pacific theater

Posted on March 18, 2014 by SUMPTER

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in March 1864:

PROMOTED. – The friends of Lieut. HENRY B. SEELY, of the U.S. Navy, will be pleased to learn that he has been promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

An 1857 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Henry B. Seely “served on the Sumter, South Atlantic blockading squadron, 1861-62; and on the Saranac, Pacific squadron, 1863-65. He was appointed lieutenant-commander, Feb. 21, 1864…” He devoted his entire career to the Navy until “…June, 1892, when he was retired on account of incapacity resulting from long and faithful service.”

The USS Saranac spent the war “protecting American commerce along the coast of California …After the Confederacy had collapsed, Saranac cruised at sea in search of Southern cruiser, CSS Shenandoah, which remained a menace to Union shipping until belatedly learning of the end of the war.”

You can read more about the Pacific Squadron at The California Military Museum. All the gold passing through the Port of San Francisco was a big target.

USS Saranac (1850-1875) At a harbor mooring. Courtesy of the Bethlehem Steel Company Archives. Skerrett Collection. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

USS Saranac

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more men for Mars

Posted on March 17, 2014 by SUMPTER
[Abraham Lincoln] ([Cincinnati : Strobridge & Co.,] c1877 Oct. 12.; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-19241)

getting his way as long as the people submit

in the martial month of March

This Democrat paper in the Finger Lakes region sure didn’t wear rose-colored glasses as it responded to President Lincoln’s March 14, 1864 call for 200,000 more men for the military.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in March 1864:

200,000 More Men Wanted.

The President has issued a call for 200,000 more men, in addition to those already called into the field. A war of the magnitude of ours cannot be carried on without blood and treasure, and just so long as the people submit to the sacrifice, just so long will our rulers continue this fierce and bloody civil strife. It seems to us that at no time since the commencement of hostilities has national affairs worn a gloomier aspect than to-day. The recent campaigns, which were sounded with so much zest as certain to seal the doom of the rebellion, have all terminated ingloriously, if not disastrously. Our armies are everywhere confronted with overwhelming forces of the enemy. Privateers are destroying our commerce without molestation, corporations and municipalities are being crippled by taxation, and ruin everywhere stares us in the face. The administration is continually breaking to the national hope the promise it breathes to the national ear. For three weary years the record of the government has been a record of cheering predictions on the one hand, of soul-distressing failures on the other. facts have been misstated, important events have been concealed, falsehoods have been invented, all to deceive a credulous and forbearing people. At no time have our rulers risen to the dignity of Statