took me an’put me in de buggy and driv’ off wid me, me hollerin’ at de top o’ my voice an callin’ my ma. Den, de speculataws begin to sing loud, jes’ to drown out my hollerin’. Us passed de very fiel’ whar Paw an’ all my folks wuz wukkin’, an’ I calt out as loud as I could an’ as long as I could see ’em, “Good-bye Ma! Good-bye Ma!”. But she never heard me. Naw sah, dem white mens wuz singin’ so loud, Ma couldn’ hear me. An’ she couldn’ see me, ’cause dey had pushed me down out o’ sight on de flo’ o’ de buggy. I ain’t never seed nor heard tell o’ my m’am an’ paw an’ brothers, an’ sisters, from dat day to dis.60

Naturally, slaves would often try to run away. South Carolina law on the subject dated from 1690, with revisions in 1712 and several times subsequently. The punishment for the first attempt was whipping; for the second try, the runaway was branded with a “R” on the right cheek; an ear was cut off after the third foray; for the fourth attempt, a woman’s other ear was cut off and she was given another brand. Men were castrated. The first cotton boom ended in 1827 when the price dropped from 29.5 cents per pound to 9.3 cents per pound. The price remained depressed for 25 years. It was not until 1852 that the price returned to the level of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. There was no recession in the North. The momentum of the Industrial Revolution was accelerating steadily. It drove a robust economic expansion. In their search for a scapegoat for the recession, the Southern planters fingered the protective tariff instituted by Congress in 1816 and increased in subsequent years. They overlooked the exhaustion of the soil and competition from cotton grown in the rich soils of the Southwest. Everywhere the South saw encroachment on those rights it held sacred, and particularly an erosion of states’ rights. A series of Supreme Court actions under the leadership of Chief Justice Marshall had strengthened federal power. The Court ruled that Congress could charter a bank and that states could not tax it (“the power to tax involves the power to destroy”). Under the Consti60. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p. 293.

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3. The Missouri Compromise tution a private corporation’s charter was protected from change at the hands of a state legislature. Individual citizens convicted in state’s courts were given the right of appeal to the federal judiciary. Meanwhile, by 1826, there were 143 emancipation societies in the United States. Surprisingly, 103 of these were in the South. Southerners could hardly be blamed for nervously glancing over their shoulders.

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4. A BESIEGED SOUTH CIRCLES THE WAGONS In 1828, Congress passed another tariff for the stated purpose of protecting Northern manufacturers and businessmen. To Southerners, this “Tariff of Abomination” threatened the extinction of their agrarian economy. They faced the specter of paying more for imported English goods and receiving less for their cotton, which was selling for less than half of its 1819 price. Furthermore, the value of Southern land had declined by 80%. The South produced an intrepid defender of its cause, a working farmer, a “highest-honors” Yale graduate, a consummate politician: John C. Calhoun. He was born in rural South Carolina in 1782, of Scots-Irish stock. He married a South Carolina Low Country heiress and entered Congress that same year. He thought that the Constitution ought to be “construed with plain good sense.”61 The historian Merrill Peterson described Calhoun as “intensely serious and severe,” suggesting that, “he could never write a love poem, though he often tried...because every line began with ‘whereas.’”62 In 1828, Calhoun wrote an elaborate argument against the constitutionality of the tariff, declaring Southern farmers to be “serfs” of the tariff system through which the national government took from them $16,650,000 while disbursing less than $2,000,000. He pointed out that the South accounted for two-thirds of the nation’s export while receiving, in return, manufactured goods which were taxed at the customs ports for the benefit of New England and Middle States’ manufacturers. The new Tariff of Abomination averaged 45% ad valorem. Furthermore, he emphasized, the 61. Clement Eaton, The Civilization of the Old South, pp. 137-9. 62. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, p. 27.

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And the War Came tariff was passed by a two-thirds majority on the one-third of the population which provided the aforementioned two-thirds of the export. John Calhoun introduced resolutions contending that the federal system joined sovereign states for mutual advantages. The central government could only preserved in either of two ways: (1) by the consent of the states; or, (2) by a resort to federal force. Calhoun, waxing eloquent, held the floor for two days. When he finished, Daniel Webster rose and said the Constitution was not a contract between sovereign states that might secede from it, but a contract” among a people to set up a permanent government. He, at least, was tired of denunciations of majority rule. Do they wish to establish a minority government? The slave labor system had fostered a paternalistic ideology that decried crude materialism as a “Yankee” vice. It fostered an intense attachment to region, state and locality. Its striking economic success was constructed on a perilously narrow base which would ultimately leave the South gravely underdeveloped, economically and socially. The innovative approach of the system’s founders degraded in the hands of reactionaries who distrusted reform and feared the future. And it was defended by men who talked endlessly of their passionate commitment to “liberty.” Though the growth rate of per capita income in the South slightly exceeded that of the North from 1840 to 1860, that income was only $103 compared to $141 in the North. Still, this would have placed the South, if it were a nation, fourth in prosperity among all nations in the world. But their narrow economic base was in stark contrast to that of the North, where a vigorous transformation in diversified industry had altered the economy and society. The South was, in fact, falling behind economically and technically. The North led the South dramatically in railroad construction, literacy (excluding blacks), and education. The majority of European immigrants settled in the North; thus the Southern share of the population decreased from 44% to 35% in the two decades ending in 1860. The South remained rural. Before the Civil War, New York reached well over 1 million in population, Philadelphia 565,000, Chicago (which did not exist in 1830) 109,000. Over one-fourth of Northerners lived in a town or city of over 2500 people, or 36% of the population, compared to 10% in the South. The average wealth of slaveholders in the Cotton South was fourteen times that of non-slaveholders. Slaveholders owned 93% of the region’s agricultural wealth. Around one-fourth of Southern whites would own slaves in 1860 but a far higher percentage had an interest in slavery. 63 Small, struggling farmers yearned to buy slaves. Those who were not slaveholders had relatives who were,

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4. A Besieged South Circles the Wagons and they perceived themselves as part of the planter society. The number of people who identified themselves with the ruling class possibly approached half the population of the South. Even the poor whites had a stake in the system. And no one knew what to do with the slaves if emancipation did come — how would ex-slaves provide for themselves? Would emancipation set loose a wave of rampaging black thieves? Some proposed sending American blacks to colonize other parts of the world; but this concept foundered due to the high cost and the difficulty of remunerating slaveholders, not to mention the hostile response from many slaveholders (and slaves). Outsiders’ criticism of slavery and Southern decadence made the South more defensive. Southern politics came to revolve around the defense of slavery and the right of Southerners to determine their own way of life without outside interference. The identification of slavery as the cornerstone of Southern liberty became the focal point of slave owners. The abolitionists were a relatively minor factor in the fanning of antislavery sentiment. A major economic driver was the increasing divergence in the general standard of living between North and South; a political factor was the “free-soilers” who urged containment of slavery within existing boundaries; and there was an ideological impetus, as “free labor” advocates argued that slavery prevented the South from achieving its true potential. Southerners were faced with growing isolation and many fell into an easy nostalgia for earlier, seemingly simpler, times. The South reacted viscerally to the extremist abolitionists. Any questioning of slavery was perceived not only as misguided but as part of a diabolical, Yankee-brewed plot to overthrow Southern institutions and the Southern way of life. There was concern and even dissent about slavery in the South, but it had to be expressed clandestinely. To visiting Northerners, Southern hosts would say: “Sir, you are not native here and cannot understand our ways. Please indulge me when I assure you that customs which may to the naive eye appear harsh are necessary for the management of our domestic institutions. Men as wise as Jefferson, Calhoun and Clay have contributed to our debate. Better minds than yours or mine have wrestled with it. There are, if you’ll permit me the term, ‘Yankees’ who simplify our concerns. Theirs is a world of vivid blacks and whites, ours is swirling gray.”64 63. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877, p.180.

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And the War Came Slaveholders dominated Southern government. A majority of legislators in every slave state except Missouri, Arkansas and Delaware were slave-owners, reaching about three-fourths in the lower South and two-thirds in the Upper South. Almost all state governors were slaveholders. During the antebellum era, when Northerners turned from rigid Calvinism to a variety of reform movements, the South became the home of religious and social orthodoxy. The reform movements in the North, which aimed at improving society and human nature itself, never took root in the South, where individuality was stressed. Radical reform movements such as utopian socialism, trade unionism, feminism, pacifism and abolitionism, while never supported by a majority of Northerners, were significant in the consciousness of antebellum Northern life but were almost totally ignored in the South where such “isms” were ridiculed as absurd curiosities that typified the excesses of “Yankee” culture. In the South, the wagons were circled in defense. The four pillars of their position were: 1. Reason supported slavery. Emancipation was seen as utterly impractical, indeed impossible. It was not economically feasible to send two million slaves back to Africa (and recompense their owners) or to free them in a white man’s country where they would refuse to work and cause social disorder. That would lead to a race war that would exterminate them, anyway. Furthermore, slavery was essential for Southern prosperity and ultimately, therefore, for the United States. (The maintenance of a slave seldom surpassed $35/year) 2. Christianity itself supported slavery. The Bible, it was said, showed that ancient Hebrews (God’s “chosen people”) owned slaves and that Jesus, always ready to condemn behavior he considered immoral, never criticized slavery or reproached anyone for owning slaves. The biblical precedent of Noah cursing his son Ham, and through him his grandson Canaan (“Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers”) satisfied Southerners of God’s condemnation of the black (or Hamitic) peoples to eternal slavery. Slavery apparently was part of God’s plan to expose a hitherto heathen people to the blessings of Christianity. A number of Southerners thought that, while God sanctioned slavery, he could withdraw his sanction and would do so if masters did not discharge their Christian responsibility of benevolent paternalism toward their charges. 64. Donald McCaig, Jacob’s Ladder, p. 83.

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4. A Besieged South Circles the Wagons Masters were stewards, with the associated responsibilities. But the more thoughtful religious leaders held a different view of emancipation than abolitionists. They envisioned a strictly regimented social order subordinating the working class to a responsible ruling class, whether involving slavery or not. The more sophisticated apologists for slavery refrained from stating that God dictated social, political or economic order. They postulated that slavery, or even milder systems of subordination, created conditions favorable to Christian behavior and the spread of that doctrine among all layers of society. In the Northern economy, they claimed, the demands of the marketplace forced businessmen to choose between Christian ethics and material interests. They concluded that a righteous social system must encourage those in charge to be benevolent to their inferiors by providing material incentives. This, as historian Eugene Genovese has written, constituted their “dreams of an alternate road to modernity.”65 The religious life of the slaves became a dominant force in their culture. The Baptists allowed the slaves to organize their own congregations and adapt African spiritualism to the Christian worship. The center of religious life became the “praise house,” where the slaves met two or three times a week. In addition to a deacon, there were spiritual fathers and mothers who nurtured the old African beliefs under the canopy of Christianity. Those who were being initiated into the Christian community were called “seekers” and their process of initiation was called “seeing Jesus.” Completion was called “catching sense.” Continuing with the Southern apologia: 3. Genetics supported slavery. Black people were inherently inferior. “Scientific” racists such as Dr. Samuel Cartwright and Josiah Nott “proved” blacks were physiologically different from, and inferior to, whites. Their premise was supported by brief, unscientific and vaguely supported assertions that blacks were by nature different, inferior, and thereby unsuited for freedom. Most Northerners took the first premise for granted but would not accept the second. For them, that argument did not lead to the conclusion that black inferiority necessitated their enslavement. The racial arguments were weak, on their own. Of necessity, they were used in conjunction with other arguments.

65. Eugene D. Genovese, A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South, p. 120.

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And the War Came 4. Morality supported slavery. Slavery was beneficial to everyone concerned: masters; slaves; and society at large. Southerners felt slavery was inherently preferable to free labor. It was asserted that slaves were far better off than free workers in Britain and the North, where working conditions for “free slaves” were horrible, or in Ireland where peasants were starving. There was also a deep distrust of what was seen as a dangerous experiment in free labor in the North and in England; upsetting the “natural” state would inevitably lead to a breakdown in relations between classes, social disintegration, and a host of profound social ills. The dissidents among the Southern clergy did not condemn the practice of slavery but insisted that the slave owner had a sacred duty to treat his slaves with justice as mandated by God, and that failure to do so would bring on the wrath of God, threatening slavery’s very existence. John S. Wise of Virginia would write a nostalgic book on life in ante-bellum Virginia. In it he described a slave auction and concluded that the very sight of it should have made it clear to Southerners that slavery was wrong. For their part, many church leaders, being too timorous to condemn harsh behavior toward slaves, when it occurred, and to call perpetrators to account, relied on moral suasion — a weak treatment for a grave ill. Madeleine Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham relate a moving tale that illustrates one group of Africans’ courageous non-acceptance of this fate. A slave ship drops anchor in the colonies...Africans below decks are Igbos, a famously proud people who had a reputation for being melancholy and suicidal. They were from a region of West Africa that is now part of modern Nigeria...The captain orders his crewmen to conceal as best they can the illness and sorrow that have sunk into the very marrow of these Africans during their long sea voyage...The European colonists who have gathered onshore...sense something different about these Africans. Despite their obvious physical discomforts, these blacks do not cower in fear but hold their heads aloft, chins thrust into the air...Now, a young woman emerges from the hold...the rest of the slaves fall in step with this woman. She is their leader, a mystic perhaps...As the African prisoners step from the ship onto the shore of the New World they are pointed to a path that will lead them to the slave barracks to await auction...but then the woman’s feet turn and enter the creek that leads to the sea...The other Africans follow her without a word, into the ocean, far out, where it is deep...until one by one, their sculpted black heads disappear below the horizon, and the surface of the Atlantic stitches together in their wake as if they were never there. Some say this happened at a place called Igbo landing, near Beaufort, South Carolina: others say in the Georgia Sea Islands.66

66. Madeleine Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham, Introduction to Spirits of the Passage.

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4. A Besieged South Circles the Wagons For slaveholders, the challenges of recognizing slave marriages and keeping slave families together lay squarely across the railroad tracks of their political, social and economic interests. The restless nation continued to grow, to 12,866,020 in 1830 (an increase of 33% from 1820). The total annual receipts of the U.S. Government increased to nearly $25 million that year. In the Congress of 1830, the subject of federal power vs. states rights surfaced obliquely from a discussion of the disposal of public lands. Easterners, both North and South, were wary of westward expansion. Northern manufacturers feared they would have to raise their pay scales to keep people from going west for free land. Southerners feared the potential future admission of “free” states, out west. Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina joined the debates in Congress and quickly expanded the field of argument. Debates over states rights and the right to personal property, meaning slaves, had a way of taking over everything. He argued that it was necessary to confine the federal government strictly within the limits prescribed by the constitution, retaining most of the power in states’ hands; Webster, of Massachusetts, countered by exalting the Union and derided the notion that the country could stand for “Liberty first and Union afterwards.” His call for “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!” rang out to the applauding balconies filled with admirers of his eloquence.67 The values of the Southern landowners became the defining attributes of the society: a deep sense of obligation to family; willingness to risk one’s life for the sake of honor; tribal pride in self and family; fear of appearing petty or mean in financial matters (returning cents in change was almost an insult); magnanimous hospitality; a strong patriarchal character in the household; judgment of individuals in their family context; and the gallant treatment of women. Historian David Donald has observed that “the paradoxical world that was the antebellum South [was] devoted to the principles of Democracy and the practice of Aristocracy.”68 In 1834, South Carolina passed a bill banning literacy among blacks, imposing a six month jail sentence and a fine of $100 for whites violating the law and an additional fifty lashes for free blacks violating the law.

67. Shewmaker, Daniel Webster, The Second Reply to Robert Hayne in the U. S. Senate, January 26-27, 1830, 113-121. 68. Clement Eaton, The Civilization of the Old South, p. 288.

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And the War Came In 1833, slavery was abolished in Great Britain. That year, William Lloyd Garrison and a few friends founded the American Anti-Slavery Society and published its Declaration of Sentiments: “...the guilt of this nation’s oppression is unequaled by another on the face of the earth…”The paper ended with willingness, if necessary, “to perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause.” Membership increased to 250,000 in five years.69 Arthur Tappan, one of the wealthy retail-merchant brothers in New York, was an ardent abolitionist. Upon learning that the South had put a $100,000 price tag on his head, he announced that if they would deposit that sum to his name in the bank, he might consider turning himself in.70 Abolitionists mailed anti-slavery literature to Post Offices throughout the South, for delivery to thousands of addressees, but the Post Offices refused to deliver them. The pamphlet controversy brought awareness to the broad public that the defenders of slavery were proposing an intellectual blockade. Not only was the enslaved black person denied every freedom, but now the white person was to be denied the freedom to talk about it. The combination of defending slavery and opposing tariffs strengthened the anti-slavery faction in the North. Seven months after the initial publication of Garrison’s “Liberator,” Nat Turner led a slave insurrection in Southampton, Virginia; 57 whites were slaughtered (as well as the blacks). This, the Southerners asserted, vindicated their claims that the abolitionist were fomenting a slave revolt with their radical absurdities. Fear radiated throughout the South. Repressive measures were adopted, ranks were closed and a phalanx formed against the trouble-makers in the North. The need of each region to explain itself in argument hardened into a “holy crusade” as Abolitionists demanded the summary end of slavery and the Southerners dug in to fight for the survival of their culture. In Congress, Calhoun decried the South’s “degrading situation; to sit here, year after year, session after session, hearing ourselves and our constituents vilified by thousands of incendiary publications in the form of petitions ...against which we must rise like culprits to defend ourselves, OR PROMPT them to go uncontradicted and UNRESISTED? We must ultimately be not only degraded in our own estimation and that of the world, but be exhausted and worn out in such a contest.”71

69. William Lloyd Garrison, The Declaration of the Antislavery Convention. 70. William Lee Miller, Arguing about Slavery, p. 85. 71. Clyde N. Wilson, The Papers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 13, 1835-1837, March 11, 1836.

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5. THE “GAG” RULE FIGHT

In 1836, the United States House of Representatives was voting on the several resolutions of the Pinckney Committee, ostensibly addressing the rules surrounding procedures in handling petitions from citizens. In fact, the proposed action was designed to dispatch the Northern albatross to the deepest depths of the Congressional ocean. The clerk read the first resolution: “Resolved, that Congress possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the States of this Confederacy.” During the roll call, ex-president John Quincy Adams announced that, “if the House would allow him five minutes’ time, he pledged himself to prove that resolution false and utterly untrue.”72 An artic chill, sweeping down from the North, gave a shiver to Southern spines. What was the old fool about this time? Adams had been born eight years before the Revolution. After he left the Presidency, the old Puritan had agreed to represent the people of the Plymouth District of Massachusetts upon condition he be allowed to vote as he deemed right. He remained in Congress nearly seventeen years and was now sixty-nine years old. His words came as a shock. Even anti-slavery people conceded that Congress had no authority to deal with slavery in the states where it existed. He was not given his five minutes,

72. Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, May 25, 1836, p.499

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And the War Came however, and the discussion was temporarily switched to other matters which eventually touched on Indian wars. Adams then released a thunderbolt: From the instant that your slaveholding states become the theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with.73

Pandemonium! But he was right. Under the war power, slavery could be constitutionally interfered with, even in states where it already existed. The next day, the House took up the second resolution: “That Congress, for reasons of national well-being, ought not to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia.” When Adams was called, he asked to be excused from voting. The measure passed 132-45. The third resolution, which had not been included in the scope of the Committee’s instructions, proposed the “gag” rule. Its objective was to remove any mention, much less discussion, of the subject of slavery from the public eye and from the floor of Congress. Its preamble included language about “restoring tranquility to the public mind.” The resolution read: “All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon.”74 Instead of resorting to the usual method of “burying” unwanted petitions, this resolution meant that all petitions on slavery would be tabled, en masse. They would be dispatched to Congressional limbo, forever out of sight. The “Right of Petition” to approach the Government for “redress of grievances” is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In the first half of the 19th century, absent the speed and ubiquity of modern communications, signing petitions was the normal method of informing Congressmen of that which was on the mind of citizens. The right of petition has a long history in England, dating from clause # 46 in Magna Carta, “to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.” 73. Charles Francis Adams, The Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848. 74. Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, May 18, 1836, p.469

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5. The “Gag” Rule Fight Congress traditionally received petitions from citizens “praying” action on various subjects, on specified days of each session. This resolution proposed that, instead of sending the “prayers” to die in committee, or immediately answering them in the negative, or summarily refusing to receive them on the grounds they were unconstitutional, all petitions concerning slavery be tabled, a priori. They would not even be printed. Once again, the disruptive Adams had to be called. Now, what? The old man startled the assembly by leaping to his feet and declared in a loud voice: “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution”… loud cries in the house…. “and of the rules of the House”…more outcries… “as well as a violation [of] the rights of my constituents.”75 Nevertheless, supported by the votes of Northern and Southern Democrats as well as Southern Whigs, the “gag” rule passed readily, 117-68. But, during the lame duck session of that same 24th Congress, the effect of the “gag” rule was to increase the submission of anti-slavery petitions. This contest in the House continued for several years with the aging Adams doing lonely battle with his opponents which included the Northern Democrats who were honoring the party line. In each session Adams challenged the “gag” rule, and introduced more petitions, only to have the rule pass once more, easily. Still, he put forward petition after petition until, one day, he introduced a petition from, as he said, nine ladies in Fredericksburg, Virginia, who were asking for an end to slavery in the District of Columbia. He withheld their names, as he said, to protect them from any reprisals. The petition was tabled and Adams cannily moved on to another petition. Later, able to contain his anger no longer, John Patton, Virginia’s Representative, who had grown up in Fredericksburg, announced that he was acquainted with every respectable person there. Seated to the left of Adams, he could see the petition and he announced that no such person’s name was on it, and he impugned the character of the one person whose name he did recognize. Adams asked Patton whether he knew these people were infamous and whether he knew them personally. Coloring, Patton answered no. Then Adams stunned the Chamber again by asking the Speaker whether a petition came within the rules of the House if it was signed in part by people who could not write, people who, it became clear, had received the education of slaves. That was a puzzler. While the Speaker took a moment to think, a wave of 75. Ibid., May 26, 1836, p.506

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And the War Came hot anger rolled through the Southern legislators. One after another they expressed their outrage, until Dixon Lewis, of Alabama, asked for the House to “punish the member “ and asked “that every member of the slave states should immediately, in a body, ‘quit this house.’”76 The proposal to punish a senior fellow Representative, an ex-president, a son of a president and Founding Father, sparked a new controversy. Julius Alford, of Georgia, said that if Adams proposed to present his petition, “He would move that it be instantly burnt.”77 Historian William Lee Miller said of this event, “That would have been quite a moment in the history of civil liberty — the ritual burning of a petition by the House of Representatives of the United States of America.”78 Waddy Thompson proposed that Adams be censured by the Speaker; it was understood that anyone undergoing such censure would resign in disgrace. Crusty old John Quincy Adams let the crescendo of outrage reach its peak before he rose to respond, with an air of bewildered innocence, claiming he wished to correct an erroneous statement or two in the resolution for his censure. He reminded them that he had simply asked for a ruling from the Speaker about the status of a petition; he had not in fact submitted it. In the second place, no one should jump to a conclusion about the content of that petition. Mr. Lewis had assumed that petition was for the abolition of slavery when, in fact, it was just the opposite, as the slaves had signed, or had been induced to sign, a petition praying for the opposite of abolition. What an uproar! How dare he trick them so crudely? Thompson threatened to bring Adams before a grand jury, for incendiary language. Adams suffered four days of incessant incrimination. And what of the defense of Adams by Northern Representatives? Those Democrats who spoke against censure meekly blamed Adams’ actions on senility. The old crusader allowed the crescendo of outrage to peak before he rose to defend himself. Adams conducted a review of the first principles of civil liberty, among which was one of the cardinal postulates, that of freedom of debate in the people’s legislature. Indeed, Adams underscored that in England, “the first act of the Speaker chosen by the House of Commons….is to demand of the King 76. Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, February 6, 1837, p162. 77. Ibid. 78. William Lee Miller, Arguing about Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress, p. 232

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5. The “Gag” Rule Fight freedom of speech for the Commons and the King never sends them to the grand juries of Westminster to settle it.”79 He asked whether, in such a context, the representatives of the Northern and Eastern States were liable to be indicted as “incendiaries” for presenting petitions that were not agreeable to some members from the South. Adams went on to say that the right of petition, “God gave to the whole human race, when he made them men — the right of prayer, by asking a favor of another…The right of petition contests no power. It is supplication; it is prayer. It is the cry of distress asking for relief.” As he went on, the overwhelming majority against him began to crumble.”80 He was not through. “What Sir? The members of this House, the representatives of this whole nation, answerable to a grand jury of the District for words spoken in the House?!” His back straightened and he looked across the aisle with burning eyes. “Did the gentleman think he could frighten me from my purpose by the threat of a Grand Jury? If that was his object, let me tell him he mistook his man.”81 The recorder for the Congressional Globe that day annotated his notes, saying that the effect of this speech on the House has been rarely, if ever, exceeded by the influence of any speech on any assembly. In the censure vote only twenty-two members voted against him. The resolutions were rejected. And, still before the House was the issue of a slave’s right to petition. Adams might be forgiven a sky wink. The Southerners girded for battle led by Waddy Thompson. He declared that “Slaves have no right to petition. They are property, not persons: they have no political rights. Having no political rights, Congress has no power in relation to them, and therefore no right to receive their petition. They are property, not persons under the Constitution.”82 Thompson had not kept within himself. The Constitution, in all its linguistic contortions, still uses the word “persons” when discussing slaves’ rights. Now that Adams was free of censure, which would have been a terrible embarrassment to Northern Democrats, they joined ranks with the South in condemning Adam’s ridiculous gesture of introducing a petition from slaves. 79. Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, February 9, 1837, p. 265. 80. Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, February 9, 1837, p. 262. 81. Ibid., p. 264. 82. Ibid., p. 265

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And the War Came

Thompson went on the offensive. “As long as the slave trade was profitable and tolerated, it had no horrors in the sight” of New Englanders. “The blackest and bloodiest pages in the history of this country, or of man, are to be found in the treatment of aborigines by New England…. I like not your courtesan turned prude, after ability to be vicious has ceased.” Earlier he had said of them, “They regard abolition in the District as a first but decisive step to abolition in the States. So do I. So does the whole slaveholding country.”83 Following a week of turmoil, insults and umbrage, the House voted on the first resolution: That this House cannot receive the said petition without disregarding its own dignity, the rights of a large class of citizens of the South and West, and the Constitution of the United States.

It passed, 160-35. The second resolution was now offered: That slaves do not possess the right of petition secured to the people of the United States by the Constitution.

It passed, 162-18.84 There it was! The most directly Representative body in the Government of the United States had voted overwhelmingly to deny the right of petition to the powerless, the insignificant, the outsider, the disenfranchised, sixty years after their progenitors had fomented a revolution they justified by accusing their Government of denying them, in their powerlessness, the basic civil liberties. “Who then is left to hear petitions and consider redress?” A Negro spiritual that the slaves used to cry out to each other asks, My Lord, I dun jes like yuh said How long watchman, how long? De rich man lib an’ de po’ man dead. How long watchman, how long? How long? How long? How long watchman, how long?85

Adams wrote in his Journal: 83. Ibid., pp. 265-266 84. Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, February 11, 1837, p. 175. 85. Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family, p. 303.

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5. The “Gag” Rule Fight

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man…But the conflict will be terrible.”86 If the “gag” rule stifled anti-slavery petitions, Adams would find another way to bring the question before his colleagues. He introduced a petition “from sundry inhabitants of Boston,” asking Congress to remove the seat of government from the District of Columbia to some point further north, where the principles of the Declaration of Independence are “not treated as a mere rhetorical flourish.” 87 His humor was not shared by all there. In 1840, the House did something extraordinary. It passed a rule that dealt with policy, not parliamentary procedure. It was rushed through Congress by the Speaker in one afternoon, with no discussion. Adams’ attempts to stop the process were called “out of order.” The House proceeded to revise the Rules by which it was governed. New Rule No. 21 read as follows: “No petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any state or Territory, or the slave trade between the States or Territories of the United States, in which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in anyway whatsoever.”88 In the future any attempt by a Congressman to introduce the subject of slavery would be followed by cries of “Order! Order!” and the offender summarily seated. But storm clouds followed the series of victories for the South in passing successive “gag” rules. The margin of victory narrowed steadily. In 1836, the first vote margin was 149. The next year it declined to 49, then 48, and, in 1840, the last margin was 6. The number of free-state Congressmen, voting for it, had declined from 64 to 28 Disaffection was spreading among the public, also. Southern victory was proving costly, if not Pyrrhic. In 1842, Adams’ opponents again brought a motion to censure him. He voted on the side of the censurers to let the trial occur. This was the man who had grown up with a hand-written copy of the Declaration of Independence 86. Alan Nevins, The Diary of John Quincy Adams, December 11, 1838. 87. Journal of the House of Representatives, January 17, 1839, p. 236. 88. Congressional Globe, 26th Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Session, January 28, 1840, p. 151.

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And the War Came lying on a table in his home; who had been taken up a hill by his mother to watch the battle of Bunker Hill; whose father, a founding father of the republic, had served as president; who had been President and Secretary of State himself. Now seventy-five years old, he was under censure for inviting, among other things, “the indignation of true American citizens,” and for calling on the members of the House to commit high treason through introduction of yet another petition. But he would not have voted for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia if he had had the chance. Slavery in the District was the anvil over which he would shape the sword of his crusade against the national dragon. He recognized the roar of a mouse when he heard it. Implacable opposition to denial of basic liberties to slaves had brought him to this pass. Some say this forum gave him the chance to strike back at his old enemies after being defeated for a second Presidential term. Adams continued to issue a stream of provocative petitions and memorials to the repeated indignant cries of “Order! Order!” The new objective in the House became, in the words of Thomas Gilmer of Virginia, to “stop the music” of John Quincy Adams. A plan was developed to censure Adams on the basis of one of his endless, wearying petitions. The plan would have to be one which did not blatantly involve sectional interests or slavery. And, alas! He gave them the perfect occasion: a petition from the citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, which contained a prayer that, astonishingly, asked that the Union be dissolved!89 Slavery was not mentioned but the prayer was based on the “peculiar institution” (“Because a vast proportion of the resources of one section of the Union is annually drained to sustain the views and course of another section...”). His opponents could attack Adams for brazenly presenting a petition for disunion (even though he disagreed with it). Henry Wise arose from his seat to propose a move to censure any member presenting such a petition. Once again, a voluble debate ensued. And once again they took the bait. John Quincy Adams looked forward to his trial. Before a large audience of intrigued, prominent citizens, the aged son of John and Abigail Adams stood accused of high treason by his peers, after a lifetime of service to his country.

89. Ibid., 27th Congress, House of Representatives, 2nd Session, January 25, 1842, p. 168.

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5. The “Gag” Rule Fight The “trial” went on for two weeks, filled mostly with attacks upon Adams and his treason and with defense of slavery. Congressman Thomas Gilmer of Virginia, during one speech, mocked Adams, who he said: In one revolving moon Is statesman, poet, fiddler, and buffoon.90

Sarcasm notwithstanding, the arguments of the South began to sound spurious and hollow. When his turn came, Adams took the floor to defend himself and over the course of a week he cited his first-hand knowledge of the sentiments of George Washington, Jefferson and Madison against slavery, and wondered to see members from the State of Virginia endeavoring to destroy him and his character, “for the sole purpose of presenting a petition.”91 Support of Adams in the newspapers and among the public in the North was growing. Petitions were piling up against the proposed censure of Adams. A profoundly disturbing thought crept into the consciousness of his enemies. A frontal assault against a renowned patriot’s son, entrenched behind ex-presidential abatis, in the most formal, public forum in the nation, might not have been a sound idea. The alliance of Northern and of Southern representatives against Adams faltered. They announced that they would withdraw their petition if he would withdraw the offending petition. He refused. After the first week of his defense, Adams informed his peers that he would require another week to present his case. Staring at the wall, wondering if they saw a vague “Mene, Thecel, Phares” scrawled on it, the Southerners moved to table their censure resolution. A weary House exhaled in relief as the counterresolution passed.92 “IO TRIUMPHE” rang in Adams’ ears. He thereupon introduced two hundred more petitions before adjournment that day.93 Nearly two years later, a lame duck session of Congress reconvened in December of 1844. The aging Adams submitted yet another resolution, with a trembling hand, to rescind the “gag” rule. Following ineffectual attempts to defer action, the resolution was put to a vote and passed 108-80. “Old Man Eloquent”, “The Sage of Quincy”, now 77, had persevered and won.94 90. Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, House of Representatives, 2nd Session, February 3, 1842, p. 209. 91. Ibid. 92. Bible, Daniel, V:25 93. Alan Nevins, The Diary of John Quincy Adams, February 5,1842.

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And the War Came That night he wrote in his diary, “Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God.”95 A few years later, the 80-year-old Adams suddenly slumped over his desk in the House; he died two days later. Seated far in the back row, watching as the stricken old man was carried by him in the aisle was a young Whig serving his first term — Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. John Adams had once told John Quincy, “You come into life with advantages which will disgrace you if your success is mediocre,” and said that if he failed, it “will be owing to your own Laziness, Slovenliness, and Obstinacy.”96 Abigail had put in her word also. In a letter to eleven-year-old John Quincy, following his voyage to France with his father, she admonished him: “dear as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child.”97 He had stood virtually alone against the power and scorn of his peers and fought for what he believed was right, in the few remaining years of his life, at the peril of his dignity, a thing highly prized in those days.

94. New York Tribune, December 5, 1844. 95. Alan Nevins, The Diary of John Quincy Adams, December 5, 1844. 96. Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, p. 195. 97. Abigail Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, June, 1778.

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6. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT: ONE PARTY DEAD, THE OTHER SPLIT If the blacks were enslaved, the Native Americans were exiled. In 1824 the “Indian” population east of the Mississippi was approximately 77,000. Through a series of forced evacuations conducted by the U.S. military under the aegis of the federal government, this number was reduced to insignificance by 1840. In 1838, the Cherokee, relatively culturally advanced, were forced to march from the beauty of their Appalachian Mountain home to the dreary flats of Oklahoma along what became known as “The Trail of Tears.” In the southwest, Americans had been pouring into the area north of the Rio Grande, onto land that had been ceded to Mexico by Spain following the Mexican uprising in 1821. Stephen Austin led three hundred families into the area in 1822, buying land at 12.5 cents an acre and professing Catholicism, a condition of settlement imposed by the Mexican government. In 1829, the Mexican government abolished slavery. Prior to that, however, many Americans had crossed over into their lands (the future Texas) and brought their slaves with them. By 1832, over 20,000 whites had settled in the area. It was obvious that the local Americans were moving to take control north of the Rio Grande. The Mexican government, which had refused two offers from Washington to purchase the territory, attempted to tighten its control by sending in troops, while maintaining administration from Mexico City. In 1836, the Texians, as the Americans called themselves, revolted, and declared themselves a free government. They were annihilated by superior Mexican forces at the Alamo and at Goliad, before Sam Houston led them to victory at San Jacinto.

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And the War Came This coup put the American government on the horns of a dilemma. The possibility of admitting Texas as a slave state raised the issue of blatant moral regression and, as always, it threatened the balance of power. Anti-slavery forces regarded admittance of Texas as a slave state as a naked grab for power by the South. Texas first sought admission to the United States in 1836 but President Jackson offered only recognition. England jumped quickly to recognize Texas as an independent nation, which they welcomed as a barrier to U.S. expansion and whose market they viewed as an economic opportunity. The Southerners needed Texas. Northern legislators recognized this ploy; and staunchly opposed the acceptance of Texas. In 1844 and again in 1845, the Legislature of Massachusetts avowed the right to secede and threatened to exercise the right should Texas be admitted to the Union. Northern and Southern components of the Baptist and Methodist Churches split over their differences concerning the slavery problem. Indeed, it seemed everywhere one turned this issue was dividing community. President Tyler and his Vice President, Calhoun, aware that a treaty to accomplish their goal (to annex Texas) would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate, lit upon the idea that a joint resolution would require only a simple majority in both Houses. They could count on enough Northern Democrats to combine with Southern Democrats to approve annexation. Despite the usual heated sectional argumentation, both Houses promptly passed the resolution to admit Texas into the Union, along with slavery, with the future option of splitting the land area into five states. The nation awaited Sam Houston’s response — England or America? What Houston had desired from the beginning, he now possessed. Texas became an American State in 1846. Not surprisingly, war with Mexico followed later that year and concluded with the anticipated American victory in 1848. It was opposed by many in Congress as a ruthless, bullying land-grab. Mexico ceded the territories of New Mexico and California to the U.S., while establishing their border along the Rio Grande River. Our Southern neighbor has never forgotten this heavy-handed behavior, Now, two more territories, along with the Oregon territory, would become grist for the slavery-abolition dissension-mill. During the Mexican War, Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania had proposed an amendment to territorial legislation so that, “neither slavery

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6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: One Party Dead, The Other Split nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any area acquired from Mexico. But the South would never accept the Proviso. The North was determined to have it. In 1846, it passed the House but failed in the Senate. Reintroduced in 1847, it failed again. It would not go away. The North contemplated the specter of slavery in California, New Mexico and Utah. The Proviso, in one form or another, came to a vote perhaps forty times, and though consistently defeated, proved to be hydra-headed. Only the peace treaty following the Mexican War killed it forever. In 1848 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi declared to his colleagues in the Senate, “I have no fear of insurrection, no more dread of our slaves than I have of our cattle...Our slaves are happy and contented.” The only source of misery for the slaves of the South was, “the unwarrantable interference of those who know nothing about that with which they meddle. We who represent the southern states are not here to be insulted on account of institutions which we inherit, and if civil discord is to be thrown from this Chamber upon the land — if the fire is to be kindled here with which to burn the temple of our Union — if this is to be made the center from which the civil war is to radiate, here let the conflict begin.”98 Speaking later about a petition to colonize free blacks in Africa, Davis reiterated how regrettable it was that Senators should, “find themselves beleaguered by irritating questions forced upon them by individuals whose piety is so great that they must always be appropriating to themselves other men’s sins.” He called upon abolitionists to “cease this perfidious interference with the rights of other men.” He called the men of the North, who raised the stir, hypocrites, “You were the men who imported these Negroes into this country, you enjoyed the benefits resulting from their carriage and sale; and you reaped the largest profit accruing from the introduction of slaves.”99 The geopolitical battlefield, as Davis and his Southern brethren saw it, was beginning to tilt downward toward the South. The Missouri Compromise did not extend to cover New Mexico, thus enhancing the likelihood of establishing slavery there, but legislation on the Northwest Ordinance seemed to point to Oregon being a free territory. Southern men had helped win that territory but

98. James T. McIntosh, ed., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, July 1846 — December 1848, vol. 3, pp. 314-315. 99. Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, vol.1, pp. 217-219.

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And the War Came they would not be able to take their “property” there. Unwilling to move there without slaves, it would be settled by Northerners and anti-slavery men. When he rose from his chair, as “Defender of the Southern Faith,” he presented his region as the historical underdog in this expanding nation. In the summer of 1848, that expansion now confronted Congress once again with consideration of statehood for the newly acquired lands of New Mexico and California and for Oregon, where the settlers had not yet formed a territorial government. John Hale of New Hampshire proposed an amendment to the Oregon “statehood” bill that would preclude slavery there. Davis responded with his own amendment preventing Congress from prohibiting slavery. He was certain that an imbalance of power in the vote in Congress, as threatened by prohibiting slavery in Oregon, would lead to a destruction of the Southern economy, culture, life-style and social structure, a culture perpetually misunderstood by Yankees. It was clear to Davis that agitation over slavery had but one real goal, “which is to totally destroy political equality.” For “such obligations as belong to other species of property, we claim as due to our property in slaves.”100 He attacked “squatter sovereignty.” To posit that settlers were sovereign was tantamount to acknowledging them to be an independent state since only a sovereign power could exclude property from a territory. If Oregon was a Territory, how could Congress turn over decisions about its institutions to its inhabitants, for a Territory was the property of all Americans?101 Davis brought a degree of sophistication to pro-slavery argumentation that was rarely exceeded. His own management of his slaves reached the ideals he championed and, if some slave owners were less fair, the exception proved the rule. He asserted that the expansion of slavery would reduce the percentage of unworthy masters. But on no account, he said, could a Yankee discourse intelligently on this subject, and their unspeakable effrontery in attempting to do so was nearly more than a gentleman could bear, without resorting to a duel to put an end to their insufferable nuisance. His half-cultivated plantation at Brierfield, Mississippi spread over 800 acres and was worked by 72 slaves. The annual crop yield reached over 36,000 lbs.

100. James T. McIntosh, ed., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, July 1846 — December 1848, vol. 3, pp. 332-373. 101. Ibid.

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6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: One Party Dead, The Other Split The price of slaves tracked the price of cotton to such a degree that it was commonplace in the years after 1840 that the price of slaves could be determined by multiplying the price of cotton per pound by ten thousand. After 1850, speculation bloated slave value. “The question is before us; it is a struggle for political power. If “ a self-sustaining majority,” opposed to the South and its institutions, continued in its course “the days of the Confederacy are numbered. We should part peaceably, and avoid staining the battle-fields of the Revolution with the blood of civil war.... Let no wounds be inflicted which time may not heal.” In conclusion, he said if his amendment did not pass it would be “ominous for the future.”102 Davis’ amendment did not pass and the ubiquitous compromise led to passage of an Oregon Bill faithful to the terms of the Northwest Ordinance with Davis in opposition until the end. Oregon would be a “free” state. In 1845, Baptist delegations from nine southern states split over the issue of slaveholders serving as missionaries and they abandoned the national body to form the Southern Baptist Convention. The admission of Wisconsin as a state in 1848 had leveled the balance again, this time at 15. Iowa and Wisconsin offset the admission of Texas and Florida. This “code” seemed as if it could endure forever. Those who cared to examine the situation more closely, however, could see that the climate in the future southwestern lands was not highly suitable to an agricultural, slave-based economy. Though the balance might be maintained in the Senate by designating these intemperate lands as “slave” states, the population trend had already been skewed toward “free” states for a quarter-century. In the interminable argument over slavery, there was no disagreement that a State could decide the status of slavery within its bounds. The disagreement was over who would determine that status in the territories prior to statehood. But Southern suspicion of Northern intent convinced them that the ultimate goal of the Yankees was the elimination of slavery throughout the land. The South’s proportion of the total population had declined in every decade. It remained predominately rural. In the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, their vote was a decreasing minority.

102. Ibid.

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And the War Came There was disparity in the land, also. Primarily due to soil exhaustion and erosion, the average value per acre of agricultural land in the South was less than half the similar value in the North. In 1850, the population of the country surpassed 23 million, an increase of 36% from 1840. The national birthrate was 5.4 children per family. The world was not all political strife. In a span of two years, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and House of the Seven Gables, and Melville’s Moby Dick were published. Jane Eyre had been recently published in England. Henry Clay of Kentucky, struggling as always to reach a compromise, pleaded against Secession — which he felt would inevitably be followed by war. Clay would spend over 45 years in Washington, representing his state. He had grown up a poor boy in Virginia but had gradually accumulated 513 acres on his plantation, called Ashland, located one mile and one-half from the center of Lexington, Kentucky. He was famous for the blood-line of his horseflesh and the quality of his livestock. He pioneered importing Hereford cattle from England. The father of eleven children, Clay was an unusually congenial host and a man who read very little. He was a slave owner, but dedicated to the preservation of the Union. Now, the rub was California. The gold seekers had come mostly from the North and sought to make it a “free” state. This would put the North one-up at 16-15. While the Southerners recognized that they had to accept this result in California they were adamant that the Wilmot Proviso not bar slavery from the rest of the Mexican cessation territory and, in reserve, they would back Texas in its extravagant land claims, thus guaranteeing slavery in most of what became New Mexico and a piece of Colorado. Clay proposed a number of resolutions addressing every major controversy on the slavery issue. He proposed that: (1) California be admitted as a free state; (2) territorial governments to be provided for in the rest of the Mexican cession area with no congressional action for or against slavery; (3) Texas should accept a reduced western boundary but the U.S. government would assume its debt in exchange; (4) the slave trade, but not slavery, be abolished in the District of Columbia; and, (5) Congress should enact a law for the effective apprehension of fugitive slaves. Clay was supported by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The collection of talent in the Senate, arrayed against a seemingly insoluble problem, was impressive: Davis of Mississippi, Seward of New York, Douglas (the rising star of the west), Calhoun and the Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, Robert

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6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: One Party Dead, The Other Split Toombs and Alexander Stephens of Georgia, Sam Houston of Texas, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and Webster of Massachusetts (“a great cannon loaded to the lips,” as Emerson called him). Old Calhoun was failing from the final stages of tuberculosis, with less than a month to live. Daniel Webster, ailing, like Calhoun, had less than two years to live. Webster rose for his last oration in an effort to moderate the radical Northerners. It was unnecessary to exclude slavery, he said, from territories where it would not be profitable because of climate and geography. He also denounced the intemperate language of the abolitionists and criticized the Northerners for impeding the return of runaway slaves. The reaction in Massachusetts was immediate and vitriolic. Clay was surprised at the ferment caused by his “proposal” and offered to debate Davis. Davis said that if secession occurred, the North would suffer more than the South, which would flourish as the world beat a path to its doors for cotton, “the great staple,” while the industrial North would perish as all commercial states perished. The death of John C. Calhoun on March 31 was followed by the demise of President Zachary Taylor on July 4th. Taylor had exerted himself and then celebrated too much. As the President was dying, his last intelligible words to Davis, who was at his side, were, “Apply the Constitution to the measure, Sir, regardless of the consequences.”103 James Hammond delivered Calhoun’s eulogy in Charleston and aptly framed the man’s lifelong philosophy of “nullification” rather than “secessation”: “Mr. Calhoun was mainly influenced by that deep, long cherished, and I might almost say superstitious attachment to the Union, which marked every act of his career.”104 With the passing of these two gentlemen and the aging of Clay and Webster, the impediments to compromise had largely dissolved. Handsome, but colorless, Millard Fillmore, the succeeding Vice President, was in favor of compromise and the rising Senator Douglas assumed leadership of the forces for conciliation. Douglas remained in the background while manipulating his colleagues and guided them to passage of the “Compromise of 1850.” Enough Northerners joined the Southern bloc to enable the bill to pass. California was admitted as a “free” State. New Mexico and Utah were organized as territories with no congressional exclusion of slavery. Those terri103. Lynda Lasswell Crist, ed., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 4, pp. 123-124. 104. Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond of South Carolina, p. 262.

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And the War Came tories, when admitted as States, could choose for or against slavery. The western boundary of Texas was fixed, to pacify the North, but Texas received ten million dollars to pay her debts. The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia. All territorial laws were to be submitted to Congress for approval or rejection. The new Fugitive Slave Act placed the power of the government behind the apprehension of runaway slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act was a costly, Pyrrhic victory for the South. Moderate Northerners were disgusted with its language and spirit. It made the South look ridiculous, contrasting their traditionally staunch advocacy of “states rights” with this call for the full force of the federal government in recovering runaway slaves. It was estimated that runaways amounted to no more than 1000 per year, mostly from the Border States. The Act provided the abolitionists with the most effective tool they ever wielded and triggered a widespread and dramatic response among Northerners by threatening a most fundamental and sacred American right: protection against searches and seizures in one’s own home. A number of cities organized mobs for the purpose of rescuing recaptured slaves. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin declared the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. By the 1850s the white South had assumed a siege mentality. As each new territory approached statehood the slavery quarrel was resurrected and intensified, fanning the flames of suspicion and intolerance in the two sections of the country, driving more and more moderates to the fringes. In 74 years, no progress at all had been made in achieving a solution to the slavery issue; sectional divergence had widened; rhetoric had become more reckless. For those in positions of leadership who believed slavery to be wrong, time was running out. The Compromise of 1850 was the third major challenge unmet. Harriet Beecher, who married Calvin Stowe, a professor of Biblical Literature at Lane Seminary, was a talented writer whose articles appeared mainly in religious magazines. In 1845, she wrote an essay defending “immediate Emancipation.” Five years later, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law stimulated her sister to suggest to Harriet that she channel her efforts in the cause of abolition. In 1852, she published Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, as a serial story in a religious magazine. Mrs. Stowe had succeeded in personalizing the victims of slavery whereas abolitionists had always harangued about the institution. Her myriad readers did not become abolitionists but they were duly biased against slavery, if not already so disposed, by the appealing images of poor Tom, little Eva, Topsy and the malicious Simon Legree. The first printing sold out in two days. Within a year, it sold 300,000 copies in the United States and 3

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6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: One Party Dead, The Other Split million in the world. By 1862, it had sold over 2 million copies in the United States, equivalent, in today’s population, to 25 million. One of the millions of floating sparks of abolition, so long rising and falling in the erratic currents of sectional conflict, finally lit on tinder, in the heart and mind of an unheralded, young lady who became the catalyst to ignite a firestorm of indignation in a public now roused to the issue. Southerners were horrified at the nagging portrayal of their culture, always, it seemed to them, one-sided, misinformed, simplistic and righteous. “As if we were night-black ravens, which cannot be washed clean with all the soap of the Gospel.”105 The South Carolina novelist William Gilmore Simms became one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s most vehement critics, imputing a satanic nature to her: “Mrs. Stowe betrays a malignity so remarkable that the petticoat lifts of itself, and we see the hoof of the beast under the table.”106 “Niggers are not niggers unless they are slaves,” remarked the famous storyteller from Lynchburg, Virginia, Edward Bagby.107 “South Carolina,” wrote native son John Petrigru, who would oppose secession in 1860, “is too small for a Republic, but too large for an insane asylum.”108 The attitudes of the two sections toward slavery were hardening. A certain inevitability of catastrophe permeated the atmosphere. In 1853 Jefferson Davis was appointed Secretary of War by President Pierce, the last Whig President. In his new position, he exhibited traits that would haunt him, administratively, until his death. He could not delegate. He wanted to make all the decisions. He ignored objections and, when embroiled in disputes, lost his temper. The country was abuzz with excitement about the transcontinental railroad that would finally bind civilized east with wild west. The new railroad would extend from California to an as yet undetermined location in the Mississippi valley.

105. Field, The Sermons of Henry Smith, pub. 1593 106. Mark Perry, Conceived in Liberty, Joshua Chamberlain, William Oates and the American Civil War, p. 72. 107. Selections from the Miscellaneous Writings of George W. Bagby, George Bagby, “Cornfield Peas”, I:174. 108. James L Petigru to Benjamin F. Perry, December 8, 1860, quoted in Lacy K. Ford Jr., Origins of Southern Radicalism, p.371.

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And the War Came Another explosion was about to erupt in the minefield of slavery. For the past decade, Stephen Douglas, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, had been reporting bills from his Committee aimed at facilitating white settlement in the Nebraska Territory. Douglas was passionately interested in opening the west for white settlement, for the country to fulfill its “manifest destiny,” to control all the land between the two great oceans. He cared little about slavery. Each time, the Southern bloc defeated the Bills, fearing application of the Missouri Compromise (the Nebraska Territory lay north of the 3630 line and thus should be designated free). In January 1854, once again, Douglas introduced a bill to organize the Nebraska territory west of Iowa and Missouri. The bill, published in the Washington newspapers, said nothing about the “virtual repeal” of the Missouri Compromise being championed by a select group of Southerners. It noted simply that when Nebraska became a state, it could decide for itself about the status of slavery. But that question had already been settled by the 1820 law. A number of Southern senators of Douglas’ Democratic Party, from Border States, were running for reelection and eagerly sought an issue to excite their constituents. They found it. They demanded that Douglas add a clause that would reopen the slavery issue. This would effectively repeal the Missouri Compromise. The whole Southern bloc spurred their chargers to the clarion call of “Southern Rights.” Douglas yielded to Southern pressure and added language acknowledging that the status of slavery was not settled but would be determined by “popular sovereignty”. Thoughtful Southerners realized that leaving the Missouri Compromise intact would discourage distant Southerners from settling in Kansas. Archibald Dixon, a Kentucky Whig, rose in the Senate demanding repeal of the Missouri Compromise in Kansas-Nebraska. Douglas caved in and promised he would place repeal in his bill. He did and the final bill created two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Kansas bordered Missouri to the west and Southerners eagerly hoped it might become “slave.” Northern Democrats cried betrayal. Douglas had fomented rebellion in his own party. One paper referred to Douglas as the puppet of the South: The Dropsied Dwarf of Illinois By brother sneaks called “little giant” He who has made so great a noise By being to the Slave Power pliant.

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6. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: One Party Dead, The Other Split In the voting, the North controlled the House so it would require that nearly half of the Northern Democrats would have to support the South for the Bill to pass. The slaveholding States supported the bill 71-11, while the Northern Democrats, opting for Party discipline over the will of their constituents, voted 42-39 with the South and the Northern Whigs/Freesoilers/Nativists opposed 50-0. Thus the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed in the House by 113-100. The “threefifths” rule gave the South 19 more seats than it would have otherwise have had. The Bill passed 37-14 in the Senate. Practically all Southern Congressman voted for it. One of the latter, Indiana’s John Pettit, defiantly announced that the supposed “self-evident truth” that “all men are created equal” was a “self-evident lie” with “no truth in it...The negro in Africa and the free-born American are not created equal...it is utterly false that men are, either mentally, morally, physically, or politically, created equal.”109 The Kansas-Nebraska Act shattered the truce of 1850. It caused the dissolution of the Whig Party, and convinced Northern Democrats that the South controlled their party. Douglas wryly commented that he could travel to his home in Chicago by the light of his burning effigies. He heard the crushing epithet of “Judas Iscariot” and, in Ohio, a group of women presented him with 30 pieces of silver. Where was the young nation headed? One hundred years earlier, slavery existed in all of its colonies and most of the New World. Now, the slave South stood nearly alone along with Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico in an otherwise “free” New World. In the afterbirth of Kansas-Nebraska, one of the nation’s two political parties was expiring unceremoniously, one was splitting like a tree struck by lightning and a new party was not so much born as bubbling to the surface at the local level in many Northern communities simultaneously. The mid-wives called themselves “Anti-Nebraska” men, and sometimes, Republicans. Professional politicians, quick to take notice of the widespread, local phenomenon, then took control of the fledgling party in one state after another. In elections that year, the new Republican Party won control of many Northern governments and sent a large delegation to Congress. It had but one principle, the exclusion of slavery from every territory.

109. Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 33rd Congress, First Session, ed. John V. Rives, New Series vol. xxxi (Washington, D.C., 1854), 137, 310.

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And the War Came It seemed as if the explosive environment of the country at mid-century was ignited by a thoughtless Southern grab at an easy victory in Congress: a crude maneuver that flaunted the grudgingly accepted, but still honored, “code” of the land and exhibited a wanton selfishness too difficult for Northerners to swallow. But there were men in the South just as spiritedly disgusted with the North. The South Carolina “fire-eaters,” nurtured in the Low-country plantations of the Beaufort District’s Sea Islands, inspired and led the “Southern Rights” movements which gave birth to a number of Southern Rights Associations. The exasperated men that led these Associations believed that further discourse with the North on Southern Rights and Slavery was patently futile. As far as they were concerned, the time for decisive action had arrived. “Therefore it is now the solemn duty of the Southern States to sever the formal tie that yet binds us to the Union already practically sundered, and to unite in a slaveholding Confederacy, maintaining as a fundamental principle, the perpetual recognition of that institution...”110 Kansas-Nebraska ignited unrequited passions in the North, in the South and in the lands across the Mississippi. It also kindled something else, the spirit of a restless Westerner on the plains of Illinois.

110. Charleston Courier, November 16, 1850.

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7. ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS

“I was losing interest in politics,” said Abraham Lincoln, “when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.”111 Lincoln agreed to work for the election to Congress of Richard Yates, a Whig, by delivering stump speeches in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Curiously, he also agreed to run again for the Illinois Legislature even though it would eliminate him from consideration to replace Senator Shields when his term was up in the fall of 1854. Five months after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, spurred by Democratic defeats in Iowa and Maine, Douglas scheduled a whirlwind campaign in Illinois to bring his case, in support of the controversial legislation, before the voters. Lincoln sought to enter into public debate with Douglas but Douglas declined repeatedly. After Douglas addressed a large crowd of Democrats in the Hall of Representatives in Springfield, Lincoln shouted to Douglas that he would make a reply the next day and invited Douglas to be present. Lincoln was well-prepared. What impressed listeners most was the sincerity of his conviction of the moral wrong of the “monstrous injustice of slavery. There can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another,” he stated emphatically, and went on to draw the inevitable conclusion that extending it into territories and “to every other part of the wide world,

111. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: his Speeches and Writings, Letter to J. W. Fell, December 20, 1859, p. 512.

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And the War Came where men can be found inclined to take it,” was just as wrong. Lincoln admonished, “We are proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world by thus fostering human slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of human freedom.”112 People also admired his frankness when he echoed a common Northern sentiment: “The southern people were no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we.” He thought it was impossible to free slaves and make them “politically and socially our equals. My own feelings will not admit of this. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question. A universal feeling, whether well or illfounded, can not be safely disregarded.”113 When Lincoln finished, Douglas took the floor and delivered a two-hour rebuttal. As was customary, Party newspapers trumpeted the overwhelming victory of “their” man, but there was no question that Lincoln had made a significant impression. Lincoln asked Douglas to debate at Peoria. Douglas, tired and hoarse, wanted to avoid another confrontation. He told a friend, privately, that he did not want to debate with “the most difficult and dangerous opponent that I have ever met.” He was, however, aware of the political danger of declining such a confrontation so he agreed but arranged to speak three hours until well past five in the afternoon, thereby leaving Lincoln a tired, hungry and restless audience.114 Douglas finished to six vociferous cheers and stirring band music. Then crowd began to call for Lincoln, who, as Douglas had announced, would respond. Douglas also added that he would have an hour afterward to reply to Lincoln. Lincoln asked his audience to eat supper and return in two hours as his address would take as long as Douglas’ speech. He said he had agreed to giving Douglas, “one of his high reputation and known ability, this advantage of me,” though he was not being “wholly unselfish, for I suspected if it were understood that the judge was entirely done, you democrats would leave and not hear me; but by giving him the close, I felt confident you would stay for the fun of hearing him skin me.” Lincoln delivered perhaps the finest address thus far in his career. In it, he revealed himself as an unusually tough-minded debating opponent, extremely 112. Ibid., p. 177. 113. Ibid., p. 175, 6. 114. Frank E. Stevens, The Life of Stephen Arnold Douglas, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 16 , (Oct. 1923-Jan. 1924): 487.

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7. Abraham Lincoln in Illinois skilled in the use of irony and sarcasm but, nevertheless, possessing a relentless logic and passion for truth. This was a maturing Lincoln. Lincoln’s words, in part: “But it is said, there now is no law in Nebraska on the subject of slavery...that is good book-law, but it is not the rule of actual practice. Wherever slavery is, it has first been introduced without law. The oldest laws we find concerning it are not laws introducing it; but regulating it, as an already existing thing...at last, if ever the time for voting comes, on the question of slavery, the institution already exists in the country, and cannot be well removed. The fact of its presence, and the difficulty of its removal, will carry the vote in his favor [the territorial slave-owner]...To get slaves into the country simultaneously with the whites, in the incipient stages of emigration and settlement, is the precise stake played for, and won in this Nebraska measure.115 “Then again, in control of the government...they [the South] have greatly the advantage of us...this is more aptly shown by a comparison of the States of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has six representatives (in the Lower House), and so has Maine. South Carolina has eight presidential electors, and so has Maine. This is precise equality so far; and, of course they are equal in Senators, each having two. Thus in control of the government, the two States are equals precisely. But how are they in the number of their white people? Maine has 581,813 while South Carolina has 274,567...thus each white man in South Carolina is more than double of any man in Maine. This is all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has 394,984 slaves [three-fifths rule]...This principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave States in the present Congress, twenty additional representatives — being seven more than the whole majority by which they passed the Nebraska bill. Argue as you will, and as long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect of it. And in this aspect, it could not but produce agitation... “Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature — opposition to it, is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromises — repeal the ‘Declaration of Independence’ — repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak... “The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake of the Union it ought to be restored...If by any means, we omit to do this...we shall have repudiated — discarded from councils of the Nation — the spirit of compromise; for who after this will ever trust in a national compromise? The spirit of mutual concession — that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union—we shall have strangled and cast from us forever.

115. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: his Speeches and Writings, Lincoln Speech at Peoria, Illinois, in Reply to

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And the War Came “I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a few people — a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right—that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it. The argument of ‘Necessity’ was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery...they prohibited its introduction into the Northwestern Territory — the only country we owned — then free from it...they forbore to so much as mention the word “slave” or “slavery” in the whole instrument...Thus, the thing is hid away, in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time... “Little by Little...we have been giving up the OLD for the NEW faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal, but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a ‘sacred right of self-government.’ These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other. “Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska are utter antagonisms. Fellow-countrymen — Americans south, as well as north, shall we make no effort to arrest this?...This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends...In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware, lest we ‘cancel and tear to pieces’ even the white man’s charter to freedom. “Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust...Let us return it [slavery] to the positions our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace...Let us repurify it...Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere — join in the great and good work...If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.”116

Lincoln’s mother’s family, the Hanks, had moved to Kentucky from Virginia around 1780. They were illiterate but respectable farmers. On his father’s side, he belonged to the seventh generation of an American family descended from Samuel Lincoln who emigrated from Norfolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts in 1637. There, he became a trader and businessman, fathering eleven children. One grandson, Mordecai, became a wealthy landowner in Pennsylvania and gave his son, John, 201 acres of prime Virginia soil in the Shenandoah Valley.

116. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: his Speeches and Writings, The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the Propriety

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7. Abraham Lincoln in Illinois Lincoln’s grandfather, Abraham, a distant relative of Daniel Boone, moved his family from Virginia to Kentucky and soon owned nearly 6000 acres of land there. One day, while he and his three boys were planting corn, they were attacked by Indians. Abraham was killed instantly. Mordecai, the eldest, sent a younger brother to get help and retreated to a nearby cabin. Looking through a crack he saw an Indian moving out of the woods toward eight-year-old Thomas who was sitting beside his dead father. Mordecai raised his rifle and aimed at the silver pendant on the Indian’s chest. The shot killed him instantly. According to the rule of primogeniture, the law in Virginia and its extension, the Kentucky region, the eldest son, Mordecai, inherited everything when their father died. Thomas struggled to make a modest living; he married Nancy Hanks in 1806 and lived in a little house in Elizabethtown. Their son Abraham was born in 1809. When he was seven, the family crossed the river to Indiana. Lincoln probably developed his anti-slavery bias from his Baptist parents who, for economic reasons, if not their religious leaning, disliked slavery. The senior Lincoln had been forced to compete with slave-labor farms in the slave state of Kentucky. Within a year after their move, Nancy died, as did many of their new friends and neighbors, from the “milk sickness,” a disease stemming from the milk of cows which had eaten the poisonous white snakeroot plant that grew abundantly in the woods. A year later, Thomas returned to Kentucky where he met and married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children, whom he had courted unsuccessfully before he married Nancy. Four of the children were enrolled in a school opened by a neighbor in a cabin a mile away. Sarah was illiterate but had a notion that education might be a thing of value. Tom thought it would be good for his son to learn to read and “cipher.” Some of his cousins thought Abraham was a slow learner because he toiled so repetitiously to learn things, but Sarah recognized his compulsion to master a subject. “He must understand everything — even to the smallest thing — minutely and exactly...and when it was fixed in his mind to suit him he...never lost that fact or his understanding of it.”117 Lincoln attended the school for three months before the teacher quit. It was a “blab” school, with no separate grades, where all students recited at the same time and the teacher strained to decipher error amid the cacophony. In his late teens, Lincoln tried a stint working on a river boat to New Orleans. Returning to Indiana, he moved to New Salem, Illinois. There, William

117. Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Statement to William H. Herndon, September 8, 1865, Herndon-Weik Collection, Library of Congress.

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And the War Came Butler described the young Lincoln tersely: “as ruff a specimen of humanity as could be found.”118 In matters of religious faith, despite his Baptist upbringing, the young Lincoln was somewhat of a skeptic toward formal religion and its institutions. Probably, he had been influenced by the theological free-thinking of two books: the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine; and, Ruins by Constantin De Volney. Both championed rational theology and were widely considered to be “atheistic.” Lincoln came to agree with Paine’s dictum, “My own mind is my own church.” Lincoln told Herndon, “He could not believe that [God] created a world and that the result of that would be eternal damnation &c.”119 A neighbor, Parthena Hill, once asked him: “Do you really believe there isn’t any future state?” Lincoln replied: “Mrs. Hill, I’m afraid there isn’t. It isn’t a pleasant thing to think that when we die that is the last of us.”120 Herndon quoted Lincoln as often saying, “no prayers of ours can reverse the decree.” On these subjects, Lincoln reflected the rationalism of the Enlightenment with its 18th century skepticism.121 In New Salem, Lincoln clerked in a store that failed, served in the Blackhawk War, was appointed a postmaster, became a surveyor, and ran successfully (in his second try) for the State Legislature in 1834, whereupon he began to prepare himself by studying law. As Lincoln’s law partner and friend, Billy Herndon, described him: “His structure was loose and leathery...he had dark skin, dark hair, and looked woe struck. The whole man, body and mind worked slowly, as if it needed oiling.” But he went on to add, “When those little gray eyes and face were lighted up by the inward soul on fires of emotion...then it was that all those apparently ugly or homely features sprang into organs of beauty...Sometimes it did appear to me that Lincoln was just fresh from the hands of his Creator.”122 In 1837, having read all the law books a law school would require, he received his license to practice the law. There was no examination in Illinois yet for admittance to the bar.

118. David C. Mearns ed., The Lincoln Papers, 2 vols, 1:51. 119. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Wilson, Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about 120. Walter B. Stevens and Michael Burlingame, A Reporter’s Lincoln, pp. 11-12. 121. Mary Todd Lincoln (William H. Herndon Interview), (September 1866). Herndon’s Informants, p. 358. 122. Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, pp. 8-9.

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7. Abraham Lincoln in Illinois J. H. Buckingham, a reporter for the Boston Courier, who once accompanied Lincoln on a circuit court ride wrote, “He knew, or appeared to know, everybody we met, the name of the tenant of every farm house, and the owner of every plat of ground. Such a shaking of hands-such a how-d’ye do-such a greeting of different kinds, as we saw, was never seen before. It seemed as if he had a kind word, a smile and a bow for everybody on the road, even to the horses and the cattle and the swine.” In contrast to his confident bearing among men, where his reputation for strength, agility and courage and his ability to spin humorous, mostly spicy (for those days) yarns made him very popular, he was awkward and unsure of himself with the opposite sex, especially those young ladies from “high society.” He was devastated by the death of his first love, the lovely Ann Rutledge. Later, Lincoln met Mary Todd, who was born to a prominent Kentucky family, well-educated, confident, pretentious, gay, sharp-tongued and possessed of a violent temper. While different in many ways, both loved poetry, were ardent Whigs and very ambitious. Mary, however, loved display, pomp and power and had long maintained that she would be the wife of a future President. Whether or not this was a love match has always been a matter of conjecture. Mary had a number of suitors much nearer her station in life than Lincoln, a man Mary’s sister considered plebeian, but Mary chose Lincoln, perhaps because she was prescient concerning his future. Lincoln had engaged himself to Mary and then proceeded to become enamored with another girl, who did not reciprocate his ardor. He tried to “ease out” of the arrangement with Mary. Mary did not insist on his keeping faith but played an adroit game with Lincoln’s hyper-sensitivity. He was anguished that his actions had caused her pain, for she wanted him and him only, but he was also deeply troubled that he had failed to maintain his initial resolve, the self-avowed “gem” of his character. He ultimately resolved both issues by standing by his initial commitment. In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd. The evidence seems to indicate that he did not love Mary when he married her, if ever, but that he sacrificed potential domestic bliss to preserve his honor, in his own estimation, and to reaffirm to himself the purity of his resolve. As he matured, Lincoln became more guarded and reserved, more self-absorbed and more melancholy. He exercised tighter control over himself. In 1846, Lincoln ran for Congress against the fiery, evangelist Democrat, Peter Cartwright. Cartwright invited his opponent to one of his prayer meetings. Toward the end of the proceedings, Cartwright asked those in the room who thought they were going to heaven, to stand up. Then he asked those who thought they were headed in the opposite direction to rise. When Lincoln did

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And the War Came not respond to either summons, Cartwright turned to him and asked, “Just where are you going Mr. Lincoln?” Lincoln drawled, “I’m going to Congress.” Lincoln won the election.123 His experience in Congress, however, and observation of slave auctions in the nation’s capitol reinforced his conviction as to how degrading and inbred was the institution wherever it existed. He introduced a bill to outlaw slavery in the District of Columbia. It failed along with his attempt at a second term. Attacks upon the South by most of the anti-slavery forces often originated from the moral high ground, were personal in nature, were over-stated and universalized the cruelty of masters while completely ignoring the practical difficulties of abolition solutions. Lincoln examined the problem with relentless logic, a sensitive understanding and a quiet and humble perseverance. At the same time, he was not unaware of the political attraction of his position to many Northerners, nor of his own ability to impress listeners by his intellect, wit, obvious sincerity, his unique manner of expressing his convictions, nor of the strange appeal of his physical awkwardness, even ugliness. So it was that, in 1854, Lincoln easily won election to the Illinois State Assembly; but then resigned to run for the U.S. Senate, where he could have a real impact. He failed in this attempt and turned away from his Whig heritage to help create a new political party in Illinois, the Republican Party. He continued to tackle the slavery question on an intellectual and moral basis, without condemning the slaveholder. In 1856, Lincoln stated, on the question of the Union, “If the united opposition of the North caused Southerners to “raise the bugbear of disunion,” they should be told bluntly, “The Union must be preserved in the purity of its principles as well as the integrity of its territorial parts.”124 Lincoln often returned to the theme: “Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself...As labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race.”125 Lincoln contended that those who believed slavery offered labor the greatest freedom ran into the inescapable fact...” that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged.”126 123. Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p. 71. 124. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 2:341. 125. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, pp. 113-114. 126. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 2:222.

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7. Abraham Lincoln in Illinois

Stephen A. Douglas declared that Blacks belonged to, “an inferior race and must occupy an inferior position…in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot and ought not to be under the Constitution of the United States.”127 He claimed that the Republicans favored the amalgamation of superior and inferior races, that they wanted to vote, eat, sleep, and marry with negroes. Lincoln rejected “that logic which concludes that because I do not want a black woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife.” The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended, “to say that all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity,” but they “did consider all men created equal — equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.128 After 1856, many members of Congress came to those halls armed. Knives and pistols were flourished during debate and brawls occurred. Southerners regularly flung challenges to duels at Northerners, who, unfamiliar with the practice, loftily declined. But Ohio’s Ben Wade found a safe way to accept — choose a weapon Southern chivalry was unfamiliar with. Challenged, he selected squirrel rifles at 20 paces and met a hasty withdrawal. In 1856, The Supreme Court handed down a 7-2 decision denying freedom to the slave, Dred Scott, (whose case was based on legal technicalities) on the basis that slaves were not citizens and “possessed no rights the white man was bound to respect.” This effectively declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional...slaves were property...as recognized by the Constitution and by the Fifth Amendment...Congress could pass no laws depriving persons of property...therefore Congressional prohibition of slavery in any territory was illegal...Congress was obligated to protect slave property in the Territories. Southerners were ecstatic and jubilantly informed the North of their expectation that the North must accept the decision. Republicans denounced the decision and announced that if they secured control of the government they would change personnel on the Court and have the decision overruled. The decision rendered the concept of “popular sovereignty” ludicrous. In 1857 one Southerner wisecracked that “Knoxville churchgoers were meeting to inform God where He stood in the prospect of disunion.”129 Lincoln was very deeply troubled by the decision. He had always maintained the greatest respect for the law and the Supreme Court as its chief 127. Harold Holzer, The Lincoln–Douglas Debates, pp. 55,224. 128. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 2:222. 129. Rebecca Hunt Moulder, May the Sod Rest Lightly: Thomas O’Conner, p. 35.

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And the War Came guardian. The Dred Scott decision forced him to reexamine some of his most cherished convictions because of Chief Justice Taney’s assertion that neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution was ever meant to include blacks. Taney, Lincoln declared, was doing “obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration.” Now, he lamented, the Declaration “is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.”130 To Lincoln, the question would recur: “If those who wrote and adopted the Constitution Believed slavery to be a good thing, why did they insert a provision prohibiting the slave trade after the year 1808?” In 1858, Lincoln was nominated for the Senate to run against the nationally renowned Stephen A. Douglas. The nomination was no surprise. Lincoln had been working on the acceptance speech for weeks. He opened with acknowledged imitation of Webster in his debate with Hayne: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it. “We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. “Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. “In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. “Either the opponents of slavery, will...place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will put it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new — North as well as South.”131

130. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 2:404. 131. Ibid., 2:461-462.

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8. THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES: A DARK HORSE

Since the creation of the Constitution, approximately one million slaves had been relocated from the Upper South to the lower South to meet the needs of the shifting geography of slaveholder economics. Twenty-five per cent of these migrations destroyed a first marriage. Fifty per cent destroyed a nuclear family. Those figures represented only the interstate sales. A slave was sold for a variety of reasons: to pay a master’s debt; to provide cash; to divide an estate; to punish a transgression; for failure to submit sexually — or for having become an object of sexual attention, in the first place. The disposed slave ended in a slave pen, was often transported to distant places, placed again in a slave pen and sold to a stranger, in a strange land, doing strange work, and in the bargain often losing a spouse and/or children and always being separated from friends. Lucy Delaney was sold because her mistress thought she was getting too proud and putting on “white airs.” 132 Celestine was sold by her elderly mistress because the woman’s son liked to “play and fool about her.”133 Pennington’s mother was sold because she had been raped by her master’s son and her mistress found out about it. Mrs. Harry Brant was gambled away to a slave trader aboard a steamboat. The slave James Phillips, having been sold by his master in Richmond and separated from his wife, wrote her from the slave pen, “Do pray, try and get Brant

132. Lucey Delaney, From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles For Freedom, p. 21. 133. Cohn vs. Costa, No. 5252, 15 La. Ann. 618(1860),Testimony of Francois Terralon, UNO.

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And the War Came and Mr. Byers and Mr. Weaver to send or come on to buy me, and if they will only buy me back, I will be a faithful man to them so long as I live....Feel for me now or never.”134 A slave woman wrote to her husband in the slave pen, “Howdy and goodbye, for I never expect to see you again. Try to do the best you can, and if you have a good master behave properly to him, and try to think about your master in Heaven. If I had known you were going to be sold I would have been better satisfied, but I am very much distressed now at being separated from you. Remember me and I will think of you. Write to me after you are settled. Your wife, Fatima.”135 Little Joe, the son of a slave cook, was dressed in his best clothes one day and taken away. “When her son started for Petersburg in the wagon, the truth began to dawn on his mother’s mind, and she pleaded piteously that her boy should not be taken from her, but master quieted her by falsely telling her he was simply going to town with the wagon, and would be back in the morning.”136 Eliza, a slave in a Washington, D.C. pen, had been brought there by her owner (who was also her lover), “under the pretense that the time had come when her free papers were to be executed, in fulfillment of her master’s promise.”137 One observer reported events in a slave coffle in the woods near New River, Virginia: “It was a camp of negro slave drivers, just packing up to start; they had about three hundred slaves with them who had bivouacked the previous night in chains in the woods...they had a caravan of nine wagons and single-horse carriages, for the purpose of conducting the white people, and any of the blacks who should fall lame, to which they were now putting the horses to pursue their march. The female slaves were, some of them, sitting on logs of wood, whilst others were standing, and a great many little black children were warming themselves at the fire of the bivouac. In front of them all, and prepared for the march, stood, in double files, about two hundred male slaves, manacled and chained to each other.”138 In a coffle, the slave Henry Bibb spoke quietly to his 134. John W. Blassingame, ed., Slave testimony, “James Phillips to Mary Phillips, June 20, 1852, pp. 95-99. 135. Michael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves, Fatima [by her master] to Ziba Oakes, April 14, 1857. 136. Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, pp. 28-29. 137. Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, eds., Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northrup.

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8. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Dark Horse wife under the cover of darkness after she had been sexually assaulted and beaten by a trader who threatened to sell her child if she did not submit.139 Some of the people the traders sold were not slaves at all. Eulalie had been living as “free” for decades when she, her six children, and ten grandchildren were taken by force from their home in Point Coupe, Louisiana, sold at auction in New Orleans, and then placed in a slave pen for “safekeeping.” They were sold at public auction after living twenty-two years in freedom. “When a negro was put on the block he had to help sell himself by telling what he could do. If he refused to praise himself and acted sullen, he was sure to be stripped and given thirty lashes. Frequently a man was compelled to exaggerate his accomplishments, and when his buyer found out that he could not do what he said he could he would be beaten unmercifully. It was pretty sure a thrashing either way.”140 Fugitive slave Lewis Clark, “As for whipping, a slave don’t get whipped according to his crime, but according to the ambition of his master [in the investment of his slaves].”141 Slave buyers read in the deformity of a scarred back not the malevolence of the inflictor but the deformity of character of the receptor whose transgressions demanded such hideous discipline. The slave, Willis Cofer: “At dem sales, dey would put a nigger on the de scales and weigh him, and den de biddin’ would start. If he was young and strong, de biddin’ would start around a hundred and fifty dollars, and de highest bidder got de nigger. A good young breedin’ ‘oman brung two hundred dollars easy, ‘cause all de marsters wanted to see plenty of strong healthy chillun comin’on, all de time.”142

The slave, Robert Farmer: “I have personally known a few slaves that were beaten to death for one or more of the following offenses: leaving home without a pass, talking back to — ‘sassing’ — a white person, hitting another Negro, fussing, fighting, and ruckussing in the quarters, lying, loitering on their work, taking things — the whites called it stealing.”143 138. Isaac Franklin, Stephenson Quoting Featherstonhaugh, p. 46. 139. Henry Bibb, Narrative of the Life of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, in Osofsky ed. Puttin on Ole Massa, p. 112. 140. John W. Blassingame ed., Slave Testimony, Interview with L. M. Mills, p. 503. 141. ‘National Anti-Slavery Standard’, October 27, 1842, “Lewis Clarke Speech”. 142. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p. 287. 143. Ibid., 240

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And the War Came

On the older plantations in the South, less than half of slaves worked in the fields. Many were either under-age or over-age, though only slightly over one per cent of slaves reached their seventieth birthday. Of the working-age slaves, about three-quarters worked in the fields. The house servants fared better than field hands, eating food from the master’s kitchen, wearing cast-off clothing from the master or mistress, and absorbing some of the niceties of refined atmosphere. Mary Chesnut summed it up: “Those old gray-haired darkies and their automatic noiseless perfection of training...Your own servants think for you, they know your ways and your wants. They save you all responsibility even in matters of your own ease and well-being.”144 Nearly 33% of Southern families owned slaves, nearly 50% in Mississippi and South Carolina. On plantations with 20 slaves or more, the value of the slaves exceeded the value of land and equipment. In the 1950s only 2% of Americans owned stock worth more than the value of one slave in 1860. The cotton crop of 5 million bales in 1860 was nearly double the size of the 1850 crop and five times that of 1830. If the slave system was considered to be lucrative for practitioners, travelers in the South reported few people living in luxury and they noted the sharp border-demarcation between the neat and prosperous farms of the North and the careless appearance of slave-operated farms which suffered from soil exhaustion. Land was valued accordingly and, worse yet, the Southern farmer had practically no cash while his Northern counterpart often possessed a nest egg. The slaveholding farmers of the 1850s lived only slightly better than their grandfathers had. Frederick Law Olmstead, who had traveled extensively in the South, wrote: “From the banks of the Mississippi to the banks of the James, I did not (that I remember) see, except perhaps in one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a book of Shakespeare, nor a pianoforte nor a sheet of music, nor the light of a carcel or other good centre-table or reading-lamp, nor an engraving nor copy of any kind, or a work of art of the slightest merit. I am not speaking of what are commonly called ‘poor whites’; a large majority of all these houses were the residences of slaveholders, a considerable portion cotton-planters.”145 144. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 488. 145. Frederick Law Olmstead, Arthur M. Schlesinger (ed.) The Cotton Kingdom, p. 131.

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8. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Dark Horse

Southerners were prone to significantly exaggerate the number and impact of the Northern liberals. Garrison’s Liberator counted less than 400 white subscribers in 1833. It was kept in business mostly due to Negro contributions. A fair interchange of ideas between the two sections was rendered impossible by mutual, deep-set misunderstanding and suspicion, marinated to the peak of loathing by politicians, fire-eaters and anti-slavery fanatics. As a result there developed a Southern intellectual blockade, not just of abolitionist material but of all “isms.” Southern insecurity and mistrust of Yankees proved a volatile combination. What had incensed them so about the Wilmot Proviso was its tone of superiority and their suspicion that if forced to “stand still” on slavery by not allowing it in the new territories, the institution would be attacked next at its roots. Already they were outnumbered in the House. The Senate was equal and they feared but one defection. There were too many voices in the South declaring slavery to be wrong, and that the end was approaching. As Calhoun had said in his major speech against the Proviso, the South would become “a mere handful of states” in shackles to the North “forever.” The federal government would be “entirely in the hands of the non-slaveholding States overwhelmingly.” The South, which had always maintained a stronger martial tradition than the North, felt besieged. The rise of the Republican Party in the aftermath of Kansas-Nebraska and, finally, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry prompted all the Southern Militia into serious drill. In the late 1850s, Charleston had 22 military companies, one for every two hundred white men of military age. The South had a higher per capita (white) representation at West Point than the North and, on the same basis, provided four times the number of volunteers in the Mexican War. From 1849 to 1861, the Secretaries of War were Southern, the general-in-chief, two of three brigadier generals, and all but one commander of the geographical departments hailed from the South. The authors of both manuals on military tactics and the artillery manual used at West Point were Southern. Further west, two moderates would soon engage in extended debates for a seat in the U.S. Senate. One was prominent, a booming orator and a presidential hopeful; the other, a little-known rustic who looked every part the hick. The South would brand the first a turncoat and would split his party, their party, rather than make him their presidential candidate. The South would hate the other Westerner, without ever knowing him.

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And the War Came In July, 1858, Stephen Douglas returned to Chicago to answer Lincoln’s charges concerning Kansas-Nebraska. For the next six weeks, Lincoln followed Douglas around Illinois, addressing the crowds which had assembled to hear Douglas, later the same day or the next day. Douglas, the most prominent, the most respected public figure in America, had nothing to gain from a direct debate. Still, a refusal might make him seem afraid of Lincoln; he agreed reluctantly to debates in seven of the nine Congressional Districts in which the candidates had not yet appeared. In completing the circuit, Douglas and Lincoln traveled nearly five thousand miles, by boat, carriage and train. The debates purportedly focused on the question of allowing the institution of slavery to spread to new territories. In fact, the debates often were not terribly interesting; they were repetitious in content and frequently slid into tedious detail about past events involving the contestants or their associates. Debates in general, however, were the most entertaining pastime of the day, wherein you could root for your champion and harass and interrupt his opponent. For the public of 1858, politics and speeches were pastimes to be sweetly relished. The sound of an elegantly-crafted phrase, spoken grandly, intoxicated the senses and ravaged the soul. And to listen to a speaker prick his opponent with rapier-like sarcasm delighted the sense of justice of a smaller man frustrating a giant. Many of the Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 spectators who came on foot, horseback, in carriages, on canal boats sporting huge banners, and on trains, including one of seventeen cars from Chicago. They were prepared to stand for three hours in the scorching sun to listen to the two antagonists. The crowds went out to escort both rivals with brass bands for the last half mile of their separate entrances into town. The debates focused on whether slavery should, or should not be, allowed in the new territories. Americans, north and south, generally harbored prejudice against black people, deeming them inferior to whites. The stridency of the abolitionists turned off most Northerners in addition to earning the undying hatred of Southerners. But there was a growing sense that something had to change. In the debates, Douglas’ main points were:

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8. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Dark Horse • that each State, or Territory has the right to do as it pleases on this question of slavery. • and that the government could endure divided into free and slave states. Lincoln’s main points were that: • slavery is inherently wrong. • there is no reason at all why the negro is not entitled to all that the Declaration of Independence holds out • he had no purpose to interfere with slavery where it exists, but it should not be extended to any new Territory or State.146 The shrewd Lincoln nurtured the differences in his and Douglas’ appearance. Lincoln dressed the part of the incorruptible country hick, carefully distracting attention from the fact that he was a man of means and a very prominent lawyer in his state. His well-dressed wife was intentionally absent. Douglas’ followers, Lincoln liked to point out, anticipated that their idol would become President and saw in his “round, jolly, fruitful face” promises of “post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments...bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance,” while in Lincoln’s “poor, lean, lank, face” nobody ever saw “that any cabbages were sprouting out.” No one ever expected him to be president.147 In the last debate, Lincoln read from a prior speech in Peoria:

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise...I think...is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansa and Nebraska — and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world...I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world...enables enemies of free institutions...to taunt us as hypocrites — causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very principles of civil liberty...insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.148

Regardless of the outcome of the election, through these debates Lincoln had gained national recognition, without which he could not have been an alternative candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for President in 1860. The confrontation highlighted and forced national attention upon the ultimate issue of the day — slavery. Gustave Koerner, a local politician, summarized his view of the two men: “Douglas was eminently talented, Lincoln was original. But what made Lincoln 146. Harold Holzer, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 63. 147. John W. Blassingame ed., Slave Testimony, James Phillips to Mary Phillips, pp. 95-99. 148. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln, His Letters, Speeches and Writings, pp. 20-21.

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And the War Came vastly more effective in this contest was that even the most obtuse hearer could see at once that Douglas spoke for himself and Lincoln for his cause.”149 Yankees were not the only ones making and listening to speeches. South Carolina’s James Hammond told the Senate, “The slaveholding South is now the controlling power of the world.” It supplied 80% of the world’s cotton and covered 350,000 square miles, “as large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. Is that not territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? Would any sane nation make war upon us? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet...no, you dare not make war on cotton...Cotton is king…. In all social systems there must be a class to do menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life...It constitutes he very mud-sill of society...Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted for the purpose...The difference between us is that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated...Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated.”150 In the Senate, Davis offered the challenge that, should a Republican win the White House in 1860, it would not be an election but “a species of revolution by which the purposes of the government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect.”151 Speaking in Vicksburg, he said if an “Abolition President” should win the White House in 1860, Southerners should make certain that the man “should never be permitted to take his seat in the presidential chair.” The Union would be dissolved by such an election, he said, and he “would be in favor of holding the City of Washington, the public archives, and the glorious star spangled banner, declaring the government at an end, and maintaining our rights and honor, even though blood should flow in torrents throughout the land. As for himself he would rather appeal to the God of battles at once than to attempt to live longer in such a Union.”152 Lincoln lost the Senatorial election. Republicans received 50 per cent of the popular vote but the election was not decided by popular vote. At that time 149. Gustave Koerner, Memoirs , vol II. 150. Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond of South Carolina, pp. 316319. 151. John Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism and, Politics in the Antebellum Republic; i, 1820-1850, m.268, 9. 152. Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters Papers and Speeches, vol. 6, pp. 227-229.

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8. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A Dark Horse citizens could not vote for U.S. Senatorial candidates directly, but cast their ballots for local legislative nominees who in turn were empowered to choose Senators, parliamentary style. In the vote of both houses Douglas won 54 to 46 due to apportionment (1850 census). Douglas’ party won more legislative seats than Lincoln’s that year, and the Senator was thus returned to office, “defeating Lincoln.” Of the seven counties in which the debates were staged, four gave Republicans more votes. In all seven, 52 per cent voted Republican, 47 per cent voted Democrat. Lincoln had demonstrated that he could win a popular majority against the best-known politician in America and his name began to be mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 1860. Reinvigorated by his return to the political arena, Lincoln traveled the windy plains in an open buggy, gaining the faith of listeners in five states and territories.

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9. LINCOLN ELECTED, SEVEN STATES DEFECTED

The air throughout the country was tinged with a sharp and bitter scent, like the smell of burnt gunpowder. One whiff inclined one to look around, apprehensively, for a smoking gun. During a bitter contest between Southerners and Northerners to elect a Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1859, the Governor of South Carolina wired one of the state’s congressmen, “If you upon consultation decide to make the issue of force in Washington, write or telegraph me, and I will have a regiment in or near Washington in the shortest possible time.”153 On October, 1859, John Brown, who had ceased his depredations in Kansas but, still obsessed with his Messianic mission, moved his ministry of vengeance to Virginia. He seized the federal armory and an arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. When word reached Washington, President Buchanan dispatched an army force to deal with Brown. Before the arrival of the federal troops, the local militia and armed townsmen surrounded Brown’s men in separate strongholds, and picked off ten of them, including two of Brown’s sons, while Brown tried, unsuccessfully, to parley. The next day the army arrived, led by Robert E. Lee, broke down the doors to Brown’s bastions, and easily overcame his party.

153. Quoted in Alan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, II:122.

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And the War Came Brown’s group was turned over to Virginia to be tried for treason against the state. In prison, Brown issued a stream of written communication proclaiming himself as a man of God who had acted to defend the oppressed. At his trial he claimed he had come to Virginia only to liberate slaves without bloodshed, as he had done in Kansas. “I believe that to have interfered as I have done...in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right...Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice...I submit: so let it be done.” In December, he was hanged in Charles Town at a site ringed by a detachment of Virginia military cadets under the command of a professor named Thomas J. Jackson. Present also were soldiers of the Richmond Grays’ militia, in whose rear ranks stood a man named John Wilkes Booth. Before going to the gallows, Brown penned the jeremiad, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” He added, “You may dispose of me easily but the negro question — the end of that is not yet.”154 In the North, the abolitionists proclaimed Brown a hero but prominent Republicans quickly disavowed any connection with his methods. In the South, they were not believed. This was considered an obvious case of incitement to insurrection from outside. If it was not orchestrated by, then it was most certainly and abjectly influenced by, the most heinous of the barbarous Northerners, the Black Republicans. The escalating tensions and the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric in America led quite a few people in the rest of the world to anticipate the end of the Republic through internecine struggle, but those watching carefully might have also noticed that the slavery issue had not paralyzed the nation. America was a vortex of dynamic change, economic, social and political. For the first time, in 1859, the country’s industrial production equaled the value of agricultural production. The oil industry was born. The North even unwittingly provided the South with a cultural bonanza: the song “Dixie” was composed by a Yankee. Southern planters wanted to freeze then-current conditions for a millennium. Cotton prices averaged nearly forty cents a pound between 1852 and 1860, bringing great prosperity to this ruling class. But, this prosperity, this superior culture, was threatened. Had not the abolitionists found a home in the Republican Party? Was it not sickeningly obvious that the majority of North154. Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p. 111.

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9. Lincoln Elected, Seven States Defected erners were hostile to Southern institutions, particularly slavery? And too, there was always that unsettling realization that despite the open cordiality that existed between masters and slaves on many plantations, there was much that planters did not understand about slave attitudes. This recognition fueled a fear that was rarely expressed, and that fear fostered a political extremism. By 1860, a number of links in the chain of Union had broken: division over slavery had ruptured the ties in the Methodist and Baptist churches; the Whig Party, a strong force for national unity, had disintegrated; Southern students in Northern colleges had returned home rather than contaminate their minds with liberalism and other “isms” espoused in the North; Northern newspapers and magazines were boycotted in a South which was calcifying its conservatism; the Republican Party was considered by Southerners as an Abolition Party. In the words of historian Carl Russell Fish: “The Democratic Party, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the American Medical Association and the Constitution were among the few ties that had not snapped.”155 Abraham Lincoln had told an audience in Kalamazoo, Michigan, four years previously: “A majority will never dissolve the Union.” Then he asked, “Will a minority do it?”156 About this time, Lincoln had privately written a fragment containing his thoughts: “Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of ‘liberty to all.’”157 In February, Lincoln addressed the establishment of the East at Cooper Union, New York. As usual, he presented himself as a rumpled country bumpkin, disarming an audience used to polished self-promoters. He told them that there were people saying they could “not abide the election of a Republican President,” in which event they would destroy the Union. “And then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool, a highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer...’ “If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times...There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which 155. Carl Russell Fish, The American Civil War: An Interpretation, p. 11. 156. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln his Speeches and Writings, Speech Delivered at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856, p.345. 157. Ibid., Fragment, the Constitution and the Union [1860?], p.513.

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And the War Came cast at least a million and a half votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it [the Republican Party]. “And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they will not — I would address a few words to the Southern people. The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince then that we do let them alone...Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to leave it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. “All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and your thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”158

Thunderous applause! This was 1860, the year of the presidential election. The Democratic National Convention was held in Charleston in April, 1860. Charleston had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States at that time. Second was the town of Lynchburg, Virginia with, its 41 tobacco factories, making quality “plug” for the nation. In the lowlands surrounding Charleston, blacks outnumbered whites nine to one. The Southern faction stood ready to support the “Alabama Platform” affirming the obligation of the federal government to protect slavery in the territories and the principle that the Constitution was merely a compact between the States. That such a platform would guarantee defeat in the presidential election was immaterial. The Western faction resented the increasing tempo of Southern attacks on their leader, Stephen A. Douglas, whose nomination they considered mandatory. They were committed to popular sovereignty and would oppose the “Alabama Platform.” The weaker Northeastern faction was chiefly interested in patronage rewards. Discord surfaced immediately during the discussion of the platform plank on slavery. William L. Yancey announced that the South would stand on prin-

158. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln his Speeches and Writings, Address at Cooper Institute, New York, February 27, 1860, pp. 529-536.

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9. Lincoln Elected, Seven States Defected ciple. Ohio’s George E. Pugh responded in no uncertain terms, saying that the Northern Democrats would not give in. The Convention adjourned in chaos for a three-day weekend. On Monday, when the Douglas forces shoved through a popular sovereignty plank, the chairman of the Alabama delegation jumped up and announced that his delegation was leaving the Convention. They walked, and were followed by some or all of the delegates from seven other states. When Douglas could not garner the newly-required two-thirds majority for nomination, the convention adjourned, to reconvene in Baltimore in June. The change of venue solved nothing. Many Southerners reappeared there but when the credentials of some were questioned, they walked out again, met in another hall and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky as their candidate. Those who remained in the original building nominated Douglas. Both groups called themselves Democrats (Northern and Southern Democrats). That May, the Republicans met in the booming Western metropolis of Chicago, in the specially erected Wigwam, seating over 10,000 people. Chicago had grown from a village of 250 souls in 1832 to a population of nearly 100,000. The convention was a rowdy affair with liquid spirits imbibed freely. The Republican platform adopted a conservative platform appealing to every major power group in the North, reaffirming opposition to the expansion of slavery, denouncing popular sovereignty, condemning talk of secession as “contemplated treason,” supporting protective tariffs, infrastructure improvements, a homestead bill, and a Pacific railroad. The two candidates with the most pre-convention delegates were William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. Seward, a former Governor of New York, was an able, experienced and adroit politician, but was handicapped by a reputation for extremism. Chase, of Ohio, lacked personal magnetism and political adroitness and, more important, he also lacked sufficient support outside Ohio. The same was true of another aspirant, Simon Cameron from Pennsylvania. As is often the case with presidential candidates, these men were too prominent, had said too many things offending too many voting blocs. Seward faced only two real competitors: Edward Bates of Missouri and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. A candidate from a large state, with some national reputation, with a firm, but not extreme, antislavery position was needed. Lincoln was aware of his position among the hopefuls. He wanted to go to the Republican National Convention with the unanimous support of the Illinois

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And the War Came delegation and a few individuals in other delegations. Lincoln did have the support of the Illinois delegation. If Seward failed to win on the first ballot, Lincoln’s chances would improve dramatically. With spirits undamped and knowing that a thirteen-car train had come from New York full of supporters for Seward, Lincoln’s men printed duplicate tickets and provided them to Lincoln supporters, who were instructed to flock to the Wigwam early. Lincoln’s managers shrewdly reasoned that they should try to win over Bates’ supporters, not Seward’s, particularly those in the Pennsylvania and Indiana delegations. With their support, Lincoln would have a chance on the second ballot which, they reasoned, was sure to be required. The night before the voting, two of Lincoln’s managers appeared before an Indiana-Pennsylvania caucus and Orville Browning, a law colleague of Lincoln’s, gave him a ringing endorsement. Indiana decided to support Lincoln from the start and Pennsylvania decided that they would vote for him as their second choice. Two hundred and thirty-three votes were necessary for nomination. On the first ballot Seward built a sizeable lead with 173½ votes; Lincoln garnered 102. Three other candidates amassed about 50 votes each. Lincoln gained substantially in the second ballot, when it became apparent that no one else could seriously challenge Seward. Lincoln received many of Pennsylvania’s votes and now had 181 votes to Seward’s 184.5. In the third ballot, Lincoln garnered 231½ votes, 1½ short of the total needed for victory. Then, David K. Carter of Ohio arose and announced the switch of four votes from Chase to Lincoln. A landslide commenced, with Lincoln amassing 132 more votes than needed. The Wigwam exploded. Lincoln, the local boy, had won. In preparation for the presidential campaign and to combat the general impression in the east that Lincoln was “ugly,” a renowned painter was commissioned by Judge John M. Read of Pennsylvania to paint a miniature of Lincoln that “would be good-looking whether the original justified it or not.”159 At West Point, a year before the war began, Mrs. Jefferson Davis said to an acquaintance sadly: “The South will secede if Lincoln is made president. They will make Mr. Davis President of the Southern side. And the whole thing is bound to be a failure.”160 159. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, p. 252. 160. C. Vann Woodward, Ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 800.

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9. Lincoln Elected, Seven States Defected

Sensing defeat for himself and fearing the Southern reaction to a Republican victory, Douglas toured the South with speaking engagements. But events had upset Southern emotional equilibrium. The demise of the Whig Party, John Brown’s raid and the increasing success of the Republican Party enabled their politicians to play on the fear that the very basis of white dominance was threatened. They succumbed to vigilantism. Militia enrollments blossomed, drills were conducted more frequently and the number of night patrols multiplied. Election Day finally arrived. Lincoln walked to the polls in Springfield, cut his name from the ballot to avoid voting for himself, and proceeded to vote a straight Republican ticket. In those days, the two parties had differently colored ballots and a voter asked for one or the other, which is why Lincoln had to clip his name if he didn’t want to vote for himself. Lincoln won the election, in which 85 per cent of the eligible electorate had voted, carrying every “free” state except New Jersey. His party, however, did not win Congress. Douglas won only Missouri. The South faced the truth, terrible for it to behold, that about 70 per cent of the popular vote had gone for Lincoln and Douglas combined; each of them, in the Southern view, was committed to excluding slavery in the territories. Horrified, the South contemplated the extinction of a way of life. The South despaired of the maintenance of slavery in the old states and put no faith in the Republican Party platform which professed to let the institution stand, where it was already in place. They feared several things from the new president: that he could force free circulation of abolition literature in the South; that he would lead an effort to outlaw slavery in the District of Columbia; that he would work to repeal the fugitive slave laws; and, that, in patronage, he would appoint anti-slavery men to federal offices in the South. Southerners did not realize how moderate Lincoln was and mistakenly regarded Seward as a fanatic, fearing he would control the administration. Southern insecurity, affecting all classes of whites, feared the loss of property, the liberation of blacks in areas where they outnumbered whites, the gradual provision of political rights to freed blacks, and finally, a catastrophic breakdown of all racial barriers leading to the unspeakable eventuality of amalgamation of the races. The Southern newspapers reflected the public’s fear and repugnance.

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And the War Came The contemplated westward expansion of slavery, through the KansasNebraska Act, had (as foreseen by some) been limited by natural phenomena, mainly the semi-arid climate in much of the Southwest. In 1860, there was not a single slave in the New Mexico Territory despite a ten-year opportunity. In Kansas there were two slaves and in Missouri fifteen, six years after the opportunity arose. In Texas alone did slavery advance westward. Southerners recognized this problem but they kept up their political clamor for the right to extend slavery westward. In December, South Carolina convened a Secession Convention which authored a document, The “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union”: [A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding states to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations...[T]he non-slaveholding States...have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery, they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to purloin the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection...[T]he public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.161

Lincoln remained humble. He often told the public that, “he came before them...that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.”162 Lincoln’s feet, measured in today’s terms, were size 14. He weighed 180 pounds when he came to Washington. He stood just about six feet four inches. His left shoulder was higher than his right, and his gait was slightly uneven. The patriarchal Massachusetts senator Edward Everett wrote in his diary, after listening to president-elect Lincoln’s speeches at train stops on the way to Washington: “These speeches have been of the most ordinary kind, destitute of everything, not merely of felicity and grace, but of common pertinence. He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis.”163 James Gordon Bennett, owner of the New York Herald, a rather sensationalist journal, advised Lincoln to step down before he was inaugurated, “to avert impending ruin, and invest his name with an immortality far more enduring than would attach to it by his elevation to the Presidency...If he persists in his present 161. Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family, p. 324. 162.Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 4:218 163. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, I :48.

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9. Lincoln Elected, Seven States Defected position, in the teeth of such results as his election must produce, he will totter into a dishonored grave, driven there perhaps by the hands of an assassin, leaving behind him a memory more execrable than that of Arnold — more despised than that of the traitor Cataline.”164 Views were divided on what to do with the South. Initially, many influential anti-slavery partisans and abolitionists declared that the Southerners should be allowed to go their way in peace. Yet, as historian George Frederickson has stated, “government by its very nature cannot admit a legal right of revolution.”165 The famous anti-slavery intellectual James Russell Lowell argued in the Atlantic that “coercion” could be justified by “an appeal to that authority which is of divine right.”166 Within three months of the election, seven Deep South states held conventions and voted for secession. Led by South Carolina, the States of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas also abandoned the Union. Thirty-seven per cent of the families in these states were slaveholders. On January 21, despite illness, Davis went to the Senate where several Southern senators were announcing their departure. He rose last. “I rise, Mister President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that...my functions are terminated here. I am sure I feel no hostility to you Senators from the North. In the presence of my God I wish you well. Whatever of offense there has been in me, I leave here. I have, Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology. That done, it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu.” He sat down to thundering applause from all sides. He then left Washington for Mississippi.167 That night his wife heard him praying aloud, “May God have us in his holy keeping, and grant that before it is too late peaceful councils may prevail.” A few weeks later, recalling the “unutterable grief of the occasion, he said his words had been, “not my utterances but rather leaves torn from the book of fate.”168

164. Quoted in Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, I:12. 165. George M. Frederickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union, p. 59. 166. James Russell Lowell, Political Essays, The Writings of James Russell Lowell, v, pp. 36-37. 167. Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir By his Wife, vol. 1, pp. 696-699. 168. Jefferson Davis to Anna Ella Carroll, March 1, 1861, Anna Ella Carroll Papers, Maryland Historical Society.

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10. AN ACT OF WAR

Delegates from the seceded states met in convention in Montgomery, Alabama. They drafted a Constitution modeled after that of the United States with one major exception: the classification of slaves as property. The convention elected Jefferson Davis, 53, President of the Confederate States. It was a position he did not want. He would rather have been general-in-chief and critics would later contend that that is exactly what he attempted to be for the next four years. Following the precedent of the Constitutional Congress in 1787, the convention named the meeting site as the Confederate Capitol. The Confederate states believed they were completely within their rights to take possession of federal properties within their borders and this they did, with the exception of two forts which were beyond the capability of their navy to control: Fort Pickens off Florida’s east coast, and Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, which was defended by a garrison of 76 soldiers. In his inaugural address Davis tried to lure England and France to recognize the Confederacy based on the righteousness of the Confederate cause. The speech also reminded those two countries, who imported huge amounts of the South’s cotton, of their economic interest in keeping the supply flowing. Ironically, not one of the original Confederate States had decided on secession by popular referendum. The delegates to the various secession conventions had been selected by the state legislatures. This political revolution, like the one in 1776, was fomented primarily by an upper-class minority.

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And the War Came Lincoln, as President-elect, had said, “I will suffer death before I will consent or will advise my friend [President Buchanan] to consent, to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right. 169 “The right of a state to secede is not an open or debatable question. It is the duty of the President to execute the laws and maintain the existing government. He cannot entertain any proposition for dissolution or dismemberment. No state, can in any way, lawfully, get out of the Union, without the consent of the others.”170

Davis saw things differently. He saw the Union as a compact between independent states whose sovereignty was guaranteed by amendments to the Constitution reserving all powers to the states not expressly delegated to the federal government. In the view of the Secessionists, all that the Southerners desired was peace, to be let alone, to be free from tyranny, to be independent and self-governing. That vulgar Western bumpkin had said it himself, his government could not endure “half-slave and half-free.” The South agreed and so departed. They had no choice. When Lincoln took office in March, four months of compromise effort by the previous administration had failed. The eight slave states of the Upper and Border South, however, were still in the Union. Lincoln addressed delicate issues in his inaugural speech, delivered on the steps of the Capitol with its dome still incomplete: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it...’ “I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies...The mystic chords of memories, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”171

The Charleston Mercury denounced these words from the “Ourang-Outang at the White House” as the “tocsin of battle” that was also, “the signal of our freedom.”172 169. New York Herald, January 28, 1861 170. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 4:154. 171. Roy P. Basler, Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, First Inaugural Address, p 588. 172. Herbert Mitgang, Lincoln a Press Portrait, pp. 243-244.

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10. An Act of War O, if you raise this house against this house, it will be the woefullest division prove That ever fell upon this cursed earth Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so, Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe.173

Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, an impassioned orator, abolitionist and reformer who had been a prodigy of the aging John Quincy Adams, visited Lincoln frequently, imploring the President to be more resolute in resolving the slavery issue. In one conversation, he mentioned an idea he had heard from Adams: that under the war power there could be constitutional emancipation of slaves in slave states. Lincoln kept it in mind. There were 9 million people in the South, of whom nearly 4 million were slaves, while the North totaled 22 million. The North produced 20 times as much pig iron as did the South, had more than twice the railway mileage and 24 times as many locomotive engines. Almost 90 per cent of industrial firms were located in the North. They provided more than 92 per cent of the nation’s gross national product. The South had only half the proportion of white children enrolled in school and the length of the school term was little more than half as long as in the North. Per capita newspaper circulation was three times greater in the North. Library volumes, per white person, were twice as large in the North. Undaunted, William Harper of South Carolina proclaimed that, “the Creator did not intend that every individual human being should be highly cultivated. It is better that a part should be fully and highly educated and the rest utterly ignorant.” Commenting on a demand by Northern workingmen for universal education, the Southern Review asked: “Is this the way to produce producers?”174 President Davis imposed his will upon a generally reluctant Cabinet. He ordered Beauregard to demand the immediate surrender of Fort Sumter or else to take it.” Lincoln believed Forts Sumter and Pickens to be federal property. Under no condition would he yield them.

173. Shakespeare, Richard II, iv.i. 174. Quoted in Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schooling and American Society, 1780-1860, p. 206-207.

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And the War Came Lincoln began the process of establishing his Cabinet the night after his election. He was nothing if not a realist. He knew that he had no record of demonstrated leadership. He would need the support of nationally recognized leaders such as Seward, Chase and Bates, whom he had defeated in the election. The Republican Party was bitterly divided between anti-slavery former Whigs and free-soil Democrats. He could allow neither to dominate. Of the eight names selected for the cabinet, four were tied to the Democrats and three to the Whigs. When Thurlow Weed commented that that gave the edge to the Democrats, Lincoln replied, “You seem to forget that I expect to be there; and counting me as one, you see how nicely the cabinet would be balanced and ballasted.”175 Its members were generally competent and its composition quieted unruly factions long enough for the President to consolidate, even while being condemned on all sides for his gross inadequacy and maladministration. Lincoln asked his new cabinet for their opinions on what to do about Sumter. They were divided. Lincoln agonized over the decision. In his inaugural address, he had clearly stated two principles that would govern his administration: avoidance “of bloodshed or violence...unless it is forced upon the national authority;” and to “hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government,” such as Fort Sumter.176 As events transpired, he could not do both. The states of the Upper South had warned him that: “If a shot is fired, as sure as there is a God in heaven, the thing is gone. Virginia will be out of the Union in forty-eight hours.” Lincoln felt the Union would endure a terrible blow if states from the Upper South joined those already seceded. Loss of all of the Upper South, including the Border States of Maryland and Kentucky, and of Missouri might well spell doom to the Union. As was his way, Lincoln pondered while more impetuous voices were urging immediate action. Lincoln sent a relief expedition to Sumter. He informed Governor Pickens that only provisions would be transferred and if no resistance was met, no transfer of men or munitions would take place. He would neither evacuate nor cede the fort to the presumption of a self-declared, seceded state. General Beauregard had sent a boat to the fort on April 11, demanding evacuation. Commanding Officer Anderson refused. On Friday, the 12th, Beauregard sent James Chesnut to inform Anderson that unless he surrendered, Beauregard would commence firing in an hour. Anderson did not surrender.177 After enduring 33 hours of a bombardment of over 4000 shells, and without sufficient food, Anderson made his decision to surrender. 175. Thurlow Weed, Autobiography of Thurlow Weed, p. 610. 176. Roy P. Basler, Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, First Inaugural Address, p 579. 177. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 229.

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10. An Act of War

Mary Chesnut continued her writing: “Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of these negro servants. They carry it too far. You could not tell that they hear even the awful row that is going on in the bay [Charleston], though it is dinning in their ears by night and by day. And people talk before them as if they were chairs and tables. And they make no sign. Are they stolidly stupid or wiser than we are, silent and strong, biding their time?”178 In Washington, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress rebellion. On a sparkling April morning in the lovely city of Charlottesville, Virginia, there was a sudden explosion of excitement at the University of Virginia. Shouts and cheers were heard from the students, who supposed the state would join the secessionists. Lincoln’s call for troops, as Virginia saw it, threatened the seceded states with coercion to rejoin the union. She had not joined in secession because the election of Lincoln but this new development challenged state sovereignty, a challenge she could not ignore. The Northern press was exuberantly confident. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed: “Success in two or three months at the furthest. Illinois can whip the South by herself.”179 During April and May, Lincoln’s burden grew heavier. North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas seceded from the Union. In these States the ratio of slaveholding families to non-slaveholding families was one in four compared to one in three in those states which had seceded before Sumter. In the remaining slave states that remained loyal to the Union, this ratio was one in five. The eleven seceded Southern states plus Kentucky and Missouri, which the Confederates felt were loyal to their cause and thus tacitly part of the Confederacy, possessed, as a percentage of the old Union: almost half the territory, or 750,000 square miles 50% of the livestock • 43% of grain production • but only 27% of banking assets. • •

178. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 48. 179. Otto Eisenschiml, Why the Civil War?, p.114

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And the War Came After Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion, John Brown Gordon, a Georgian, decided to volunteer his services to the South. He helped raise a company of volunteers from the tri-state region of Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. He would become one of the finest men and one of the most competent generals in the Confederacy. The Richmond Examiner noted, “There is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington city, at all and every human hazard. The filthy cage of unclean birds must and will be purified by fire.” To Congress, Lincoln declared: “Our popular government has often been called an experiment. The central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity...of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether, in a free government, the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose.”180 Throughout the country, families split apart over the divisive issue of slavery and states’ rights versus the benefits of maintaining the Union. The more outspoken and hot-headed partisans on both sides called for immediate and drastic actions. Northerners wondered…where was their commanding, decisive Executive at this hour? Lincoln’s perceived lack of leadership was ascribed to his background as someone born of poor white trash in a slave state. Virginia extended an invitation for the Confederate Capitol to be moved to Virginia. Although Virginia was one of eleven Confederate States, it held onethird of the South’s industry and 20 per cent of its population, banking capital, railroad mileage and grain production. Robert E. Lee had been offered command of the Northern armies by Commanding General Winfield Scott, who reckoned Lee as worth 50,000 men. Lee met with Scott. A long conversation ensued and Lee declined the offer, saying that if the Union were dissolved, he would go home to his own state and try to avoid taking a pro-active role in the conflict. Of the total of 1108 U.S. Army Officers, 387 had resigned to go South (288 West Point trained, including 19 Northern-born men). Among West Pointers remaining in Northern Service were 162 born in slave States. The United States Army stood at 16,000 men. The fratricidal chess game had begun. The cities began to be filled with troops, buzzing with officials, and office-and-favor-seekers. A sense of selfimportance pervaded the scene, many chanting the slogans like, “On to 180. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 4:439.

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10. An Act of War Richmond,” or “On to Washington.” Northerners were confident that their superior forces could knock out the Southerners in one decisive blow and end the war along with the grandiose posturing and overblown rhetoric of the Southerners, pining, as they were, for a bygone age where birthright eliminated the necessity of taking seriously anyone whose name could not be found on the social register. One major clash and the rebellion would disintegrate. Men became impatient with the endless drilling and preparation.

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11. FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN: DISILLUSION AND FRUSTRATION

In July, responding to Lincoln’s request for $400 million to sustain any army of 400,000 men, Congress exceeded his request by 25 per cent. In the early months of the war, a series of minor, unsuccessful, military skirmishes increased the unease of the Northern populace. They clamored for a major Union offensive. General McDowell, in charge of the Northern army, felt he needed more time to whip the inexperienced recruits into shape. The public would not wait, and Lincoln felt he could put the people off no longer. So the Union Army went into battle under a General who felt unready to fight.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN, JULY, 1861 Generals Commanding: Union: Irvin McDowell, 42, graduated in the middle of his class at West Point, classmate of General Beauregard, taught at West Point, Mexican War Veteran. Confederacy: Gustave Pierre Toutant Beauregard, a 43 year-old Creole, second in his class at West Point, twice wounded in Mexico, artillery student of Major Anderson at West Point.

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And the War Came Key Supporting Generals: Union: Five division commanders whose contribution to the Union effort was hardly conspicuous. Confederacy: Joseph E. Johnston: 53, West Point (top quarter of the class), Seminole War veteran, Blackhawk War veteran, Mexican War veteran. Thomas J. Jackson: 37, a penniless orphan, West Point (rose from the bottom of his class in his first year to the top third at graduation), Seminole War veteran, Mexican War veteran, Virginia Military Institute faculty member. Troops available: Union — 35,700 Confederacy — 31,300 General Beauregard’s 22,000 soldiers were camped at Manassas, before the battle which took place 21 miles west of Washington. He had been forewarned of McDowell’s advance by charming Southern spies in petticoats who resided in Washington. Reinforcements were in the Shenandoah Valley. Throngs of civilians from Washington rode out to see the rebels thrashed. The Federals launched their offensive by attacking in single brigades rather than regiments, thus failing to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by their superior numbers. Instead of overwhelming the Southern forces they merely pushed them into an organized retreat, a retreat which ended when the fleeing Confederates were materially reinforced by Jackson’s five regiments. Union General McDowell lost time (to which soon would be added men and materiel) reorganizing his lines. This gave Confederate generals Beauregard and Johnston the chance to rally their men while Jackson held the line. At Sudley Ford, the Federals were about to flank the enemy when the West Point graduate Confederate Colonel “Shanks” Evans, badly outnumbered, ordered an attack and held off the stunned Yankees until support could arrive. Evans, a South Carolinian, was followed everywhere by an orderly who carried a gallon container of whiskey strapped to his back, which Evans affectionately called his “barrelita.” His conduct this day was a key to the Confederate performance. A Federal attempt to move artillery in to attack the Confederates was unsupported by infantry and Confederate counter-attacks captured the battery and started a panic among Federal troops. Within two hours, the tide had turned. McDowell, now engrossed in rallying his lines, failed to bring up strong

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11. First Battle of Bull Run: Disillusion and Frustration reserves. He continued to attack with single brigades in series instead of capitalizing on his overwhelming strength. The reinforced Confederates, fighting under aggressive officers, went on the offensive and soon the Union forces were routed. “The expression heard on every side [of the Union forces] during the retreat was: ‘Why were not the reserves brought up from Centerville to help us? Why didn’t they bring up the troops from Fairfax Court House?’”181 At a critical juncture, Rhode Island regiments were prepared to make a stand against the enemy and thought they could have stopped the retreat, but they were ordered to pull out. Casualties: Union — Total 2837, 401 killed, 1124 wounded, 1312 missing; Confederacy — Total 1982, 387 killed, 1582 wounded, 13 missing. Result: The rout of the Union Army demolished the “quick victory, short war” expectations of the North and reinforced Southern confidence in its martial superiority. Newspapers in Europe and England cheerfully anticipated the demise of the upstart nation so recently born of the British Colonies. Soon after the Southern victory, flaws appeared in the fabric of Confederate cohesion at the top. Johnston and Beauregard bickered with Davis over issues of status and ego. The South witnessed the spectacle of a vainglorious General (Beauregard) resorting to end-runs around his commander-in-chief in order to advance his popularity following a battle victory, and a Confederate President who would never forgive a breach of protocol nor, more importantly, any disloyalty to himself. Despite the Confederate victory, jealousy, criticism, and deviousness infected the Southern military command. Historian Douglas Southall Freeman has described the danger of overreaching by subordinates operating beyond their capability as: “the familiar danger to the effective organization of an army, the danger that a competent executive officer will destroy his usefulness by regarding himself as a great strategist.” 182

181. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private, p. 16. 182. Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, one volume abridgement by Stephen W. Sears, p. 650.

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And the War Came If Beauregard was not a comfortable subordinate, Davis was not a politician, and he underestimated the importance of maintaining good relations. Davis was tired of Beauregard’s back-stabbing. He persuaded him to accept a transfer to the Western theater. Davis’ other front-line Virginia general at this time was Joseph E. Johnston, a classmate of Robert E. Lee at West Point. All career officers desire promotion but Joe Johnston was absolutely obsessed by advancement. He wanted to be in charge of all Confederate military operations and he carped upon this theme and other irritations in a running, petulant correspondence with Davis. Up North, Lincoln began to stir. He approved the first Confiscation Bill, declaring that captured slaves who had been forced to support the Rebel war effort would be freed and put to work by the Union armies. He also signed the first income tax bill in American history, levying a 3 per cent tax on annual incomes of $800 or more. In the early days of his administration, the corridors outside Lincoln’s room were crowded with office seekers. Knowing there were not nearly enough jobs for them all, he remarked, “There are too many pigs for the tits.”183 For survival, the Confederacy needed to export agricultural commodities and import consumer goods. The government’s self-imposed embargo on cotton exports severely hampered imports. The transportation system deteriorated seriously by the end of 1861. Inflation began to impact the South. Because of the Union blockade and the neutrality of salt-rich Kentucky, the cost of a 210 lb. sack of salt increased from $0.65 in May, 1861, to $7 to $8 the following October. Davis was elected to the permanent Presidency of the Confederacy in November. Lee advised Davis that the slaves should be emancipated to remove an internal weakness, to gain foreign support and divide the North, but Davis was incapable of such a leap. After the debacle of Bull Run, Lincoln replaced McDowell with George B. McClellan. It was a popular choice except among Radical Republicans. McClellan had given the Union a few minor victories in Western Virginia. He was an excellent organizer and administrator, just the man who could whip the ragtag Northern army into shape. He was popular with the men. He was also a conservative Democrat whose appointment Lincoln knew would solidify needed support within the opposition Party. He had resigned from the army a few years 183.Kennedy, Phillip B. Kunhardt III & Peter W. Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p. 278.

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11. First Battle of Bull Run: Disillusion and Frustration before the war and gone to work for the Illinois Central Railroad, where he soon became Vice President. McClellan was the son of a Philadelphia physician. He distinguished himself in the Mexican War and developed “a thorough contempt for the civilian management of the conflict.” His distrust of civilians extended to volunteer soldiers, whom he regarded as wont to loot, steal and pillage, behavior abhorrent to his professionalism. While in West Virginia, in 1861, he wrote Samuel Barlow, “Help me dodge the nigger, I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union & the power of the Govt. — on no other issue.”184 In the months following the debacle at Bull Run, McClellan supposed General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army in front of Washington to be 150,000 strong. In fact, it was he who outnumbered Johnston, two-to-one. McClellan continued to train his army day in and day out and made no proposals for offensive action. The lack of military success of the Union forces thus far and their army’s inactivity was upsetting many Northern political leaders. In the South, Mary Chesnut thought about how the Northern writers and thought leaders so clearly misunderstood the burdens of slavery on the slaveowners: “I say we are better than our judges North — and no worse. We are human beings of the nineteenth century — and slavery has to go, of course. All that has been gained by it goes to the North and to the negroes.. I hate slavery. I even hate the harsh authority I see parents think it their duty to exercise toward their children...Their [Northern] philanthropy is cheap. There are as noble, pure lives here as there — and a great deal more of self-sacrifice...”185 Lincoln insisted from the start that he was fighting to preserve the Union. He struggled with the conflicting imperatives of righting a grievous wrong, versus maintaining a strong enough alliance to prevail. He believed slavery ought to be abolished, but he also considered the four slave Border States (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky) indispensable to the Union. Most Northern Democrats supported the war effort so long as it remained a war to preserve the status quo, but would not support a war to overturn slavery. As the war progressed, however, there were mounting pressures on the President, from many other sources, to embrace a new war aim: freedom for the slaves.

184. Stephen W, Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860-1865, George McClellan to Samuel Barlow, November 8, 1861, p. 128. 185. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, pp. 245-6.

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And the War Came The rationale for this was more complex and less purely “moral” than is commonly supposed in our times. Freeing the slaves would certainly assuage many people’s consciences, but it would also help convince foreign powers to refrain from recognizing the Confederacy, offset the decline in volunteers for soldiers in the North by rekindling enthusiasm for striking at the underpinning of the Southern economy, and facilitate conscription of thousands of potential black recruits. Northerners began to see the war as an opportunity to remake the South. Lincoln had set his priorities: “For my own part, I consider the first necessity that is upon us, is of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle the question now, — whether in a free government the minority have the right to break it up whenever they choose. If we fail, it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”186 But Lincoln’s own half-nation was fractious, its factions agreeing on only one thing — that Lincoln, as President, was inept. The Peace Democrats were against the war and were willing to let the Southern states go. The Radical Republicans wanted slavery abolished immediately, although that could only presently apply to Lincoln’s desperately coveted Southern Border States. They had always called for abolition of slavery. The longer the war lasted, the more many Northerners were calling for radical measures. Many Republicans, however, felt Lincoln was avoiding the moral commitment to abolish slavery which was the foundation of their party’s ideology. Eastern and western Republicans opposed each other on economic issues and everyone criticized Lincoln’s management of the war. His critics became overbearing, while he remained evasive and elusive. Whatever else Lincoln might do or not do, he did nothing to discourage the loyalty of Maryland and Kentucky. He could not ignore the Democrats; he needed them as his party had come to power as a minority. He appointed a large number of Democrats to high positions in his administration, placed four in cabinet positions, and appointed one to head his eastern army. But out of the sight of the social and political raptors, Abraham Lincoln was working over the possible ways of moving against slavery. Senator Trumbull announced he would introduce a bill for the confiscation of all lands and slaves of all persons in arms against the United States. He, and Attorney-General Bates among others, continued to express a lack of confidence in the president. 186. Carl, Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 235.

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11. First Battle of Bull Run: Disillusion and Frustration In January, Lincoln had to replace Simon Cameron with Edward McMasters Stanton as Secretary of War because Cameron had issued embarrassing statements to the newspapers declaring that the government should arm slaves against the rebels — hardly a way to maintain the good graces of the Border States. Stanton was a Democrat who hated slavery and liked Lincoln only a little more. He had been Attorney-General under Buchanan and was a brilliant land and patent lawyer. He was a confidential legal adviser to Cameron. Ironically, he was responsible for the part of Cameron’s release calling for freeing and arming slaves. He was very smart, brutally honest, with tendency to shout and slam his fist on his desk; and he was irritatingly arrogant. As usual, Lincoln held no grudges and had appointed this man for his competence, decisiveness, work ethic, honesty and anti-slavery sentiments. Stanton tore into the disorganized and scandal-ridden War Department with feverish energy. Nothing was happening militarily. The endless training and preparations went on under the “Pax McClella.” Frustrated, Lincoln issued his “President’s General War Order No. 1,” directing all land and sea forces to undertake a general advance on February 22, 1862. Meanwhile, out West, Union General Grant had captured Forts Henry and Donelson in Kentucky, offering the beleaguered Confederates only terms of “unconditional surrender.” The capture of the two forts, with their 12-15,000 prisoners and huge cache of guns, began the incision which led to the geographical splitting of the Confederacy along the Mississippi River. It set off wild celebrations around the North, where no important good news had been received since the war started. Grant mentioned the value of Captain James B. McPherson’s work in his battle report and nominated him for brevet major. At West Point, one of McPherson’s roommates, John Schofield recalled, “by common consent of all the classes,” James McPherson was, “the most popular man in the corps.”187 In 1852, McPherson had graduated first in his class of fifty-two. In 1859, while stationed in San Francisco, McPherson met and fell in love with a tall, intelligent, attractive and very Southern young lady from Baltimore, 187. Tamara Mosher Melia, James B. McPherson and the Ideals of the Old Army, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern Illinois, p. 15.

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And the War Came Emily Hoffman. He and Emily had considered marrying, at that time, but Emily received a letter from her mother forbidding her to marry a Northerner and a second letter summoning her home. Her sister intervened, claiming that she still needed her in San Francisco. James left the decision to Emily, and she decided to let things ride for a while. Lincoln continued to parry the questions and goadings of those who persisted with suggestions on every facet of policy and action. A Senator, who accosted Lincoln one day on the need for immediate emancipation everywhere lost his temper, “You are on the road to Hell with this government,” he shouted, “and you are not a mile off this minute.” “A mile from Hell, Senator?” responded the amused Lincoln, “that is just about the distance from here to the Capitol, is it not?”188 At the White House, the Lincolns’ son lay ill in bed with what was called “bilious fever.” The doctor calmed the anxious parents. There was no immediate danger. His brother fell ill, also, but soon grew better — while the condition of the first deteriorated. The father would sit all night and watch over him. He had a deep foreboding about this favorite child. Fatigue rendered the desperate man listless and desultory during the day. The boy’s condition fluctuated, but it seemed to the father that he was failing, slowly, and his despair was compounded. Was there nothing a man could do to keep a nation whole — and nothing a father could do to keep a son whole? The funeral took place in a terrible wind and rainstorm. Long after the burial, Lincoln often locked himself in his room so that he could weep alone. Willie had been his favorite among the three children left. Robert, the oldest, and his father were never close. He would have happy dreams of playing with Willie only to wake to the gnawing agony of irreparable loss. Until this time in his life Lincoln had not given much credence to organized religion. But his experience of life had eroded his youthful skepticism. Now, he was gravitating slowly toward religion for solace and understanding. He could not find much solace with Mary. She was devastated, some would say deranged, by Willie’s death. She remained in bed for three weeks, failing to even attend his funeral. This was their second tragedy. They had lost another son, Eddie, in Springfield. She draped herself in layers of black and suspended all social activities for a 188.Donnal V. Smith, Chase and Civil War Politics, pp. 68-9.

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11. First Battle of Bull Run: Disillusion and Frustration year. After one of her many fits of hysteria, Lincoln led Mary to the window and pointed to a large white building, saying gently, “Mother, if you don’t stop it you will spend the rest of your days there.” The building housed Washington’s insane asylum.189 A friend once asked Lincoln what he thought of marriage. He responded softly, “My father always said, ‘When you make a bad bargain, hug it the tighter.’”190 Lincoln was buckling under the burdens of the war, the vituperation from North and South, the loss of sons and the crumbling of a wife who not only was too weak to face reality but who considered the eminence of her husband’s position a license for self-indulgence. While nestling deeper into to the protective comforter of God, Lincoln, the fatalist, began to experience a theological conversion. His lifelong presentiment that some special and dark destiny awaited him was intensified during his presidency and the hell of a civil war. He often quoted a particular passage from Hamlet: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.”191

McClellan disdained Lincoln as inactive and inept; he also despised most of Lincoln’s cabinet and General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. Meanwhile, Lincoln held fast. “My policy is to have no policy.” A Confederate officer, James B. Griffin, wrote his wife, “We cannot see, My Darling, into the future, but I trust & have confidence in our people to believe, that if the unprincipled North shall persist in her policy of Subjugating the South, that we, who are able to resist them, will continue to do so, until we grow old and worn out in the service, and that then, our Sons will take the arms from our hands, and spend their lives, if necessary, in battling for Liberty and independence.”192 One Southern soldier wrote home of an incident that took place while on the march: “On the next morning, as our brigade passed the prisoners that had been captured the evening before, one of them hallooed to us, ‘How are you Tom?’ Tom replied, ‘What are you doing in such bad company, Bob?’...Tom went 189. Jim Bishop, The Day Lincoln was Shot, p. 24. 190. Ibid., 25. 191. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene II. 192. Orville Burton and Judith N. McArthur Burton, A Gentleman and An Officer, p. 163.

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And the War Came inside the prison lines...and had...a few minutes conversation...it was his brother”193 A strange war this was to be. Soldiers who were fighting for deeply-held principles, carrying a gun in one hand and an olive branch in the other, ever ready to use the one or offer the other on a moment’s notice.

193. John Worsham, One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry, p. 83.

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12. THE BATTLE OF SHILOH: LARGE-SCALE KILLING SHOCKS THE NATION If military activity in the East was somnolent, this was not true in the West. Following the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee, Yankee forces moved southward and occupied the capital of the state, Nashville, which had been abandoned by the Confederates. The Union troops then marched toward Mississippi and Alabama, the heartland of the Confederacy. Confederate Generals Albert Sydney Johnston and Beauregard had their men in Corinth, Mississippi, just south of the Tennessee border and 23 miles west of Alabama. Corinth was a terminal on the Confederacy’s most important east-west railroad. Loss of that city would probably mean the fall of Memphis and another few hundred miles of the Mississippi. Loss of control of that waterway would seriously damage the Confederate cause. Grant’s forces concentrated at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, 22 miles northeast of Corinth, and were equivalent to Johnston’s in number. Grant had ordered General Carlos Buell to trail behind him with his 18,000 men. Grant was looking for battle and would soon have it. He had no idea that the Confederate army was so near to him. The Union soldiers that fought in the West were largely Westerners. Mollie Vandenburg wrote her Southern sweetheart soldier, C. H. Clark, a month before the battle of Shiloh:

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And the War Came Dear Henry, I feel more lonely and sad than I have been in some time — perhaps tis because the last companie have taken off nearly all of the gentlemen I respect in Texas...Oh! that I knew what the termination of this awful conflict would be. Henry I want to see you but don’t you come — join for the War if tis forty years if you get killed tis the most honorable death — if you escape I will rejoice. I love thee still.”194

THE BATTLE OF SHILOH, APRIL 6 AND 7, 1862 Generals Commanding: Union: Ulysses S. Grant, West Point (graduated 21st of 39), Mexican War veteran. Confederacy: Albert Sydney Johnson, 58, Kentuckian, 8th in his class at West Point, served in the Blackhawk and Mexican Wars, resigned from the Army twice to become a farmer and cotton planter, former Secretary of War for Texas, thought to be the most competent General in the South when the war started, but his reputation was suffering from the loss of a fourth of his men at Donelson. Greatly admired by Davis whom Johnston, five years senior, had befriended at West Point Key Supporting Generals: Union: William Tecumseh Sherman, West Point (graduated 6th in a class of 42 but deprived of fourth-class rank due to demerits for pranks), family arrived in America in 1634. Confederacy: Gustave Pierre Toutant Beauregard Troops available: Union — nearly 48,000 in the immediate area (Grant), with 17,900 more (Buell) marching toward the area Confederacy — around 44,000. The Confederates struck at dawn and completely surprised the Yankees. By 8:45 a.m., the entire Union front was threatened with collapse with many elements retreating northward toward Pittsburg landing. Northern General 194.Mollie Vandenburg, letter to C. H. Clark, March 11, 1862

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12. The Battle of Shiloh: Large-Scale Killing Shocks the Nation Sherman was conducting a fighting retreat with reserves called up to cover the withdrawal. Grant knew that if his lines could not hold until General Buell arrived with more troops, defeat was a certainty. As thousands of Union troops fled toward the river in the rear, the Confederates squandered a marvelous opportunity due to: (1) confusion among the high command as to where they wanted to drive the Federals; (2) uncoordinated attacks as Beauregard, who was left with overall direction of the attack after Johnston had ridden toward the front lines, committed his forces piecemeal; (3) loss of command control wherein regiments and brigades became intermingled; and, (4) loss of discipline as too many troops engaged in looting the overrun Yankee camps rather than pushing their advantage. The Confederate leadership had lost control of the battle. The Union forces, having been afforded precious time by confusion in the enemy command, established a new horseshoe-shaped salient that became known as “the hornet’s nest.” For three and a half hours the Rebels threw themselves into this stormy vortex, losing many soldiers and gaining nothing in twelve separate charges. Other Southern forces had been making progress against the Union right and left but Grant used the time thus gained at the stalemated hornet’s nest to establish a second defensive perimeter around Pittsburg landing. Beauregard, in the rear command post, learned that Johnson had been wounded but had remained in his saddle and in the fray. He bled to death on the field. Beauregard issued orders to continue the attack. A while later, Beauregard suddenly ordered his offensive halted. The South had won the day. Unbeknownst to Beauregard, who intended to resume the offensive the following morning, the lead portion of Buell’s army was, at last, arriving on the field. He wired Richmond announcing “a complete victory,” a premature assessment of the situation. Both Grant and Buell planned their own offensive at daylight, exploiting their new numerical advantage. The Federals did advance at dawn, surprising the Rebel pickets. The Rebel lines were sorely pressed and began giving way. At 2:30 p.m., Beauregard ordered a general withdrawal. Grant and Buell did not press the retreating enemy, being content with driving the enemy from the field and regaining the ground lost on the first day of the battle. “I did not think any more of seeing a man shot down by my side than you would of seeing a dumb beast killed. Strange as it may seem to you, but the more

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And the War Came men I saw killed the more reckless I became,” Franklin H. Bailey confided to his parents.195 Among the Southern officers in the melee that day was Patrick Ronayne Cleburne. He was born in Ireland in 1828, on St. Patrick’s Eve. After the potato famine of 1845, he, his step-mother and brother decided that America had better to offer, so they made the seven-week voyage to the new world. The family separated in Cincinnati and Patrick found work there as a drugstore clerk, subsequently moving to Arkansas. In 1860 Lincoln was not even on the ballot there. The State did not secede until Lincoln issued his call to arms. Cleburne volunteered to serve in the Confederate Army. In 1861, he was promoted to colonel of a brigade of four regiments under General Hardee and was part of the Confederate advance into Kentucky. He was made a brigadier-general in March, 1862, on the first anniversary of Lincoln’s inauguration. Of the 2700 men with whom Cleburne entered the fight at Shiloh, 800 remained. Cleburne himself lost most of his teeth when he was struck by a Minie ball. General Hardee’s battle report cited Cleburne’s “persevering valor. No repulse discouraged him...he was conspicuous for his gallantry to the end of the battle.”196 The Southern army limped into Corinth, Mississippi, with 30,000 men ready for duty, of which 10,000 would soon be ill with typhoid and dysentery when Corinth’s water supply became polluted. The superior numbers of the Federal armies could have destroyed the Rebel force but Grant was satisfied to regain the ground lost during the first day. He believed that his troops were exhausted. Leander Stillwell recounted an incident with Southern homefolk: Frank and I had another adventure outside the picket lines. we came to an old log house...the only occupants were women and children...a middle-aged mother, a tall slab-sided, long legged girl, seemingly sixteen or seventeen years old, and some little children...Their name was Leadbetter...The house...with a puncheon floor, which was uneven, dirty and splotched with grease. The girl was bare- footed and wearing a dirty white sort of cotton gown...that looked a great deal like a gunny sack. She really was not bad looking, only dirty and mighty slouchy. We wanted some butter...She replied that they were just going to churn...We waited, and when 195. Frank H. Bailey, letter to his parents, April 8, 1862. 196. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion, Hardee to Cooper, February 7, 1863, I, 10(1):570.

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12. The Battle of Shiloh: Large-Scale Killing Shocks the Nation the job was finished, handed the girl a pint tin cup...which she proceeded to fill with butter. As she walked towards us to hand over the cup, her bare feet slipped on a grease spot on the floor, and down she went on her back...At the same time the cup fell from her grasp, and the contents rolled out on the dirty floor... About this time her mother appeared on the scene. “Why Sal Leadbetter!” she exclaimed, “you dirty slut! Get a spoon and scrape that butter right up!” Sal rose (cow fashion) to her feet, still giggling over the mishap, and the butter was duly “scraped up”, restored to the cup, and this time safely delivered. We paid for the “dairy product” and left, but I told Frank I wanted none of it in mine.197

Casualties: Union — total, 13,047 — 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, 2,885 missing Confederacy — total, 10,694 — 1,723 killed, 8,012 wounded, 959 missing Result: Nominally a draw, but the Confederates, having been so close to victory, suffered a moral setback that made Southerners doubt the future of the Western Confederacy. Davis was in shock at the loss of his near idol, Albert Sydney Johnston. Thereafter, the Confederate military command in the West remained a shambles. Western Tennessee was lost to the South forever. Two months later, Memphis fell. The Confederate cause in the West slowly melted. More lives were lost at Shiloh than America had lost in the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War combined. Eight out of ten amputees died from infection or related causes. The brutality of this war was made plain by this battle. “Short War” advocates now realized this would be a long, brutal slugfest. Gone was the hope of a negotiated settlement. In the North the huge loss of men, the first large killing and maiming of the war, stunned the populace. In his battle report, Grant praised McPherson for his “activity and courage.” Beauregard was sick, sullen, and sedentary. He felt he needed a rest and wrote Davis that he was taking leave for the sake of his health. He left three days later without waiting for a reply. An Aide, in a letter to home, mentioned that he thought Beauregard looked better than he had in months. Davis was disgusted, disdainful and distrustful. To the Confederate President, Beauregard’s behavior was disgraceful, amounting to little more than desertion. His estrangement from Beauregard had grown irreversible.

197. Leander Stillwell, The Story of a Common Soldier, pp. 74-75.

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And the War Came Davis charged Beauregard with abandoning his responsibilities and replaced him with Braxton Bragg. Bragg was an unappealing man, but he had demonstrated bravery at Buena Vista in the Mexican War. Bragg had written Davis the previous November complaining about state governments placing a higher priority on local defense than on the main Confederate military thrust. Judah Benjamin replied: “The difficulty lies with the Governors of the States who are unwilling to trust the common defense to one common head...Each Governor wants to satisfy his own people and there are not wanting politicians in each State to encourage the people to raise the cry that they will not consent to be left defenseless — the voice of reason is stilled.”198 Only one thing united the endlessly quarrelling Confederates — their hostility toward the Union. They engaged in debilitating, futile arguments among themselves. The inability of each side to work smoothly within its own organization exposed the challenges of making a democracy work and drew ridicule from abroad. In April, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the first of several conscription bills subjecting men between 18 and 35 to a three-year draft. By 1865, amended legislation would expand the age range to from 17 to 60. Three of every four white men of military age would serve in the Confederate military. Lincoln’s critics bayed in the night also. Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist, said, “the President has no mind whatsoever... He may be honest — nobody cares whether the tortoise is honest or not; he has neither insight nor provision nor decision. As long as you keep the present turtle at the head of the government you make a pit with one hand and fill it with the other.”199 Betty Herndon Maury of, Fredericksburg, Virginia, wrote in her diary in April, 1862, “The negroes are going off in great numbers, and are beginning to be very independent and impudent. We hear our three are going soon. I am afraid of the lawless Yankee soldiers, but it is nothing to my fear of the negroes if they should rise against us.”200 In the summer of 1862 a Confederate woman overheard two small girls “playing ladies.” “Good morning, m’am,” said little Sallie to her friend. “How are you today?” “I don’t feel very well this morning,” four-year-old Nannie Bell replied. “All my niggers have run away and left me.”201

198. Clement Eaton, The Civilization of the Old South, p. 260. 199. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 312. 200. Robert A. Hodge, ed., The Civil War Diary of Betty Herndon Maury, p. 149. 201. Alice Maury Parmalee, ed., Betty Herndon Maury, The Confederate Diary of Betty Herndon Maury, 1861-1863, p. 89.

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12. The Battle of Shiloh: Large-Scale Killing Shocks the Nation By mid-1862, the Palmerston Ministry in London was close to intervention in the American crisis. In his summer message to Congress, Lincoln wrote: “Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets...No popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.”202

202. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln his Speeches and Writings, “Message to Congress in Special Session,” July 4, 1861, pp. 602-609.

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13. THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN: MCCLELLAN SPOOKED BY LEE Many Northerners talked as if they would be better defended by the Devil than by Abe Lincoln. His Commander of the Army of the Potomac certainly made it seem that way. The Army of the Potomac remained motionless and the people of the North grew restless. McClellan was whipping “his army” into magnificent shape with constant drilling in the Washington camps. His critics chafed at his inattention to the Confederates blocking the Potomac southwest of Washington, indeed, threatening the nation’s capital, itself. McClellan’s army now numbered 160,000, at least three times the size of the enemy in camp at Manassas. McClellan’s inactivity was a mystery and an annoyance to the people. It had been eight and a half months since the First Bull Run, with no significant battle occurring in the east. The traditional hiatus from combat during winter months plus the inbred procrastination of McClellan to force the issue left the North moribund. There was other, significant military activity in the East, which did not involve the two largest armies. Stonewall Jackson, heavily outnumbered in Virginia’s magnificent and fertile Shenandoah Valley (an Indian name meaning “daughter of the stars”), out-marched, outmaneuvered and out-soldiered a physically, and intellectually lethargic group of Federal commanders. Despite being outnumbered 6 to 1, Jackson routed the bluecoats repeatedly with his audacity and determination. This valley was the breadbasket of the eastern Confederacy

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And the War Came and was absolutely crucial to the war effort. Jackson’s army never exceeded 17,000 soldiers but they drew off and continually bested over 40,000 Union men. Mary Chestnut wrote of hearing General Lawson comment on General Jackson: He had no sympathy with human infirmity. He was a one-idea’d man. He looked upon broken-down men and stragglers as the same thing. He classed all who were weak and weary, who fainted by the way side, as men wanting in patriotism. He was the true type of all great soldiers. The successful warrior of the world, he did not value human life where he had an object to accomplish. He could order men to their death as a matter of course.203

The steely, single-minded grit that enables a general to send men to their death without paralyzing his resolve is also the type of characteristic that makes a man seem bizarre and out-of-place in peacetime. But if one must fight, that is the man to have on your side. Jackson was such a man. Patton was such a man in the Second World War.

THE BATTLES OF THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, APRIL 5 TO JULY 12, 1862 Location: Virginia, from Chesapeake Bay to Richmond, between the James and York Rivers, and the James and Pamunkey Rivers. Generals Commanding: Union: George B. McClellan: 36, 5’ 8,” second in his class at West Point, beloved by his soldiers. Confederacy: Joseph E. Johnston; Robert Edward Lee. Key Supporting Generals: Union: Joe Hooker: “Fighting Joe,” 47, son of a captain the in Revolutionary War, graduated 29th of 50 at West Point, Seminole and Mexican War veteran; his troops were devoted to him. Confederate: James Longstreet: West Point, 42, one of the few highly-ranked officers in the Army of Northern Virginia not from Virginia himself (from Georgia, born in South Carolina); preferred defensive warfare. A fine tactician and operational leader. Thomas J. Jackson.

203. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 499.

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13. The Peninsula Campaign: McClellan spooked by Lee Troops available: Union — 121,500 Confederacy — 50,000 initially, reinforced to 92,000 when retiring close to Richmond. Motivation of the North: Capture of Richmond. Land forces at the tip of the Peninsula, and proceed northwest, overland, 75 miles to Richmond. This plan was designed to avoid the anticipated major battles that would have been required by marching from Washington due south to Richmond. McClellan, with his overwhelming superiority in numbers was bluffed into conducting a siege at his first objective, Yorktown, rather than attacking, by Confederate General Magruder, who had 11,000 men but staged a colossal sham by having his men fire at any sound or movement, ordering his bands to blare loudly after dark, and sending a column of men marching in a circle, part of which was visible to the Yankees, creating the impression of a huge force. McClellan was sucked in and wired Lincoln, “It seems clear that I shall have the whole force of the enemy on my hands, probably not less than 100,000 men.” Joe Johnston told Lee, “No one but McClellan could have hesitated to attack.”204 The delay caused by the siege gave Johnston the time he needed to transfer reinforcements to the Peninsula. Thus, Confederate strength increased to 50,000 by late April. Just before McClellan prepared to bombard the Southern entrenchments, Magruder abandoned them and headed toward Richmond. McClellan announced gleefully, “Our success is brilliant.”205 He should have added that his trepidation was greater than his success. He insisted on inflating his enemies’ strength as they retreated toward Richmond. He wired Washington, “I must attack in position, probably entrenched, a much larger force, perhaps double my numbers.”206 Lee’s commanders knew their man. General D. H. Hill summarized their feelings, “I do not feel sure McClellan will venture to attack at all. His movements have been characterized by great prudence, not to say great timidity.”207

204. Joe Johnston, letter to Lee, April 22, 1862 205. George B. McClellan Papers, McClellan telegraph to Stanton, May 4, 1862, p 253. 206. Ibid., pp. 264-265. 207. D. H. Hill Papers, D. H. Hill to his Wife, May 11, 1862

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And the War Came At Williamsburg, the Union forces triumphed and proceeded once again toward Richmond. Johnston repeatedly told Davis he wanted to retreat to Richmond and defend against McClellan there. Davis would not listen. He wanted to fight McClellan where he was and he threatened to replace Johnston. Twelve miles east of Richmond lay the crossroads of Seven Pines. The Confederates there mustered half of McClellan’s forces but they decided to attack both wings of the Federal army. The advance was late and disorganized. In one assault, John Gordon was the only officer in his regiment to remain on horseback while most of his officers, including his brother, were disabled. As he approached an abatis, his horse was killed and he continued to lead his men on foot The Confederates remained with their backs against Richmond. Johnston, wearing his father’s Revolutionary War sword, was struck by a musket ball in the right shoulder and then a shell fragment struck him in the chest knocking, him to the ground unconscious. He would require a long recovery. Davis appointed Robert E. Lee to replace him. McClellan dug in, brought up more big guns and concluded that he had plenty of time for a siege of Richmond. He assumed that the Confederates would remain in their trenches. With Lee in command, he could not have been more misguided. McClellan’s forces were immobile; he continued to wait, repeatedly asking for reinforcements. Lee capitalized on McClellan’s signature gift, time, by reorganizing his patchwork army. He renamed it the “Army of Northern Virginia.” McClellan professed delight, “I prefer Lee to Johnston,” he wrote, “the former is too cautious and weak under grave responsibility-personally brave and energetic to a fault, yet is wanting in moral firmness when pressed by heavy responsibility and is likely to be timid and irresolute in action.208 McClellan was now within five miles of Richmond. He cancelled yet another attack when he was bluffed by a vastly inferior force shamming a major deployment. In fact, Richmond could have been easily taken, and the war possibly ended, by a Union commander with half of Lee’s nerve. The wholesale slaughter of another three years turned on relatively minor human deficiencies which might cause little havoc in non-military situations but were critical in these events.

208. George B. McClellan Papers, McClellan to Lincoln, April 20, 1862, p. 248.

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13. The Peninsula Campaign: McClellan spooked by Lee Union Lieutenant Haydon wrote of passing among the dead after the battle, “most of them on their backs, their heads thrown back, mouth slightly open, elbows on the ground by their sides, with hands up, folded...or frequently one of them placed over the wound...One I saw on his hands and knees with his head shot off. Two men were found lying opposite each other with each his bayonet through the other’s body.”209 Warren Lee Goss described his amazement at bizarre injuries: “Before seeing very much service we discovered that a man may be hit with bullets in a great many places without killing him...I saw a man who had both his eyes destroyed by a bullet without injuring the bridge of his nose, or otherwise marking his face.”210 McClellan called a council of war and told his generals that the army would abandon its position in front of Richmond and move to a new position on the north bank of the James River, where he would have the protection of the gunboats. It was labeled a change of base but, in reality, it was a retreat in the face of significantly inferior numbers. When Generals Kearny and Hooker heard about it, they rushed to headquarters and Kearny rebuked McClellan. They wanted to attack Richmond. McClellan was convinced that Lee had at least 200,000 troops and that his job was to save his army. The retreat began on June 28. Lee pursued. His blood was up. At Gaines Mill, a battle raged from early afternoon until evening. McClellan withheld large numbers of troops from the main front in anticipation of threats in other areas which never materialized. The superior Union forces recoiled in front of Confederate onslaughts and only darkness saved them from rout. McClellan sent a telegram to Secretary of War Stanton: “I have lost this Battle because my force was too small…I again repeat that I am not responsible for this…I have seen too many dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that the Govt has not sustained this army…I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or any other persons in Washington — you have done your best to sacrifice this army.”211 McClellan had not been within two miles of the battlefield that day.

209. Stephen W. Sears, ed., For Country Cause and Leader, The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon, p. 8. 210. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private, p. 47. 211. Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, p. 322-323.

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And the War Came After the battle of Glendale, a Massachusetts soldier named Adams wrote: “It was the saddest night I ever spent...They [the wounded] cried out for water, or for someone to put them out of their agony; others groaned and loudly cursed their fate.” Francis W. Palfrey of the 20th Massachusetts wrote, “curiously enough there was almost always something for McClellan to do more important than to fight his own battles.”212 No matter to the men in blue. They pushed their kepis a little further down their brow and awaited their orders. The Union army retreated to Malvern Hill, an eminence around which they established a formidable defensive position. Lee wanted to have at them. Repeated Confederate assaults failed to take the position and their losses mounted. Confederate commanders D.H. Hill, Ewell, and Whiting all agreed, in the evening after the Union victory in the battle of Malvern Hill, that if McClellan attacked the following morning they would not be able to resist him. But McClellan retreated, as he had after every battle in the Seven Days. “The idea of stealing away in the night from such a position, after such a victory, was simply galling,” wrote Captain Biddle of McClellan’s staff. General Phil Kearny spoke to his fellow generals in the Third Corps, “I, Philip Kearny, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for retreat. I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason.”213 Casualties: Union — total 15,849 plus an enormous materiel loss including 31,000 small arms. Confederacy — total 20,614 Result: Richmond was saved. Lee’s victory against huge odds left the North moribund. Johnston, had he remained in command, might well have lost Richmond, which could have meant the end of the Confederacy. Conversely, had McClellan shown competence, he might well have captured Richmond and destroyed the Confederacy. Next to food, mail from home was the most sought after nourishment of the soldiers. In 1861, some regiments of 1000 soldiers sent out as many as 600 letters a day. 212.Francis W. Palfrey in Military Historical Society of Mass., Peninsular Campaign, p. 96 213. E.M. Woodward, History of the Third Pennsylvania Reserve, pp. 124-125.

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13. The Peninsula Campaign: McClellan spooked by Lee “FOR GODSAKE RITE,” William Worthington admonished his homefolk. In Washington, Lincoln signed the Federal Homestead Law, granting 160 acres of publicly owned western land to anyone who would claim, occupy and improve the property for a period of at least five years. Robert E. Lee was now in command of Confederate forces in the East. It might have been said of him, as a classmate at Brown University said of John D. Rockefeller, that he was “reeking of virtue and without one redeeming vice.”214 Or even, as the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, said of the Essenes...that they were “addicted to virtue.”215 Lee’s record at West Point indicated the strength of his character. His applied his excellent native intelligence with vigor and discipline and conducted himself at all times with exemplary military bearing, achieving highest honors. Lee’s marks at West Point: Subject

Lee’s Mark

Highest Possible Mark

Natural Philosophy

295

300

Drawing

97

100

Engineering

292

300

Chemistry

99

100

Rhetoric

199

200

Moral Philosophy

200

200

French

98.5

100

Math

286

300

Tactics

100

100

Conduct

300

300

General Merit

1966.5

2000

Lee accumulated fewer disciplinary demerits than anyone in the history of the Academy. During the Peninsular Campaign, Lincoln became extremely fatigued, lost weight, failed to eat regularly and found little rest in sleep. He appeared haggard. When his doctor evidenced concern, Lincoln told his friend Orville Browning, “I must die sometime….I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the Country forsakes me.”216

214. Charles Towne, The College Career of Johnny Rock, p .350. 215. Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War and the Antiquities, Vil I-IIII.

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And the War Came After the collapse of the Peninsula Campaign, Lincoln admitted: “I was as nearly inconsolable as I could be, and live.” McClellan again asked for more troops. Lincoln wondered aloud where the men were going, since more and more had been sent into what seemed to be a bottomless pit. Frustrated at making so little progress in bringing the war to a close, Lincoln scratched his tortured thoughts on paper: In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong...In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to fit his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun, He could give the final victory to either side any day, yet the contest proceeds.217

The “contest proceeded” because the South had two generals, Lee and Jackson, who fought their outnumbered men with daring, dexterity and determination to win battles decisively in the hope of discouraging the North from continuing the conflict, thereby gaining independence. The “contest proceeded” because Lincoln had appointed three consecutive commanders in the East who, despite possessing some military experience and talent and a normal array of personal endowments, were each infected with fatal flaws that prevented them from excelling in the job at hand. The “contest proceeded” because the fighting men on both sides were adamantly committed to the cause for which they struggled, and in the South, to the perceived nobility of their two great commanders and the gallantry of many of the officers serving them. As the “contest proceeded,” death and agony proceeded apace. The war was, ironically, prolonged by a reluctance to be ruthless with one’s own countrymen: failure to prosecute combat with a merciless/merciful determination, in order to shorten the agony; failure to destroy a retreating and whipped enemy; 216. Theodore C. Peace and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, I:559-560. 217. Roy. P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln, His Speeches and Writings. “Meditation on Divine Will,” p. 655.

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13. The Peninsula Campaign: McClellan spooked by Lee fighting not to “lose the field” instead of endeavoring to destroy the “enemy”; truculence in obeying both the spirit and letter of orders from superiors; and, pandering to one’s own ego. And the dying took place not only on the battlefield. In this war, the most remorseless killer was disease. More combatants died from disease than in battle. Poor diet, unsanitary camp conditions, exposure to terrible weather and the ever-present insects combined to decimate the fighting men. Diarrhea and dysentery claimed the most lives but measles, smallpox, malaria, pneumonia, bronchitis, scurvy and “camp itch” compounded the woe. Bacteriology was not yet a science and antitoxins were unknown. While doctors prescribed astringents or purgatives, bleeding, opium, quinine, tree-bark derivatives, mustard plasters, vegetables and fruit, quarantine and vaccination, the most common “cure-all” was alcohol, which, while probably not medicinally effective, at least eased discomfort and was welcomed by most patients. National manufacture of drugs was minimal. Both North and South imported their medicines but the blockade of Southern ports steadily constricted their drug imports and attempts at local production were insufficient. In the latter part of the war, Confederate soldiers increasingly suffered illness, wounds and amputations without medication. In 1862, the death rate from disease for all Union forces climbed to nearly 5% of mean strength. While Confederate records are sketchy, the rate of deaths due to illness probably approximated that of the North as their armies shared the same locale and climate. Extrapolating for both sides, by the end of 1862, approximately 65,000 soldiers had succumbed to illness and disease since the war began. With the increase in numbers serving, the monthly death-due-toillness toll, for the remainder of the war, would often exceed 10,000. For the entire war, disease killed more soldiers than did combat, claiming over 384,000 victims, including prisoner-of-war deaths. The penalty for postponing a battle that should have been fought, or for failure to capitalize on a major opportunity to follow up victory with a decisive stroke, was awesome. It is possible that effective follow through on some victories might have ended the war in some regions, with huge savings of lives from the ravages of sickness and from death in subsequent battles. McDowell, McClellan, and Pope were the first three of the five sorrowful military mysteries of the Northern rosary, a sorrow easily seen in the haunted mask that was Lincoln’s face. Lee, Jackson, Forrest, Longstreet and Gordon were

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And the War Came the five joyful, evangelical-military mysteries of Southern Celtic heritage: a joy easily seen on the face of Johnny Reb. That June, Lincoln surprised Seward and Welles by informing them that he was beginning to think that the slaves would have to be released, or the Union itself might be subdued. Having made a campaign promise not to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed, this was a highly charged issue and the change in perspective had not come easily to Lincoln. Lincoln worked, meanwhile, to urge the Border States toward gradual and compensated emancipation. The fortunes of the Union had deteriorated steadily until Lincoln felt that the country was losing faith in his plan of operations. Ponderous and cautious as always, he was becoming certain that the time had come to change tactics or lose the game. His spirit was being smothered by McClellan’s retreat-defeats; demoralization of the soldiers; the near-mutinous attitude of some of the high-ranking officers; the growing chorus of anti-slavery opinion in the North; and the dwindling trickle of volunteers for the army. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts claimed that volunteer enlistments could not be increased so long as Lincoln persisted in fighting a war that would leave slavery intact. Lincoln began work on a document addressing the slavery issue in the cipher room of the War Department telegraph office, where he used to go to wait for messages of import from the military. He could work there without the frequent interruptions he endured at the White House. Each day, as he waited for war news, he would sit at a small desk with a piece of paper on which he would occasionally write a line or two, after much thought. At the end of the day he would fold the paper and put it in his pocket. He would return the next day and for many days, repeating the process. Lincoln was persuaded by his Cabinet to postpone releasing this document. He appreciated the logic — they warned of the potential loss of the Border States and noted the government’s inability to enforce such measures. He kept the proclamation draft locked in his drawer, thinking to issue it after a victory. Always, the desire to preserve the Union was his primary goal. And the preservation of the Union, as well as the launching of his thunderbolt, required a significant victory by the men in blue.

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14. SECOND BULL RUN AND ANTIETAM: OPPORTUNITY SQUANDERED All during July, McClellan’s army remained at “parade rust” in the stifling heat on Virginia’s Peninsula, their commander unable to make a decision to either assume the offensive or to leave the finger of land that had witnessed so much fighting to so little purpose. Lincoln, distraught with McClellan’s Peninsula debacle, brought General Henry W. Halleck, “Old Brains,” in from the West to assume the position of General-in-Chief of Union Armies. Halleck reorganized the army in Northern Virginia under General John Pope. Halleck repeatedly ordered McClellan to leave the Peninsula for the Washington area in order to be in position to reinforce Pope’s advancing army. The last thing McClellan intended to do, however, was to support his rival. He brought to the art of procrastination a mesmerizing virtuosity. McClellan’s correspondence with his wife included the following sentiment: “I have a strong idea that Pope will be thrashed during the coming week — & very badly whipped. He will be and ought to be — such a villain as he ought to bring defeat on any cause that employs him.”218 On August 3, Halleck once again issued orders to McClellan: to leave the James and proceed, by water, to Aquia Creek near Fredericksburg, where he

218. Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George W. McClellan, McClellan to wife, August 10, 1862, p. 389.

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And the War Came could both defend Washington and join with Pope in the new campaign overland.

THE BATTLE OF SECOND BULL RUN, AUGUST 28-30, 1862 Generals Commanding: Union: Major General John Pope, 40, graduated 17th of 56 at West Point, Mexican War, staunch Republican, not universally admired. Confederacy: Robert E. Lee Troops available: Union — 70,000 Confederacy — 55,000 Motivation: Following Jackson’s victory at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, and aware that McClellan’s Peninsula forces had been ordered to reinforce Pope, Lee wanted to place himself between Pope’s Army and the landing point of McClellan’s army and to force Pope into battle before he received reinforcements. Plan: Lee gambled that, by sending Jackson’s Corps west and north of Pope, bypassing his left flank and attacking his supply depots far in the rear, Pope would be prevented from attacking the vulnerable remnant of Lee’s army in his rear, commanded by Longstreet. Instead, Longstreet would hurry northward toward Jackson and join him. In late August, Jackson’s “foot cavalry” covered more than 50 miles in two days, heading toward Manassas once again. As Lee had surmised, Pope quickly left the Rappahannock to head for Jackson and exploit his two-to-one advantage. Pope was unaware that Longstreet was following rapidly and that Jackson’s men were the bait. Pope planned to attack Jackson the next morning; Jackson counseled his command to avoid battle until Longstreet’s and Lee’s troops arrived. Pope reached the battlefield at 1:00 p.m., intent on mauling Jackson but unaware, incredibly, that Longstreet’s troops had arrived. McDowell, who knew of this, unaccountably failed to notify Pope. Pope finally realized that Longstreet was present at about 7:00 p.m., but he completely misjudged Lee’s intention, thinking he would pour troops into

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered Jackson’s defense or cover Jackson’s retreat. Instead, Lee was planning an offense of his own. The next morning several federal probes encountered strong resistance, which Pope regarded as rear-guard actions that confirmed his belief in a Confederate retreat. At noon, he ordered a two-pronged attack, which was summarily halted by artillery. Frustrated, Pope ordered a massive assault to the right of Jackson’s line. He turned a deaf ear to General Reynolds, who rode up to warn him of a large Confederate force massing on their left. Union troops, lacking reinforcements, began retreating. At this point, McDowell decided to send some of Reynolds’ troops to bolster the sagging lines, leaving only two brigades facing Longstreet’s five divisions. Lee knew the moment had come and sent Longstreet’s force hurtling into the sparse Union position at 4:00 p.m. Warren Lee Goss saw a father and his son charge, side by side. The son fell, pierced by the enemy’s bullets. A quiver of grief swept over the father’s face, and then he said, “I’d rather have him shot like that than see him run.”219 Pope now continued to shift more support to his failing left but there was no way to stop Longstreet’s juggernaut, and a frantic retreat began in that quarter around 6:00 p.m. McClellan had withheld the troops of Generals Franklin and Sumner while continually offering excuses for his failure to support Pope. In one Federal charge, a Union officer on a white horse was killed while leading a charge. A Southern officer, Isaac Feagan, berated his soldiers for killing such a courageous man instead of capturing him, but Stonewall Jackson told him, “No, Captain, the men are right; kill the brave ones, they lead on the others.”220 The next day, Lee, still determined to take the initiative, sent Jackson’s troops to swing around the Federal right in an attempt to cut off Pope’s line of retreat to Washington; but rain and fatigue slowed the march which was being shadowed by Federals. Pope then proceeded to move his forces back into the Capitol’s defenses.

219. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private, p. 85. 220. Mark Perry, Conceived in Liberty, Joshua Chamberlain, William Oates and the American Civil War, p. 158.

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And the War Came Casualties: Union — 1,724 killed; 8,372 wounded; 5,958 missing; Total 16,054 Confederacy — 1,481 killed; 7,627 wounded; 89 missing; Total 9,197 Result: A smashing Confederate victory over superior numbers due to the superb generalship of Robert E. Lee, excellent execution by Jackson and Longstreet, and a desultory performance by General Pope. Three straight ignominious defeats for three different Union commanders blew an air of hopelessness and foreboding across the North and, like a following sea, created a sense of uneasiness in the psyche of the Administration. But in the South, heavy losses to company, brigade and regimental officers in the summer’s battles left the army critically short of officers with the rank and experience required to maintain the discipline necessary to prevent straggling. McClellan was pleased with himself. “I believe I have triumphed! Just received a telegram from Halleck stating that Pope & Burnside are very hard pressed — urging me to push forward reinforcements & and to come myself as soon as I possibly can. Now they want the “‘procrastinator,’ the ‘coward.’” Within a month, Lee would drive the Federals out of Virginia. Confederate morale rebounded. Europe was considering recognition of the South. Lincoln would face a crisis in the November elections and Virginia farmers were able to gather a harvest. Lee emerged as an immortal to his men and gave real hope to the success of the Confederacy. Without Lee, the Confederacy might have died in 1862 and the prodigal South reunited with the North, with slavery intact. The South would have suffered only limited death and destruction. Lee’s victories significantly prolonged the war. In turn, the long war destroyed slavery, the plantation economy, the wealth and infrastructure of the region, and virtually everything else for which the Confederacy stood. A letter to his wife from Colonel Thornton F. Broadhead, 1st Michigan Cavalry, was published in a newspaper; it said, My Dear Wife: I write to you mortally wounded, from the battlefield. We have again been defeated, and ere this reaches you your children will be fatherless...Our cause is just, and our Generals, — not the enemys, —have defeated us. Before I die let me implore that in some way it may be stated that General Pope has been outwitted, and that McDowell is a traitor. Had they done their duty as I did mine, and had led as I did, the dear old flag had waived in triumph.

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered In God’s good time he will give us the victory. And now, good by, wife and children...But for you and the dear ones dependent, I should die happy.

McDowell demanded and received a formal investigation. He was not found guilty of treason but was judged to be incompetent, was removed from command, and sent west to fight Indians. Though Lincoln was extremely dissatisfied with McClellan’s behavior, he recognized that the army favored McClellan and he could not afford to further alienate the Democrats at a time when they were already irritated with the radical measures being enacted in Congress and at a time when the entire North was critical of the President’s conduct of the war. Lincoln asked McClellan to take command of the troops retreating to Washington. McClellan was not happy to do so, but felt he had no choice. He, and the rest of the country, still had a dismal opinion of President Lincoln. Despite obsession with the war, legislation important to the future vitality of the Union was passed by Congress: (1) The Homestead Act donated free land to pioneers willing to settle the West; (2) The College Land Grant Act provided for the creation of the Land Grant Colleges; and, (3) the Union Pacific Railroad was chartered to run from Nebraska to California. On September 12, at Camp Mason near Portland, Maine, a presentation ceremony was taking place before the Twentieth Maine Regiment, commanded by Colonel Ames. Accepting a gift of a gray war-horse from the townspeople of Brunswick, the regiment’s Lieutenant-Colonel, Joshua L. Chamberlain, aged about 34, said, “I accept it, if I may so speak, not to regard it as fairly my own, until I have earned a title to it by conduct equal to your generosity.”221 The Chamberlain family history in the United States began with William, who arrived in 1648. Chamberlain’s father was a man of few words. Once when young Joshua and his brothers told him they could not move a heavy rock in the field, his reply was, “Move it.” In later years, Joshua said that “do it” became an “order for life” that was “worth infinitely more” than years of schooling.222 In July of 1862, following Lincoln’s call for 300,000 volunteers, Professor Chamberlain of Bowdoin College wrote to Governor Washburn, asking for a commission to lead a regiment he would raise.

221. Joshua L. Chamberlain, “Early Memoirs”, pp. 62-63. 222. Chamberlain-Adams Family Correspondence, Sae Chamberlain to Joshua L. Chamberlain, May 8, 1859.

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And the War Came Down in Virginia, Lee struggled to glue the divergent Southern factions into an effective military machine. In July, he discovered more than one third of his forces missing from the ranks. Thirty thousand officers and men were absent for a variety of reasons, few of them legitimate. Furthermore, dispersal of Confederate troops to meet threats at so many points throughout their extended territory reduced their concentrations in the critical battle areas of Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri. The difficulty in prying additional troops loose from the states of the Deep South to serve in the Army of Northern Virginia lay in the rational fear of leaders in those states that their homefolk would be, or thought they would be, defenseless against Yankee raids. Lee continued to press upon Davis a concept which had been steadily gathering importance in his mind — an offensive thrust into the North: “The present seems the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate army to enter Maryland. I shall proceed to make the movement at once unless you [Davis] should signify your disapprobation.”223 Lee continued his full-court press by courier: “The present position of affairs, in my opinion, places it in the power of the Government of the Confederate States to propose with propriety to that of the United States the recognition of our independence.”224 Lee reasoned that the North was no nearer to restoring the Union than they were when the war started. His invasion of Yankee soil would make that point dramatically. A decisive victory over the Army of the Potomac, followed by a Southern overture for peace, would convince the world that the South only desired peaceful separation, not conquest. Lee wanted to maintain his momentum. He wanted to sustain the initiative. He was looking for battle. He was confident that he could lure the Army of the Potomac away from Washington, thus eliminating any threat to Richmond. Davis quietly acquiesced. Lee was a difficult man to refuse. He had that rare combination of forthrightness, graciousness and inner strength, with no hint that he thought others less gifted than himself. He asserted that he would feed his troops and animals from the autumn harvest in Maryland, affording Virginian farmers the chance to replenish their stores. His army, however, was somewhat threadbare as it advanced toward Maryland. Perhaps one-quarter of the men marched barefoot. They subsisted on

223. Freeman and McWhiney, eds., Lee’s Dispatches, p.61. 224. The War of Rebellion, A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Lee to Davis, September 8, 1862, 19, pt. 2:600-601.

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered apples and corn until diarrhea became endemic. As many as 15,000 stragglers fell out, ill or exhausted, or unwilling to fight in an invasion force. They had fought, and would continue to fight enthusiastically, in defense of their homeland, which, they felt, was the reason they had enlisted. This depletion nearly cancelled the gain of 20,000 reinforcements Lee had received from Richmond. Yet, the morale of those who stayed was superb. Lee’s victory at Second Bull Run enhanced the image of a victoriously emerging South. England’s Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston thought the Northern Army received a “very complete smashing,” and spoke of Britain and France proffering “an arrangement upon the basis of separation. In a letter to his sister, Daniel Faust, a Yankee soldier, responded, “You asked me who would clean my ears sins I am out here.” He confessed, “I reckon I haf to do that myself and wash my cloth and cook my victles and mend my cloth.”225 Union Private Charles Babbot characterized a recently received letter as “Short and sweet just like a rosted maget.”226 As the Confederates marched into Maryland toward Sharpsburg [Antietam], a woman confided to her diary: “When I say they were hungry I convey no impression of the gaunt starvation that looked from their cavernous eyes.” Another Marylander remembered the Southern soldiers, with their slouch hats and haversacks, as a “ragged, lean and hungry set of wolves. Yet there was a dash about them that the Northern men lacked. They rode like circus riders.”227

The Battle of Antietam, September 17 and 18, 1862 Location: Sharpsburg, Maryland, some 75 miles northwest of Washington. Generals Commanding: Union: George B. McClellan Confederacy: Robert E. Lee

225. Reid Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home, p.82. 226.Manuscript, Hayes Memorial Library, Charles Babbot to his father, January 1, 1863. 227. Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee, p. 307.

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And the War Came Key Supporting Generals: Union: Ambrose Burnside, 38, son of a South Carolina slave-owner, graduated 18th in his class at West Point, unimaginative, unsuited intellectually and emotionally for command. Confederacy: Thomas J. Jackson, James Longstreet Troops available: Union — 84,000 Confederacy — 50,000+ Motivation: Confederates hoped that their invasion would: (1) influence the defeat-weary North to sue for peace; and (2) secure foreign recognition of the Confederacy. These hopes were quite reasonable, given the prevailing mood in the North and in Europe. Plan: To drive into Pennsylvania, perhaps as far as Harrisburg, and destroy a major railroad bridge, thus interrupting a vital east-west supply link in the North; then, to threaten Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington. Lee would have to deal with Federal outposts at Harper’s Ferry and Martinsburg, which would threaten his supply line. He proposed dividing his army four ways: Longstreet would head toward Pennsylvania; Jackson would attack the Yankees at Martinsburg and then Harper’s Ferry; another force would descend upon Harper’s Ferry from the Maryland side of the Potomac; and, another force would attack Harper’s Ferry from the Virginia side. These three latter forces would then hasten to join Longstreet in the Keystone State. Lee’s battle plan to divide his forces and send some of them to capture Harper’s Ferry was based on his assumption that McClellan’s legendary delaymalaise would give Lee time to capture Harper’s Ferry and still combine his entire force (though badly outnumbered) in Maryland. One copy of Lee’s battle plan, Special Orders No. 191, intended for General D.H. Hill, was somehow misplaced and found its way into the hands of a Confederate officer, who wrapped them around three fresh cigars and placed the package in his pocket. A few days later, Union sergeant John W. Moss and Corporal Barton W. Mitchell were lounging on the grass on what had recently served as a Confederate campground, when they spied a package nearby. The three “free” cigars were a welcome bounty. A more impressive bounty followed with the discovery of Lee’s order. The men took the document to their company commander, who passed it up the line until one officer recognized the hand-

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered writing of a friend, Robert H. Chilton, Lee’s Adjutant General. The message was immediately taken to McClellan’s headquarters, where he read it with rising interest. It spelled out the location and plan of action for each unit in Lee’s riskily divided army. McClellan exclaimed, “Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.”228 Major Hitchcock of the 123rd Pennsylvania wrote, On our third day’s march we were halted for rest, when an orderly rode through the lines saying to different colonels, “General McClellan will pass this way in ten minutes.” This meant that we were to be ready to cheer “Little Mac”...He was certainly a fine-looking officer and a very striking figure. But whether all this “fuss and feathers” was designed to impress the men, or was a freak of personal vanity, it did not favorably impress our men. Many of the old vets...were very enthusiastic...but...they rather negatived their praises by the remark, “No fighting today; Little Mac has gone to the front. Look out for a fight when he goes to the rear.” This night I succeeded in getting a “bang-up” supper [at twenty-five cents a meal]...at a reb farm house. The old gentleman, talked freely about the war, not concealing his rebel sympathies. He firmly believed we would be whipped...She [his wife] seemed to be a nice old lady...I felt almost unwilling to eat her supper, she looked so tired...She smiled and said she was tired, but couldn’t bear to turn away these hungry boys. She said she had a son in the rebel army, and knew he must be hungry and wet.229

Lee, having received news of the capture of Harper’s Ferry, decided to make his stand in the hills around Sharpsburg, despite the fact that his 18,000 men would be outnumbered 3 to 1 until the troops from Harper’s Ferry rejoined. When one of his officers worried about the odds, Lee told him that McClellan would not attack that day or the next. McClellan proceeded slowly with his first two divisions, arriving near Sharpsburg in the afternoon with the remainder of his army due after dark. The next day, the Federals deployed with extreme lassitude while Jackson’s divisions began to arrive from Harper’s Ferry. After assuring himself that all details had been attended to, McClellan issued orders for an attack the next morning. McClellan’s strength was 70,000. Lee’s was now 40,000, though McClellan had convinced himself that it numbered at least 120,000. The initial clash developed into wholesale slaughter as successive waves of both sides broke against each other. Fresh reserves from both armies added new carnage to the 240-yard by 400-yard cornfield where it was estimated that 228. Shelby Foote, The Civil War, I:671. 229. Frederick L. Hitchcock, War from the Inside, pp. 39,40, 42.

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And the War Came opposing forces surged back and forth 15 times that day. Lee had ridden close to the front. He sensed that his army was in trouble and took a gamble, weakening his right line to bolster Jackson and committing the last of his reserves to his left and center. McClellan remained at his headquarters a mile east of the fighting, unable to see much, even through telescopes, of the undulating, smoke-shrouded battlefield. The Confederate line broke under the pressure at about noon, despite a counter-attack led by a fiddler in the 3rd Arkansas who played the square dance tune, “Granny, will your dog bite…Hellfire, No!” Half of the force was killed or wounded, including the fiddler. Had McClellan seized the moment and attacked with his reserves, some 25,000 soldiers, destruction of the Southern army would have been assured. McClellan gave orders for the men to “hold their positions,” while Lee gambled everything, and the Federal opportunity was lost. The 6th Alabama occupied the most advanced point in the line. When the fighting on the left abated from sheer exhaustion, Lee expected an attack on his center and he rode along the lane by the defenders and informed them that they must hold or risk disaster for his entire army. John Gordon yelled, in a voice loud enough for his men to hear, “These men are going to stay here General, till the sun goes down or victory is won.”230 Gordon was hit by a bullet in the calf of his right leg in the next attack and was struck again higher up that leg in another assault. He remained in the fight and, an hour later, was hit in the left arm suffering a nasty wound that severed an artery. His men pleaded for him to go to the rear but, remembering his promise to Lee, he refused to leave. Then another ball pierced his shoulder. He was still on his feet and moving toward his endangered right when a fifth ball smashed into his face, passing through his left cheek and out his jaw, whereupon he fell forward on his face with blood pouring into his cap. He was saved from drowning in his own blood by an earlier bullet, which had put a hole in that cap. He lapsed into unconsciousness. When he came to, he did not know if he was alive or dead; he attempted to move his leg, to decide the issue. It moved. He crawled a hundred yards to the rear, to the point where a new defensive line had formed. He collapsed, and was removed on a stretcher to a barn with other wounded men. When he regained 230. John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War, p. 84.

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered consciousness, his friend Dr. Weatherly was attending him and Gordon noticed the look of concern on his face. He reassured the Doctor, “You think I am going to die but I am going to get well.”231 A Confederate soldier recalled after the war, “David Barton...in command of Cutshaw’s [Confederate battery], kindly sent his ambulance, with instructions that I be taken to his father’s house in Winchester...I intensely enjoyed the rest and kindness received in that hospitable home, which, I later learned, was repeatedly made desolate by the deaths of its gallant sons who fell in battle. Marshall, the eldest...was killed on the outskirts of Winchester in May, 1862. David, the third son, whom I just mentioned, was killed in December of that same year. Strother, the second son, lost a leg at Chancellorsville and died soon after the war; and Randolph, the fourth son...was seven times wounded...Our mutual cousin, Robert Barton, was shot through the lungs in General Early’s Valley campaign.232

The focus of the battle shifted to a gracefully arched stone bridge, 125 feet in length, spanning the 50-foot wide Antietam Creek. Union General Burnside made two successive attempts to gain the bridge and ford the creek but both went awry, principally due to poor reconnaissance and preparation. The third attempt was a direct charge across the bridge. This time, the Yankees succeeded. Later, the Confederates found a gap in the Federal left which had resulted from forces not keeping pace with each other. General Hill’s attack was directed at untried Northern troops, who became confused under the onslaught and were ineffective. Burnside, witnessing the reversal, pulled back his troops, who were twice the number of the enemy, all the way to the heights overlooking the west bank of the Antietam. He requested reinforcements from McClellan, who told him, “I will send him Miller’s battery. I can do nothing more. I have no infantry.”233 McClellan did not understand that victory was nearly his. He still had two Corps in reserve, which, had they been thrown in, could have destroyed Lee’s depleted ranks. Once again, he was obsessed with his losses and fear of a massive counter-attack. Longstreet wrote later, “We were so badly crushed at the close of the day, 10,000 fresh troops could have come in and taken Lee’s army and everything in it.” McClellan had missed yet another chance. Lee turned around and headed for Virginia, leaving his wounded in Federal hands. McClellan managed no significant pursuit. 231. Ralph Lowell Eckert, John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner, American p. 36. 232. Edward A. Moore, The Story of a Cannoneer under Stonewall Jackson, p. 158 233. New York Tribune, September 19, 1862.

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And the War Came More Americans fell in combat at Antietam than in any prior battle in American history. Casualties: Union — 2,108 killed, 9,549 wounded, 753 missing Confederacy — 1,546 killed, 7,752 wounded, 1,018 missing Result: A tactical standoff, which became a strategic victory for the North when Lee retired to Virginia. McClellan’s excessive caution notwithstanding, he had transformed the Army of the Potomac in a few weeks and they had forced the Army of Northern Virginia into their first-ever retreat. It was the first major battle in the East not won by the Confederates. And it provided Lincoln with his launching platform he needed for the Emancipation Proclamation. At our hospital the heap of amputated legs and arms increased in size until it became several feet in height.234

The smooth-bore musket balls broke bones. The minie ball shattered them. A man shot in the bowels almost always died. In amputations, the convalescents carried the litter to the surgeon, a chloroform cloth was deposited on the dirty face, the target limb was exposed and washed, the knife went quickly through the flesh, exposing the bone to the fine-toothed saw. A tourniquet was kept tight so the soldier would not bleed to death. The limb was thrown on the rising pile outside the tent. Next! When no anesthesia was available, usually ether or chloroform, soldiers bit bullets during surgery. “Soldiers bit so hard that they’d throw their jaws out. So it was determined that two bullets were better, one on each side. That way the bite was more even.”235 The odds of surviving a head wound were one in six. Years later, Union surgeon W. W. Keen provided a medical overview: In the Civil War we knew absolutely nothing of “germs”. Bacteriology — the youngest and greatest science to aid in this conquest of death — did not exist...Sanitation...was crude and unsatisfactory...research had not discovered any of the antitoxins nor the role of the insect world in spreading disease. We operated in old, blood-stained and often pus-stained coats...We used infected instruments...used marine sponges which had been used in prior pus cases and had only been washed in tap water...The silk with which we sewed up all wounds was undisinfected. If there was any difficulty in threading the needle we moistened it with...bacteria-

234.Edward A. Moore, The Story of a Cannoneer under Stonewall Jackson, p. 156. 235. Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, p. 193.

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14. Second Bull Run and Antietam: Opportunity Squandered laden saliva, and rolled it between bacteria-laden fingers...We knew nothing about antiseptics and therefore used none.236

Edward Porter Alexander concluded, in view of the numerical advantage of the Yankees, “a drawn battle, such as we actually did fight, was the best possible outcome one could hope for.” Alexander was certain that the results were entirely wrought, “by the Good Lord’s putting it into McClellan’s heart to keep Fitz-John Porter’s corps entirely out of the battle & Franklin’s nearly all out. I doubt whether many hearts but McClellan’s would have accepted the suggestions, even from a Divine source...For common sense was just shouting, ‘Your adversary is backed against a river, with no bridge & only one ford, & that the worst one in the whole river. If you whip him now you destroy him utterly, root & branch & bag & baggage...and such game is worth great risks.’ … No military genius, but only the commonest kind of every day common sense, was necessary to appreciate that.”237 Major John J. Key, a staff officer working in Halleck’s office and brother of a colonel on McClellan’s staff, was overheard stating his opinion on why the Confederate Army was not destroyed at Antietam: “That is not the game...the object is that neither army shall get much advantage of the other; that both shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, when we will make a compromise and save slavery.”238 Key was interviewed by Lincoln and did not deny the report; Lincoln dismissed him from the service. “Great God,” a Georgia soldier wrote his wife the day after the battle, “what awful things I have to chronicle this morning! One of the most awful battles that was ever fought was fought yesterday[.] It commenced at daylight and continued all day until dark...it looks like they are going to kill all the men in battle before they stop...God grant that it may close and close soon.”239 As Lee’s army crossed into Virginia on September 18, John H. Lewis of the 9th Virginia Infantry noted, “When going over the river [into Maryland] the boys were singing ‘Maryland, my Maryland,’ but all was quiet on that point when we came back. Occasionally some fellow would strike that tune, and you would then hear the echo, ‘Damn My Maryland.”240 236. William Williams Keen, Military Surgery in 1861 and 1918, 12, 18 L. 237. Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 146. 238. Roy P. Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln to John J. Key, September 2627, 5:442-443. 239. Letter of William Stilwell to his Wife, September 18, 1862 240. John H. Lewis, Recollections from 1860-1865, p. 56.

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And the War Came Jefferson Davis complimented Lee and his army, “for the deeds which have covered our flag with imperishable fame.”241 Lee wrote to Davis, “Desertion and straggling have so thinned the ranks of the army it is unable to cope with advantage with the numerous host of the enemy. I find that the discipline of the army...has not been improved by the forced marches and hard service it has lately undergone...one of the greatest evils is the habit of straggling from the ranks. Unless something is done, the army will melt away.”242 Lee lost from one-third to one-half of his effective fighting force before he fought at Antietam, due to straggling — exacerbated by lack of shoes and exhaustion. Significantly, desertions increased after the Confederates returned to Virginia. The Assistant Secretary of War in the Confederate government estimated the number of soldiers on unauthorized absence to be between 50,000 and 100,000. Throughout the summer of 1862, Lincoln’s obsession with the resolution of the slavery issue was intertwined with his worries over the progress of the war. He was thoroughly exasperated with a general who exhibited no desire to fight an all-out war. Accordingly, Lincoln issued orders relieving McClellan, replacing him with a reluctant Ambrose Burnside.

241. Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, vol. 5, p. 346 242.The War of Rebellion, A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Lee to Davis, September 8, 1862, 19, pt. 2:617-627..

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15. SLAUGHTER AT FREDERICKSBURG, JUBILEE WITH EMANCIPATION After Antietam, Lincoln convened the cabinet and told them he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He reminded them that, because of their objections, he had withheld issuing the proclamation when he first reviewed it with them and promised to withhold it until a major victory was won. In the West, the Union continued to expand its control of the Mississippi River. New Orleans had been captured in April and Fort Pillow, 50 miles north of Memphis, had been neutralized. Davis had not believed the North would attack New Orleans from the sea and left it virtually defenseless. He was wrong. The city fell, with the loss of one Northern ship. In October, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed a law exempting from service one white man on each plantation of twenty or more slaves. During Lincoln’s visit with the Army, Chamberlain observed him closely and commented: His figure was striking; stature and bearing uncommon and commanding. The slight stoop of the shoulders, an attitude of habitual in-wrapped thought...His features, strong; if homely...In his deep, over-shadowed eyes, a look as from the innermost of things. Over all this would come at times a play, or pathos... Slowly he rode along...We could see the deep sadness in his face, and feel the burden on his heart...How he shrunk from the costly sacrifice we could see; and we took him into our hearts with answering sympathy and gave him our pity in return.243

243.Joshua L. Chamberlain, My Story of Fredericksburg, p. 148.

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And the War Came Patrick Cleburne was wounded at the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, while organizing a counterattack. A minie ball pierced his left cheek, demolished two teeth in his lower jaw and exited his open mouth. Though he could not speak from the swelling and bleeding, the wound was not serious. In addition to his customary bravery, Cleburne had demonstrated an improved coordination of his command as his troops routed an enemy twice their number, capturing 4300 prisoners. He was wounded in the leg two months later, at Shelbyville, Kentucky, but continued to lead his troops in an attack. Cleburne was highly commended for his conduct in the fruitless, Confederate Kentucky campaigns with special note made of his ability to instill enthusiasm in his subordinates, his penchant for the offensive, and his courage under fire. He was a superb leader of men. In the mid-term elections, the Republicans, having lost badly, blamed their defeat on Lincoln’s management of the war. Major Republican leaders in the House were turned out and Democrats gained twenty-five seats. The Democrats won the governorships of New Jersey and New York, and the state legislatures of Illinois and Indiana. They made sizeable gains in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The Democrats even carried Lincoln’s home District in Illinois. His fellow Republicans and the newspapers alike derided Lincoln as he carefully and painstakingly maneuvered through the complexities of the situation. Nevertheless, the mid-term election losses were the slightest of any incumbent within the last twenty years and Lincoln felt strongly that he and his Party were strong enough to withstand the backlash of McClellan’s removal from command. Lincoln’s sense of humor preserved his equilibrium amid the furor into which his ambition had plunged him. His listeners found his stories very funny, but he was usually the first to start laughing and sometimes could only sputter convulsively at the end of the tale. Perhaps Lincoln’s humor saved his sanity, given his overriding melancholia and the broiling tragedy surrounding him: perhaps it spared the country the catastrophe of a breakdown in his resolve. It was certainly an antidote for the strain of his marvelous but relentless logic. Davis, on the other hand, was a man of modest humor, of quiet, dignified, extremely proper restraint. As with Lincoln, his responsibilities were exceedingly burdensome, but whereas Lincoln’s humor restored much of his vigor each day, Davis weakened physically and grew ill as well as tired. When he did discourse with people, he frequently digressed, rambling on about on some favorite theme, failing to shepherd his valuable time toward the real crisis. Then, when

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15. Slaughter at Fredericksburg, Jubilee with Emancipation he would address the needs of the moment, he would frustrate his companion with interminable hashing of every fine point. He could not, like Lincoln, “work the crowd,” nor pull together diverse factions, nor overlook unpleasant but non-essential traits in the character of men he must use to further the greater purpose. He was a fine man, but in the wrong job. Never was anyone more right for a job than his fellow-sufferer on the Potomac. Down in Tennessee, Patrick Cleburne was promoted to major general, one of twelve in the Army of that rank. His brother Kit, who was twenty-one, had enlisted in Confederate General Morgan’s cavalry. In his annual message to Congress in December, Lincoln wrote, “Our strife pertains to ourselves the passing generations of men; and it can, without convulsion, be hushed forever in the passing of one generation... The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history...the fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation...In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free...We shall nobly save or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth...The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever, and God must forever bless.”244

Lincoln periodically confided to his secretary, Noah Brooks, that he was exhausted. He would repeat that the tired spot was inside him, out of reach and that nothing could touch it. One day a delegation called on Lincoln, headed by a distinguished Doctor of Divinity. They protested Grant being retained in command in the West because of his drinking. Lincoln replied, “Doctor, can you tell me where General Grant gets his liquor?” The doctor, nonplussed, could not. “I am very sorry, for if you could tell me I would direct the Chief Quartermaster of the army to lay in a large stock of the same kind of liquor, and would also direct him to furnish a supply to some of my other generals who have never yet won a victory...”245 Most of his associates thought Lincoln was wasting time with his extensive hours of granting interviews to the public. He was a man who, habitually, worked long hours. He always believed that he gained a great deal from what he termed his “public opinion baths.” There was always the chance to 244. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln, His speeches and Writings, “Annual Message to Congress,” December 1, 1862, 245. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, One Volume Edition, p. 369.

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And the War Came indulge in humor and sometimes it came unexpectedly, such as the day when Lincoln took a visiting child on his lap in the white house and she said, “Oh Pa! he isn’t ugly at all; he’s just beautiful.”246 The child’s “Pa” no doubt wished he were somewhere else. Davis visited the West at that time. He told the Mississippi legislature that the North was no better than a “den of thieves.” “The poor do indeed fight the battles of the country. It is the poor who save nations and make revolutions.” Referring to the success of the Confederate fighters, “In spite of the disparity of numbers, we have always whipped them.” The issue was simple, he told them: “Will you be slaves or will you be independent?” Referring to the hoped-for, but elusive, foreign recognition for the Confederacy, he said, “‘Put not your trust in Princes.’ This war is ours, we must fight it ourselves.” In all respects, moral as well as physical, we are better prepared than we were a year ago. On their [Southern people] valor and the assistance of God I confidently rely.”247 Immediately after Burnside had been placed in command, Halleck told him to propose a plan of action for his army. Lincoln was at his wits’ end. He desperately wanted to strike a blow against the Confederates that would end the war, and end it now. Burnside was cognizant of the fact that McClellan had been sacked because he had proceeded too cautiously. He knew that he must, in oriental parlance, “chop-chop.” Burnside conceived a plan. He would move his forces southwest towards Gordonsville to convince Lee that the city was his destination, then abruptly change direction to the east, heading for Fredericksburg, closer to his supply line and to Richmond. He would cross the Rappahannock before Lee could stop him, take the town and head for Richmond. Burnside’s prominent whisker porkchops were the origin of the word “sideburns.” Halleck was lukewarm toward the oft-repeated and tired strategy of sliding by Lee to get at Richmond, but passed the decision to Lincoln, who diffidently agreed to let Burnside do it his way. Lincoln sensed that speed was of the essence and the army should capture Fredericksburg as soon as it arrived there. He so instructed Burnside, who understood perfectly and agreed.

246. Ibid., p. 397. 247. Patricia L. Faust, ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, pp. 487488.

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15. Slaughter at Fredericksburg, Jubilee with Emancipation Burnside requested supplies, including pontoon boats to cross the Rappahannock (since the Confederates had destroyed the bridges). Halleck assured him the supplies would be waiting for him when he arrived. Burnside moved with alacrity and led his army forty-two miles in two and a half days, from Warrenton to Fredericksburg where only four companies and one cavalry regiment defended for the Confederates. All he had to do was cross the river and the town was his. It had begun raining, and it would pour for days. Rising water threatened the safety of the fords — and the pontoon boats had not arrived. Two of his commanders, Sumner and Hooker, advised crossing, but Burnside felt the rising water might trap the soldiers on the western side of the river, so he declined the move. Evidently Halleck had misunderstood the urgency of the pontoon delivery. Once he did get them moving, the rains turned the roads to mud and bridges were washed out; he had to transfer them to boats. The pontoons arrived in Fredericksburg ten precious days after the first of Burnside’s forces had arrived. Once again, a crucial event in history devolved upon a circumstance involving a routine error. Neither the error nor the unexpected twist of nature alone caused the catastrophe that followed, but the combination did. Lee knew something was happening but he could not feel certain of Burnside’s real objective. He sent Longstreet to Fredericksburg to investigate. A Confederate cavalry unit, scouting the area, had reported the presence of the Federals, in force, two days after their arrival at the Rappahannock across from Fredericksburg. Lee directed Longstreet to continue on to Fredericksburg and occupy the high ground south of the city and ordered the rest of his forces, including Jackson’s, to join Longstreet. When Lee arrived at Fredericksburg, he established a textbook defensive position in the wooded elevations overlooking the plain on the south side of the river. Jackson was deployed in the woods downriver. Lee ordered trees felled to provide a commanding view of the broad, wide plain from the river to the rise known as Marye’s Heights. Lee advised the residents to evacuate.

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And the War Came THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG, DECEMBER 11-14, 1862 Location: Fredericksburg, VA, about 30 miles south of Washington. Generals Commanding: Union: Ambrose E. Burnside Confederacy: Robert E. Lee Troops available (the most ever confronting each other in the war): Union — 116,683 Confederacy — 72,564 Burnside was keenly aware that many of his officers felt the opportunity had been lost and they opposed his battle plan. The chance of success, now, was slim; the chance of being slaughtered was overwhelming. Why did Burnside elect to go ahead, in view of Lee’s position and preparations, the disadvantage of running pontoon bridges across the river under sniper fire and the discouraging necessity of crossing a broad plain to attack an entrenched enemy? It is possible that he simply could not bring himself to tell Washington that he was adding one more delay to the nauseating series of procrastinations produced by his predecessor. It was a gamble, either bold or foolhardy, but if he chose not to fight, certain disgrace awaited him. In fact, Lee’s carefully prepared defenses, with their magnificent natural advantages, would be about as perfect as any general ever had or could ever want. Lee was so confident in the fighting spirit of his army he was impatient for Burnside to attack. He told Dorsey Pender, “he would be willing to fall back and let them cross for the sake of a fight.”248 The attack was set for the next morning. That night the Federal bands, within earshot of both armies, played “Hail Columbia,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and “Yankee Doodle,” and, after a thoughtful pause, “Dixie.” The fog lifted at 10:00 a.m. and the Northern troops moved out to cross the plain, advancing uphill against artillery and lines of Confederates four deep behind a stone wall by a sunken road. Artillery fire tore holes in their advancing

248. Southern Historical Society Papers, Pender Papers, William D. Pender to his wife, December 3, 1862.

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15. Slaughter at Fredericksburg, Jubilee with Emancipation ranks. Artillery Colonel Porter Alexander told Longstreet, “General, a chicken could not live on that field when we open on it.”249 When they approached within 125 yards of the Confederate ranks, the waiting soldiers rose up like a wall and fired in sheets of flame. Confederate volley followed upon volley. Most Yankees fell to the dubious cover of the barren incline. A quarter of the first brigade up the hill fell as casualties. Then a whole division was demolished. The slaughter continued as Union soldiers futilely endeavored to storm the wall of fire. Each new brigade, coming in succession, would be staggered, first by artillery, then by infantry-fire until they were dead, wounded or clinging to the ground, slippery with the blood of the fallen, desperately struggling to avoid the fate of their predecessors. The soldiers making this charge were being paid $13/ month. Federal General Griffin cried, “There goes one of my brigades to Hell, and the other two will soon follow.”250 Four divisions had tried and failed to take the enemy position. After two hours, the Federals paused to regroup. Burnside would not change his obviously failing tactics and ordered Hooker to cross the Rappahannock and assault Marye’s Heights with his division. Brigade after brigade ran into the fire-storm of quadruple Confederate lines standing behind the shoulder-high wall by the sunken road. General Andrew Humphreys led his second brigade (which included his son) to the fray. Seven divisions had now been thrown at Marye’s Heights incurring about 7,000 casualties to the Confederates’ twelve hundred. Not a Union soldier had reached the wall. Chamberlain watched from the Yankee side of the Rappahannock as the first waves of Federal troops went to their slaughter advancing on Marye’s Heights. At about 3:00 p.m., the Twentieth Maine was ordered across the river There were fourteen or fifteen separate attempts to take that cursed stone wall by the sunken road. Following that futile, fifteenth charge, Chamberlain was lying on the frigid ground, unhurt, in a depression near the last crest before the stone wall. He had no overcoat and no blanket. At nightfall, he made his bed between two dark,

249. The War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 21, pp. 549-552. 250.Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, or Sunshine and Shadows of the War of the Rebellion: A Story of the Great Civil War from Bull Run to Appomattox, p. 213.

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And the War Came motionless forms, and pulled the overcoat skirt of one of them over his head for warmth. He slept uneasily and was startled awake when a hand pulled back the coat skirt and a dark head peered into his face. When he opened his mouth to speak, the scrounger went off elsewhere to look for booty. A small New Testament fell from the coat of the body at his head and Chamberlain took it with the thought of returning it to the man’s family. The next morning, the Sabbath, found the Twentieth Maine about eighty yards from the wall in the rear of the last crest before it. They spent that day being fired upon by sharpshooters on their flanks and they neither advanced nor retreated. Their last orders were, “Hold this ground at all hazards, and to the last.” A New Yorker who had joined the Confederate Army killed his youngest brother at Fredericksburg — and discovered the fact only when he turned his victim over to strip him. During the previous night the bitter cold froze bodies as soon as they were dead. A distraught Burnside visited his commands that evening, aware of the disaster and wishing he could change places with some of the men dead on the plain. He ordered an attack in the morning, probably wishing to lead it himself. General Sumner came to him with severe objections and Burnside asked the advice of his other commanders. Their counsel was unanimously negative so he relented, calling off the attack. At noon the next day, he decided to withdraw. Richard Kirkland, 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, 19 years old, asked permission to take water to the Federals on the field. He was warned he might be shot and was refused permission to show a white handkerchief lest the enemy think a parley was sought. Kirkland went ahead and spent hours tending to the men on the ground. He was nicknamed, “The Angel of Fredericksburg,” and a street in that town was later named for him. A Union soldier philosophized, “The feeling was deep and universal that it was of but little use to fight, unless the government could find someone to command who would not throw away our lives in useless experiments...It was evident to the most ordinary soldier in the ranks...that we were constantly outgeneralled rather than whipped.”251 “It was a slaughter pen,” exclaimed one Union officer, “they might as well have tried to take hell.”252 251. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private, p. 134=135.

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15. Slaughter at Fredericksburg, Jubilee with Emancipation Casualties: Union — 12,535 killed or wounded Confederacy — about 5,000 killed or wounded Combined casualties were three times as many as the United States suffered on D-Day of the Invasion of France. Result: Wanton destruction of Union soldiers’ lives in a horrible Federal defeat. There followed a complete loss of confidence in the military leadership among the ranks and among the officers of the Army of the Potomac. More and more people in the North called for a negotiated peace. Lincoln was reaching the end of his tether. Was there no man who could lead his troops to victory? The French government suggested mediation. Former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin R. Curtis cried, “He [Lincoln] is shattered, dazed, and utterly foolish. It would not surprise me if he were to destroy himself.”253 Vice President Hamlin said about Lincoln, “He is a good man if there ever was one—but God did not make him of such stuff as these times demand.”254 A Yankee soldier wrote: “If it were not treason to tell the truth I would say that the whole army would run home if they had the chance.” “We are all tired of the war, the whole army,” said another, “we never shall whip them I believe.”255 The editor of the Cincinnati Commercial thought the President “an awful, woeful ass.” Winston Churchill would later write of Lincoln: “Fortitude was written on his countenance.”256 On New Year’s Day, 1863, Lincoln issued his Proclamation. “All persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

252.Kennedy, Kunhardt, and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p. 194. 253. Ibid., 423. 254. Ibid., p.426. 255. Randall C. Jimerson, The Private Civil War: Popular Thought during the Sectional Conflict, p. 230. 256.Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. iv, p. 215.

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And the War Came The Proclamation took away property valued on tax books at nearly $3 billion, severely impacting Union sympathizers in the South as well as Confederates. McClellan considered publicly opposing the Proclamation, but was dissuaded by Montgomery Blair. Many Northern soldiers had enlisted and re-enlisted to fight to maintain the Union. Some people felt that the men would be upset to think they were fighting to free the negroes; the main thing was to put down the Southern rebellion. Lincoln didn’t think so. He felt when the people had time to reflect on the situation, as he had reflected on it, they would see it as the best course for the future of the nation. The London Times believed the Emancipation Proclamation had “proved a solvent which has loosened the Federal bond in the North itself,” and predicted the imminent secession of the western states.257 Lincoln then named his fifth General of the Army of the Potomac, Joe Hooker. He took command of a dispirited as well as underfed force of men. If mud had slopped into the spirits of the Army of the Potomac, they had little better to put in their stomachs. The staple food of the Union army was hardtack. Hardtack is a plain flour and water biscuit measuring three and one-eighth by two and seven-eighths inches, and nearly half an inch thick. It became the standard ration, nine or ten constituting a ration — a hungry man could eat ten in a short time and still be not be full. They usually came in one of three conditions. The first was when they were so hard that they could not be bitten; it then required a very strong blow of the fist to break them...They could not be soaked soft, but if that were tried they assumed, in a little while, the elasticity of gutta percha. The second case was when they were moldy or wet. The third condition was when, from long storage, they had become infested with maggots and weevils. Eaten in the dark, no one could tell the difference between an infested cake and hardtack that was untenanted. It was not uncommon occurrence for a man to find the surface of his pot of coffee swimming with weevils, after breaking up hardtack in it. The weevils had exited the fragments, like rats leaving a sinking ship, only to drown with a caffeine high.258 257. New York Herald, March 5, 1863. 258. John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, pp.113-116.

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15. Slaughter at Fredericksburg, Jubilee with Emancipation After Fredericksburg, Lee wrote Davis, “the absolute necessity exists...to increase our armies. Due to the disparity of numbers (between our two armies), victory if attained, can only be achieved by a terrible expenditure of the most precious blood of the country, which will be upon the hands of the thousands of able bodied men who remain at home in safety and in ease. The country has yet to learn how often, advantages, secured at the expense of many valuable lives, have failed to produce their legitimate results by reason of our inability to prosecute them. This is the difference ‘between the defeat of an army and its ruin.’ More than once have most promising opportunities been lost for want of men to take advantage of them, and victory itself has been made to put on the appearance of defeat, because our diminished and exhausted troops have been unable to renew a successful struggle against fresh numbers of the enemy. The lives of our soldiers are too precious to be sacrificed in the attainment of successes that inflict no loss upon the enemy beyond the actual loss in battle.”259 It was through Lincoln’s insistence that some mounted infantrymen received the Spencer repeating rifles. Chief of Ordnance, James W. Ripley, had rejected them for infantrymen because he thought it would lead to a colossal waste of ammunition. Although they could not have been produced in sufficient quantities to arm the entire infantry early in the war, some prominent scholars believe the Union could have won the war in 1862 had they been in general usage then. Where picket lines of both armies were near each other, there was fraternization: this was manifested daily on the picket-line, not only in talk across the river (the Rappahannock), but in communication by means of miniature boats. Adjutant Hitchcock recalled, “Our men were generally short of tobacco, and the Johnnies had an abundance of this article of the very best quality; on the other hand, our men were long on coffee, of which commodity they were short... ‘Say, Yank, if I send you over a boat-load of backy will ye send her back filled with coffee?’...Newspapers soon were called for by ‘Johnny,’...for the rebels were wild to get our papers.”260 Many soldiers worked hard to learn to write their own letters and then applied pressure on those back home to emulate their proud achievement, as did Private W.W. Brown in a letter written to his mother in Georgia:

259. Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, Lee to Seddon, January 10, 1863, pp. 388-390. 260. Frederick L. Hitchcock, War From the Inside, p. 184.

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And the War Came Mother when you wright to me get somebody to wright that can wright a plain hand to read I Cold not read your leter to make sence of it is wrote so bad I have lurned to do my own wrading and writing and it is a grate help to me.261

That March, the Confederate Congress authorized the army to supply its needs by impressment. The Yankee blockade and occupation of food-producing areas by Northern troops were severely hampering Southern imports and production. Impressment meant seizure of private property from civilians: foodstuffs, horses, livestock and equipment deemed useful to the military, in return for certificates of credit. The measure also permitted seizure of slaves for military labor. The impressment may have been the most hated Confederate government action of the war. Its intentions were good but it developed into a gross evil bitterly resented by the populace. Davis, like so many chief executives in history, was isolated. He had little choice in applying hardships, but he may also have been insensitive to the problems besetting ordinary, non-planter Southerners who suffered from inflation, shortages, speculation and impressment.

261. Letter of W.W. Brown to his Mother, August 2, 1863.

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16. THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE: LINCOLN’S DEPRESSION GROWS Hooker, full of bombast as usual, would tell anyone who would listen that he had the finest army on the planet and that it was only a matter of time before he would take Richmond. Lee was camped about three miles away from Hooker. Lee’s troops were freezing and nearly starved. Many were without shoes, some without socks, shirts or blankets and most without overcoats. Meat rations were cut to a paltry four ounces of bacon per day. Vegetables were scarce. The horses lacked fodder, a commodity which no longer existed in northern Virginia. Orders were issued in Jackson’s division, directing that the men should get the hides of the cattle that were daily killed and make moccasins of them. The South was also ravaged by inflation. The base index had ballooned from 100 in February, 1861, to 686 in early 1863. During the same period in the North, the index had increased to only 114. For some families, without their men folk to provide at home, conditions were severe. Lizzie Neblett wrote to her soldier husband, Will, of her anguish in trying to control eleven slaves: “I am so sick of trying to do a man’s business…tied to the house by a crying young one…The negroes are doing nothing….so high in anticipation of their glorious freedom by the Yankees…that they resist a whipping… I don’t think we have one who will stay with us.”262 The somnolent cadence of the winter routine in the camps was interrupted by the staccato sounds of breaking up and packing, readying for more marches 262. Neblett Papers, Lizzie Neblett to Will Neblett, August 18, 1863.

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And the War Came and battles as the third year of the war began, piling combat death and maiming onto death from disease, and percolating misery throughout a land already sodden with sorrow and regret. “Fighting Joe” Hooker set his mind toward meeting and defeating “Bobby” Lee. Lincoln wanted Hooker to meet Lee; and Joe was on his way.

THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY 1-6, 1863 Location: Chancellorsville, Virginia, a country crossroads some 30 miles west of Fredericksburg Generals Commanding: Union: Joe Hooker Confederacy: Robert E. Lee Key Supporting Generals: Union: John Reynolds, 43, graduated 26th in his class at West Point, Mexican War veteran, former commander of West Point, superb tactician, brilliant fighter. George Gordon Meade, 48, born in Spain, graduated 19th in his class of 56 at West Point, former engineer, Mexican war veteran, called “old snapping turtle,” discerning grasp of tactical or strategic situations, refused to play politics or criticize superiors, had the confidence but not the affection of his men. Daniel E. Sickles, 44, a Democratic politician who had served in Congress, shot and killed the son of Francis Scott Key for having an affair with his wife. His “temporary insanity” defense, the first of its kind, was managed by Edward Stanton. He was acquitted. The next day he told friends, “Of course I intended to kill him. He deserved it.”263 His biographer, W. A. Sawnburg, quoted Shakespeare’s King Lear, referring to his subject, “He hath ever but slenderly known himself.”264 Confederacy: James Longstreet Thomas J. Jackson

263. W.A. Sawnburg, Sickles the Incredible, p. 67. 264.Ibid.

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16. The Battle of Chancellorsville: Lincoln’s Depression Grows James Ewell Brown Stuart, graduated 13th in his class at West Point, was requested by Lee as an aide in quelling the John Brown affair at Harper’s Ferry, called the “Cavalier of Dixie,” courageous, famous for his circumnavigations of Union armies while scouting their whereabouts. Troops available: Union — 130,000 Confederacy — 60,000 Motivation: A new Federal general’s need to satisfy Washington’s desire that his army attack as soon as winter weather conditions abated. Union plan: Envelop Lee’s left flank with troops and cavalry and threaten his right flank at Fredericksburg. Hooker’s plan would hurl 70,000 men at Lee’s left flank while two corps would approach Fredericksburg and deploy as if to attack Jackson’s troops on the Confederate right flank, hopefully confusing Lee. Two corps would stay put, to be used where they would be the most effective. The Twentieth Maine moved out of their winter quarters as one wag described it, “The army commenced its annual movement toward Richmond, this time its route by way of Chancellorsville.” The regiment had been placed in quarantine a few weeks before because defective smallpox vaccine had been administered to eighty of its men, some of whom died. Accordingly, the outfit was held back from the front lines. Chamberlain went to general headquarters, asking for assignment on the battlefield. “If we couldn’t do anything else, we could give the enemy the smallpox.”265 They were assigned guard duty, protecting Hooker’s telegraph and signal lines in the rear. Reputation was a cherished thing, in those days. When the troops anticipated going into battle soon, some would throw away their decks of playing cards rather than risk being found dead on the battlefield with frivolous and ungodly items on their persons, which might be reported to the folks at home. Not only were Lee’s forces severely outnumbered by Hooker but he was also at a 2:1 disadvantage in cannon. Hooker was supremely confident. “My plans are perfect,” he crowed, “and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Bobby Lee; for I shall have none.”266 265. Annual Reports of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine, 1864-1865, I:331.

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And the War Came On May 1, near Chancellorsville, the Union army was marching on the Plank Road and the Turnpike. Jackson, with only 14,000 men, was also moving on the same roads, but in the opposite direction. Fighting erupted southeast of Chancellorsville. Things were going well for the Federals when, inexplicably, orders arrived from Hooker to stop the advance, disengage the enemy and return to Chancellorsville where they had begun the night before. His generals were stupefied by these orders, unaware that Hooker had lost his nerve and was going on the defensive. Hooker had expected Lee to retreat in the face of such great odds and, when he did not, and showed signs of resistance, Hooker panicked. And thus the Union army, followed step by step by the enemy, fell back to fight a defensive battle. After being told that Hooker’s right was not anchored, Lee had the audacity to split his already outnumbered force and he sent Jackson on a quick march around the Federal right. Hooker thought Lee was retreating. Jackson’s force, arriving at the right flank of the Northern lines at 5:00 p.m., ordered an attack and the soldiers surged forward, screaming the rebel yell. The Federals, lounging in camp, hardly got off a shot and retreated wildly into the forest. It turned into a rout. The Confederates advanced two miles before darkness and separation from their commands brought them to a halt. Jackson, not satisfied with the victory at hand, rode forward to scout out a road for a night attack, determined to completely destroy the enemy. Around 9:00 p.m., as he returned, numerous soldiers from the 18th North Carolina mistook his party for Federals and opened fire on them. Three bullets found Jackson. He was taken to the rear, where his arm was amputated. When Lee was informed of his wounding, he was nearly in tears. Jackson died of pneumonia shortly thereafter Hooker still had the upper hand with 76,000 troops around Chancellorsville, twice as many as Lee’s force which was still divided and separated by two miles. Hooker could smash the divided Confederate forces one at a time, but he was obsessed with remaining on the defensive and even ordered General Sickles to abandon a strong position and pull back. At one point Hooker was stunned by the explosion of a shell nearby and the army was without a sentient commander for several hours. When he

266. Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian, vol. II, p. 262

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16. The Battle of Chancellorsville: Lincoln’s Depression Grows recovered, he still let slide several opportunities and remained in a defensive posture to the disgust of his subordinates. Casualties: Union — 1,606 killed, 9762 wounded, 5,919 missing Confederacy — 1,581 killed, 8,700 wounded, 2,545 missing The Federals had lost 17,000 men. Lee lost 13,000 men, proportionally higher. The Army of Northern Virginia lost a staggering number of invaluable officers, including two division leaders, 11 brigadiers, and 40 regimental commanders. Result: A stunning Confederate victory against great odds due to the remarkable boldness of Lee and Jackson and an equal measure of unaccustomed timidity on Hooker’s part. But, the Confederates suffered a fateful cost in irreplaceable officers at all levels. Lee was now revered among the Confederates, along with Jackson, both brazenly challenging the entrenched power of the Yankees. As usual, the Confederates lost fewer men in the battle, but a higher percentage of their forces engaged, indeed, of their total active manpower. And, as usual, they lost too many courageous leaders, of which they were running crucially short and whom they would miss dearly during the remainder of the war. The Southern performance was glorious but sprinkled with the seeds of ultimate disaster. Hooker joined the list of Northern failures. “One general after another [Union] had his army whipped and came back with a list of excuses as long as his casualty list.”267 Superior forces, poorly led; unlimited resources to no avail (except to the enemy); casualties mounting; hostilities prolonged; another month another 10,000 dead of illness; another battle another 10,000 plus casualties. Lincoln, already subject to fits of depression, was facing despair. The Peace Democrats were calling ever more loudly for a negotiated settlement, even, if necessary, including recognition of independence for the South. When Lincoln received the bad news from Chancellorsville by telegraph, his friend Noah Brooks said, “Never as long as I knew him did he seem to be so

267. Donald McCaig, Jacob’s Ladder, p. 244.

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And the War Came broken, so dispirited and so ghostlike.” Lincoln paced back and forth in agony, exclaiming, “My God! My God! What will the country say?”268 Meanwhile, the rank and file of the Army of the Potomac soldiered on despite the debacles engendered by a succession of incompetent commanding generals. A tedious succession of command mediocrity and incompetence did not shake heir faith in themselves, their sundered nation, nor the plain, often ungainly but as often majestic Illinois plainsman whose own vision for the broken Union was as obdurate as Vermont granite. For their part, after Chancellorsville, the Southern army was sure that the North could never come up with a general who could defeat Robert E. Lee. Confederate Randolph McKim wrote, “Major Wm. Duncan McKim was killed in the conflict...he was the only officer in the division who remained mounted in the midst of that frightful hail of bullets...the day before he had received a severe contusion on the leg from grapeshot and the brigade surgeon told him he was unfit for battle...but Duncan could not be restrained...he refused to dismount because he knew he could not walk...I was now the last survivor of the three of my name who had entered the Confederate service at the outbreak of the war.”269 For his role in the battle, Lee appointed John Gordon Brigadier General. A plan was maturing in Lee’s mind. He would move to the Shenandoah River, then back into the rich farmlands of Pennsylvania, where Hooker would be forced to follow, thus eliminating any threat to Richmond and giving more opportunity to the Peace Democrats and anti-Lincoln forces to convince the North to give up the war. He felt a general engagement was to be avoided; but there might be a chance to destroy a part of the Federal Army. He faced a decreasing supply of manpower, and in that, the North was gaining steadily. Lee realized how badly outnumbered he was. In addition, his army was no longer sufficiently or properly officered. Yet, in his troops his pride was boundless. He was convinced they could accomplish anything, anywhere, if properly led. Throughout the preparation for, and during the initial stages of, the campaign, Lee’s beloved “War-Horse” General Longstreet labored zealously to convince Lee to adopt a defensive posture once in Pennsylvania. He never heard

268. Herbert Mitgang, ed., Noah Brooks, Washington, D.C. in Lincoln’s Time(Journalist’s Lincoln), pp. 57-58 269. Randolph H. McKim, A Soldier’s Recollections, p. 132.

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16. The Battle of Chancellorsville: Lincoln’s Depression Grows definitive disagreement from Lee and, consequently, regarded this happy circumstance as tacit agreement with his proposal. He assumed Lee was committed to defensive tactics, while holding an option for an offensive strike should any appropriately attractive opportunities present themselves. Longstreet’s assumption would become crucial at Gettysburg. In the nocturnal quiet and darkness of the White House, the sleepless Lincoln wandered, a tall and angular skeleton, shrouded in his long yellow nightshirt. He moved about, his slippers flip-flopping, obsessively preoccupied and utterly exhausted. The lines of one of his favorite poems — “The Dream,” by Byron — cascaded through his tortured mind: And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise Have a far deeper madness — and the glance of melancholy is a fearful gift; What is it but the telescope of truth? Which strips the distance of its fantasies. And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making cold reality too real!

The forlorn man fell in a heap into a chair, like a jack-knife folding up, into a fetal position, and sobbed uncontrollably, friendless and without the support of even a wife who could help him to endure. This was one of his most extreme depressions, or hypos, as he liked to refer to them. Nevertheless, he rallied once again to dedicate himself to the unfinished task.

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17. GETTYSURG AND VICKSBURG: THE WRITING ON THE WALL As he was marching into Pennsylvania, Lee pointed to the town of Gettysburg on his map and predicted, “Hereabout we shall probably meet the enemy and fight a great battle, and if God gives us the victory, the war will be over and we shall achieve the recognition of our independence.”270 In a letter home, an Irish-born carpenter from Massachusetts rebuked his wife and father-in-law who criticized him for risking his life for the war aims of the Lincoln Administration. “This is the first test of a modern free government in the act of sustaining itself against internal enemies. If it fails then the hopes of millions fall and the designs and wishes of all the tyrants will succeed. The old cry will be sent forth from the aristocrats of Europe that such is the common lot of all republics...Irishmen and their descendants have...a stake in this nation...America is Irland’s refuge Irlands last hope destroy this republic and her hopes are blasted.”271 The number of Irish who came to America had risen from 52,000 in the 1820s to more than a million in the 1850s (largely due to the potato famine). This represented about 12 per cent of the total population of that country. In fact, these statistics are low due to shoddy immigration paperwork procedures.

270. Southern Historical Society Papers, 26:121 271. Laurence Frederick Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard, eds., Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Peter Welsh letter to Mary Welsh, February 3, 1863, Peter Welsh to Patrick Prendergast, June 1, 1863, pp.65-66, 102.

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And the War Came Something more like 25 per cent of the population joined the “Irish Diaspora” in the 1850s, leaving a home population of four million, the level of 1750. Marching into Pennsylvania, the Southern boys were shocked by the natural beauty of the countryside and the opulence of the Northern farmers. Rich soil, fat livestock, stone homes and huge barns belied the tales that had been told about free labor vs. slave labor. Perhaps there was more to the story than they had been told. At the same time, one scornful Southerner described his view of Yankee households. “They live in real Yankee style wife & daughters...doing all the work. It makes me more than ever devoted to our own Southern institutions.”272 John B. Gordon and his men marched north into Pennsylvania and he told the frightened inhabitants of York that he would have the “head of any soldier under my command who destroyed private property, disturbed the repose of a single home, or insulted a woman.”273 After Chancellorsville, an important change occurred in the Union army. The new officers who were now rising through the ranks would provide a leadership that had been missing — and would prove conclusively that leadership was all the soldiers had lacked heretofore. At the beginning of the war, courage and valor were deemed the essential qualities necessary for victory, the manly virtues of standing up face-to-face against the enemy with solid, unwavering ranks. Reality came in the form of the rifle and its deadly, improved bullet, the minie ball. The rifled bore imparted a spinning motion to the minie ball. James H. Burton had modified the conoidalshaped minie ball developed by French officer Claude Etienne Minie, and the altered projectile cut through the air and traveled much further and more accurately than a ball. The modification removed a wooden plug at the projectile’s base, leaving a hollow base which expanded upon explosion, trapping the force of the blast and permitting the bullet to grip the gun’s rifling grooves for a tight spin. The recess in its base trapped the gasses and expanded the soft lead edges of the bullet into the rifles grooves imparting much greater velocity and improved accuracy as compared to smooth bore rifles in which the ball literally bounced down the barrel. Accuracy improved from 50 yards to 200 yards in skilled hands.

272. William Calder, letter to his mother, 6/26/63. 273. John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War, p. 143.

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall In his Personal Memoirs, General Grant wrote that an enemy could fire at you with a smooth-bore musket from several hundred yards distance “all day without your finding it out.”274 Because of the range of the newly developed bullets, armies formed further apart and attackers had to cover greater distances under fire to get at the defenders. Retreating soldiers also used rifles for better defense, rendering battles less decisive. According to the research of scholar Paddy Griffith, the average distance of infantry fights was 127 yards. A skilled infantryman could fire three rounds a minute. After eight shots in succession, his rifle barrel would be extremely hot from the explosions and the friction of the bullets gripping the grooves. After twelve firings, he could not touch the barrel even through a piece of his clothing. After four minutes in action, therefore, he could no longer shoot at the enemy; but they would still be shooting at him. After ten rounds with a black powder weapon, the crust of burnt gunpowder would foul the barrel and great strength was required to ram the bullet home. Since the residue filled the grooves first, accuracy declined steadily. After twelve firings the gun was virtually unusable so he had to search for a replacement, often from the dead or wounded, or clean his rifle while either hiding behind a tree or other protection, or while lying down. The cleaning process required water, patches and percussion caps, and took several minutes. Units that experienced water shortages were in deep trouble during a battle. The problems of keeping a rifle usable could explain the falling behind of many soldiers during attack or soldiers drifting away from their units during battle. Lincoln accepted Hooker’s resignation following a wrangle over whether to relieve the garrison at Harper’s Ferry. Resisting pressure from important Pennsylvanians to reappoint McClellan, the President named Gordon Meade, himself a Pennsylvanian, to lead the Army of the Potomac.

THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 1-3, 1863 Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a small crossroads town about 60 miles north of Washington with 2391 residents, of which 8 per cent were black (the town had been a stop on the “underground railroad”). Eighty per cent of the residents were born in Pennsylvania; one in fourteen listed European birthplaces. It had twice the percentage of immigrants found in Southern states but well below 274. Joseph T. Glatthaar, Battlefield Tactics, p. 63.

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And the War Came the 20 per cent aggregate of the North. Black children attended a separate “colored” school. There were twenty-two shoemakers in the town but no shoe factory nor shoe warehouse. Lincoln had received 54 per cent of the town’s 1860 vote. In 1864, Gettysburg would vote for Lincoln, against the Democrats and McClellan, 259 to 178. Generals Commanding: Union: George Meade Confederacy: Robert E. Lee Key Supporting Generals: Union: John Reynolds Winfield Scott Hancock Confederacy: James Longstreet A. P. Hill Richard Stoddard Ewell: 46, Virginian, West Point, Mexican War veteran, Indian fighter, lost a leg in the battle of Second Bull Run and was recuperated until the battle of Gettysburg. Troops available: Union — 85,500 Confederacy — 75,000 Confederate Plan: Move north into Pennsylvania under cover of the Blue Ridge Mountains, feed the nearly starving soldiers off the land, confuse the enemy as to Lee’s intentions, capture Harrisburg if practicable, then the rail line from there to Philadelphia; engage the Union army, if they appeared, on ground of Lee’s choosing; if not, head for Washington or Baltimore and wreak more havoc until the Yankee forces did appear. The crossing into Maryland began on June 15 and into Pennsylvania on the 24th. The plan started off well. Removing the troops from Virginia gave that state a respite during which to regenerate food production. The Northern army lost several days before it had intelligence of Lee’s movements and had to proceed at a grueling pace to catch up. On July 1, Confederate General Heth’s 7500 men advanced toward Gettysburg, expecting to roll over the local militia. Unknown to the General, Union General Buford was in Gettysburg with his cavalry regulars. He stretched his

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall lines thin, determined to hold off the rebels until support arrived. Heth was surprised by the strength of the Federal resistance, which slowed his advance. Buford’s dismounted troopers were beginning to give way when General Reynolds arrived and threw his men into line, riding among them and shouting encouragement. Suddenly he was it by a bullet in the back of his head and fell dead from his horse. Reynolds was one of the most highly regarded generals in the Union and had turned downed Lincoln’s offer of Command of the Army of the Potomac when Hooker was relieved. Major General Abner Doubleday (erroneously credited, by some, as the inventor of baseball) took charge for Reynolds. Doubleday was nicknamed “Forty-Eight Hours” because of his McClellan-like slowness in conducting operations. The Union troops on the Federal right were caught in a deadly crossfire as General Early’s forces attacked from the north while other Southern groups assaulted from the west. After sustained and fierce combat, the Federal lines broke and, by 4:30 p.m., both Union corps were retreating toward Gettysburg. General Gordon engaged the Federals north of town and drove them back, fleeing through town to the south. Gordon’s 1,200 men had inflicted 1,200 to 1,500 Yankee casualties and captured 1,800 more in an hour. As Gordon was riding through his lines on his midnight black stallion an officer asked him where his fallen were laid. “I haven’t got any, sir,” he answered. “The almighty has covered my men with his shield and buckler.”275 Later that evening, Lee shifted his entire army to the right to attack the Federal left. Confusion over orders from Lee caused a delay or postponement of the Confederate assaults. Lack of pursuit probably saved the Union army from defeat in one day at Gettysburg. At the end of that first day, the Federals retreated from McPherson’s Ridge to Cemetery Ridge south of town. Had the onrushing rebels managed to mount a unified assault on Cemetery Hill, or had Early attempted to take Culp’s Hill, the battle of Gettysburg might have ended then and there, a Confederate victory. The Confederates had won day one, but Meade’s forces were marching rapidly toward Gettysburg. Lee’s plan for July 2 was for Longstreet’s divisions to attack the Federal left en echelon, from right to left, with Hill continuing the

275. Mark Perry, Conceived in Liberty, Joshua Chamberlain, William Oates and the American Civil War, p. 206.

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And the War Came movement in turn against the Federal center while Ewell initiated a diversionary attack against the Federal right. Longstreet, trying to avoid detection during his march to get in position, as instructed, ended up retracing his steps and losing time. It was after 3:30 p.m. before his men were in place. Things had changed along the Union front and an entire corps was now waiting for him. Meade used the short arc of his interior lines adroitly to rush men from quiet sectors to hot spots. The unevenness of the Confederate attacks abetted his strategy. Lee’s plan for the echelon attack was frustrated by his lieutenants’ inability to execute the difficult movement precisely, resulting in attacks in fits and starts, without concert and rhythm, ending in confusion. The battle was raging below in the Devil’s Den and Peach Orchard. Colonel Vincent positioned his brigade in a quarter circle around the southern spur, some distance below the peak, of Little Round Top. This was the most effective place for artillery. The Twentieth Maine, numbering a little more than 358 men and 28 officers, held down the left, facing the 305-foot promontory of Big Round Top. The position had to be held in the face of an assault expected momentarily or the Federal left would be turned. If the Confederates should occupy the Round Tops, they would interdict Federal supplies and the road to Washington would be open to them. The last words Chamberlain heard from Vincent were, “Hold that ground at all hazards.” Chamberlain sent out about forty skirmishers to protect his exposed left flank and released the regimental pioneers, provost guard and their Union prisoners to take up muskets. His regiment took shelter behind the rocks and trees. Seven Southern regiments headed for the southern spur of Little Round Top. Colonel Oates’ 15th Alabama was endeavoring to march around the Union left flank as he had been ordered when he had won control of Big Round Top. Moving behind his ranks and preparing his thoughts for battle, the sudden silence of Confederate artillery warned Chamberlain that Southern infantry was close. Soon the 20th was engaged all along the line. Chamberlain was alerted by Lt. Nichols that something odd was going on behind the attacker’s lines. Chamberlain climbed on top of a rock to see Oates’ Alabamans marching around his left flank. He ordered the men to keep firing, to conceal a sidestep movement to the left and rear. It was executed flawlessly, a payoff for hours of drill and discipline. Oates wheeled his men left, expecting to have flanked the Federals, only to

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall be met with a terrific surge of fire, “the most destructive I have ever seen,” he declared.276 The Confederate lines were ripped apart, but they kept coming. They were within 30 feet of the Yankees before being forced to retire. A series of new attacks followed and the edge of the fight rolled backward and forward like a wave. As the conflict extended to two hours, Chamberlain observed. “The two lines met and broke and mingled in the shock. The crash of musketry gave way to cuts and thrusts, grapplings and wrestlings. The edge of the conflict swayed to and fro, with wild whirlpools and eddies. At times I saw around me more of the enemy than of my own men; gaps opening, swallowing, closing again with sharp convulsive energy; squads of stalwart men who had cut their way through us, disappearing as if translated. All around, strange mingled roar — shouts of defiance, rally, and desperation; and underneath, murmured entreaty and stifled moans; gasping prayers, snatches of Sabbath song, whispers of loved names; everywhere men torn and broken, staggering, creeping, quivering on the earth, and dead faces with strangely fixed eyes staring into the sky, things which cannot be told or dreamed. How men held on, each one knows — not I. But manhood commands admiration.”277 One third of the 20th Maine was dead or badly wounded. Chamberlain’s men were virtually without ammunition. Some officers were shouting that they were “annihilated.” He knew the line could not withstand another attack, being outnumbered two to one. He thought “only a desperate chance was left.” He yelled, “We are to make a great right wheel,” and stepping to the colors shouted, “Bayonet... Forward...”278 The remainder of his command was unheard in the din of metal clashing on metal while a wild yell rose from the remnant of the regiment. The colors moved forward with Chamberlain beside them. The awesome and fearful sight of two hundred men rushing at them with bayonets pointed downhill unnerved the Confederates, many of whom surrendered or headed for the rear. Men from another Yankee Company rose and fired on the Confederate flank. The Yankee officers then shouted “charge.” Oates felt he was being hammered by superior forces all around him. His officers reported Federal reinforce-

276. William C. Oates, Gettysburg, the Battle on the Right, p. 176 277. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg, p. 903. 278. Ibid., p.906.

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And the War Came ments in the rear. He had lost half his officers and men. He signaled retreat. He and his men, he later recounted, “ran like a herd of wild cattle.”279 Chamberlain was shot at in close range, the man aiming at his face, but the shot missed him and the man surrendered when Chamberlain pricked his neck with the point of his sword. The Twentieth had captured 400 prisoners, killed 50 and wounded another 100. Chamberlain was then informed that Colonel Vincent had fallen, mortally wounded, early in the battle. Both Oates and Chamberlain had lost over forty per cent of their men, dead wounded or missing. Two Confederate divisions, stalled by their commanders’ indecision or lack of will to take matters into their own hands, crippled Lee’s offensive plan and by 8:30 p.m. the nearly successful Southern onslaught ground to a halt after fearful slaughter on both sides. Lee’s orders had been sparse and fuzzy. The complicated maneuvers he had ordered lacked the precise coordination required. That night, Lee finalized his plans for the next day. Attack! But Longstreet was not through with his objections. He argued “that the distance to be covered by the assault, 1400 yards, was too great for success.” Longstreet asked Lee about the strength of Pickett’s Brigade. He estimated 15,000. Longstreet voiced the opinion “that the fifteen thousand men who could make successful assault over that field had never been arraigned for battle; but [Lee] was impatient of listening and tired of talking.”280 Longstreet, who always wore his carpet slippers into battle, recalled Jackson’s remark, made shortly before he was killed, “We sometimes fail to drive the enemy from a position, but they always fail to drive us.”281 Longstreet was one of the few American soldiers who understood that the days of fair fights were being replaced by an age of mechanized killing. Life, he knew too well, was not fair, either. The previous winter, he had lost three children in a single week to disease. He pondered Lee’s “headlong combativeness.” If a blow was struck against Lee, he “wished to return it on the spot.”282 That sentiment constituted Longstreet’s only criticism of Lee, whom he considered “perfect” in defensive warfare.

279.William C. Oates, Gettysburg, the Battle on the Right, p. 178. 280. James I Robertson, ed., General James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, Memoirs of the Civil War in America, “The Battle of Gettysburg.” 281.G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, vol. II, p. 465. 282.Glenn Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg, p. 254.

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall It was, he felt, simply that “when the hunt was up, his combativeness was overruling.”283 Pickett would command the assault force, lines of two ranks, around one mile wide, that would converge upon the Union lines at and angle of about 25 degrees, moving toward the north. The men had been told what they were facing and that capture of the Federals’ key position would end the war. Forty-six regiments prepared to assault the Ridge where the Yankees waited. Meade had reconsidered the likely point of Lee’s attack and decided it would be near the Round Tops, so he shifted personnel accordingly. This left some 5750 infantry to face Lee’s nearly 11,000 men in the center. The Federals had placed 103 guns on Cemetery Ridge. It was 3:00 p.m. when Pickett, whose division had lost over 500 men in the cannonade prior to the charge, rode over to Longstreet, who was not far off, and asked “General, shall I advance?” Longstreet turned around to answer but no words came from his mouth. Unable to speak his will, he bowed his head (was it a nod?). Pickett immediately saluted, and said, “I shall lead my division forward, Sir,” and galloped off to put it in motion. Longstreet rode away to find Colonel Alexander. Hearing that the artilleryman was low on ammunition, he cried, “Go and stop Pickett where he is, and replenish your ammunition.” Alexander explained that reserves were low and it would take an hour to replenish, even with the little ammunition available. He thought this too much time to give the Yankees. Longstreet was distraught and spoke slowly, with great emotion. “I don’t want to make this charge. I don’t believe it can succeed. I would stop Pickett now, but that General Lee has ordered it and is expecting it.”284 In New York, the stock market had just closed, up, believing the day at Gettysburg was favorable to the Union. New York Central Railroad gained 1 3/4. Pickett rode out in front of his men and, in a loud and clear voice, shouted, “Charge the enemy and remember Old Virginia!” Picket faced his men left as they emerged from the woods to close with Pettigrew’s Division, exposing his right flank to artillery on the southern slope of Seminary Ridge. The Federals could not see the oncoming rebels but were 283. Ibid. 284. Southern Historical Society Papers, 4:107-108.

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And the War Came alerted by signalmen from Little Round Top. In less than five minutes Pickett’s men came into the view of the Yankees. They were moving at quick-step, 110 paces per minute. The Federals opened with artillery, knowing they could not miss, at times killing ten men with a single shell. The Yankees were awed by the aplomb with which the Rebel soldiers filled their torn ranks. The assault had covered half the distance to the Union lines in eight minutes, and had been under artillery for half that time. The total number of attacking troops was around 10,500, including 4,900 Virginians, 3,600 North Carolinians, 1,100 from Mississippi, 550 from Tennessee and 250 from Alabama. They would meet slightly more than half their number in defensive positions on Cemetery Ridge, including 1,600 New Yorkers, 1,400 from Vermont, 1,000 from Pennsylvania and 475 from Massachusetts. Then it happened. All along the Confederate line the canister struck. Officers went down. Flags went down — and up again. The soldiers pressed forward, stooped forward as if leaning into a storm. The Southerners were being torn by shells and, as they approached the stone wall at 200 yards distance, 1700 muskets and 11 cannon suddenly exploded on them. The Rebel lines were lost in dust and smoke with equipment and body parts tossed pell-mell into the air. A collective moan was heard, above the din of battle. Pickett’s Division virtually disappeared. Through the smoke, hovering over the battlefield, stragglers appeared, staggering piecemeal back to the Confederate lines. Union General Hancock, commanding the defenders, was hit in the groin by a minie ball which drove a nail from his saddle and some splinters before it. An aide caught the slumping General and eased him to the ground. He refused to leave the field. The tide of battle was turning against the Rebels. Singly, and in little pockets, their men streamed toward the rear. There were still a few isolated charges at the Angle but all were bloodily repulsed. Then, of a sudden, from two directions, the Union colors surged forward, followed by a sharp yell; soldiers charged over the wall where the outnumbered Confederates fought briefly handto-hand and then began surrendering. One tree in the line of fire had 250 bullets in it. One board on a fence, in the path of the Confederate advance, had 837 holes in it. It measured fourteen inches wide by sixteen feet long. Captain Barre, a father of three, known for his beautiful voice, had both his arms and both his legs shattered by balls. There were two more lodged near his

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall spine. He awoke from unconsciousness, lying on the ground near a hospital, and said, “I wish I were a child again, just for tonight.” He died a half hour later.285 The Union suffered 1500 casualties in the charge, roughly one in four engaged, Confederate casualties were 6025, or 60 per cent plus 792 unwounded prisoners. Some Southern brigades lost 74 per cent and three companies claimed 100 per cent. Adjusting the relative losses by accounting for the Confederate practice of not counting as wounded any men who could stay with their regiments, the real figures might be close to 7500 casualties or 5:1 over the Federal losses. Confederate soldiers taken prisoner were estimated at 3750. Lee lost at Gettysburg, on July 3, almost one third of his army killed, wounded and missing. In three days the Confederates suffered over 23,000 casualties. Meade and the Union army made no effort to pursue the disorganized, demoralized and vanquished enemy. As historian Douglas Southall Freeman has written, “If the Confederates were disorganized, the enemy was irresolute.” Casualties: Union — 2,592 killed, 12,706 wounded, 5,150 captured and missing — Total: 20,448 Confederacy — 3,070 killed, 14,497 wounded, 5,434 captured and missing — Total: 23,001 Result: A decisive Union victory and a shaken Army of Northern Virginia meant that the South’s aura of invincibility was shattered. This was a great relief for Abraham Lincoln, but he was disconsolate at what he considered to be a lost opportunity to end the war. Now, in the North, there was hope; more than hope, a rebirth of conviction that they would prevail. There was an increase in the respect the two armies had for each other: new respect for the determination and capability of the Army of the Potomac, and an ever growing respect for the courage and fighting spirit of the Army of Northern Virginia. The battle took three days. It took 300 surgeons five days to perform the necessary amputations. Lee concluded later: “If I had had Stonewall Jackson with me, so far as I can see, I should have won the battle of Gettysburg.”286

285. John Ames, letter to his mother, July 8, 1863. 286. William J. Jones, Personal Reminiscences of Lee, p. 156.

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And the War Came The day after Gettysburg Halleck wired Meade in Lincoln’s words, “You are strong enough to attack and defeat the enemy before he can effect a crossing [of the Potomac]...Call no council of War. It is proverbial that councils of war never fight...Do not let the enemy escape.”287 Still, Meade did not follow up the victory. Lincoln told Secretary Welles, “And that, my God, is the last of this Army of the Potomac. There is bad faith somewhere.”288 As William Faulkner imagined so elegantly, for every white Southern boy, it is always two o’clock on July 3, 1863, just a moment before Pickett’s Charge dealt a fatal blow to the cherished myth of Southern invincibility. Sydney Richardson, a Georgian, had written to his parents before the battle: “Don’t grieve about me, If I get killed, I’ll only be dead... [i]t looks like it does not do any good to whip them here in this state and out West they are tearing everything to pieces...But I am willing to fight them as long as General Lee says fight.”289 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was promoted to command of a brigade. Double trouble bubbled in the cauldron of the Confederacy: Gettysburg in the east and Vicksburg in the west, the last stronghold preventing the Yankees from dividing the South down the Mississippi. The anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, “fourscore and seven years ago,” was underscored by twin disasters for Southern independence, tilting the fortunes of civil war northward. Out in the Western Sector, following his victory at Corinth, Grant turned his attention to the last Confederate bastion on the Mississippi, Vicksburg.

The Siege of Vicksburg, May 18 to July 4, 1863 Location: Vicksburg, Mississippi. The counties containing Vicksburg and Natchez were the only two in Mississippi that voted against secession. Generals Commanding: Union: Ulysses S. Grant

287. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 414. 288. Ibid., p. 415. 289. Letters from Georgia Soldiers in the Civil War, pp. 258,272-280.

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall Confederacy: John C. Pemberton, 49, graduated 27th in his class of 50 at West Point where, despite being raised in Philadelphia, he developed a strong attachment to Southerners and began espousing “States Rights.” Seminole War veteran, Mexican War veteran, married a Virginia girl, resigned his U.S. Commission to join the CSA army after Sumter while two of his brothers remained in the Union army. He was trapped between the reciprocal animosity of Davis and Johnston who were both acting as his boss. Key supporting Generals: Union: William Tecumseh Sherman Confederacy: None in particular Troops available: Union — 45,000 Confederacy — 30,000 in Vicksburg, 20,000 in Jackson with Johnston The Confederates had constructed a 7-mile semicircle of earthworks around the town, terminating at the river at each end. Despite some brief successes, the Yankees were repulsed across the entrenchment arc. The defendants had mowed down the bayonet-wielding attackers and the Federals lost 3199 men to the Confederates’ less than 500. Sixty thousand feet of trenches were dug at Vicksburg during the 47-day siege. This was grinding warfare presaging that of a later day. By mid-June, in excess of 200 Federal cannon were shelling Vicksburg from the land while Admiral Porter’s ships frequently shelled it from the river. The inhabitants had left their homes and burrowed into the hillsides, making caves, some 500 of them. By July 1, it was becoming apparent to the Confederate and Union commands that the fall of Vicksburg was imminent. Yankee sharpshooters were making life hell in the Southern trenches. The Confederate soldiers were exhausted and hungry. They had been living on insufficient rations since the siege began. Livestock was gone, dogs and cats disappeared, and mules began to be devoured. Water was short and guards were posted at the wells to keep soldiers from wasting water “for the purposes of cleanliness.” Southern commander Pemberton, seeing no alternative, sent a feeler to Grant, suggesting capitulation. Later they met, and Grant offered parole to Pem-

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And the War Came berton’s forces upon surrender of the town. After midnight, on July 4, Pemberton accepted Grant’s terms and surrendered the city and his 30,000 men. Grant immediately delivered food to the city. The Federal sentinels brought food in their haversacks. Casualties: Union —763 killed, 3746 wounded, 162 missing/captured Confederacy —805 killed, 1938 wounded, 129 missing/captured, 29,491 surrendered Result: A stunning shock (in tandem with Gettysburg) to the South, obliterating the elation and sense of victory which had reigned shortly before. The entire Mississippi River was now open to Northern shipping. A major wound had been opened in the western end of the Confederate corpus. The ten Mississippi Counties and Louisiana Parishes within a 100-mile radius of Vicksburg produced one-seventh of the entire Southern cotton crop in 1850, generating revenues which were crucial to the war effort. The high tide of the Confederacy began receding from Pennsylvania and the banks of the Mississippi. Grant conferred the honor of first entering Vicksburg on McPherson’s XVII Corps, and singled out McPherson for exceptional praise in his report to Washington. He also received the Gold Medal of Honor award from a board of soldier peers in Grant’s army. McPherson selected the most destitute of the families to receive provisions from the Federal army and issued humane regulations which brought censure from some Northern papers for “soft” treatment of the Southerners. He responded, “When the time comes that to be a soldier a man has to overlook the claims of humanity, then I do not want to be a soldier.”290 Many Southerners refused to recognize Gettysburg and Vicksburg as heralding the future. Others dared not declare publicly their presentiments. Their President would not allow such a thought to form. And so, the unfortunate courage to press on to whatever culmination, would cost an enormous number of additional lives, over 200,000 from sickness alone plus a horrendous number of battle deaths and maiming in some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

290. Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War, op. cit.

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17. Gettysurg and Vicksburg: The Writing on the Wall Lucy Buck of Front Royal, Virginia, lamented in her diary, “We shall never any of us be the same as we have been.”291 The war was not about to end. It was barely more than half over. No one could have endured that knowledge if they had possessed it. Southern pride and Yankee hatred would fuel Confederate ardor for a long time to come. Besides, they believed they could win every battle forthcoming. A couple of setbacks meant nothing in the long run. Lincoln’s sense of humor revived. At the opera, noting the exceptionally large feet of one of the leading female singers, Lincoln commented, “the beetles wouldn’t have much of a chance there.” For 78 years after its fall, until the patriotism of the Second World War overcame the anguish of its memory, the city of Vicksburg did not celebrate “Independence Day.” Three days after the battle, Lincoln received a dispatch from Admiral David Dixon Porter, through Navy Secretary Welles, relating the wonderful news of Vicksburg. Lincoln rejoiced. Even Southerners had to concede that Grant was tenacious, and undeterred by apparently insurmountable obstacles. The hope that the need for cotton would induce England and France to recognize the Confederacy was beginning to be exposed as fantasy. Jeff Davis never knew that England and France had stashed away a two-year supply of cotton in their warehouses by the time the war began. General Sherman was a man of substantial intellect. He had thought about the war, the people North and South, both of whom he knew well, and arrived at some conclusions he thought best for the country and which, while sounding harsh, would spill far less blood than “moderate” strategies that in fact piled up casualties by failing to bring resolution to the crisis. He wrote to Lincoln, with his thoughts on the future conduct of the war. He was well-acquainted with the Southern psyche, having lived among them for years. He was certain that the South would never quit the war unless they suffered decisive, destructive blows to their means of industrial and agricultural production and to the morale of their home front. Their armies, while they may have been defeated in a few battles, were far from destroyed. Faith in Robert E. Lee was boundless. All they needed, they felt, was another chance at the Northern armies, more generals like Lee, and an end to the incompetence in Richmond. With the Yankees there to 291.Lucy Rebecca Buck, Sad Earth, Sweet Heaven: The Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck, p.50.

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And the War Came hate, the concept of subjugation to the North would inspire the Rebel soldier to fight to his death. The threat to the Southern culture and slavery was a bond that Gettysburg and Vicksburg could not dissolve. Lincoln wrote a public letter which was read aloud in a Union rally back in Springfield in the summer of 1863. He knew the message would reach all the citizens of the North. Beginning with the dissatisfaction of many over his use of too much force to restore the Union, he said that only three options existed: to fight to put down the rebellion; to let the Union dissolve; or to accept some compromise — and no compromise remained, in his view, which could preserve the Union. Second, he addressed the “Negro question.” For those who disliked the emancipation proclamation, he observed that there were negroes fighting on behalf of the Union. They could hardly be expected to continue doing so without some motive… “And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongues, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it...Thanks to all, for the Great Republic — for the principle it lives by, and keeps alive — for man’s vast future — thanks to all.”292

292. Roy P. Basler, Abraham Lincoln, His Speeches and Writings, Lincoln to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863.

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18. THE BATTLES OF CHICKAMAUGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE: GENERAL GRANT Lincoln and Halleck were pressing General Rosecrans, without success, to take the offensive in Tennessee, the only major theater of war left in the West. They wanted to capture Chattanooga, population 3500, to gain control of the junction of four vital railroad lines which transported a large percentage of the Confederacy’s arms, munitions and food. The city was also a gateway to Atlanta. Rosecrans had fought and beaten Bragg at Stones River (Murphreesboro), Tennessee in January. Bragg had retired thirty miles to the southeast searching for reinforcements to defend against the next Yankee attack. They did not arrive. Rosecrans, though a hard fighter in battle, once again frustrated the Administration by not advancing on the vulnerable enemy. Rosecrans had sulked because General Grant outranked him. In August, the Federals finally stirred, threatening to capture Chattanooga and the Confederate forces therein. During a bombardment of Cleburne’s position upriver, a shell landed three or four feet from Cleburne but did not explode. Cleburne offered no comment and returned to his observations of the enemy. A staffer wrote home, “The Yankees are determined if they cannot kill him in reality, they will in imagination, on paper. Bragg vacillated for some time before finally deciding to evacuate Chattanooga. They faced a federal Corps of 40,000 more men than Bragg had in his entire army. Rosecrans sent his forces in pursuit of Bragg, believing the Confederates to be retreating in disorder. In reality, Bragg had stopped 25 miles south of Chatta-

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And the War Came nooga, was reorganizing, and received 20,000 reinforcements from Knoxville and western Tennessee.

The Battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863 Location: a creek, known to the Indians as “the river of blood,” a few miles southeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee Generals Commanding: Union: William S. Rosecrans Confederacy: Braxton Bragg: graduated 5th in his class at West Point, Seminole War veteran, Mexican War veteran. Key Supporting Generals: Union: Thomas L. Crittenden George H. Thomas: Virginia-born, graduated 5th in his class at West Point, Seminole War veteran, Mexican War veteran, considered a traitor by Virginians for staying with the Union. Troops available: Union — 80,000 Confederacy — 65,000 Confederate motivation: To stem the Confederate retreat in Tennessee, capitalize on the chance to destroy the divided Union Army. Plan: Attack the left flank of Union General Crittenden’s Corps, destroy it, and cut off the retreat of the rest of Rosecran’s army to Chattanooga. In mid-September, General Longstreet arrived from Virginia with reinforcements to support Bragg. Longstreet had importuned Lee to allow his men to temporarily join the western forces. The troops had boarded boxcars, flat cars, coal cars and mail cars for the roundabout trip from Virginia to Atlanta over a patchwork rail system, with frequently changing track gages. At nighttime, as they passed through towns, villages and crossings, women, children and old men lined the roadbed in tribute, keeping their bands silent as the dark forms slept on top of and in the cars, the

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18. The Battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge: General Grant flower of the South, Longstreet’s men, from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. From Atlanta they marched to Tennessee. The entire trip covered 1000 miles. Rosecrans and Longstreet had been roommates at West Point and the brilliant Rosecrans had helped “Old Pete” through his studies. To commence the battle, Bragg sent his men to cross Chickamauga Creek. The fight turned into a brawl. That night, Union General Rosecrans and his generals decided to stand on the defensive. The next morning, the Confederates attacked. Rosecrans and several of his subordinates decided the battle was lost and fled the field. As was common in Bragg’s army, the Confederate dawn attacks were delayed and uncoordinated. Union General Thomas remained on the field and conducted a heroic defense against superior numbers while the remaining Federal troops retired. Cleburne’s force came up against Thomas’ entrenchments in a semi-circular salient, where they enjoyed a 4 to 1 advantage in that mile of the line. Cleburne thought he had lost 500 men in five minutes, bringing the assault to a line less than 200 yards from the enemy. Thirty-four thousand men fell in two days, over half of them Confederate. Bragg’s soldiers had presented him with a victory but the brooding general could not recognize it, and failed to pursue his defeated enemy and rout them. Colonel Oates, of the 15th Alabama recalled, “I knew a soldier in the regiment named Smith who always ate all his rations at the first halt on the march. It mattered not whether his rations were for one, two, or three days, he ate them all at once just the same, not because he was hungry; but, as he said, his rations were easier to carry that way than in his haversack.”293 Casualties: Union — 1,657 killed, 9,756 wounded, 4,757 missing — total 16,170 Confederacy — 2,312 killed, 14,678 wounded, 1,468 missing — total 18,458 Result: A brutally fought, bushwhacking Confederate victory that Bragg failed to capitalize upon by not destroying Rosecrans’ army. As a result, Lincoln changed commanders — and the tide of the war, in Tennessee, turned against the Confederates. Once again Southern blood, nobly spilled, bought only more

293. Mark Perry, Conceived in Liberty, Joshua Chamberlain, William Oates And the American Civil War, pp. 236-237.

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And the War Came suffering, more setbacks and more agony as the South celebrated yet another victory on the road to disaster. Two days later, Rosecrans’ survivors had retreated to the defenses of Chattanooga. Bragg marched north and occupied the heights of Missionary Ridge overlooking Chattanooga and then extended his domain to Lookout Mountain when Rosecrans unaccountably abandoned it. Lincoln, meanwhile, appointed Grant head of three armies: Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland; Burnside’s Army of the Ohio; and Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee. Grant appointed Sherman as his replacement. Sherman mused, “I am a damned sight smarter than Grant; I know a great deal more about war, military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does; I know more about organization, supply, and administration and about everything else than he does; but I’ll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don’t care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell!”294 That November, in Gettysburg, a memorial was held for the soldiers who had lost their lives there. After Senator Everett’s long peroration, probably exceeding 15,000 words, the brevity of Lincoln’s 272-word address, written on foolscap, caught the audience by surprise. Lincoln returned to his seat 135 seconds after he began. Lincoln’s words snared attention with their stunning simplicity, resonance, elegance of thought and uncommon sense. His speech contained only two four-syllable words (proposition, altogether) and just eleven different three-syllable words (continent, government, battlefield, remember, dedicate, ed[6], consecrate, ed[2], devotion[2] liberty, remaining, unfinished, devotion). A British observer commented, “It may be doubted whether any king in Europe would have expressed himself more royally than the peasant’s son.”295 Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a profile of Lincoln, reprinted in Littel’s Living Life, likening Lincoln to a wire cable whose strength sways and yields, yet tenaciously holds fast.

294. Wilson, Under the Old Flag: Recollections of Military Operations in the War for the Union, The Spanish War, The Boxer Rebellion etc., 2 vol., 2:17. 295.Goldwin Smith, “President Lincoln”, MacMillan’s Magazine. Reprinted in The Living Age 84 (1865):427.

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18. The Battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge: General Grant THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE, NOVEMBER 23-25, 1863 Location: The Mountain Ridge overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee Generals Commanding: Union: Ulysses S. Grant Confederacy: Braxton Bragg Key Supporting Generals: Union: William Tecumseh Sherman George W. Thomas Joe Hooker Confederacy: William J. Hardee James Longstreet Troops available: Union — 86,000 Confederacy — 49,000 Motivation: Break out of Chattanooga, assume the offensive, drive Bragg’s army out of Tennessee, and, Grant’s guiding principle — seek battle to decide all issues. Sherman’s forces numbered 26,000. They faced 10,000 Confederate troops in vastly superior defensive array on and around Missionary Ridge. The Rebels unleashed devastating fire into line after line of Federal troops, which kept coming in waves. The battle extended into hours of carnage. The Confederate artillery could not depress their pieces low enough to fire on the Yankees and, as the Northerners climbed the slopes hand over hand, the Rebels rolled large stones down upon them. The Federals regrouped and came on again. Despite heavy losses on both sides, they fell back a second time. About 1:00 p.m., they came a third time and were repulsed again. Grant had sent Hooker to pressure the Confederate left and his troops were delayed by Confederate obstacles, but finally arrived at 3:00 p.m. The Yankees overpowered the Confederates with superior numbers. With dark approaching, Grant sent Thomas to take the Confederate rifle pits at the foot of Missionary Ridge and then await further orders.

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And the War Came Bragg had thinned his lines dangerously. Half his men, in the center, were in the rifle pits and half on the crest, above the military crest where guns could train effectively down the mountain. The soldiers in the pits were to fire one volley, if attacked, and withdraw up the hill. This was a blueprint for catastrophe. The Federals, in the newly won pits, were subject to fire from the enemy positions above them and an unspoken determination came over the Yankees who, to Grant’s astonishment, started up the hill. Apparently, they did so without orders. The uncanny recklessness of the climbers unnerved some of the Confederates, who threw down their weapons and fled. The bluecoats charged the crest and sprang over it yelling and screaming. The day was theirs. Bragg tried to stop the rout, but the men kept rushing by. The Southerners fled down the back of the hill, tossing away their rifles and equipment as they went, ignoring the entreaties of officers who were desperately trying to gain control. Casualties: Union— 5,800 killed, wounded or missing Confederacy — 6,700 killed, wounded or missing. Result: The entrance to the heart of the Confederacy was laid bare. Sherman was already conceiving an advance on Atlanta in the spring. These were dark days for the Confederacy. Tennessee, Louisiana and Vicksburg were gone. The Northern army was back in Virginia again. The economic situation was dire. England had become irascible. The people were tiring and losing their heart, even the women. In Richmond, there was starvation and freezing. “The Ham the Lamb, the Jelly & the Jam,” are now of the past, a friend told Davis. “It is now Small Hominy, sometimes called Grits.”296 Lincoln was still far from popular in many quarters. Abolitionists opposed his reelection. Many saw him as slow-moving, an impediment to change. And because he had in-laws among the Rebels, some doubted his resolve. There was a view that he had discriminated against German-born generals, and German-

296. William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis, The Man and His Hour, p. 531.

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18. The Battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge: General Grant Americans were a significant portion of the population. But he had won over much of the public, earning their respect and trust. It was at this time that McClellan’s official report on the Army of the Potomac was published. It ran to a thousand pages. The New York Times informed its readers that it was twice as long as Caesar’s Commentaries. By contrast, all of Grant’s reports could be read in sixty minutes. Down South, a Confederate War Department official privately confessed, “I have never actually despaired of the cause, priceless, holy as it is, but my faith...is yielding to a sense of hopelessness.”297 The Confederacy had been conscripting men up to 45 years of age. There were hardly any men left to tap. To Patrick Cleburne, the answer to the problem was clear: they would have to mobilize the South’s black population. He went to work writing his proposal to arm and train the slaves for war, granting them freedom in exchange. He wrote General Hardee, asking him to call a meeting of his general officers where Cleburne would present his proposal. Permission was granted and Cleburne gave a lengthy presentation. The response was immediate. His audience was shocked, emotional and aggressive. His infamous proposal was delivered to Richmond as evidence of his perfidy. At the same time, Cleburne was heading for a social upheaval of his own. He took a two-week leave to go to Mobile in order to serve as best man for General Hardee, who was to marry Mary Lewis at Bleak House Plantation. There, servants with lighted lamps guided visitors from the boat landing to the big house. The opulence of the candlelight wedding, the softly elegant beauty and beguiling charm of the young women present, especially the maid of honor across from him, twenty-four year-old Susan Tarleton, contrasted with the bleak atmosphere of camp life and Cleburne was smitten by love. The two weeks fled too quickly but, before he left, Cleburne asked Miss Sue to marry him. She declined an immediate answer, but extended permission to write her. As Cleburne arrived back in Dalton, his slave-arming proposal landed on the desk of President Davis. Davis knew what a furor would follow any endorsement of Cleburne’s idea. He ordered the suppression of the proposal and forbid any discussion of it. Nonetheless, at Davis’ urging, Congress voted for a 297. Robert Garlic Hill Kean, Inside the Confederate Government, The Diary of Robert Garlic Hill Kean, p. 119.

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And the War Came measure to commandeer twenty thousand slaves to labor as cooks, teamsters, and fortification builders for the Southern armies, with a compensation of $11 per month to the master of each slave thus employed. By this point, the price index of commodities had now risen to 763. Real wages fell by 65%. The South had tried a new draft, suspended habeas corpus, imposed new taxes, introduced currency-reducing legislation, introduced impressment of private goods, and instituted a government monopoly of blockade running. The effect of the blockade and inability to hold onto to territory continually reduced the materiel resources available to the Confederacy. All of these problems caused morale to slip among the less dedicated civilians and soldiers alike, and rendered the sacrifices of all more onerous. Privates also had their crosses to bear with superiors. “The Major is a hell of a man to go on [detail] with he don’t no enough to learn a dog to bark,” wrote one soldier.298 During the winter of 1863/64, both eastern armies entered their annual hibernation. In February, 1864, though it tore his heart out, Lincoln ordered a draft of 500,000 men to provide more troops and, a few weeks later, he conscripted 200,000 more. In March, 1864, Lincoln created the rank of Lieutenant-general, naming Grant as chief of all the Union armies, the first use of that rank since George Washington. Sherman was to succeed Grant and McPherson succeeded Sherman as Commander of the Army of Tennessee. Grant traveled to Cincinnati to meet Sherman and outlined his strategy for ending the war. They agreed that Grant would go after Lee, while Sherman targeted Joe Johnston. General Banks was to leave Louisiana and strike Mobile. Sherman was to join with him to cut the South in two from Chattanooga to the Gulf. General Butler was to proceed to Petersburg, Virginia, to sever the railroads supplying Richmond and threaten the capitol from the South, thus preventing Lee from being reinforced from that sector. McPherson left Vicksburg for a twenty-day furlough, intending to stop at his home in Clyde, Ohio, before heading for his wedding in Baltimore. Now that McPherson was a widely-heralded military leader, the mother of his beloved had consented to their marriage. He and Emily had not seen each other in nearly three years. He sent her a telegram from every town where the boat stopped. 298. “Jake” to “Friend Page,” August 11, 1863.

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18. The Battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge: General Grant When he arrived in Cairo, Illinois, there were two telegrams waiting for him. One advised him of his promotion. The other ordered him to proceed immediately to Huntsville, Alabama, to help organize the drive for Atlanta. Sherman later told him the decision had wrung his heart but he needed him for the coming campaign. Sherman even wrote Emily a letter, doing his best to explain the vicissitudes of war. While the politicians, newspapers and thought leaders of the Union were criticizing Lincoln and his Administration, many of the mid-western farmers, eastern factory workers and soldiers were staunchly supporting the man they believed in above all others in the land. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote articles extolling Lincoln as an honest, bucolic man of the people surrounded by irresponsible critics, sycophants, and radicals while he manned the helm with his eyes glued to the compass rose, absolutely determined to bring his ship through the awful tempest. Cleburne traveled to Montgomery and Mobile to further his cause with Miss Tarleton, and as in most of his campaigns, he was successful. Upon returning to base he commenced a flurry of love-letter writing and complained about the brevity of his fiancée’s missives. The meat ration of Richmond war clerk J. B. Jones was down to one ounce per day. Their pet parrot stole the cook’s ration and swallowed it before the cook could recover it. 299 Much of the Southern populace remained faithful and determined. The Charleston Daily Courier wrote in early 1864, “Never at any period of this bloody war has the spirit of soldiers and people been more in keeping with the character of the occasion that at the present time.”300 General Grant took up his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac on March 24, 1864, at Culpeper Court-House. Warren Lee Goss wrote, “We had expected to see a large man, broadshouldered and athletic. His appearance to many was a great surprise. ‘Of all the officers in the group, where I saw him,’ said one, ‘I should have selected almost anyone but him as the general who won Vicksburg. He was small and slim, even to under size; very quiet, and with a slight stoop...This was the first impression.

299. John B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, vol. II. 300. Charleston Daily Courier, February 26, 1864.

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And the War Came The second was the look of concentration shown in his quiet, self-controlled face.’”301 It was said Grant could be silent in several languages. It was generally agreed that Grant was the finest horseman to ever attend West Point. At this time, large numbers of Northern soldiers were due for discharge as their three-year enlistment was nearing its end. More than half of the eligible soldiers stayed on, some 136,000 veterans.302 One entire command re-upped: General McPherson’s. He had worked assiduously, encouraging his men to reenlist, and out of regard for him, they did. No other Corps general in the country came close to matching that accomplishment. Lincoln, therefore, was forced to draft additional men. The South’s supply of white males, anywhere near military age, was exhausted. John Preston of the Conscription Bureau was desperate. There was no such thing as a Confederate short timer. Their Congress required men whose enlistments expired to reenlist: else they would be drafted. The South mobilized three-quarters of its white male population of military age (which they could better afford to do, thanks to slaves doing work at home), compared to one-half for the North. The command structure in the Army of Northern Virginia, following the battle of Gettysburg, was patchwork quilt, dominated by red. Six of nine divisions and twenty-three of twenty-eight brigades were under commanders who had not held similar positions twelve months previously. The size of the Northern armies grew with the enrollment of Northern and Southern Negroes. Negroes serving in the Northern armies numbered 186,111, of which 134,111 came from slaveholding states. Officered by whites, paid thirtythree per cent less than the whites, they had proven to be as excellent in soldiering as the whites, exposing themselves to every danger and dying as readily as did the white man. Their strong motivation clearly overcame any resentment of this discriminatory treatment. The Confederate defeats of 1863 were followed by a number of victories in battles which, if not major, were of great psychological relief to the Southern cause. Thus, Southerners’ were spiritedly optimistic heading into 1864 and many 301. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private, pp. 258-259. 302.James M. McPherson, For Cause & Comrades, p 173.

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18. The Battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge: General Grant felt it would be the last year of the war and that it would end with Confederate victory. As Lincoln had done, Davis suffered a personal tragedy that spring. His child, Joseph, fell from the balcony in the back of his home twenty feet onto the brick pavement. Little Jeff found him, dead. Salvation through the Northern presidential election became an idée fixe with the leaders of the South. With Lincoln defeated, a whole new day would dawn on Dixie. They were only too well aware that bitterness toward Lincoln was seething in the Western states, that much of the North was tired of the war, and that many voters were drifting toward the Peace Democrats. Secret societies were flourishing. The winter of 1863/64 was over and it was time for the annual rites of spring.

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19. ATLANTA AND MCPHERSON FALL: SOMETHING WENT OUT OF THE WAR

Here they come again! This time it was General Grant, leading the Army of the Potomac into central Virginia to try, once more, to whip Bobby Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.

THE BATTLES, OR “SLUGFESTS,” OF THE WILDERNESS, SPOTSYLVANIA AND COLD HARBOR May 5 through June 13, 1864 Location: The Wilderness: A 72 square mile patch of woods and dense undergrowth in Virginia, 10 miles west of Fredericksburg then spreading south. Spotsylvania Court House: a tiny crossroads about 12 miles southeast of the Wilderness. Cold Harbor: a former stagecoach-traveler rest stop about 20 miles south, southeast of Spotsylvania Court House, some nine miles northwest of Richmond. Generals Commanding: Union: Ulysses S. Grant Confederacy: Robert E. Lee

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And the War Came Key Supporting Generals: Union: George Meade Ambrose Burnside Phil Sheridan, 33, son of Irish immigrants, graduated 34th in his class at West Point, an excellent fighter. Confederacy: James Longstreet Richard S. Ewell Richard H. Anderson: 43, son of a Revolutionary War hero, graduated 40th in his class at West Point, Seminole War veteran, Mexican War veteran, successful leader in battle, nicknamed “Fighting Dick.” A P. Hill Troops available: Union — 122,000 Confederacy — 61,000 Union motivation: To destroy Lee’s army Plan: Engage Lee in battle at every opportunity and win by applying superior numbers relentlessly and never retreating, ever sidling toward Richmond, forcing Lee to engage and then destroy his army. On May 4, three corps of the Union army crossed pontoon bridges at Germanna Ford in Virginia. Advised of the Federal movement by scouts, Lee set his forces in motion toward the Wilderness. Fighting commenced near the Orange Turnpike as Union soldiers under General Charles Griffin emerged from the foliage to attack four of Ewell’s brigades. They were driven back initially but recovered and tried again and the fight entered the woods with close-range combat. Elsewhere, a contest was developing for control of the intersection of the Orange Plank and Brock roads. Desperate fighting resulted in a seesaw battle which ended inconclusively with nightfall. The lines were jumbled and groups of soldiers did not know if groups next to them were friend or foe. Both armies prepared to attack at 6:00 a. m. the next day. “No sleep and the wounded groaning on all sides,” wrote Elisha Hunt Rhodes. The next day, he continued: “Our brigade charged into the swamp six times, and each time was driven out. Darkness again put an end to the fighting, and we lay down amid the dead and wounded. During the night the brush caught fire, and many of the wounded burned to death.”303

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19. Atlanta and McPherson Fall: Something Went Out of the War Early that morning, Union general Hancock’s 20,000 veterans moved out smartly, slamming into the main body of the Confederates, who were still in disarray. The Rebels gave way. By 7:00 a.m. the Federals had advanced more than a mile, but became confused in the dense thicket as units interfered with one another. Lack of cohesion stalled the advance. Just then, Longstreet (who had been called back earlier from Tennessee) arrived and Lee was visibly delighted. In two days of fighting the Confederates had suffered 7,500 casualties, the Union 17,666. Grant had lost more men than Lee in the Wilderness, but Lee had lost more than he could spare of irreplaceable manpower. After such fighting, it was customary to rest an army. Grant agonized over his decision. He would move on. Yankee Private Harris declared that the men were pleased with Grant’s order to renew the fight as the idea, “was new to them,” and was a distinct pleasure to know that, “a man of iron had taken command of the army,” that they “saw it was best to wear the enemy out and that there was but one way to do it and that was to fight.”304 The battle of the Wilderness did not resume the next morning. Lee wondered what Grant was going to do: go east? retreat north? Grant issued orders to Meade to prepare that day to move southeast by night to Spotsylvania Courthouse, twelve miles closer to Richmond. On the march, the Northern troops cheered Grant when he passed them, heading south, on his horse, Cincinnati. They realized that this was not the usual Yankee retreat following a battle with Lee. The Battle of Spotsylvania had started with accidental engagements of opposing cavalry troops who had stumbled into each other. The advances forces of both armies were ordered up as reinforcements. In intense fighting a thrust by Gordon routed the Federals, disrupted a mile of the VI Corps front, captured two generals and 600 Yankees at a cost of 50 men, half of whom were disabled by their confused comrades as the pursuing Southerners passed a Confederate front. After midnight, quiet descended upon the nightmare. A Georgian remembered that, far behind the line, a Southern band played “The Dead March” fromHandel’s Saul and when they finished, a Northern band followed with “Nearer My God to Thee,” after which the other band played “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” 303. Robert Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, p. 146. 304. Harris, The Wilderness.

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And the War Came then another round of “Dixieland” and “Home Sweet Home.” Then, a remarkable thing happened: a united yell went up in concert from the men on both sides, a Georgian remembered, “such a one as was never heard among the hills of Spotsylvania county before or since.”305 The bluecoats had massed for a dawn attack. Fired up by the emotion of this scene, the outnumbered, but impassioned, Confederate charge on the right side of the salient, after brutal combat, drove the Federals back and out of that portion of the “Bloody Angle.” The Federal threat had been blunted. Grant had suffered 18,399 casualties at Spotsylvania, 36,065 since the beginning of the Wilderness. Lee had lost 10,000 and 17,500 respectively, but had lost heavily in commanders: Stuart dead; Longstreet and Ewell wounded; A.P. Hill too sick to fight. While Lee had parried Grant’s thrusts successfully, the somber impact of his irreplaceable losses robbed him of the ability to go the offensive, his cherished way of fighting. He would be forced into a series of defensive struggles against overpowering numbers. Avoidance of disaster could only come in buying time for a political solution. Lee had Gordon promoted to Major-General for contributions that he reckoned gave the Confederacy another lease on life. Both generals fixed their attention on Cold Harbor, where five roads met. Lee’s army described a seven-mile crescent anchored on the Totopotomy and Chickahominy Rivers, just nine miles from Richmond. Lee had been given another 24 hours to entrench. His men worked ingeniously, digging latticework trenches and positioning artillery to provide crossfire on any avenue of approach. There was deep concern in the Union camp where soldiers, unable to sleep, read and reread letters from home or lay staring into the night. Horace Porter noticed that the men had taken off their coats and were sewing, an odd occupation for that time of night. He discovered that, “the men were calmly writing their names and home addresses on slips of paper and pinning them on the back of their coats, so that their bodies might be recognized on the field and their fate made known to their families at home.”306 Rain ceased just before dawn and 50,000 Union infantrymen moved toward the Southern fortifications, hidden in the mists, several hundred yards away. The Confederates had trouble holding their fire and finally let loose a barrage that mowed down successive waves of bluecoats. 305. Thomas, History of the Doles-Cook Brigade, Tribune, September 17, 908, p. 479. 306. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 174.

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19. Atlanta and McPherson Fall: Something Went Out of the War Between 5,600 and 7,000 Union soldiers fell in this attack, most of them in the first 15 minutes while the Confederates lost 1,500 men. There was much criticism of Grant for ordering the assault and even he admitted, “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made.”307 He was not, however, deterred from his basic strategy of pressing Lee or passing him to the east, always maintaining pressure. The bulldog would not let go. He decided to swing far to the southeast on June 12 and threaten the Confederate rail hub of Petersburg. Casualties: Union — 50,000 casualties in a month, half of all prior casualties in the entire history of the Army of the Potomac Confederacy — around 30,000 casualties Result: Grant’s losses, huge though they were, were replaceable; Lee’s were not. Unlike all previous engagements, the Yankees did not retire northward afterward. Despite Lee’s tactical successes, Grant kept coming. He kept fouling off pitches and the man on the mound was visibly tiring. Grant could go anywhere but straight ahead and Lee could not move for fear of exposing Richmond. Grant was edging ever closer to Lee’s supply lines. He was applying the North’s superiority in numbers without surcease. The South was running out of bodies to fight and lacked sufficient numbers of experienced officers to lead them. Elan and courage had accomplished wonders but could not overcome such odds, once superior advantage was properly managed. Maintenance of Grant’s strategy would spell doom for the Army of Northern Virginia and nothing could induce Lincoln or Grant to abort, as long as they remained in their positions. Grant’s command philosophy eschewed holding formal councils of war. He believed that some officers would oppose any plan adopted; and when it was put into execution, such officers might convince themselves so well of the weakness of the plan that they would not be able to pursue it with enthusiasm. The optimism of the North, after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, that the war would end quickly and the remaining sacrifice of lives would be relatively light, was shattered by the Wilderness Campaign and the delays in conquering Atlanta in Sherman’s Campaign (which was already underway). A pervasive depression 307. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. 2, p. 276

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And the War Came subdued Northern spirits, hopes were dashed, casualty lists were longer than ever, and people began to despair that this horrible war would never end. The portrait painter, Frank B. Carpenter, in the White House, observed Lincoln closely. “In repose,” his was, “the saddest face I ever knew. There were days when I could scarcely look into it without crying.”308 Others thought the President, “looked like a man worn and harassed with petty fault-findings and criticisms, until he had turned at bay, like an old stag pursued and hunted by a cowardly rabble of men and dogs.”309 As the news of the mounting losses arrived, Lincoln was distraught. Even his iron resolve was threatened. He could, however, sense a different resolve in Grant. During the Wilderness campaign Lincoln said, “It is the dogged pertinacity of Grant that wins...The great thing about Grant is his perfect coolness and persistency of purpose...he is not easily excited...and he has the grit of a bulldog! Once let him get his teeth in, and nothing can shake him off.”310A wounded soldier coming home from Virginia arrived in a hospital and the surgeon said he must be lashed down while a leg was amputated. “No,” said the soldier. “Never!...Is there a violin in camp?” They brought one. He put it under his chin, tuned it, and laughed. “Now doctor, begin.” And he went on playing the violin, “without missing a note or moving a muscle” during 40 minutes while they sawed his leg off.311 For the Union, the national debt was approaching $2 billion, the treasury was nearly empty and the war was costing $2 million a day. The President had called for another half million men. Lincoln’s closest friends saw these as the gloomiest days of the war: the lack of good news from the battlefront following great expectations; the lingering depression over the butchery in the Wilderness campaign; the neverending peace initiative fiascoes; the depleted treasury; the call for 500,000 more men; and the excruciating elusiveness of an end to the horror. James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald called for Lincoln to step aside. “One thing must be self-evident to him and that is that under no circumstances can he hope to be the next President of the United States.”312 308. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 509. 309. Albert G. Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 266. 310. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln, p. 501. 311. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, pp. 513-514. 312.New York Herald, 6 and 11 August 1864.

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19. Atlanta and McPherson Fall: Something Went Out of the War The Richmond Examiner gloated, “The fact...begins to shine out clear that Abraham Lincoln is lost; that he will never be President again...The obscene ape of Illinois is about to be deposed from the Washington purple, and the White House will echo to his little jokes no more.”313 Lincoln had become a frequent reader of the Bible. What the Radical Republicans feared most of all in their crusade to make the South pay the ultimate price for their rebellion was the man, Abraham Lincoln. They were paranoid that his compassion, gentility, and forgiving nature would fail to exact a bitter recompense from the South, a rendering of accounts consistent with its unpardonable guilt for starting a civil war. Lincoln was advised by many highly-placed individuals to cancel the elections. The President regarded such a move as tantamount to conceding that the Union was already conquered. The materiel shortages in the South grew more serious by the day. Financial management, in the Confederacy, was inadequate, and had been hampered, in the beginning, by “short war” syndrome. Comprehensive tax laws were not enacted until 1863. Even then, taxes provided only 7 per cent of revenues: borrowing or sale of bonds provided 25 per cent; impressment of goods, 17 per cent; and sale of Treasury Notes, 51 per cent. Confederate debt ballooned and inflation soared. The Federal blockade had a significant impact, even though it faced a nearly impossible task. In the early stages, Nearly five out of six blockade runners made it through, but the successful transits fell from over 90 per cent in 1861 to 50 per cent in 1865. Many blockade runners carried luxuries, until that traffic was banned by the Confederate government in 1864. Historian James McPherson has estimated that only 33% of normal water-borne traffic was getting through, at a time when the South’s needs far exceeded their peacetime norm. Confederate industry, greatly subordinate to agriculture and lagging far behind Northern industry when the war started, performed prodigious feats during the war. It supplied manufactured goods, mostly military, far beyond any reasonable expectation. As the war progressed, production was hampered by dwindling supplies of raw materials, and even food for slave labor. Sherman had 113,000 troops and 254 cannon massed in Ringgold, Georgia, twelve miles northwest of Dalton. What he needed critically was supplies and 313. Richmond Examiner, 12 August, 1864.

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And the War Came the establishment of an effective supply line to support his move to Atlanta. He set to work with a vengeance on this challenge and also prepared to live off the land, if necessary. Thomas and McPherson attacked Johnston repeatedly, forcing him to continue to withdraw. McPherson pursued and engaged the enemy, always moving closer to Atlanta. Meanwhile, Grant headed his army toward Petersburg, 30 miles below Richmond, desiring to cut the Confederate rail lines to Richmond. In the fighting around Petersburg, Chamberlain was seriously wounded and doctors gave him no chance to live; but recover, he did, although he faced a long convalescence. For his latest heroism, Grant gave him a field promotion to BrigadierGeneral without asking approval, the only such favor granted by him during the War. In Lee’s army, from May 4 through June 5, of 58 general officers, 8 were killed, 12 wounded, and 2 captured. Around Petersburg, in July, both sides began digging entrenchments: not the usual ditch and parapet with abatis of sharpened tree branches, out front, but an extensive honeycomb with covered ways. Each side’s artillery responded with mortars and rifled artillery pieces and shelling became a daily routine. The Northern discontent was fueled by growing disenchantment with a war that was bogged down in the siege at Petersburg and Sherman’s apparent inability to capture Atlanta. It was commonly understood that Lincoln stood no chance in the election unless there was a great shift in the war situation; and many still believed that he would have to back down on emancipation. Henry Raymond of the New York Times wrote: “No living man was ever charged with the political crimes of such multiplicity and such enormity as Abraham Lincoln. He has been denounced without end as a perjurer, a usurper, a tyrant, a subverter of the Constitution, a destroyer of the liberties of his country, a reckless desperado, a heartless trifler over the last agonies of an expiring nation. Had that which has been said of him been true there is no circle in Dante’s ‘Inferno’ full enough of torment to expiate his iniquities.” President Davis confided to Lee that General Johnston had failed in stopping Sherman, and seemed likely to abandon Atlanta. Johnston was relieved on July 17, not by the senior corps commander, Hardee, but by John Bell Hood. Many in the army were outraged. Hood, when on a fact-finding mission for Davis, had bad-mouthed Johnston. He new that Davis was already predisposed against Johnston and was looking for any excuse to fire him..

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19. Atlanta and McPherson Fall: Something Went Out of the War Hood, with one leg and one good arm, was the son of a prosperous Kentucky doctor. In his youth, the young Hood had a streak of wildness and nonconformity. While he was at West Point, his father told him, “If you don’t behave, don’t come home. Go to the nearest gatepost and butt your brains out.” He accumulated 196 demerits, four short of expulsion, and graduated forty-fourth in a class of fifty-two. He did possess remarkable physical courage. His performance in battle in Virginia early in the war escalated his rank from first-lieutenant to colonel in four months. The Union generals who knew Hood regarded him as an intrepid fighter and consummately brave — but fatally rash. Sherman continued to hammer away at the frantic Confederates. General Thomas was facing Peachtree Creek. General Schofield, another of McPherson’s roommates at West Point, was on his left. McPherson was buoyant, as he felt the capture of Atlanta would result in a furlough to see his family and marry Emily. A friend of his remarked on the “absolute freedom from all sense of danger or apprehension he showed.” While he was having lunch with Sherman, heavy firing erupted in front of his lines. Hardee had begun his attack. McPherson jumped on his horse with his aides trailing behind, and promised to send word back to Sherman as to what was occurring. When McPherson came upon his lines, his men were already engaged in battle and successfully driving the enemy back. He noticed a gap between the XVI and XVII Corps, which had been created by the reshuffling of his lines earlier. He dispatched three aides to rectify the problem. A staff officer approached him with news that the left wing of the Corps was being pushed back by a very large force of enemy. McPherson instructed General Logan to send a brigade to close the gap. He then rode toward the XVII Corps, where he felt he was needed. He rode with only his orderly, Andrew Jackson Thompson of the 4th Ohio, in attendance. As he galloped into the woods toward his left wing, he rode into an advance skirmish line of Confederates from Cleburne’s command. As he dashed off in a desperate attempt to escape, a volley rang out. McPherson rode a short distance and then fell to the ground. He had been shot diagonally through the lungs; he bled to death where he lay. The battle raged on, with Hood’s forces attacking in wave after wave but each advance wave was repulsed. The rebel shouts were drowned out by the cry of “McPherson!” “McPherson!” all along the front. One officer said his “men fought like tigers,” when they heard of McPherson’s death.

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And the War Came Confederate casualties numbered around 8000, including General W.H.T. Walker, to McPherson’s 3,722. McPherson had never lost a battle, even after dying. The Richmond Examiner wrote, “it was his genius that had so successfully planned the reduction of Vicksburg; it was McPherson who had made Grant famous, and was about to do the same for Sherman.” Sherman wrote, “Those who he commanded loved him even to idolatry; and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great worth...” The news arrived in Baltimore at twilight in a telegram addressed to Mrs. Samuel Hoffman who, thinking it contained news about the safety of her son in the Confederate army, asked Emily to read it to her. “As the lights in that room were not yet lighted, Grandmother handed it to my Aunt Emily with the request that she read it to her. Aunt Emily took the telegram into the hall and stood under the lantern to read it. Suddenly my grandmother heard the sound of a falling body and rushed out to find her daughter in a dead faint with the telegram clutched in her hands.” Emily never married. From 1876, when a monument was erected to her man in “McPherson Square” in Washington, D.C., until her death in 1891, Emily often took a train from Baltimore, arriving at twilight and sat, heavily veiled, on a particular park bench to gaze at the statue.314

Civil War historian Bruce Catton remarked that something went out of the war when McPherson was killed. “Never before, during this war have we received so hard a blow as that,” wrote one of McPherson’s soldiers.315 On September 2, in the doomed city of Atlanta, factories, mills and supply depots were torched by the Rebels and Sherman’s troops moved into a smoldering, abandoned city. The Army of Tennessee lost more than a third of its men defending Atlanta. In the four months since Sherman began his Atlanta campaign, he had experienced casualties of 31,687 men. That the defending Confederates lost 30,796 men reflects upon Hood’s desperate combat recklessness. If the number of losses appears equal, the percentage and the effect were far from it. Sherman’s losses were 28 per cent, Hood’s 44 per cent. The calculus of doom was ineluc-

314. Elizabeth J. Whaley, Forgotten Hero: General James B. McPherson, from an Interview with Emily Hoffman’s niece, p. 167. 315. Edward P. Stanfield, Letter to “Mother,” 24 July, 1864

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19. Atlanta and McPherson Fall: Something Went Out of the War table and Southern war managers had become irrational from the frustration and agony of observing the desecration of their cause by the hated “Yankees.” Hood would soon lead his remaining 40,000 men into the oblivion of his consuming courage. For the destruction of Atlanta (much of it at Southern hands) and the March to the Sea, Sherman would be damned in Southern lore forever and Hood would be similarly enshrined. Sherman may have saved over 50,000 soldier lives, on each side, by shortening the war. Hood’s casualties (in Atlanta and, subsequently, Tennessee), greatly exceeded 50,000 men, all Southern. Sherman was intellectually acute and effective in execution. Hood was unusually courageous, physically, but he was not mentally acute and had a tendency to foolhardy actions.

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20. CONFEDERATE DISASTER IN TENNESSEE, AND THE 13TH AMENDMENT Bad news was smothering the spirits of the South. In Virginia, Grant had seized the Weldon Railroad, one of the last major supply routes into Petersburg and Phil Sheridan had defeated Early in the Valley at Winchester, following up with an even greater victory at Fisher’s Hill. To cross the “T” on the Confederate fortunes, Admiral Farragut captured Mobile, the last major Gulf of Mexico port in Confederate hands. Davis decided to make another trip through the West to bolster the fighting spirit of the people. He began by journeying to Georgia where he pleaded with the people to hear him. At Macon, he told his audience that more than a third of the fighting men were absent, most without leave, and asked them to pressure deserters to return to their commands. “If one-half the men now absent without leave will return to duty, we can defeat the enemy.”316 The number of desertions in the Confederate armies was officially listed as 103,400 for the entire war, but was undoubtedly much higher. The number of soldiers absent for all reasons was inflated by the lax policy of granting furloughs. Modern estimates place desertions at one in every nine enlistments in the Southern Army and one in seven in the Northern Army, but the percentage was, in addition to being higher, much more critical for the Confederates. At the

316. Clement Eaton, The Civilization of the Old South, p. 270

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And the War Came beginning of the war, absenteeism amounted to 21 per cent of the muster-rolls the Confederate Army. By the end of the war, it was 51 per cent. Aside from bad war news and the war’s numbing consumption of loved ones, the South suffered domestic turmoil beyond the depredations of locust armies sweeping back and forth across the land. The institution of slavery began to crumble during the war as a result of a number of eroding forces: government dictation of crop production diminished the image of slave-owners’ authority; government impressment of slaves for military labor; the absence of masters, who were serving in the military, with consequentially less servile, even “uppity”, attitudes exhibited to overseers and mistresses; slaves running away in greater numbers as the Yankees armies neared; and many of those ex-slaves were serving honorably and courageously as soldiers in the Union army. More than 100,000 whites from seceded states fought in Northern armies. If black soldiers are added to this total, some Southern states supplied more men to Northern armies than to the ranks of the Confederacy. Historian Luraghi concluded: War is the hardest test to which a given society is subjected. Every society meets this challenging strain in a way that is directly linked to its social, moral, ethical — in other words, its cultural — scale of values. Consequently we would say that any people are led, both politically and militarily, in the way they deserve to be; or, less drastically, that any society wages its own peculiar kind of warfare.” Given their agrarian economy, Luraghi credits the South with establishing a wartime economy “ex Nihilo” without creating a “powerful industrial bourgeoisie...Instead they chose the way of “state socialism”...the man who....embodied this stroke of genius was President Jefferson Davis.317

In the North, the fall of Atlanta disemboweled Lincoln’s Republican opposition. They abandoned their plan to support an alternate candidate and the party fell into lockstep to oppose the Democrat’s McClellan. The Democrats must have thought they had lit a fuse parted three ways to ignite three bombs. A few days after the Democratic Convention, Sherman announced that “Atlanta is ours.” A few weeks later General Sheridan defeated Confederate General Early in the Valley. Then, Admiral Farragut took control of Mobile Bay. These military stump speeches vaporized the Democratic “warfailure” theme. That September, Lee wrote to Davis, “As matters now stand, we have no troops disposable to meet movements of the enemy...Our ranks are constantly 317. Raimondo Luraghi, preface to The Rise and Fall of the Plantation South.

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20. Confederate Disaster in Tennessee, And the 13th Amendment diminishing by battle and disease, and few recruits are received. The consequences are inevitable.”318 In the fall of 1864, at Petersburg, every two minutes or so, around the clock, a shell or two landed among the troops. The Yankee troops were well fed while the Southerners often went a week without meat. Food packages from home often disappeared in the collapsing Southern transportation system. General Gordon reported, “Starvation, literal starvation,” had so weakened his men that minor scratches often resulted in infection and even death. Even their pay was four months late. That fall, a visitor to Fredericksburg remarked, “All is still as death for miles and miles under the sweet autumnal sun.”319 Gone was a boost for the Army of Northern Virginia soldiers’ morale, those major battles that were mostly victories. They were replaced by the boredom of waiting and a number of small clashes where nothing significant could be accomplished but the greater percentage losses of the Confederacy. Democrat newspapers still shrilled for Lincoln’s removal. But, from the western horizon arose a groundswell from many small newspapers and the humble folk, rolling eastward from the plains, building a momentum that would overwhelm the Lincoln-haters. A reader of the New York Times wrote, “A copperhead is one who has all the instincts of a traitor without the pluck to be a rebel.”320 Lincoln, a past-master at politics, pulled many sensitive levers behind the scenes; McClellan, in his political naiveté, had no such levers in reach. In the miserable confines of the Confederate Libby Prison in Richmond, the straw votes of the prisoners were 276 for Lincoln, 95 for McClellan. The Town Hall was the polling place in the old, colonial town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Into the building, on Election Day, strode 105-year-old Deacon John Phillips, accompanied by his seventy-nine-year old son. He had voted for George Washington and was a lifelong Democrat in the Jeffersonian tradition. When he entered, everyone rose in his honor. When he was offered two ballots and told to take his choice, he announced, “I vote for Abraham Lincoln.”321

318. Dowdey and Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, p.44 319. Mobile Register, November 26, 1864. 320. New York Times, June 24, 1864. 321. Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8:118n.

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And the War Came On Election Day it became apparent early that an overwhelming Republican victory would occur. The soldier vote was massively Republican, nearly 80 per cent. Pennsylvania was a swing state, where Republican feuds had hurt Lincoln, but the soldiers’ vote saved him. The Republicans carried every State except New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. McClellan received a respectable 45 per cent of the popular vote, and was strong in the cities and among IrishAmerican and German-American voters. Lincoln was supported by the same factions as in 1860, the native-born farmers, skilled workers, professional men (people of New England descent) and, the soldiers. Lincoln had won with a margin of slightly over four hundred thousand out of four million votes, but in the Electoral College he won 212 to 21. The soldier vote was far more lopsided. In McClellan’s old command, the Army of the Potomac, the General received only 30 per cent of the vote. In Sherman’s army, he received only 20 per cent. Sherman had conceived a plan that he felt would hasten the end of the war. He would march his army through Georgia to the sea, demonstrating to the South that a Northern army could do as it pleased deep within their country, that their homeland could be violated with impunity, their “sacred soil” could be desecrated, that through such humiliating depredation he could destroy their will to continue the contest. Sherman telegraphed Grant: Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses and people will cripple their military resources...I can make the march and make Georgia howl!322

Sherman had already declared that the most humane way to end the war was to destroy the South’s power to resist by cutting off supplies and manufacturing and by making the civilians’ lot as miserable as possible, to break the morale of the Confederates at home and in the field. After the presidential election, Grant approved Sherman’s plan of severing his communications to Atlanta and heading toward the Georgia seacoast with his army of 60,000. After the loss of Atlanta, Hood, instead of confronting Sherman, moved his army toward Tennessee, intending to bring Sherman to his knees by cutting his lifeline and recapturing that state for the South. He did this without consulting Davis. Sherman responded by sending General Thomas back to Tennessee to challenge Hood.

322.Burke Davis, Sherman’s March, p. 23.

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20. Confederate Disaster in Tennessee, And the 13th Amendment THE BATTLES OF FRANKLIN AND NASHVILLE, NOVEMBER 30 AND DECEMBER 15, 1864 Location: Tennessee, Franklin being 18 miles south of Nashville Generals Commanding: Union: George H. Thomas Confederacy: John Bell Hood Key Supporting Generals: Union: John M. Schofield, 33, graduated 7th in his class at West Point, a competent general, ambitious. Confederacy: Benjamin Franklin Cheatham Alexander Stewart Stephen Dill Lee Troops available: Union — 50,000 Confederacy — 30,000 Confederate motivation: By capturing stores and soldiers in Tennessee, to force Sherman to turn back from Georgia in pursuit. Plan: Move toward Nashville and contest with any Federal forces encountered, seek a fight at all costs. The Battle of Franklin followed a Confederate fiasco at Spring Hill, where the badly outnumbered 5,000-man force of Union General Stanley staged a nearly hopeless defensive struggle to allow General Schofield to escape entrapment south of Franklin. Lack of scouting by the Confederates resulted in misdirected attacks, and nightfall ended the hostilities which should have brought a rout of the Yankees. Worse yet, the entire Northern force escaped during the night, closely skirting the Rebel camp and moving toward Franklin. At Franklin, the Confederate assault was managed very poorly by Hood, who felt his troops lacked the guts and the will to whip the Yankees. The assault was made utilizing only seven of the 18 brigades available. That left the opposing forces evenly matched, but the attackers would have to negotiate two miles of treeless expanse. The charge began half an hour before sunset.

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And the War Came The Confederate generals were dying along with the men. Before darkness fell, of 24 of Hood’s generals exposed in the fighting, six were killed or mortally wounded, four seriously wounded and one captured. The army’s middle command structure was all but wrecked. The Federal cavalry were armed with the new seven-shot Spencer lever action carbines. The Confederates, who had seen them in action during the Atlanta campaign, marveled that those Yankees were the “God damnedest fellas they’d ever see’d.” As they waded through the river the bluecoats were seen to fire and dive to reload, then fire and dive underwater again (the new metallic cartridges could be loaded while submersed and still fire).323 Cleburne rode in the center of the advancing line on a borrowed horse. He and other ranking officers were smarting under the tongue-lashings of General Hood who maintained that the Confederate fighting men lacked sufficient courage to win battles! A hundred battle flags unfurled in a wave of men almost two miles wide. This force was larger than Pickett’s at Gettysburg, by 50%, and had twice as far to go to reach the enemy lines. It had the courage, all right. At fifty yards from the Union lines, the charge began in earnest, accompanied by the Rebel Yell. The advanced line of Federals turned and ran into their works. Cleburne charged diagonally across his brigades at the center of the Union line. His horse went down, nose first, killed. He called for another horse and had one foot in the stirrup when it went down, too. He drew his sword, waved it above his head and joined his men going over the breastworks. As he headed for one of his own flags on the breastworks, a single bullet hit him, went through the heart and killed him instantly. The Confederates kept up their attack for hours, in the face of awful Northern gunfire. Among the defenders, Major Arthur MacArthur, Jr., of the 24th Wisconsin, later to be the father of General Douglas MacArthur, went down with a severe wound. They are the only father and son who each won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Hood had planned to attack again in the morning until he found the Federals gone. He wired Richmond of a great victory achieved. At Nashville, with Hood pursuing them, the Federals counter-attacked. The attacks were aimed at several points along the Confederate lines and succeeded in breaking through them. The Confederates withdrew about two miles

323. Wiley Sword, Embrace an Angry Wind, the General’s Books, p. 241

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20. Confederate Disaster in Tennessee, And the 13th Amendment to new lines, but did not panic. The officers felt that their men had lost their will to fight. Hood planned a counter-attack for the morning. But, by then, Union General Thomas began a devastating artillery fire to which the few big guns of the Southerners could not respond. The bombardment was followed by Federal assaults on the right and left, aided by cavalry charges. The Confederate lines broke and ran to the rear, confused and completely shaken. Casualties: Union — 5,306 Confederacy — 13,400 Result: Hood’s army had been virtually obliterated and the surviving troops were embittered. The Federals had escaped near certain annihilation at Spring Hill and only destroyed Hood’s forces as a result of his foolhardy attack at Franklin. The Federal forces in Nashville exceeded 50,000 after Schofield arrived. After the battles, Hood reported his effective force at 23,053; many of his weary soldiers vanished silently, heading for home. Hood led his defeated troops back to Franklin. The Army of Tennessee was no longer a fighting entity. On January 13, Hood asked to be relieved and Davis complied with his request. For the entire campaign, Confederate losses were: 8,600 killed and wounded; 13,389 prisoners of war (including 8 generals and 2,000 deserters) out of 38,000 men, and loss of 72 pieces of artillery. Union losses were less than 6,000. Elizabeth Pendleton Hardin of Kentucky expressed a “hope I may never again love anything as I have loved the cause that is lost.”324 As the Southerners marched southward, after the battle of Nashville, the temperature hovered in the teens, and the ground glistened with crisp snow. Many of Hood’s infantrymen shuffled along as best they could, on bare feet, across the frozen ruts and ice-covered chuckholes. Some had frostbitten feet so swollen they left blood with every footstep; others had legs turned blue by the bitter cold. The men were singing, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” but to different words: 324. Elizabeth P. Hardin, “The Private War of Lizzie Hardin: A Kentucky Confederate Girl’s Diary of the Civil War” in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, pp. 241-254.

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And the War Came So now I’m marching southward My heart is full of woe. I’m going back to Georgia to see my Uncle Joe. You may talk about your Beauregard And sing of General Lee, But the gallant Hood of Texas Played Hell in Tennessee.325

From how many homes across the heartland of the South did the triumphantly buoyant strains of the “Bonnie Blue Flag” leap from the piano in the parlor, through the window with the lace curtains angling in the breeze, and then end abruptly, in mid-phrase, when the contents of an official letter were read out loud. And in how many homes throughout the North, in this fall of ’64, were family groups singing the sadly hopeful refrain of “Tenting Tonight,” thinking of their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers, only to be silent with fear at the opening of a telegram? The silence of death! Across the whole afflicted land was heard the sorrow of those left behind. In Georgia, Sherman and his 62,000 troops headed east in two wings, on parallel routes, destined to converge in the state capital, Milledgeville, one hundred miles east of Atlanta. Southern newspapers excoriated him as “Attila” and “Judas Iscariot,” headed for “The paradise of fools.” Sherman severed communications with the North and tore up the rails of his own supply line twenty miles north of Atlanta. He was determined to march an army straight through the South. The civilians — mostly women and children, helplessly watched them pass — and lost perhaps their last farm animal to the troops. A bottomless bitterness was born. Blacks, meanwhile, felt an upwelling of hope mingled with fear. A slave, Katie Rowe, recalled her overseer telling a group of slaves: “You niggers been seeing de ’Federate soldiers coming by here looking purty raggedy and hurt and wore out,” he’d [Saunders, the overseer] say, “but dat no sign they licked! Dem Yankees ain’t gwine git dis fur, but iffen they do, you all ain’t gwine gut ‘free’ by ’em ’cause I gwine line you up on de bank of Bois d’Arc Creek and free you with my shotgun!”326

325.Wiley Sword, Embrace an Angry Wind, the General’s Books, p. 422. 326. James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, pp. 24-25.

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20. Confederate Disaster in Tennessee, And the 13th Amendment Sherman’s troops, rampaging through Georgia, claimed the sentiment they heard the most was that they should visit South Carolina with their depredations because they were the ones who started this mess. One afternoon Sherman came upon a wagon mired in a mud hole. One of the mules was belly-deep in the black muck, and a teamster flailed her with a blacksnake whip. “Stop pounding that mule,” the general said. “Mind your own damn business.” “I tell you again to stop. I’m General Sherman.” “Hell, that’s played out,” the teamster said. “Every son of a bitch who comes along with an old coat and slouch hat claims he’s Sherman.” Uncle Billy grinned and rode on.327 In December Sherman captured Savannah, Georgia, and telegraphed Lincoln to tell him of his “Christmas gift.” Sherman learned of the death of his six-month-old son Charles, whom he had never seen, from reading a newspaper brought into Savannah. It was a terrible blow, but not enough to stop him. Back in 1739 in Darien, Georgia, after the settlers had constructed the mandatory fort, backers of James Oglethorpe filed a petition opposing the introduction of slavery into Georgia. It read, in part: It is shocking to human nature, that any race of mankind and their Posterity, should be sentenced to perpetual slavery, nor in justice can we think otherwise of it, than that they are thrown amongst us to be our Scourge one day or other for our Sins: and as freedom to them must be as dear to us, what a scene of horror must it bring about! and the longer it is un-executed, the bloody scene must be the greater.328

One hundred and twenty-five years later, the Union army arrived in Darien. Most of the town’s 500 whites had fled and had taken most of the town’s 1500 blacks with them. The two Yankee colonels in charge were abolitionists, the vengeful James Montgomery and the humane Robert Gould Shaw, both in 327. Burke Davis, Sherman’s March, p. 95. 328. Spencer B. King, Jr., Darien: The Death and Rebirth of a Southern Town, p. 6-7.

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And the War Came charge of black troops. Shaw’s men were the famed 54th Massachusetts Regiment. With the Confederate forces far away, the remaining citizens surrendered their town and asked that it be spared according to the convention of civilized warfare. Montgomery, ignoring insistent pleas from Gould, allowed his troops to rampage and burn the helpless town. The prophecy of 1739 had been fulfilled. Indeed, as the war turned against the south, Southern religious leaders liked to remind their flocks that the Lord often used Infidels to punish the sins of his chosen people. In January, Congress debated the proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which would free the slaves. The Senate had approved it in early 1864, but it had been defeated in the House. This time, the measure passed 119 to 56, with two “aye” votes more than the required two-thirds majority. In the House there was a moment of awed silence, then a thunder of cheers from the gallery, then shouting, and, on the floor, hugging, tears, backslapping...a wild celebration lasting over ten minutes. In the Confederacy, calamity tripped over calamity in excruciating succession. One gold dollar, which had been valued at $1.03 in 1861, was now worth nearly $60 Confederate. In Richmond, a pair of gloves cost $30; slippers, $50; six spools of thread, $24. In mid-January, the last open Confederate seaport, Wilmington, North Carolina, was closed, captured by the Federals. Foreign trade ceased altogether. The Union had amassed a fleet of 671 ships by 1865, while the Confederates manufactured or converted 130 ships during the course of the war. At Christmas time, Southerners held “starvation parties,” having no refreshments to serve. On New Year’s Eve in Virginia, Union soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes noted in his diary, “Goodbye, old 1864. Your departure is not regretted, as it brings us so much nearer to the end of the war. May God grant us success in the year about to open.”329 Lincoln held the customary public reception at the White House.Outside, negroes stood waiting for two hours. At last, it was agreed the time had come for them to go in. Lincoln gave this motley crowd a hearty welcome that made them wild with joy — it made many of the whites mad with fury, too, but that was another matter.

329.Robert Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, p. 203.

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20. Confederate Disaster in Tennessee, And the 13th Amendment The Confederate Congress named Lee General-in-Chief of all Southern armies, rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Confederacy. Lee replaced the ailing Beauregard with Johnston, in the Southeast. With the advent of 1865, the Confederates were running out of soldiers. Lee and Benjamin, and now Davis, supported the enlistment of slaves as soldiers in the Confederate armies. When Davis advanced his new thinking, and, in addition, proposed that the blacks should be freed afterward, some of the planters erupted in a furor and Richmond sulked. General Cobb of Georgia said, “I think that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began...You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers.”330 In March, legislation was finally passed to put blacks in uniform and teenagers and men over 60 in the reserves. The government could accept slaves volunteered by their masters and the relation to the master would not change, “except by consent of the owners.” It had taken a long time to progress even this far (if progress it was). Desertions in the Southern armies increased at an alarming pace as relatives suffering the depredations of Sherman’s men urged them to come home to be with their families in their time of need and as the feeling of despair over the outcome of the war increased. Lee issued orders that joking about desertion was an offense punishable by death. In January, the Confederate reserve of food for the armies was reduced to two days’ short rations. February brought increasing desertions. During ten days, they totaled over 1,000 men. Most returned home, with their rifles, so they could fend off the provost guards. The situation was exacerbated by the absence of many high-level officers due to wounds and illness. Longstreet had one majorgeneral and seven brigadiers missing out of thirteen brigades. Of ten major-generals of the infantry, only four were present. Of 39 brigade commanders, only 21 were present. There was no one to fill these vacancies. Surveying the political and military landscape, the newspapers began to evince a grudging respect for Lincoln and his single-mindedness, having withstood torrents of abuse and criticism for so long. A South Carolina woman, Emma LeConte commented about Johnston in her diary, “The last news from Johnston was that he had retreated to Raleigh. 330. Robert Franklin Durden, Gray and Black, p. 184.

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And the War Came This arch-retreater will probably retreat till perhaps he retreats to Gen. Lee, who may put a stop to his retrograde movement.”331 Through four years of threat of attacks and actual assaults, Charlestonians lived by the declaration of one of their own: “We intend to die hard.”332 Sherman: “Any one who is not satisfied with war should go and see Charleston and he will pray louder and deeper than ever that the country may in the long future be spared any more war.”333 Sherman moved on to Columbia where the Confederates put up token resistance before abandoning the city. The mayor surrendered it. The streets were littered with broken furniture, the result of pillaging before the Yankees arrived. The railroad depot and another large building had been burned to the ground. Cotton bales had been torn open and lint was flying everywhere. Drunken natives were wandering around offering the Federal soldiers liquor.334 The fires, which were small and separated at first, began spreading until the city was in conflagration. The role of the Federal soldiers has been a subject of controversy ever since. Sherman said later: “Though I never ordered it [the burning of Columbia] and never wished it, I have never shed many tears over the event, because I believe it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war.”335 Emma LeConte: “As far as the eye can reach, nothing is to be seen but heaps of rubbish, tall dreary chimneys and shattered brick walls...the market is a ruined shell...the old bell — ‘Secessia’ that had rung out every state as it seceded, lying half-buried in the earth.”336 Three-quarters of the City was destroyed, more than 366 acres — with 1386 houses, stores and other buildings burned to the ground. Mary Chesnut was informed, “‘Madame, Columbia is burned to the ground.’ I bowed my head and sobbed aloud.”337

331. Emma LeConte, When the World Ended: The Diary of Emma LeConte, ed., Early Schenck Miers, p. 83. 332. E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston, 1861-1865, p. 26. 333. War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, 47, pt. 1, p. 38. 334. John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, p.332-333. 335. Burke Davis, Sherman’s March, p. 179. 336. Ibid., p. 180. 337. C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 725.

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21. LEE SURRENDERS AT APPOMATTOX Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address on the Capitol steps, while from a platform above and behind him a fuming John Wilkes Booth glared at the man he felt had ruined the South, the only worthwhile civilization on the continent. “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed toward an impending civil-war. “All dreaded it — all sought to avert it...Both parties deprecated the war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. “The slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease...Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to the man by whom the offence cometh! [quoting from Matthew]. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we

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And the War Came discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? “Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it may continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds;...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”338

Lincoln was not troubled that his address was not immediately popular. “Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.”339 His eloquence was further put to the test in letters to the bereaved. Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Bixby, a Boston widow, who had lost five sons in battle: I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and the lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln340

Lincoln was now 35 pounds underweight. At fifty-six, he looked old and sick. In the waning months of the conflict, his spirit seemed to sag. Ten days after his Inauguration, Lincoln could not summon the energy to get out of bed. Mary called a doctor, who examined him and pronounced the cause “exhaustion, complete exhaustion.”341 A week before, a seemingly minor incident occurred at Ford’s theater. The policy of the theater was to allow patrons to occupy choice seats, if those for whom the seats were reserved did not show by the end of the first act. A Mr. 338. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln, His Speeches and Writings, pp. 792-793. 339. Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p. 266. 340. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 639. 341. Jim Bishop, The Day Lincoln was Shot, pp. 37-38.

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21. Lee Surrenders at Appomattox Merrick arrived at the start of Act II to find his seats thus occupied. He was agitated. The ticket-seller tried to find him box seats. He tried Box #6, upstairs, but it was locked. The usher, who was not on that night, kept the keys because Mr. Ford did not like employees sleeping in the boxes during the day. The ticketseller tried Box #7 and Box #8, the presidential box. Both were locked. His embarrassment growing, he put his shoulder to door and leaned… nothing. He heard giggling from the ladies. He raised his foot to the lock and smashed it. The lock broke and the door opened. On his way out, he tried the lock...yes, broken. That door could now be opened by anyone. The ticket-seller did not report it. Here again, an insignificant, random, minor accident contributed to the turbulent waters of catastrophe that were coursing forward. Lee evacuated his position at Petersburg, hoping he could beat the Yankee troops to Danville, obtain rations and then join with Johnston. The Confederate government evacuated Richmond. Fires set by authorities to deprive the Yankees of spoils raged out-of-hand and much of the city burned. Lee had hoped to find provisions waiting for his staggering troops at Amelia Courthouse, west of Richmond. There the columns were halted on the road. No provisions appeared. No one understood why. Three hundred and fifty thousand rations had been gathered in Richmond and Lee had requested they be sent to Amelia Courthouse. The Confederates found ammunition, but no food. “Worry clings to me like a cocklebur.” This lament, now so applicable to the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was once uttered by a slave, to describe a life of gnawing burden. The Yankees were moving parallel to the Confederates in order to keep themselves on the inside, thus shorter, arc. Lee ordered further movement toward Burkeville in hopes of coming upon a supply train ordered from Danville. Now, he would have to outrun the Union infantry. During the retreat to Appomattox, a soldier wrote: “Two days fasting, marching, and fighting was not uncommon;...no rations were issued to Cutshaw’s battalion of artillery for one entire week.”342 After subtracting deserters and stragglers from the effective soldier count in Lee’s army, there were around 10,000 men left at arms. Lee set his army in motion again. Supplies had reached Appomattox Station from Lynchburg but were unprotected, so he moved in hopes of beating the Yankees to them. As the Southern vanguard approached Appomattox at twilight, the sight in the heavens wrenched their empty guts. A glow on the horizon! 342. Douglas, op. cit. 331.

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And the War Came To the south! To the west! To the east! Only in the north was darkness unrelieved by the shimmering light of campfires. The enemy was there...waiting...they were virtually surrounded! Any supplies that had moved from Lynchburg would certainly have been captured. By April 9, Palm Sunday, the rest of the Federal infantry had arrived to support Sheridan’s cavalry and any attempt to begin a fight could only bring obvious disaster to the Southerners. Lee’s staff officers heard him say, “There is nothing left me to do but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” Lee sent Grant a note asking for an interview “with reference to the surrender of this army.” Near the courthouse, Brigadier-General Joshua Chamberlain joined a group of generals from both sides, including Sheridan and Gordon. A sound of hoof beats came from a distance and there was a breathless stir among the troops. Chamberlain turned to the rear to catch sight of Robert E. Lee, riding with his chief of staff between the two lines. He was dressed in a splendid goldembroidered gray uniform, his sword at his side. His face appeared sad but his bearing strong and dignified. Chamberlain felt “a certain awe and admiration,” as he watched the man pass.343 Lee and Grant met at the McClean House at the edge of Appomattox village. At the battle of First Bull Run, General Beauregard had used the house of Wilmer McClean as headquarters. McClean moved away, wanting to distance himself from the fighting. Now, three years and nine months later, his new house was to be the site of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Lee was 58 years old, with silver hair, tall and erect; Grant was 42, with black hair and the strength of youth. Lee wore a clean and dazzling military dress; Grant was dressed in a rough-worn and dusty blouse. Grant apologized to Lee, saying that he had come directly from the field and hadn’t had time to change his uniform. Lee’s bearing concealed his inner turmoil. Grant was embarrassed. Both wore inscrutable faces. After small talk, Lee said, “I suppose, General Grant, that the object of our present meeting is fully understood. I asked to see you to ascertain upon what terms you would receive the surrender of my army.” “The terms I propose are those stated substantially in my letter of yesterday — that is, the officers and men surrendered to be paroled and disqualified 343. Joshua L. Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, pp. 246.

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21. Lee Surrenders at Appomattox from taking up arms again until properly exchanged, and all arms, ammunition and supplies to be delivered up as captured property.” “Those,” said Lee, “are about the conditions I expected would be proposed.” Grant put it in writing and handed it to Lee, who read it slowly and said, with his first touch of warmth, “This will have a very happy effect on my army.” Grant asked for any further thoughts. Lee had one. His cavalrymen and artillerists owned their horses and he wanted his men to have them for the spring plowing. Grant agreed. Lee shook hands with some of Grant’s generals who offered theirs, bowed; and then turned to Grant, saying that his army was in a very bad condition for want of food and that they had been living on parched corn exclusively. He asked for rations and forage. Grant replied, “Certainly,” asked how much he needed, and directed that 25,000 rations be sent to Lee’s men.344 Horace Porter, Grant’s aide-de-camp, wrote, “Lee signaled to his orderly to bring up his horse, and while the animal was being bridled the general stood on the lowest step of the front porch and gazed sadly in the direction of the valley beyond where his army waited — now an army of prisoners. He thrice smote the palm of his left hand slowly with his right fist in an absent sort of way, seemed not to see the group of Union officers in the yard that rose respectfully at his approach. Lee appeared unaware of everything about him. Nor did he notice Robert Lincoln standing on the porch. All appreciated the sadness that overwhelmed him, and he had the personal sympathy of every one who beheld him at this supreme moment of trial.”345 At this most anguished, profoundly searching moment of his life, his thoughts must have been suspended between random memories of past events and an overpowering sense of loss: self-loss; family loss; loss for the hundreds of thousands he had led in battle; and, loss for millions of his disintegrating nation’s people — losses he had been incapable of preventing. A hollow voice intruded on his reverie. Then it telescoped into the steady, respectful voice of his orderly, in counterpoint to the silent eloquence of springtime at Appomattox Courthouse...the rusty, comforting mat of dead pine needles, the startling green of living, sun-illumined pines against the blue, the

344. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, pp. 494-495. 345. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant, pp. 485-486.

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And the War Came glory of the dogwood and redbud blossoms mixed in a splendid and delicate white and pink palette. “Your mount, General...Sir? Your mount...General.” As he climbed into the saddle, he assumed his uniquely graceful, commanding posture. The General was barely conscious of motionless blue and gray forms — mostly blue — that seemed to fix him in time, seemed to regard him in a silent, simple reverence, both personal and professional. Over nearly three years under Robert E. Lee, six lieutenant generals had commanded Corps. Now only Longstreet was with him. Forty-seven men had served Lee as major-generals; seven were left at Appomattox. There had been 146 brigadiers; 22 were now counted at the surrender. Instead of the 200 colonels appropriate for the remaining forces of Lee, 85 were present. Armed foot soldiers had dwindled to 7,892 and men in all conditions, in all branches, numbered slightly over 28,000. After hearing of Lee’s surrender, Virginian Sarah Striker Fife declared, “I cannot keep off this terrible feeling that I am standing at the deathbed of the dearest thing on earth to me.”346 One Virginian said defiantly, “They never whipped us, Sir, unless they were four to one. If we had anything like a fair chance, or less disparity of numbers, we should have won our cause and established our independence.”347 General order No. 9, R. E. Lee’s farewell to his army: “After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources...I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.”348 Comrades wept as they gazed upon each other, and with choking voices said, farewell! And so — they parted. Little groups of two or three or four, without food, without money...were soon plodding their way homeward. In the beginning of the war Grant had electrified the North by saying, “No terms except an immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted.” At its 346. Sarah Striker Fife, Diary 347. David Donald, ed., Why the North Won The Civil War, p. ix. 348. Letters of General Robert E. Lee, General Order No. 9, Appomattox, Virginia, April 10, 1865.

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21. Lee Surrenders at Appomattox close, he said to Lee, “Let every man of the Confederate Army who claimed to own a horse or mule take the animal to his home.”349 Chamberlain was summoned to headquarters and informed by Generals Griffin and Gibbon that Grant had chosen him to command the surrender ceremonies of the Confederate infantry. On April 12, the Northern Brigades formed along the RichmondLynchburg Road east of the courthouse in line of battle with the mounted Chamberlain and his staff to the right, thus being the first soldiers the Confederates would pass. The Stars and Stripes and the triangular ensign of the Third Brigade with its Maltese cross fluttered in the breeze behind them. The Union soldiers stood at “order arms” in battle array with muskets gleaming. Across the valley the men in gray came together in the familiar and easy route step. The misery of knowing that their cause was dead was nearly crushing and they knew not what future they might have. These were proud men, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually undefeated even if physically overpowered. This bitter thing had to be faced...to march by the victorious Yankees whose victory over the greatest general who ever lived was due to numbers only...would the Yankees jeer or jibe, with word or gesture or look? Leading the Southern army was General John B. Gordon, amazingly fit and young-looking for a man with thirteen battle wounds, a masterful horseman and ramrod straight in the saddle. His head slightly bowed, eyes serious and saddened and with dejected determination to “drink this cup” etched on his visage. The flag of the Confederacy, with its solid white field, red background and crossed blue bars with white stars in the upper left corner, preceded the column behind him. At intervals, the battle flag, the “stars and bars,” oversized, appeared along with the unit battle flags. The Federal soldiers who watched the approach of the Confederates did a double-take. “The regimental battle-flags...crowded so thick, by thinning out of men, that the whole column seemed crowned with red.”350 As Gordon reached the point in the Union ranks where Chamberlain waited, a bugle sounded and the entire Union line snapped to attention, “and the slapping noise of hands on shifting rifles echoed in the stillness as regiment after

349. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, p. 493. 350. Joshua Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, pp. 258-261..

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And the War Came regiment in succession down the Union line came into the old manual of arms position of ‘salute’ and then back to ‘order arms’ and ‘parade rest.’”351 Gordon recognized immediately what was happening, wheeled his horse to face Chamberlain, spurred his horse, causing it to rear and drops its head in a bow, while Gordon dropped his sword to his boot toe in graceful salute to a man he would refer to as, “one of the knightliest soldiers in the General army.” Turning to his own columns, Gordon gave an order that was repeated down the columns. The large Confederate banner dipped and as his men passed by they saluted the Union soldiers in kind. “On our part,” as Chamberlain described it, “not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breathholding, as if it were the passing of the dead.”352 The two recent antagonists behaved not as bitter enemies normally do when one has conquered and one has succumbed, but rather with a deep-seated respect colored with the regret that it had to come to this, like two close friends after an unfortunately bitter altercation. It was consonant, as well, with the admonishment of Abraham Lincoln to “Let ’em up easy.” After Lee surrendered at Appomattox, a New Jersey Colonel wrote his wife, “it has been our privilege to live and take part in the struggle that has decided for all time that Republics are not a failure.”353 Author Tony Horwitz has written: “It was hard to imagine modern Americans ending any contest with such grace, much less one that lasted four years and claimed over a million casualties.”354 The South stacked its arms at Appomattox Court House four years to the day after Beauregard had fired their first shot at Sumter. The parole passes at Appomattox entitled the Confederates to travel free on any Union-controlled ship or railroad and draw rations from any Union soldiers they met on their journey. The South also had hundreds of thousands of rations at cities and rail junctions.

351. Ibid. 352. Ibid. 353. Civil War Letters of John McCallister, p. 608. 354. Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, p. 270.

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21. Lee Surrenders at Appomattox Result: The Civil War cost $20 billion, a sum eleven times greater than the Federal government had spent in its entire existence. The value of property in the Confederate States declined from over $4 billion to $1.6 billion during the War. It is estimated that two-fifths of the South’s livestock and two-thirds of all of its assessed wealth were destroyed. During the war, 16,000 new patents were issued by the Union. Only 266 were issued by the Confederate government. The Confederacy mobilized something like 80 per cent of its military pool (18-45 years old), compared to 30 per cent in the North. Six hundred and twenty thousand Americans died, almost as many as the combined death in all of America’s other wars until today. Another five hundred thousand were wounded — over one million casualties out of a population of thirty-two million. At the end of the war, 178,895 blacks were in the Union ranks, having fought in 369 major battles and 410 major engagements, suffering 68,178 casualties. The average Southern soldier who lived past the end of the war had been wounded, stricken with disease, or otherwise disabled, six times. A Georgia woman, Sara Hine, wrote, after Appomattox: “We never yielded in the struggle until we were bound hand & foot & the heel of the despot was on our throats. Bankrupt in men, in money, & in provisions, the wail of the bereaved & the cry of hunger rising all over the land, Our cities burned with fire and our pleasant things laid waste, the best & bravest of our sons in captivity, and the entire resources of our country exhausted — what else could we do but give up.”355

355. James M. McPherson and William J. Cooper, eds., Writing the Civil War, Gary W. Gallagher, Blueprint for Victory, p. 18.

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22. LINCOLN ASSASSINATED, HIS SEVERE TASK DONE

The President’s close friend and ever-faithful bodyguard, barrel-chested Ward Hill Lamon, was certain Lincoln would be assassinated. He always made Lincoln promise he wouldn’t go to the theater when Lamon was out of town. He was out of town on this day. In the second week of April, Lincoln had a dream which haunted him. In it, he seemed to hear people weeping; he left his bed and wandered downstairs, going from room to room. No one was in sight, but the sound of piteous grieving went on. In the East Room, he found a corpse laid out for a funeral, surrounded by a guard of soldiers. He demanded, “Who is dead in the White House?” “The President…he was killed by an assassin!” Hotels were a recent convenience in Washington. Guests were used to boarding houses or taverns for room and board. “The Willard” was the place “to be seen” but the National Hotel catered to Southerners. For the morning of April 14, the registry showed one John Wilkes Booth, an actor, of Bel Air, Maryland. That morning, Booth confided to his diary that it was time to do something decisive. Later that morning he learned of Lincoln’s plans to attend the theater that evening and the “something decisive” took a more concrete and insidious form. Since the surrender at Appomattox, Washington had been on a celebratory binge, right into Holy Week. This day was Good Friday. Lincoln was at his desk by 7:30 a.m. A few blocks away, Secretary Stanton, eating his customary soft-boiled eggs, asked his wife to send regrets to Mrs.

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And the War Came Lincoln concerning a theater invitation. Stanton did not believe in the theater and had no intention of attending such a spectacle. He had advised Lincoln to stay away from all theaters and reduce public appearances to a minimum. At 8:00 a.m., Lincoln breakfasted with his wife and his sons Robert and Tad. Lincoln habitually ate one egg and drank one cup of coffee. This morning he wanted to hear what Robert had to say about Grant and the last days of the war. Robert spoke of events at the surrender at Appomattox and of Grant’s genius. When Robert showed his father a photograph of Robert E. Lee, the President admired the man’s face. One good face admired another. Benjamin Franklin once made an intriguing observation, “I believe long habits of virtue have a sensible effect on the countenance.”356 The characters of Lincoln and Lee were etched in their visages. Mrs. Lincoln announced that she had tickets for the huge celebration at Grover’s Theater that evening but admitted that she would rather see Laura Keene in “Our American Cousin,” playing at Ford’s theater. The play had been written fourteen years before by the English playwright Tom Taylor. Following the initial rehearsal, Taylor decided it would not succeed with a British audience and sent it to America, where it had a reasonable run but was now about played out. Lincoln expressed little interest, but indicated he would go. Mary asked Robert to join them, but he declined. She asked Mr. Lincoln if the Grants could join them and Lincoln promised to see to it. By 8:30 a.m., the President was back in his office. The books in the President’s office consisted of the Bible, the Statutes of the United States of America, and the complete works of William Shakespeare. At 9:00 a.m., the President had finished reading his newspapers. One of the pigeon-holes in his desk was labeled “assassination.” It contained eighty threats. He gestured to the soldier standing by the door to admit his first vulture, i.e. visitor. He liked to refer to the ritual of greeting visitors who waited to see him everyday as “the Beggars’ Opera.” His favorites were the inventors, original but eccentric. He enjoyed repeating the story of one visit in particular, with a man from deep in the backwoods, who counseled him, “a gun ought not to rekyle, if it rekyled at all, it ought to rekyle a little forrid.”357 356. Ron Chernow, Titan, The Life of John D, Rockefeller, Sr., p. 612. 357. John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln, The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, p. 82.

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22. Lincoln Assassinated, His Severe Task Done

John Wilkes Booth, his haircut finished, walked into the lobby of the National Hotel. Everyone knew him. Many envied the handsome, self-assured, famous actor. No one would have been suspicious of him. In Stanton’s office, General Grant presented his recommendations for paring down the size of the army to that needed in Reconstruction peacetime and for cancellation of vendor contracts. Grant notified his wife, Julia, that they would be leaving for Burlington, New Jersey, to see their children. By 10:00 a.m., the President was still seeing favor-seekers, but directed a messenger to run over to The Ford Opera house on the east side of tenth Street between E and F and inform them he would require the President’s box tonight and that General and Mrs. Grant would accompany him and Mrs. Lincoln. Lincoln was not keen to out that evening, especially since he expected the capitulation of Joe Johnston’s army to General Sherman at any time and, if it happened, his mind would not be on the theater. Mr. James Ford was delighted with the news, for Good Friday was the worst night of the theater year. “Our American Cousin” was no magnet and his rival, Grover’s, was staging a gala victory celebration. He also knew whom he had to thank...the President’s wife. Lincoln had attended his establishment three times recently but, in each case, a Shakespearean play was staged. Tonight’s show was not Lincoln fare. Mr. Ford hastened to the Treasury building to obtain bunting for the occasion. Lincoln knew that historic decisions would be made regarding the nature of Reconstruction of the South, and therefore the future of the nation, at the 11:00 cabinet meeting. He might be permitted a soft chuckle when he thought that Congress, which was not in session, could hardly do anything to change what would be decided before they convened in December, eight months off. Grant was applauded when he entered the room and he and Lincoln chatted by the window. The discussion proceeded. After a while, Stanton gently waved a great sheaf of papers while announcing he had a plan which he had given “a great deal of reflection.” In fact, Lincoln had asked Stanton to prepare this document, expecting it to be a middle ground between his “soft” approach to reconstruction and Stanton’s “harsh” one. It was generally agreed that, regarding of election of officials in the South, the political and military leaders of the rebellion be disenfranchised and officials elected from the rest of the populace. Stanton suggested that Virginia and North Carolina be combined into one state but this

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And the War Came proposal gained no support, as the others thought the process of reuniting the states was more important than engaging in a stupendous gerrymander. Talk turned to what to do about the leaders of the rebellion and some harsh words escaped. Lincoln interrupted, urging wisdom and discretion to enable the States to get back on their feet before Congress reconvened in December. At about this time, Booth walked into Ford’s to pick up his mail, which Ford always kept for him. While there, Booth heard Ford order the partition to be removed between Boxes 7 and 8. Out of respect for the President, no other boxes would be occupied. Booth went outside to read his mail and then reentered the 1700-seat, gas-lit theater and went upstairs. Outside the boxes was an unlighted hallway to which entrance was gained through a door. The President’s guard would be seated at another door, which led into the hallway. The boxes overhung the sides of the stage and the distance from the ledge of the box to the stage below was eleven feet. Booth entered the hallway and went through the door of Box 7, seated himself and watched the rehearsal. His mind was rehearsing the details of a drama of a vastly different nature. The cabinet meeting was still going on at 1:00 p.m. and Lincoln was warmed by the trend of the discussion, the gist of which was that if the North helped the South to revitalize its economy, the North would benefit likewise. At 2:00 p.m., the Whig Press of Middletown, New York, published the shocking story that Lincoln had been assassinated. The editor had not even performed a rudimentary check on the “scoop.” Stranger yet, at the same time, in distant St. Joseph, Minnesota, forty miles from the nearest telegraph office, people asked each other, gasping, if they had heard the news that Lincoln had been assassinated. The cabinet meeting ended with general agreement on taking a constructive approach to the reconstruction of the South. General Grant walked over to Lincoln, thanked him for allowing him to attend, and then nervously begged off attending the play that night, saying that he “was very anxious to get away and visit my children.358 Lincoln, who had wished to show the General to the people, was disappointed, but he relented.

358. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol.2, p. 508.

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22. Lincoln Assassinated, His Severe Task Done It was after two o’clock when he shook Mr. Lincoln’s hand and said goodbye. The General went at once to his rooms at the hotel. Lincoln had lunch with Mary and no doubt told her of Grant’s decision. The theater was ready for the President. The red-upholstered rocking chair reserved for the President and two sofas for the ladies were set in place. Three chairs were added in back. Bunting and flags were positioned and a picture of George Washington nailed over the Treasury Department regimental flag. Mr. Ford personally checked that everything was to his liking, opening the doors to Box 7 and then Box 8. That fact that neither door locked escaped his notice. The First Lady had suggested to the President that it would be nice to go for a carriage ride. At around 4:00 p.m., the President went to the War Department. He had sent word to Mary that he would go for the ride when he returned. At the War Department, Lincoln asked Stanton if there was any news from Sherman. There was none. Then Lincoln spied Thomas Eckert, Chief of the Telegraph Bureau and a hulk of a man, and asked him if he would accompany the Lincolns to the theater that night. Stanton interrupted, saying the man was needed for important work. Lincoln addressed him directly: “Now Major, come along. You can do Stanton’s work tomorrow.” In deference to his boss, Eckert declined.359 The President and First Lady were seated in their carriage about 5:00 p.m. During their ride Lincoln was in a buoyant mood frequently doffing his stovepipe hat to passers-by who hailed him. Mary was startled by his cheerfulness. She reminded him that he was similarly buoyant just before Willie died. John Wilkes Booth was also out riding along Pennsylvania Avenue. He came upon a carriage with two escorts and luggage, heading toward the train station. He knew it wasn’t Lincoln, whose carriage he had passed shortly before. He rode by the puzzling carriage and reined in ahead of it, then turned around and approached the carriage at a walk. Peering in, he saw two ladies, who thought him a wild-eyed stranger. They were Julia Grant and General Rucker’s wife, who had offered to take the Grants to the railroad station. In the carriage box was the driver and a military officer who looked like Grant. Booth went to Ford’s Theater around 6 o’clock. He took the stagehands to a tavern and brought them drinks and then a bottle. He left them, went back to the theater, picked up a pine music-stand board and climbed the stairs toward 359. David Homer Bates, “Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, pp. 366-367.

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And the War Came the hallway behind the President’s box. He entered the hallway and came to the white door at Box 7. It opened readily. He tried to brace the hallway door shut by wedging the board between it and the rear wall of Box 7 but found the board a bit too long. Holding a handkerchief under the plaster of the wall, he whittled out a space until the board fit. He placed the board away in a corner. Now, he could prevent anyone following him into the box. If he had to stab the guard outside the hallway entrance, someone would be sure to come running. He moved to the side of the President’s rocker and mulled over the drop to the stage. If he could avoid jumping from the ledge of the box and swing over it, hanging down, he could reduce the fall substantially. He then went back to the door and carved a hole in the corner of one of its recessed panels. Through it, he could see the top of the back of the President’s rocking chair. He carefully cleaned up the wood shavings. He stepped outside, went down the hallway and exited. He was ready. He returned to his hotel, ate, and returned to his room where he loaded his brass derringer, a tiny pistol that could be concealed in a woman’s hand. It fired a lead ball nearly one-half inch thick. It could not be fired again until reloaded. He checked the sheathed knife in the waistband of his pants. Lincoln’s guard, William Henry Crook, was still at his post outside the President’s office at 7:00 p.m., three hours after he should have been relieved by John F. Parker, a Washington policeman who was frequently late. Crook begged the President not to go to the theater that evening but Lincoln did not want to disappoint his wife. Parker finally arrived. Crook told him of the President’s plans that evening and said that, even though there would be room for him in the carriage, it might be best for him to go to the theater a few minutes early and wait for Lincoln there. The President said some words to Crook and then said “goodbye, Crook.” Lincoln then went back into his office. Crook was startled. The President always said “Good night” to Crook, never “Goodbye.”360 Parker’s record as a policeman was stained: it included charges of using insulting language, while on duty, toward a number of men, women and his superiors; of being found drunk and disorderly in a house of prostitution as a customer; and, of failure to properly patrol his post. At dinner the First Lady had informed her husband that she had invited a young couple, who were engaged, to join them at the theater: Clara Harris, the 360.Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, p 346.

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22. Lincoln Assassinated, His Severe Task Done lovely young daughter of Senator Ira Harris of New York, and her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone, the Senator’s stepson. Shortly after 8:00 p.m., the Lincolns entered their carriage, the President saying a cheery good-bye to a few friends he promised to see in the morning. May was wearing a low-cut white dress and a bonnet with pink flowers on it. They stopped at H Street to pick up Major Rathbone and his fiancée. The officer was in civilian clothes and was not armed. It was 8:25 when the Lincolns arrived at Fords. Act One was in progress to an almost full house of nearly 1675 people. Policeman Parker had arrived early; he checked the President’s Box and awaited his arrival. He led the party to their box. On stage, the action ceased as Laura Keene began to applaud the arrival of the President. The band started to play “Hail to the Chief,” and the audience joined the applause. Lincoln had first heard “Hail to the Chief” on the capitol steps in 1861 as he was about to take the oath of office. Since then, he heard it thousands of times more. This would be the last time. Parker sat on his chair, outside the corridor. Just before 9:00 p.m., Parker grew bored, and stepped out of the theater. Spying the President’s carriage, he strolled over and invited the dozing coachman for some ale at Taltavul’s tavern. They were joined by Lincoln’s valet, Forbes, who had been seated on a crate in the box. In the Box, Major Rathbone and Miss Harris were holding hands. The President reached over and took Mary’s hand, which he held at the side of his rocker. Around 9:30 p.m., John Wilkes Booth arrived at Ford’s, went inside for a while and stood to the side of the stage, and looked across, to the President’s Box. Through the haze he could see practically nothing. He had time. He went back outside and over to Taltavul’s Tavern and ordered a bottle of whiskey. Strange, thought Taltavul, he usually drank brandy. Around 10:00 p.m., the second scene of the third act of the play had begun. Lincoln saw portly General Ambrose Burnside return to his seat, late. At 10:07, Booth walked into the lobby of the theater and headed up the stairs. He was startled to find the chair by the little white door empty. He walked up to it and turned around with his back almost against it. Laughter from the audience diverted attention of any that might have been watching him. Listening to the dialogue on stage, Booth knew that in couple of moments, “Asa” would be alone on stage. He turned the knob, opened the door, entered the inner hallway and closed the door behind him. He found the pine board he had stored and wedged it against the door and into the wall niche he had carved.

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And the War Came There would be no interference from that direction. He moved down the hallway in darkness toward Door Number 7. He could see light coming through the door reflecting on the hallway wall. He heard the muffled voice of Mrs. Mountchessington, on stage: “Augusta, to your room.” Augusta said, “Yes, Ma. The nasty beast.” Booth peered through the gimlet hole and saw a head above the rocking chair. On stage, Trenchard said: “don’t know the manners of good society, eh....?” Booth, Derringer in hand, turned the knob. Lincoln was four feet away from him. Trenchard continued: “Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old mantrap!” Booth pointed the gun at the President’s head, between the left ear and spine. He squeezed the trigger and a sound like a popped paper bag was heard by some, not by others, as laughter trilled through the audience. Lincoln did not move. His head slumped on his chest and the rocker became still. Mary, Major Rathbone and Clara Harris turned to look, laughter blooming on their faces. Booth forced his way between the Lincolns. Clara Harris was startled. Major Rathbone, unaware of what had happened, responded instinctively and lunged at Booth. He grabbed Booth’s arm but Booth had pulled out his knife, and he slashed his attacker. Rathbone’s left arm was slashed to the bone. Booth approached the ledge of the box and shouted melodramatically, “Sic Semper Tyrannus.”361 Mary looked at Lincoln, who appeared to be dozing. Booth swept his legs over the ledge, and with his back to the audience, let himself over the side. He pushed his body away from the box with his right hand but the spur of his right boot caught in the draped Treasury flag. The banner ripped, following Booth to the stage. Booth held his left foot stiff and shoved out his two hands to break his fall. He landed on the left leg, which broke just above the instep. He arose and ran across the stage to the wings. The confused audience saw him fall again, get up, and limp on the outside of his left foot, walking on his ankle. Mary shrieked from the box. Clara Harris shouted, “Water.” 361. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 72 (February 1979), William Hanchett, Booth’s Diary, p.40.

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22. Lincoln Assassinated, His Severe Task Done Booth made it to the back door where an innocent stagehand had his horse waiting, following earlier instructions. Booth limped toward the horse and managed to swing up on it. He was settling in the saddle when Major Stewart emerged from the building, crying, “Stop! Stop!” Stewart reached for the reins. Booth barely evaded him, and rode out of the alley. Surprisingly, Booth was not yet in much pain. He leaned on the right stirrup and sat with his left thigh in the saddle. He turned left onto Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. From the State Box rang another scream, which brought the audience to their feet. Mary Lincoln could not rouse her husband. Clara Harris was begging for water. Women in the audience began fainting and more cries for “water” were heard. Major Rathbone went into the corner and found the pine bar blocking the door while a crowd pushed from the other side. He yelled for them to stop and he dropped the bar to the floor. It was covered with his blood. He entreated the crowd to let only doctors through. Dr. Charles Leale, a twenty-three-year old Assistant Surgeon of United States Volunteers made his way from the back. Rathbone asked Doctor Leale for immediate attention. The doctor lifted his chin, peered into his eyes and walked into the box. The man was not critically wounded. The doctor lifted Mary Lincoln’s head off her husband’s chest. She was moaning helplessly. He asked that she be taken away; she was seated in Box 8 with Clara Harris, who was trying to console her. Leale pushed the president’s shoulders back against the rocker and studied the man. Lincoln’s eyes were closed. Breathing was inaudible. There was no sign of a wound. Leale asked some soldiers who had arrived to place Lincoln on the floor. He wanted to look for a knife wound. He had heard shouts about a man with a knife and had seen Rathbone’s knife wound. Lifting an eyelid, Leale spotted evidence of brain injury. Separating his fingers, he combed Lincoln’s hair and, in the rear, found matted blood. His fingers loosened the clot and the President began to breathe faintly and produce a weak pulse. A Doctor Taft arrived and Leale lifted Lincoln to a near-sitting position, asking Taft to hold him. Leale inserted his little finger in the wound, determined that it was caused by a bullet with the projectile moving through the brain toward the right eye. Feeling around the eye he determined the bullet had not emerged. It was still in the brain. He lowered Lincoln toward the floor. He knew Lincoln would die. He straddled Lincoln and administered artificial respiration.

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And the War Came He would prolong life as much as he could. Lincoln’s breathing became stronger but Leale told the two doctors now present that the wound was mortal. Laura Keene had joined Clara and Mary Lincoln on the sofa in Box 8. All three heard the doctor’s prognosis but only Mary Lincoln seemed not to understand. Doctor Taft asked people to find a place nearby to take Lincoln and ordered soldiers to carry him down. There was chaos in the building and on the street. A captain, sword raised high, led soldiers to clear the way. Every few steps, Dr. Leale removed a clot. A man appeared in a doorway at 453 Tenth Street and motioned to have Lincoln brought there. It was the tailor, William Petersen, and it was his home. The President was brought to a small bedroom, nine by fifteen feet, under the stairway. Lincoln was placed diagonally on the bed, too short for a man of his stature, and propped up with pillows so that his chin rested upon his breast. Leale and the other doctors began to remove the Presidents’ clothing. Looking up, he saw Mary, Clara and Laura Keene standing in the doorway and asked them to wait in the front room. His examination discovered no other wounds. Mustard plasters were placed over Lincoln’s entire body and sheets and a comforter were placed over him. Lincoln sighed now and then. His breathing was raspy and labored. His pulse was forty-four and light. The pupil of his left eye was contracted, the right pupil was dilated. Both were insensitive to light. Leale sent for Robert Lincoln. Dr. Robert K. Sine, the President’s physician and Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, Lincoln’s pastor were summoned. Surgeon General Barnes was stopped in his carriage while he was passing by Willard’s Hotel and was told to hurry to the President. He rushed to his office for his instruments and, while there, was told about Secretary Seward’s wounding at the hands of Booth’s accomplice, Lewis Paine. Confused, Doctor Barnes went to Seward’s home and was dressing Seward’s knife wounds (Seward was reported dead by berserk mobs, but would live) when a frantic negro hack driver burst in the house and begged him to come to Tenth Street, where the President of the United States lay dying. Dr. Barnes left to attend the President. He thought Seward would live if he survived the shock, but thought that his son, Frederick , having suffered a double fracture of the cranium during the attack, might die. The news was spreading around the city. Ella Turner, a prostitute who loved Booth, placed a picture of Booth beneath her pillow and placed a chloroform-soaked rag over her face. She was discovered, and revived. The com-

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22. Lincoln Assassinated, His Severe Task Done mercial telegraph lines in the city went dead and would not be revived until 12:30 a.m. Even though many witnesses saw and identified Booth as Lincoln’s assassin, the impression of official Washington was that a massive Confederate retaliation plot was just unfolding. There was a shut-down of the commercial telegraph system at 10:30 p.m.; it would seem to require the work of many hands to cut so many wires at once. Washington appeared to be a city besieged by a defeated Confederate government, left only the ultimate revenge. At 12:30 a.m., the telegraph came alive. The wires had not been cut. Two wires from the main battery had been crossed and service shorted out. While he was riding south in Maryland toward his intended escape route in Virginia, Booth’s leg began hurting badly. He needed a doctor. The only one he knew in the area was Dr. Samuel Mudd in Bryantown, a man he did not trust. He was already eleven miles south of Ford’s Theatre and Mudd’s farm was another seventeen miles further south. He rode with co-conspirator David Herold and determined he would wear a disguise he had brought along when they visited Dr. Mudd. They would tell him that Booth had broken his leg when thrown from his horse. After 2:00 a.m., Mrs. Lincoln made another trip to the bedroom. She rested her cheek on her husband’s and the President emitted an explosive breath. Mary screamed and fainted. Booth had left a personal manifesto with his sister, Asia, in Philadelphia, so that “history to might judge him fairly:” ...The country was formed for the white, not the black man...I, for one, have considered it [slavery] one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and our power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere...the South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuation of slavery...Even should we allow that they were wrong at the beginning of this contest, cruelty and injustice have made the wrong become the right. The south can make no choice. It is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death)...I know my choice...but God is my judge; I love justice more than I do a country that disowns it...Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man to whom she owes so much of misery...362

Booth arrived at Dr. Mudd’s five-hundred acre farm after 4:00 a.m., disguised as an old man. Until the Emancipation Proclamation, Mudd had owned 362. Jim Bishop, The Day Lincoln was shot, pp. 70-71.

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And the War Came eleven slaves. Once, when one of his slaves refused an order, Mudd shot the man in the leg. The doctor worked on Booth’s leg, found a simple fracture of the tibia, affixed a splint and offered to let the stranger stay until morning. Shortly after 5:00 a.m., Lincoln hemorrhaged again; he was attended by the doctors until his breathing became regular. The President appeared relaxed although his right eye, with the bullet lodged behind it, was swollen and purple. His lips were blue from insufficient oxygen. His legs were stone cold. His breathing stopped for long periods, with the doctors timing the lapses. Lincoln’s missing guard, John Parker, showed up at a police station with a prostitute in hand. She was ordered out of town. No one asked Parker where he had been last night. Parker did not inquire as to the condition of the President nor offer to file a report about the assassination. After 7:00 a.m., Lincoln began to moan. His right eye was black. His breathing was swift and his lips blew out and were sucked back in. Surgeon General Barnes felt his cold hands and asked to have Mrs. Lincoln brought to the bedroom. Robert Lincoln, a reserved man, buried his face in his hands. Mary Lincoln arrived, looked at her husband, heard her son sob, and then was led out of the room in silence. The President was failing. Dr. Leale saw Lincoln’s chest heave, hold, and then relax. This was 7:22:10. All waited for the next breath. It did not occur. Lincoln’s face was now peacefully composed at rest. “What a history was written on that careworn and furrowed face — of suffering accepted, sorrow entertained, emotions buried, and duty done.”363

363.Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Pastor, Third Congregational Unitarian Society in New York City, Sermon (after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln).

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23. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE MAN JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WAS LOOKING FOR In December of 1865, the bleeding, divided nation which was destined to become the most powerful and wealthiest in the world ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to its Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States...” It reads simply enough, but what a journey it was to arrive at such simplicity. “Oh, if but one man could arise with a genius capable of comprehending, a heart capable of supporting, and an utterance capable of communicating those eternal truths that belong to this question.” John Quincy Adams’ prayer had been answered in the form of an unschooled rustic from somewhere out on the Plains. “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free...it will become all one thing or all the other...whether this shall be an entire slave nation is the issue before us.”364 Winston Churchill wrote that the “American Civil War...must upon the whole be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass-conflicts...”365 364. Roy p. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, “House Divided” Speech, p. 372. 365. Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, The Great Democracies, vol. IV, p. 263.

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And the War Came The freed slaves added to their repertoire of spiritual songs a beautifullycadenced chant that rejoiced: Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty I’m free at last.

By 1890, forty per cent of the Federal Budget was spent in pensions to wounded and elderly soldiers and widows and orphans of the war. The slave, Cato Carter: “Mr. Ol came back [from the war]...He was all wore out and ragged. He stood on the front porch and called all the niggers to the front yard. He said, ‘Mens and womens, you are as free today as I am.’ You is free to do as you like, ‘cause the damned Yankees done ‘creed that you are. But they ain’t a nigger on my place that was born here or ever lived here that can’t stay here and work and eat to the end of his days, as long as this old place will raise peas and goobers. Go if you wants or stay if you wants.’ “Some of the niggers stayed and some went. And some that had run away to the north came back. They always called real humble-like at the back gate to Miss Earing, and she always fixed it up with Mr. Ol that they could have a place.”366 Historian Bruce Catton wrote, over a century after the Civil War: “...the country made a commitment during that war; a commitment to a broader freedom, a broader citizenship. We can no longer be content with anything less than complete liberty, complete equality before the law for all of our people...we are fated to continue the experience in peaceful democracy.”367 Lincoln had said: “In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the government, whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.”368 Bruce Catton observes that The legend of Robert E. Lee and the heroic Confederate soldiers [who] … suffered mightily in a great but lost cause...[includes] no hint … of biding one’s time and waiting for a moment when there could be revenge...[As such] the legend of the lost 366.James Mellon , ed., Bullwhip Days, The Slaves Remember, An Oral History, p. 277. 367. Bruce Catton, Reflections on the Civil War, p. 226. 368.Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln his Speeches and Writings, Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1864, p. 789.

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23. Abraham Lincoln: The Man John Quincy Adams was Looking For cause has served the entire country very well...we have had national peace since the war ended, and we will always have it.369

There was an 1866 song entitled, “‘O, I’m a Good Old Rebel.” Three hundred thousand Yankees is stiff in Rebel Dust We got three hundred thousand before they conquered us They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot, I wish they was three million instead of what we got I can’t take up my musket and fight them now no more, But I ain’t gonna love them; now, that is certain sure. And I don’t want no pardon for what I was and am I won’t be reconstructed, and I don’t care a damn.370

The Civil War led directly to three Constitutional Amendments, destroyed the major social and economic institution of half the nation, led to the election of five presidents, freed over four million slaves, killed 620,000 men and destroyed an ideology that threatened to end the life of our nation in adolescence, and with it, the republic that offered hope for freedom to all the disenfranchised souls on our planet. William Graham Sumner, the Northern Social Darwinist, asserted that freedom for the slaves meant greater personal hardship for the Negro than slavery, but that such suffering was the price of evolution. The Monument to Abraham Lincoln in Washington is a stirring memorial. The words of his two Inaugural and Gettysburg addresses move the heart and mind with their elegant simplicity and poignancy. Another kind of memorial can be found, of a contrary kind, in the words that poured out of the hearts and minds of those who were his “friends”, on his side in the war, after he was elected President of the United States. They include quotations from high officials, editors of important newspapers and others of note. All of the following quotations were spoken or written by Northerners, or Northern sympathizers in the South. None of these emanated from the Confederates. “Imbecile.” — Pennsylvania “His conduct is all that could be expected of one born of poor white trash.” — Ohio “Liar.” “He lacks the will and purpose...has not the power to command.” — Missouri “Illinois beast.” 369. Bruce Catton, Reflections on the Civil War, pp. 227-228. 370. Innes Randolph, Song, ‘A Good Old Rebel’, 1870.

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And the War Came “Pitiful coward.” “Butcher.” “Shallow, dazed, utterly foolish.” “Mr. President, you are murdering your country by inches.” — Ohio “Has no mind whatsoever.” — Massachusetts “Has neither insight nor provision for decision.” — Massachusetts “Thief.” “Ignoramus.” “We must save the President from the infamy of ruining his country.” — Massachusetts “The good of the country requires me to submit to men whom I know to be vastly my inferiors, socially, intellectually and morally.” — Commander, Army of the Potomac “Would be glad to hear some morning that you had been found hanging from the post of a lamp at the door of the White House.” — Pennsylvania “The ugliest man I have ever put my eyes on, with the expression of plebeian vulgarity in his face.” —Massachusetts “His weakness requires replacement by a stronger man.” — Officer Clique in the Army of the Potomac “There is no hope for this country except in the death of the President and a new administration.” — Minnesota “He is shattered, dazed, and utterly foolish.” — Former Supreme Court Justice “So cautious as to be timid...so ignorant as to fear the little danger near more than the danger farther off.” — Massachusetts “Swindler.” “Lincoln has failed, failed, failed, FAILED!” — Iowa “So vacillating… so weak…so fearful...and so ignorant.” — Michigan “God did not make him of such stuff as these times demand.” — Vice President of the United States “Fool.” “Fiend.” “Buffoon...vulgar buffoon.” “The feebleness of his will...His want of intellectual grasp…” — Secretary of the Treasury “Our great want is a competent leader.” — Attorney General of the United States

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23. Abraham Lincoln: The Man John Quincy Adams was Looking For “If he is elected...for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.” —Wisconsin In striking counterpoint to the above litany of scorn would appear Lincoln’s words from his Second Inaugural Address: I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies... With Malice toward None; with Charity for All.

And his words to Western audiences in 1858: Never forget that we have before us this whole matter of right and wrong.

There were, of course, Lincoln supporters during the war, and there was an avalanche of posthumous adulation. One of the most beautiful tributes comes in a letter written to Abraham Lincoln by Mary Abigail Dodge, a writer for magazines and newspapers from a small village in Massachusetts, on the day of his Second Inaugural. I only wish to thank you for being so good — and to say how sorry we all are that you must have four years more of this terrible toil...But if you had been in this little speck of a village this morning and heard the soft, sweet music of unseen bells rippling through the morning silence from every quarter of the far-off horizon, you would have better known what your name is to this nation...May God help you in the future as he has helped you in the past and a people’s love and gratitude will be but a small portion of your exceeding great reward.371

Frustrated by a cabinet initially composed of enemies and patronizers, vilified by senators and governors, excoriated by the press, excruciatingly disappointed by five consecutive astonishingly ineffective generals, disdained by illwishers...lacking even a lifeline of succor from a shallow, distracted wife, thus did Lincoln work toward his goal. But many common Northern people and most of the soldiers were strongly attached to this awkward, ungainly, unattractive and absolutely beautiful and magnificent man. At the price of being lonely, unhappy, misunderstood, maligned, griefstricken and finally murdered, Lincoln recalled the “better angels” of our human nature.

371. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, p. 666.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Abigail. Letters of Mrs. Adams, 2 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1840. Adams, Charles Francis, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848, 12 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 187. Adams Family Papers, 1639-1889, Manuscript, Microfilm, 608 reels. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1954-1959. Alexander, Edward Porter, Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Fighting for the Confederacy. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1989. Andrews, William L. and Henry Louis Gates, eds., Slave Narratives. New York: Library of America, 2000. Andrews, William L., ed., Six Women’s Slave Narratives. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988. Ashworth, John, Slavery, Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1830. N.p.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996. Aristotle, Politics, Barker, Ernest, ed. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1946. Ball, Edward, Slaves in the Family. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998. Barber, Lucius W., Army Memoirs. 1894. Reprint, Alexandria: Time-Life Books, 1984. Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present. New York: Harper Collins, 2000. Basler, Roy P. ed., Abraham Lincoln his Speeches and Writings. 1946. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1990. Basler, Roy P. ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8 vols. Piscataway: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953. Bates, David Homer, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1995.

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And the War Came Beatty, John, The Citizen Soldier. 1879. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Beers, Fannie, Memories. 1888. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1985. Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1998. Bibb, Henry, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave. N.p.: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Bible, The, Catholic Action Edition with the Confraternity Text. Gastonia, North Carolina: Goodwill Publishers, Inc., 1961. Billings, John D., Hardtack and Coffee. 1887. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1982. Bishop, Jim, The Day Lincoln was Shot. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Blassingame, John W., Ed., Slave Testimony: Two centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1977. Bloom, Harold, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. Boritt, Gabor S., Ed., The Gettysburg Nobody Knows. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999. Boritt, Gabor S., Ed., Why the Confederacy Lost. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992. Bowen, Catherine Drinker, John Adams and the American Revolution. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1950. Bowen, Catherine Drinker, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May – September 1787. Boston: Back Bay Books, 1966. Boyd, Julian P. ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1770-1776, 25 vols. to date: Princeton: n.p., 1950-. Buck, Lucy Rebecca, Sad Earth, sweet heaven: The Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck during the War Between the States, Front Royal, Virginia, December 25, 1861-April 15, 1865. N.p.: Cornerstone, 1973. Burbank, Daniel E. Letter to his parents 8/11/61. Manuscript, American Antiquarian Society. Burger, Warren E., It Is so Ordered, A Constitution Unfolds. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Burnside, Madeleine & Rosemarie Robotham, Sprits of the Passage. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Burton, E. Milby, The Siege of Charleston, 1861-1865. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1982. Burton, Orville and Judith N. McArthur, A Gentleman and An Officer. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. Cahill, Thomas, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels. New York: Nan A. Talese, Doubleday, 1998. Calder, William. Letter to his mother, 6/26/63. Calder Papers, Southern Historical Collection.

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Selected Bibliography Cappon, Lester G., ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters and Abigail Adams and John Adams, 2 vols. Chapel Hill, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1959. Carmichael, Peter S., Lee’s Young Artillerist: William R. J. Pegram. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia, 1995. Carter, Robert Goldthwaite, Four Brothers in Blue: Or Sunshine and Shadows of the War of Rebellion, a Story of the Great Civil War from Bull Run to Appomattox. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Catton, Bruce, The Coming Fury. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Catton, Bruce, This Hallowed Ground. New York: Washington Square Press, 1961. Catton, Bruce, Reflections on the Civil War. New York: Berkley Book, 1982. Catton, Bruce, A Stillness at Appomattox. New York: Washington Square Press , 1958. Catton, Bruce and McPherson, James M., Eds., The American Heritage New History of the Civil War. New York: Metro Books, 2001. Chamberlain, Joshua L., The Passing of the Armies: An Account of the Final Campaign of the Army of the Potomac Based upon Personal Reminiscences of the Fifth Army Corps. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1915. Chamberlain, Joshua L. Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg. N.p., n.d. Chase, Salmon P., David Donald ed., Inside Lincoln’s Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase. New York: Longmans and Greene, 1954. Chamberlain, Joshua L., My Story of Fredericksburg. N.p., n.d. Chernow, Ron, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. New York: Random House, 1998. Churchill, Winston S., A History of the English Speaking Peoples, 4 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1956-1958. Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. N.p.: Cass, 1968. Cohn v. Costa, No. 5252, 15 La. Ann. 618(1860), testimony of Francois Terralon, UNO. Colbert, David, Ed., Eyewitness to America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. Commager, Henry Stele, The Blue and the Gray: The Nomination of Lincoln to the Eve of Gettysburg, vol. I. New York: New American Library, 1950. The Congressional Globe, ed. John V. Rives, New Series. The Congressional Globe, Appendix. Cooper, Alonzo, In and Out of Rebel Prisons.1888. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Cooper, William J. Jr. and James M. McPherson, Writing the Civil War. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1998. Crist, Lynda Lasswell and Mary Seaton Dix, eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 3. vols., 18491860. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1983, 1985, 1989.

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And the War Came Current, Richard N., ed.-in-chief, The Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. New York: Simon and Schuster MacMillan, 1993. Dalton, Michael D., Country Justice. London: T. Roycroft and W. Rawlins, 1697. Davis, Burke, Sherman’s March. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. Davis, David Bryan and Steven Mintz. The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998. Davis, William C., Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Davis, William C., The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1996. Davis, Varina, Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir by his Wife, 2 vols. New York, n.p., 1890. Delaney, Lucy, “From the Darkness Cometh the Light: Or, Struggles for Freedom.” Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001. DeLeon, Thomas Cooper, Four Years in Rebel Capitals. 1890. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Dodge, Grenville Mellen, The Battle of Atlanta and Other Campaigns. N.p.: Old Bookshop Publications, 1996. Donald, David Herbert , Lincoln. London: Jonathan Cape Random House, 1995. Donald, David Herbert, Why the North Won the Civil War. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996. Donnan, Elizabeth, Document Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols. Washington: Hippocrene Books, 1935. Dos Passos, John, Inside USA. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946. Dow, George F., Slave Ships and Slaving. Salem: Marine Research Society, 1927. Dowdey, Clifford and Louis H. Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee. New York: Bramhall House, 1961. Durden, Robert Franklin, The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1972. Eaken, Sue and John Logsdon, ed., Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northrup. N.p.: Dover Publications, 2000. Eaton, Clement, The Civilization of the Old South. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1968. Eckert, Ralph Lowell, John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner, American. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1993. Ehle, The Trail of Tears: Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Eisenschiml, Otto, Why the Civil War. N.p.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958 Elliot, Charles, “Oration” in Dedication of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, Boston, 1897. Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

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Selected Bibliography Ellis, Joseph J., American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. An English Combatant, Battlefields of the South. 1864. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1864. Equiano, Olaudah B., “An Interesting Account,” Great Slave Narratives. Arna Bontemps, ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Faust, Drew Gilpin, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996. Faust, Patricia L., Ed., Historical Times Illustrated, Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Fehrenbacher, Don E., and Ward M. McAfee, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relation to Slavery. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. Field, The Sermons of Henry Smith. N.p.,n.d., 1593. Fish, Carl Russell, The American Civil War: An Interpretation. N.p., Longmans, Greene and Co., 1937. Fleming, Thomas, Liberty, The American Revolution. New York: Viking Books, 1997. Fogel, Robert William, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, Evidence and Methods. New York: W.W. Norton, 1992. Foner, Eric and Olivia Mahoney, A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. Foote, Shelby, Chickamauga, and other Civil War Stories. N.p.: Amereon, Ltd., 2000. Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative, 3 vols. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. Force Peter, ed., American Archives, 6 vols. Washington, D.C.: 1833-1846. N.p., Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. Ford, Lacy K., The Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860. Ford, Paul Leicester, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10 vols. New York City, n.p., 18921899. Frederickson, George M., The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union. Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1993. Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990. Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee, an abridgement by Richard Harwell. New York: Charles Scribner’s & Sons, 1961. Freeman, Douglas Southall, , Lee’s Lieutenants. one volume abridgement by Stephen W. Sears. New York: Scribner, 1998. Fremantle, Arthur J. L., Three Months in the Southern States.1863. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1984.

267

And the War Came Furgurson, Ernest B., Chancellorsville, 1863: The Souls of the Brave. New York: Random House, 1992. Gallagher, Gary W., The Confederate War. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1997. Gallagher, Gary W., Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1998. Gallagher, Gary W., Ed., Lee The Soldier. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1996. Gallagher, Gary W., The Wilderness Campaign. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1997. Genovese, Eugene D., A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998. Glatthaar, Joseph T., Partners in Command: The Relationship Between Leaders in the Civil War. New York: The Free Press, 1993. Gordon, John B., Reminiscences of the Civil War. 1903. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1981. Goss, Warren Lee, Recollections of a Private.1890. N.p. : Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1984. Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 2 vols. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. Groom, Winston, Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville, the Last Great Campaign of the Civil War. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. Hammond, James Henry, Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond of South Carolina. New York: James F. Trow & Company, 1866. Handlin, Oscar & Lilian, Liberty in America: 1600 to the Present. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Hardin, Elizabeth Pendleton, The Private War of Lizzie Hardin: A Kentucky Confederate Girl’s Diary of the Civil War in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia , Alabama and Georgia. N.p.: Kentucky Historical Society, 1963. Harsh, Joseph P., Confederate Tide Rising, Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 18611862. Kent: Kent State Univ. Press, 1998. Hattaway, Herman and Archer Jones, How The North Won. Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1983. Headley, John W., Confederate Operations in Canada and New York. 1906. N.p.: Reprint, TimeLife Books, 1984. Heidler, David S. and Jeanne T., Eds., Encyclopedia of the American Civil War. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. Henderson, G. F. R., Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War: Greenwich: Fawcett Publications, 1962. Heyrman, Christine Leigh, Southern Cross, The beginnings of the Bible Belt. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1998.

268

Selected Bibliography Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Army Life in a Black Regiment. 1870. N.p.: Reprint, TimeLife Books, 1982. Hitchcock, Frederick, L., War from the Inside. 1904. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1985. Hodge, Robert A., Ed., The Civil War Diary of Betty Herndon Maury. N.p., Privately printed. Holzer, Harold, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Holzer, Harold, Witness to War: The Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: Berkley Pub Group, 1996. Horwitz, Tony, Confederates in the Attic. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. Hubbel, John T., A Bright Particular Star: James Birdseye McPherson. N.p., 1988. Jacobs, Harriet, A. et al., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by herself. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000. Jimerson, Randall C., The Private Civil War: Popular Thought during the Sectional Conflict. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1988. Johnson, Walter, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999. Jones, Archer, Civil War Command and Strategy, The Process of Victory and Defeat. New York: The Free Press, 1992. Jones, John B., A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, vols. I & II. 1866. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1982. Jones, William J., Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes and Letters of Lee. New York: n.p., 1874. Jordan, David M. Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier’s Life. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1988. Josephus, Flavius, The Jewish War and the Antiquities. Boston: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967. Kaestle, Carl, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schooling and American Society, 1780-1860. N.p., Hill & Wang, 1983 Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs, Behind the Scenes. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988. Kean, Robert Garlic Hill, Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlic Hill Kean, Head of the Bureau of War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973. Keene, William Williams, Military Surgery in 1861 and 1918. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1918. Kemble, Frances Anne, Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838 1839. 1863. Reprint, New York: Metro books, 1969. Kennedy, Kunhardt and Kunhardt, Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Kennett, Lee, Marching Through Georgia: The Stories of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman’s Campaign. New York: Harper Perennial, 1995. Kidd, J.H., Personal Reflections of a Cavalryman. 1908. N.p.: Reprint, 1983.

269

And the War Came King, Spencer B., Darien: The Death and Rebirth of a Southern Town. N.p.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1995. Kolchin, Peter, American Slavery, 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Krakauer, Into the Wild. New York: Anchor Books, 1997. Kraut, Alan M.., Ed., Crusaders and Compromisers: Essays on the Relationship of the Antislavery Struggle to the Antebellum Party System. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983. Krick, Robert K., Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2002. Krick, Robert K., Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1990. The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee. N.p: Da Capo Press, 1987. Le Conte, Emma, When the World Ended: The Diary of Emma LeConte, ed., Early Schenck Miers. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1987. Lengyel, Conrad Adam, Four Days in July: The Story behind the Declaration of Independence. Garden City: Doubleday, 1958. Lewis, John H., Recollections from 1861-1865. Dayton: Morningside House, 1983. Little, George Thomas, ed., Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, 4. vols. New York: n.p., 1909. Longacre, Edward G., Gentleman and Soldier: The Extraordinary Life of Wade Hampton. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2003. Lowell, James Russell, Political Essays: The Writings of James Russell Lowell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1889. Luraghi, Raimondo, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation South. N.p.: Olympic Marketing Corp., 1978. Maier, Pauline, American Scripture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Marius, Richard, Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1999. Marszalek, John F., Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. New York: The Free Press, 1993. McCaig, Donald, Jacob’s Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. McCarthy, Carlton, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier’s Life. 1882. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Papers of George Brinton McClellan, 1823-1898. Archival Manuscript Collection, Microfilm. Manuscript Reading Room, Madison, LM101). McKim, Randolph H., A Soldier’s Recollections. 1910. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1984. McPherson, James M., Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991.

270

Selected Bibliography McPherson, James M., Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002. McPherson, James M., Drawn with the Sword. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. McPherson, James M., For Cause & Comrades. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997. McPherson, James M. and William J. Cooper, Writing the Civil War. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1998. Mearns, David C., Ed., The Lincoln Papers: The Story of the Collection with selections to July 4, 1864. Garden City: Doubleday, 1948. Melia, Tamara Mosher, James B. McPherson and the Ideals of the Old Army, Doctoral Dissertation, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1987. Mellon, James, Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember, An Oral History. New York: Avon Books, 1990. Michaels, Fugitive Pieces. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Miles, Jim, To the Sea: A history and Tour Guide of Sherman’s March. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1989. Miller, William Lee, Arguing about Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Mitchell, Reid, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993. Mitgang, Herbert, Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1989. Mitgang, Herbert, Noah Brooks, Washington, D.C. in Lincoln’s Time (Journalist’s Lincoln). Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, Reprint, 1989. Monroe, Haskell M. and James T. McIntosh, eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, 1808-1848, 3 vols. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1971, 1974, 1981. Moore, Edward A., The Story of a Cannoneer under Stonewall Jackson.1907. N.p.: Reprint, TimeLife Books, 1983. Moulder, Rebecca Hunt, May the Sod Rest Lightly: Thomas O’Conner, Halifax Courthouse, Virginia, 1831, Knoxville, Tennessee, 1882. N.p.: Skyline Print Co, 1977 Mullin, Gerald W., Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth Century Virginia. N.p: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974. Nagel, Paul C., John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Nagel, Paul C., The Lees of Virginia. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990. Neblett Papers, Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin, Texas. Nevins, Alan, The Diary of John Quincy Adams. 1928; New York: Reprint, Scribner, 1951. Nevins, Alan, The Emergence of Lincoln. New York.: Scribner, 1950. Nolan, Alan T. “General Lee”, Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Lee The Soldier. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1996.

271

And the War Came Northrup, Solomon, Sue Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon, Eds., Twelve Years a Slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1968. Oates, Stephen B., The Approaching Fury. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Oates, Stephen B, The Whirlwind of War, Voices of the Storm, 1861-1865. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Oates, William C., Gettysburg: the Battle on the Right. Southern Historical Society Papers (1878). Olmstead, Frederick Law, Arthur M. Schlesinger, ed., The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States: Based upon Three Former Volumes of Journeys and Investigations. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Palfrey, Francis W., Peninsular Campaign. In Military Historical Society of Massachusetts. Peace, Theodore C. and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickmam Browning. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, 1925. Perry, Mark, Conceived in Liberty: Joshua Chamberlain, William Oates and the American Civil War. New York: Viking Press, 1997. Peterson, Merrill D., The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun. N.p.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987. Pfanz, Donald C., Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier’s Life. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1998. Pittenger, William, and James G. Bogle, Daring and Suffering. N.p.: Cumberland House Publishing, 1999. Porter, Horace, Campaigning with Grant. 1897. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1981. Potter, David M., The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Putnam, Sally Brock, Richmond during the War: Four Years of Personal Observation. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1996. Reid, Whitelaw, Ohio in the War. Columbus, Ohio. Eclectic Publishing Company, 1893. Rhea, Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press. 1997. Randall, Henry S., The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1770-1776. N.p.: Princeton, 1950. Rhea, Gordon C., Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2002. Rhodes, Robert Hunt, All for the Union. New York: Orion Press, 1985. Robertson, James I. Jr., ed., Civil War Letters of John McCallister. Np.,n.d. Robertson, James I., ed., James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1960. Rose, Willie Lee Nichols, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, The Port Royal Experiment. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976.

272

Selected Bibliography Rowland, Dunbar, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, 10 vols. Jackson, MS, n.p., 1923. Rowland, Moore, & Rogers, The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1996. Sandburg, Carl, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, One Volume Edition. New York: Galahad Books, 1954. Savary, Alain, Le Parfait Negotiant. N.p.: 1736. Sawnburg, W.A., Sickles the Incredible: A Biography of Daniel Edgar Sickles. N.p.: Stan Clark Military Books, 1956. Schofield, John, McAllister, Forty-six years in the Army. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Schweizer, Peter and Casper Weinberger, forward to The Next War. Washington, D.C.: Regency Publications, 1996. Schwoerer, Lois G., The Declaration of Rights, 1689. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1981. Sears, Stephen W., ed., For Country, Cause & Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993. Sears., Stephen W., ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860-1865. New York: Tiknor & Fields, 1989. Sears, Stephen W., Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1983. Sears, Stephen W., To the Gates of Richmond. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992. Shaara, Michael, The Killer Angels. New York: Random House, 1974. Smith, Donnal V., Chase and Civil War Politics. N.p.: Ayer Co. Publishers, Reprint edition, 1972. Southern Historical Society Papers, 52 vols. Richmond, 1876-1959. Stanfield Papers, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, In. Stevens, Walter B. and Michael Burlingame, A Reporter’s Lincoln. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1998. Stevens, George T., Three Years in the Sixth Corps. 1866. N.p.: Reprint, Time Life Books, 1984. Stewart, George R., Pickett’s Charge: A microhistory of the final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959. Stiles, T. J., ed., In Their Own Words: Civil War Commanders. New York: Berkley Publishing, 1995. Stillwell, Leander, The Story of a Common Soldier. 1920.N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Strong, The Death of General James B. McPherson. N.p.,n.d.

273

And the War Came Sutherland, Daniel E., Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Confederate Community. New York: The Free Press, 1995. Sword, Wiley, Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville. N.p: The General’s Books, 1994. Symons, Craig L., Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1997. Tadman, Michael, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders and Slaves in the Old South. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1990. Tanner, Robert G., Stonewall in the Valley: Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, Spring 1862. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1996. Tap, Bruce, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of the War. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas Press, 1998. Taylor, Richard, Destruction and Reconstruction. 1879. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. The Civil War Book of Lists, Combined Books, ed., 1993. Thomas, Emory M., The Confederate Nation :1861-1865. New York: Harper Torch Books, 1979. Thomas, Emory M., Robert E. Lee, A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. Thomas Hugh, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1879. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Ruffin Thomson to his Father, May 24, 1862, Manuscript in Private Possession. Townsend, George Alfred, Campaigns of a Non-Combatant. 1866. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1982. Tripp, Steven Elliott, Yankee Town, Southern City: Race and Class Relations in Civil War Lynchburg. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1997. Trudeau, Noah Andrea, Gettysburg, A Testing of Courage. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Trulock, Alice Rains, In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain & the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1992. Tucker, Glenn, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg. New York: MacMillan, 1968. U. S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. Washington, D.C., 1880-1901. Mollie Vandenburg to C. H. Clark, March 11, 1862 Manuscript in Private Possession. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901. Watson, William, Life in the Confederate Army. 1888. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1983. Waugh, John C., Reelecting Lincoln. New York: Crown Publishers, 1997. Weed, Thurlow, Autobiography of Thurlow Weed. N.p.: Reprint Services Corporation, 1883. Wert, Jeffry D., General James Longstreet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

274

Selected Bibliography Whaley, Elizabeth J., Forgotten Hero, James B. McPherson. N.p.: Consolidated Book Producers, 1955. Whittier, John Greenleaf, Anti-Slavery Poems: Songs of Labor and Reform, “At Port Royal”, 1862. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1888. Whipple, The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln . N.p.: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Wiley, Bell Irvin, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1952. Wiley, Bell Irvin, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1943. Wilkinson, John, The Narrative of a Blockade Runner. 1877. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1984. Williamson, James J., Mosby’s Rangers. 1896. N.p.: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1982. Wills, Brian Steel, A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Wills, Garry, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Wilson, Clyde M., ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun, 1844. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1989 Wilson, Douglas C. and Rodney O. Davis, Eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997. Wilson, Douglas L., Honor’s Voice. New York: Vintage Books, 1999. Wilson, James Harrison, Under the Old Flag: Recollections of Military Operations in the War for the Union, The Spanish War, and the Boxer Rebellion, etc. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1971. Wilson, Rufus Rockwell, ed., Intimate Memories of Lincoln. Elmira: Primavera Press, 1945. Winthrop, John, A Modell of Christianity, An Essay, 1630. Boston: Collections of The Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd Series, 1838. Wood, Gordon S., The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Woodward, C. Vann, Ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1981. Woodworth, Steven E., Davis & Lee at War. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1995. Worsham, John, One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry. 1912. N.p: Reprint, Time-Life Books, 1982. Wroe, Anne, Pontius Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man. New York: Random House, 2000.

275

INDEX

Andrew, Governor, 148 Annapolis, MD, 29 Antietam Creek, MD, 159 Antietam, Battle of, 155, 273 Appomattox Court House, VA, 242 Aquia Creek, VA, 149 Aristotle, 3, 263 Arkansas, 41, 56, 117, 134, 158 Articles of Confederation, 29 Ashley River, 11 Asiento, 6 Athens, 3 Austin, Stephen, 71 Austria, 100

Numerics 123rd Pennsylvania, 157 15th Alabama, 188, 201 1787 Ordinance, 37 1st Michigan Cavalry, 152 20th Maine, 189 20th Massachusetts, 144 24th Wisconsin, 228 2nd South Carolina, 170 54th Massachusetts, 232 6th Alabama, 158 9th Virginia, 161

A

B

Abolition, 11, 35, 48, 100, 105, 265 Abolitionists, 60, 204 Adams, Abigail, 21, 25–27, 68, 70, 265 Adams, Charles Francis Jr., 62 Adams, Henry, 19 Adams, John, 18–22, 24–27, 34, 70, 264–266 Adams, Sam, 20 Adams. John Quincy, 45–46, 61–62, 64, 67– 70, 115, 257, 263, 271 Africa, 3–5, 9, 14, 25, 56, 73, 81 African Slave Trade, 265 African Trading Company, 4 Alabama, 1, 41, 44, 64, 106–107, 111, 113, 118, 131, 192, 207, 229, 268 Alabama Platform, 106 Alexander, Edward Porter, Colonel, 161, 191 Alexandria, VA, 42, 263 Alford, Julius, 64 Amelia Courthouse, VA, 237 American Medical Association, 105 American Revolution, 12–13, 18, 39, 264, 267, 270, 275 Ames, Colonel, 153, 193 Anderson, Richard H., 212 Anderson, Robert, Major, 2

Babbot, Charles, 155 Bagby, Edward, 79 Bahamas, 38 Bailey, Franklin H., 134 Ball, John, 40 Baltimore, 43, 107, 127, 156, 186, 206, 220, 273 Barbados, 9, 11 Barlow, Samuel, 125 Barnes, Surgeon General, 254, 256 Bates, Edward, 107 Beaufort, SC, 13, 49, 58, 82, 273 Beauregard, Gustave Pierre Toutant, 1–2, 115–116, 121–124, 131–133, 135–136, 230, 233, 238, 242 Benjamin, Judah, 136 Bennett, James Gordon, 110, 216 Benton, Thomas Hart, 77 Bermuda, 7 Biddle, Captain, 144 Bill of Rights, 36, 62 Blackhawk War, 88, 122 Blair, Montgomery, 172 Blue Ridge Mountains, 18, 186

277

And the War Came Boone, Daniel, 18, 87 Booth, John Wilkes, 104, 235, 245, 247, 249, 251 Boston, 13, 17–20, 22, 26, 40, 67, 89, 236, 263–264, 266–267, 269–270, 273, 275 Boston Courier, 89 Boston Tea Party, 20 Bowdoin College, 153 Bragg, Braxton, 136, 199–204 Braintree, MA, 19 Brazil, 5, 8, 81 Brierfield, Mississippi, 74 Bristol, England, 11 British, 8 British Royal African Company, 9 Broadhead, Thornton F., 152 Brooks, Noah, 165, 179–180, 271 Brown University, 145 Brown, John, 97, 103–104, 109, 118, 159, 177, 266 Brown, W.W., 173–174 Browning, Orville, 108, 145 Brunswick, Maine, 153 Buck, Lucy, 197 Buckingham, J.H., 89 Buell, Carlos, 131–133 Buena Vista, Battle of, 136 Buford, John, 186–187 Burlington, NJ, 247 Burnside, Ambrose, 156, 162, 212, 251 Burton, James H., 129, 184, 234, 264

Charlottesville, VA, 117, 265 Chase, Salmon P., 107, 265 Chattanooga, TN, 199–200, 202–203, 206 Cheatham, Benjamin Franklin, 227 Cherokee Indians, 71, 266 Chesapeake Bay, 10, 12, 31, 140 Chesnut, James, 1, 116 Chicago, 54, 81, 98, 107, 117 Chickahominy River, 214 Chickamauga, Battle of, 199–201, 267 Chilton, Robert H., 157 Churchill, Winston, 171, 257, 265 Cincinnati, 134, 171, 206, 213 Clay, Henry, 46, 53, 55, 76–77, 272 Cleburne, Patrick Ronayne, 134 Clyde, OH, 60, 206, 275 Cobb, Thomas R., 233 Cofer, Willis, 95 Colbert, William, 265 Colchester (England), 11 Cold Harbor, Battle of, 211, 214–215, 272 College Land Grant Act, 153 Colorado, 76 Columbia, SC, 62–63, 67–68, 76, 78, 90, 109, 168, 234, 264–265, 271, 273, 275 Compromise of 1850, 77–78 Concord, MA, 17 Confederacy, The, 57, 61, 75, 82, 113, 117– 118, 121–122, 124, 126–127, 131, 135, 139–140, 144, 150, 152, 155–156, 160– 161, 166, 168, 171, 176–177, 179, 186, 193–197, 199–201, 203–206, 211–212, 214–215, 217, 224–225, 227, 229, 232– 233, 241, 243, 263–264, 266, 268, 274– 275 Confederate Congress, 136, 163, 174, 233 Confederate States, 111, 113, 118, 154, 243, 266 Congo (African), 5 Congressional Medal of Honor, 228 Connecticut, 22, 33–34, 39 Constitutional Convention, 30–31, 264 Cooper River, 1, 12 Corinth, MS, 131, 134, 194 Cornwallis, General, 28 cotton, 13, 31, 38–43, 50, 53, 75, 77, 96, 100, 113, 124, 132, 134, 196–197 Crafts, Tom, 27 Crittenden, Thomas L., 200 Crook, William Henry, 250 Cuba, 81 Culpeper Courthouse, VA, 207 Curtis, Benjamin R., 171

C Cahill, Thomas, 30 Cairo, IL, 207 Calhoun, John C., 53–55, 60, 72, 76–77, 97, 272, 275 California, 2, 72–74, 76–77, 79, 153 Calvinism, 56 Cambridge University, 8, 263–264, 266, 268– 270 Cameron, Simon, 107, 127 Camp Mason, 153 Carter, David K., 108 Cartwright, Peter, 57, 89–90 Catton, Bruce, 265 Cedar Mountain, Battle of, 150, 270 Centerville, VA, 123 Chamberlain, Joshua L., 153, 163, 189, 238, 274 Chancellorsville, Battle of, 159, 175–180, 184, 268 Chaplin, Thomas B., 49 Charles Town, VA, 104, 145 Charleston, SC, 1, 8, 10–14, 20, 31, 33–34, 43, 77, 82, 97, 106, 113–114, 117, 207, 234, 264

D Dalton, GA, 22, 205, 217, 266 Danville, VA, 237

278

Index Darien, GA, 231, 270 Davis, Jefferson, 73–74, 77, 79, 100, 108, 111, 113, 140, 162, 204, 224, 265–266, 271, 273 Davis, Varina, 111, 266 Davis, William C., 204 Declaration of Independence, 18, 23–24, 67, 85–86, 91–92, 99, 194, 270 Delaney, Lucy, 93, 266 Delaware, 17, 22, 43, 56, 125, 226 Delaware River, 17 Democratic National Convention, 106 Democratic Party, 80, 105 Democrats, 64, 81, 83, 107, 116, 126, 153, 164, 186, 224 Dickinson, John, 19–21 Dixon, Archibald, 64, 80 Dodge, Mary Abigail, 261 Domesday Book, 4 Donald, David, 59, 240, 265 Doubleday, Abner, 187 Dred Scot Decision, 91–92

France, 5–6, 14–15, 19, 22, 28, 30, 39–40, 70, 100, 113, 145, 155, 171, 184, 197 Franklin, Battle of, 227, 229 Franklin, Benjamin, 17, 20 Fredericksburg, Battle of, 63, 136, 149, 163, 166–168, 170, 173, 176–178, 211, 225, 265 Frederickson, George, 111, 267 French and Indian War, 14–15 French Revolution, 39 Front Royal, VA, 197, 264 Fugitive Slave Act, 78 Fulton, Robert, 43

G Gaines Mill, Battle of, 143 Garrison, William Lloyd, 60 Genovese, Eugene, 57, 268 George III (King of England), 20, 23–25 Georgia, 2, 12, 14, 22, 24–25, 34, 39–41, 48– 49, 58, 64, 77, 111, 118, 140, 161, 173, 194, 217, 223, 226–227, 229–231, 233, 243, 268–269, 271 Germanna Ford, VA, 212 Gerry, Elbridge, 19 Gettysburg Battle of, 185, 190 Gettysburg, PA, 181, 183, 185–187, 189–191, 193–194, 196, 198, 202, 208, 215, 228, 259, 264–265, 272–275 Gibbon, General, 241 Gilmer, Thomas, 68–69 Gladney, Henry, 32 Gladstone, William, 36 Glendale, Battle of, 144 Gold Coast (Africa), 9 Gordon, John Brown, 118, 159, 266 Gordonsville, VA, 166 Goss, Warren Lee, 123, 143, 151, 170, 207– 208 Grant, Ulysses S., 127, 131–134, 165, 185, 194, 197, 199, 203, 207–208, 211, 213, 215, 238–239, 241, 247–248 Great Britain, 4–12, 15–16, 18–19, 21–22, 28, 36, 39, 43, 46, 48, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 72, 76, 86, 100, 113, 123, 155, 197, 204 Griffin, Charles, 212 Griffin, James B., 129 Griffith, Paddy, 185 Guadeloupe (city), 43 Gurley, Phineas D., 254

E Egypt, 3 Electoral College, 34, 75, 226 Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 87 Ellsworth, Oliver, 34 Emancipation Proclamation, 56, 78, 160, 163, 172, 255, 266 Enlightenment, The, 13, 38, 88 Episcopal Church, 105 Evans, Shanks, 122 Everett, Edward, 110, 202 Ewell, Richard Stoddard, 144, 177, 186, 188, 212, 214, 272

F Farmer, Robert, 95 Farragut, Admiral, 223–224 Faust, Daniel, 155 Feagan, Isaac, 151 Federal Government, 28 Federal Homestead Law, 145 Ferdinand (King of Spain), 5 Ferguson, Mary, 50 Fife, Sarah Striker, 240 Fillmore, Millard, 77 First Bull Run (or First Manassas, Battle of), 139, 238 Fish, Carl Russell, 105, 267 Florida, 40, 75, 111, 113 Foote, Shelby, 35, 157, 178, 267 Fort Pickens, 113 Fort Pillow, 163 Fort Sumter, 1–2, 113, 115–116

H Hale, John, 74 Halleck, Henry W., 149, 152, 161, 166–167, 194, 199 Hamilton, Alexander, 28–29 Hammond, James H., 77, 100, 268

279

And the War Came Hancock, John, 18 Hancock, Winfield Scott, 186, 269 Hanks, Nancy, 87 Hardee, William J., 203 Hardin, Elizabeth Pendleton, 229 Hardtack, 172, 264 Harper, William, 115 Harris, Clara, 250, 252–253 Harris, Ira, 251 Harris, Private, 213 Harrisburg, PA, 156, 186 Harrison, Benjamin, 23 Harvard University, 18–19, 40, 264, 268–270 Haverhill, MA, 68 Hawkins, Sir John, 7 Haydon, Lt., 143, 273 Hayne, Robert Young, 59 Henry the Navigator (Portugal), 4 Henry, Patrick, 39 Herndon, Billy, 87–88, 136, 269, 275 Herold, David, 255 Hewes, Joseph, 21 Hill, A.P., 214 Hill, D.H., 144, 156 Hill, Parthena, 88 Hine, Sara, 243 Hingham, MA, 86 Hitchcock, Major, 157 Hoffman, Emily, 128, 220 Hoffman, Mrs. Samuel, 220 Holland, 5, 7–8, 17 Hood, John Bell, 227 Hooker, Joe, 140, 172, 176, 203 Horwitz, Tony, 13, 35, 160, 242, 269 Houston, Sam, 71–72, 77 Humphreys, Andrew, 169 Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 26

J Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall), 72, 104, 122, 130, 139–140, 146–147, 150–152, 156– 160, 167, 175–179, 190, 193, 195, 268, 270–271, 273–275 Jamestown, VA, 7 Jefferson, Thomas, 18, 20, 23–26, 34, 39–41, 45, 47, 55, 69, 73–74, 77, 79, 100, 108, 111, 113, 162, 204, 224, 264–267, 271– 273 Johnson, Samuel, 28 Johnston, Albert Sydney, 131–132, 135 Johnston, Joseph E., 122, 124–125, 140 Johnston, Sarah Bush, 87 Jones, Charles C., 48

K Kalamazoo, MI, 105 Kansas, 71, 80–83, 97–98, 103–104, 110, 266, 274–275 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 71, 81, 83 Kearny, Philip, 143–144 Keen, W.W., 160–161 Keene, Laura, 246, 251, 254, 269 Kentucky, 2, 35, 76, 80, 86–87, 89, 107, 116– 117, 124–127, 134, 164, 226, 229, 266, 268 Key, John J., 161 Kirkland, Richard, 170 Knoxville, TN, 91, 200, 271 Koerner, Gustave, 99–100

L Lamon, Ward Hill, 245 Lane Seminary, 78 Lawson, General, 140 Lay, Benjamin, 11 Leadbetter, Sal, 134–135 Leale, Dr. Charles, 253–254, 256 Lee, Arthur, 17 Lee, Richard Henry, 20, 22 Lee, Robert E., General, 103, 118, 124, 142, 145, 150, 152, 155, 168, 176, 180, 186, 197, 211, 238, 240, 246, 258, 268, 274 Lee, Stephen Dill, 227 Leuden, The, 7 Lewis, Dixon, 64 Lewis, John H., 161 Lewis, Mary, 205 Libby Prison, 225 Lincoln, Abraham, 70, 83–93, 98–101, 103– 111, 114–118, 121, 124–129, 134, 136– 137, 139, 141–142, 145–149, 152–153, 160–166, 171–173, 175–176, 179–181, 183, 185–187, 193–194, 197–199, 201– 202, 204, 206–209, 215–217, 224–226,

I Igbos (African tribe), 58 Illinois, 37, 44, 46, 70, 76, 80, 82–85, 87–88, 90, 98, 107–108, 117, 125, 127, 164, 180, 207, 217, 252, 259, 267–268, 271–272, 275 Illinois Central Railroad, 125 Illinois Legislature, 83 Impressment, 174, 206, 217, 224 Indentured Servants, 7–8, 10, 13, 32, 96, 117, 137, 205 Indiana, 37, 44, 81, 87, 108, 164, 269, 272–273 Indians (American), 7, 11, 32, 87, 153, 200 Indigo, 5, 12, 38 Industrial Revolution, 39, 43, 50 Iowa, 75, 80, 83, 260 Ireland, 3, 58, 134

280

Index 231–233, 235–236, 239, 242, 245–261, 263–275 Lincoln, Mary Todd, 88–89, 246–247, 253– 256 Locke, John, 23 London, England, 17–18, 20, 22, 137, 172, 266 Long, Major, 42 Longstreet, James, 140, 147, 150–152, 156, 159, 167, 169, 176, 180–181, 186–188, 190–191, 200–201, 203, 212–214, 233, 240, 272, 274 Lookout Mountain, TN, 202 Louisiana, 1, 5, 31, 40–41, 44, 48, 95, 111, 196, 204, 206, 264–266, 268–272, 275 Louisiana Purchase, 41 Louisiana Territory, 1, 5, 31, 40–41, 44, 48, 95, 111, 196, 204, 206, 264–266, 268–272, 275 Lowell, James Russell, 111, 270 Lynchburg, VA, 79, 106, 237–238, 241, 274

Mediterranean (sea), 4 Melville, Herman, 76 Memphis, TN, 131, 135, 163 Methodist Church, 72, 105 Mexican War, 72–73, 97, 121–122, 125, 132, 135–136, 140, 150, 176, 186, 195, 200, 212 Mexico, 46, 71–74, 76–77, 121, 223 Michigan, 37, 105, 260 Middleton, Arthur, 20 Middletown, NY, 248 Milledgeville, GA, 230 Miller, William Lee, 60, 64 Minie Ball, 160, 164, 184, 192 Minie, Claude Etienne, 184 Missionary Ridge, Battle of, 199, 202–203 Mississippi, 41, 44, 48, 73–74, 76, 96, 111, 131, 134, 192, 194, 196 Mississippi River, 40, 46, 71, 79, 82, 96, 127, 131, 163, 166, 194, 196 Missouri, 37, 44–46, 56, 73, 77, 80, 83, 85–86, 91, 99, 107, 109–110, 116–117, 125, 154, 259 Missouri Compromise, 37, 46, 73, 80, 83, 85– 86, 91, 99 Mitchell, Barton W., 156 Mobile, AL, 205–207, 223–225 Monroe, James, 40–41, 47, 271 Montgomery, AL, 1, 113, 172, 207, 232 Montgomery, James, 231 Morgan, General, 165 Morris, Gouverneur, 33 Moss, John W., 156 Mudd, Dr. Samuel, 255 Mulberry Plantation, SC, 39 Murphreesboro, TN, 199

M MacArthur, Arthur Jr., 228 MacArthur, Douglas, 228 Macon, GA, 223 Maddox, Jack, 24 Maddox, Judge, 24 Madeira, 5 Madison, James, 33, 39 Magna Carta, 62 Magruder, General, 141 Maine, 46, 83, 85, 153, 169–170, 177, 188, 270 Malmsey Wine, 5 Malvern Hill, Battle of, 144 Malvoisie Grape, 5 Manassas, VA, 122, 139, 150, 190, 272 Marblehead, MA, 8 Marshall, Chief Justice, 50 Maryland, 12, 14, 22, 29, 34, 111, 116, 125– 126, 154–156, 161, 186, 245, 255 Mason, George, 39 Massachusetts, 8, 14, 18–19, 22–23, 33, 43, 45, 59, 61, 68, 72, 77, 86, 110, 115, 144, 148, 183, 192, 225, 260, 263, 272, 275 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 8 Maury, Betty Herndon, 136, 269 McClellan, George B., 124–125, 129, 139–144, 146–153, 155–162, 164, 166, 172, 185– 187, 205, 224–226, 270, 273 McCrory, John Mobley, 32 McDowell, Irvin, General, 121–122, 124, 147, 150–153 McKim, Duncan, 180 McKim, Randolph, 180 McPherson, James B., 127, 220, 271, 273, 275 McPherson, James M., 208, 243, 265 Meade, Gordon, 176, 185–188, 191, 193–194, 212–213

N Napier, Florence, 49 Nashville, Battle of, 131, 227–229, 268, 270– 271, 274 Nebraska Territory, 80 New England, 11, 14, 20, 22, 25, 39, 53, 66, 226 New Hampshire, 22, 74 New Jersey, 22, 109, 164, 226, 242, 247 New Mexico Territory, 110 New Orleans, LA, 40, 43, 87, 95, 163 New River, VA, 94 New Salem, IL, 87–88 New York, 13–14, 22, 35, 40, 43–44, 54, 60, 70, 76, 105–108, 110, 114, 159, 164, 170, 172, 191–192, 205, 216, 225, 248, 251, 256, 263–275 Newport, RI, 14 Newton, John, 25 Nichols, Lt., 188, 272

281

And the War Came Norfolk (England), 86 North Carolina, 12, 14, 21, 34, 41, 117, 178, 232, 247, 263–265, 267–268, 270, 272, 274 Northern Democrats, 63, 65, 72, 80–81, 107, 125 Northwest Ordinance, 37, 73, 75 Northwest Territory, 37 Nott, Josiah, 57

Pope, John, 149–150 Porter, David Dixon, 197 Porter, Horace, 214, 239 Portland, Maine, 153 Portugal, 4–5 Powhatan (American Indian), 7 Preston, Captain, 26 Preston, John, 208 Prussia, 100 Puerto Rico, 81 Pugh, George E., 107

O Oates, William C., 189–190 Oglethorpe, James, 231 Ohio, 37, 43–44, 47, 81, 91, 107–108, 164, 196, 202, 206, 259–260, 272 Oklahoma, 71, 265, 273 Olmstead, Frederick Law, 96, 272 Orange Plank Road, VA, 212 Orange Turnpike, VA, 212 Oregon Bill, 75

Q Quakers, 11, 15, 22, 48 Quincy, Josiah, 26

R Radical Republicans, 124, 126, 217 Raleigh, NC, 233 Randolph, Edmund, 39 Randolph, John, 46 Rappahannock River, 150, 166–167, 169, 173 Rathbone, Henry, 251–253 Read, John M., 108 Republican Party, 81, 90, 97, 99, 104–106, 109, 116 Republicans, 81, 91, 100–101, 104, 107, 126, 164, 226 Reynolds, John, 176, 186 Rhett, Robert Barnwell, 76 Rhode Island, 14, 22, 35, 123 Rhodes, Elisha Hunt, 212, 232 Rice, 12–15, 31, 40, 42 Richardson, Sydney, 194 Richmond Grays (militia), 104 Richmond, VA, 119, 140–143, 154, 164, 166, 180, 205, 207, 211, 213, 218, 237, 273 Ringgold, GA, 217 Rio Grande River, 71–72 Ripley, James W., 173 Roanoke Island, (American colony), 7 Robotham, Rosemarie, 58, 264 Rockefeller, John D., 145, 265 Rodeur, (vessel), 43–44 Rodney, Caesar, 22 Rolfe, John, 7 Rosecrans, William S., 199–202 Rowe, Katie, 230 Rutledge, Edward, 20

P Paine, Lewis, 254 Paine, Thomas, 18, 88 Palfrey, Francis W., 144, 272 Palmerston, Lord, 137, 155 Pamunkey River, 140 Parker, John F., 250 Patton, John, 63 Peace Democrats, 126, 179–180, 209 Pemberton, John C., 195–196 Pender, Dorsey, 168 Peninsular Campaign, 144, 272 Penn, William, 17 Pennsylvania, 14, 19–20, 22, 32–33, 72, 86, 107–108, 144, 156, 164, 180, 183–186, 192, 196, 226, 249, 253, 259–260 Pennsylvania Avenue, 249, 253 Peoria, IL, 84–85, 99 Petersburg, VA, 94, 206, 215, 218, 223, 225, 237 Peterson, Merrill, 53 Petigru, John, 79 Philadelphia, PA, 11, 13, 15, 17, 22, 29, 32, 54, 125, 156, 186, 195, 255, 263–264, 269 Phillips, Deacon John, 225 Phillips, Wendell, 136 Pickens, Governor, 116 Pickett, George E., General, 190–192, 194, 228, 273 Pierce, Franklin, President, 79 Pinckney Committee (Congress), 61 Pittsburg Landing, TN, 131 Plymouth District of Massachusetts, 61 Pocahontas (American Indian), 7 Pony Express, 2

S Saint Domingue, 41 San Leon, (vessel), 43–44 Savannah, GA, 14, 39, 231 Sawnburg, W.A., 176, 273

282

Index Schofield, John, 127, 227, 229, 273 Scott, Winfield, 118, 129, 186, 269 Sea Islands, 38–39, 58, 82 Second Bull Run (or Second Manassas, Battle of), 149–150, 155, 186 Second Continental Congress, 17, 32, 35 Seven Pines, Battle of, 142 Seward, William H., 107 Shadwell, VA, 18 Sharpsburg, MD, 155, 157 Shaw, Robert Gould, 231, 266 Shelbyville, KY, 164 Shenandoah Valley, VA, 86, 122, 139, 180 Sheridan, Phil, 212, 223 Sherman, Roger, 33–34 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 132, 195, 203 Shiloh, Battle of, 131–132, 134–135 Sickles, Daniel E., 176, 178, 273 Simms, William Gilmore, 79 Sine, Robert K., 254 Smith, John, 7 Somerset, James, 18 Sons of Liberty, 20 South Carolina, 1, 10–12, 14–15, 20, 22, 24– 25, 31–34, 38–43, 49–50, 53, 58–59, 76– 77, 79, 82, 85, 96, 100, 103, 110–111, 115, 140, 156, 231, 233, 264–265, 267– 268, 271, 273, 275 Southampton, VA, 60 Southern Baptist Convention, 75 Southern Democrats, 63, 72, 107 Spain, 5, 7, 28, 43, 71, 100, 176 Spotsylvania Courthouse, VA, 213 Spotsylvania, Battle of, 211, 213–214, 272 Spring Hill, Battle of, 227, 229, 274 Springfield, IL, 83, 109, 128, 198 St. Helena Island, SC, 49 St. Joseph, MN, 248 Stanley, General, 227 Stanton, Edward McMasters, 127, 141, 143, 176, 245, 247, 249 States Rights, 195 Stegall, Ashberry, 24 Stephens, Alexander, 77 Stewart, Alexander, 227 Stillwell, Leander, 134–135, 273 Stowe, Calvin, 78 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 79, 202, 207 Sturbridge, MA, 225 Sudley Ford, VA, 122 Sugar, 5–6, 9, 41 Sullivan, Dan, 42 Sumner, Charles, 115 Sumner, General, 170 Sumner, William Graham, 259 Surinam, 7

T Tadman, Michael, 49, 94, 274 Tallmadge, James, 44 Tappan, Arthur, 60 Tarleton, Susan, 205, 207 Taylor, Tom, 246 Tennessee, 35, 117–118, 131, 135, 154, 165, 192, 199–204, 206, 213, 220–221, 223, 226–227, 229–230, 268, 271 Texas, 48, 71–72, 75–78, 110–111, 132, 229– 230, 271 The Wilderness, Battle of, 211–216, 268 Thirteenth Amendment, 232, 257 Thomas, George H., 200, 227 Thomas, Jesse, 46 Thompson, Waddy, 64–65 Tobacco, 5, 7, 12–13, 30, 38, 42, 106, 173 Toombs, Robert, 77 Totopotomy River, 214 Treaty of Utrecht, 6 Trinidad, 49 Trumbull, Senator, 126 Tucker, Josiah, 190, 274 Turner, Ella, 254 Turner, Nat, 60 Tyler, John, President, 72

U Union Pacific Railroad, 153 United States Military Academy (West Point), 1, 97, 108, 118, 121–122, 124, 127, 132, 140, 145, 150, 156, 176–177, 186, 195, 200–201, 208, 212, 227 US Constitution, 29–31, 33–36, 38, 41, 44, 46–47, 51, 54, 63, 65–66, 77, 85–86, 91– 93, 105–106, 113–114, 232, 257, 264

V Vandenburg, Mollie, 131–132, 274 Vermont, 35, 180, 192 Vicksburg, MS, 100, 183, 194–198, 204, 206– 207, 215 Virginia, 7–8, 11–14, 18–23, 25, 28, 30–32, 34–35, 42–43, 45–46, 58, 60, 63, 68–69, 76, 79, 86–87, 94, 103–104, 106, 116– 118, 122, 124–125, 136, 139–140, 142, 149–150, 152, 154, 156, 159–162, 175– 176, 179, 186, 191, 193, 195, 197, 200– 201, 204, 206, 208, 211–212, 215–216, 223, 225, 229, 232, 237, 240, 247, 255, 264–265, 268, 270–271 Virginia General Court, 8 Volney, Constantin de, 88

283

And the War Came William, Stephen, 42 Williamsburg, VA, 142 Wilmington, NC, 232 Wilmot Proviso, 76, 97 Wilmot, David, 72 Wilson, James, 32 Winchester, VA, 159, 223 Winthrop, John, 8 Wisconsin, 37, 75, 78, 261, 274 Wise, Henry, 68 Wise, John S., 58 Worthington, William, 145

W Wade, Ben, 91 War of 1812, 135 Warrenton, VA, 167 Washburn, Governor, 153 Washington, George, 29, 39, 69, 206, 225, 249 Webster, Daniel, 54, 59, 77 Weed, Thurlow, 116, 274 Weldon Railroad, 223 West Africa, 9, 12, 58 West Indies, 9, 28 Western Florida, 41 Western Virginia, 124 Weston, P.C., 48 Whigs, 63, 81, 89, 116 Whipple, A.W., 275 White House, 100, 114, 128, 148, 181, 216– 217, 245, 260 Whitney, Eli, 39 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 2, 275

Y Yale University, 53, 275 Yancey, William L., 106 Yates, Richard, 83 Yeamans, Sir John, 11 York River, 140 Yorktown, VA, 28, 141

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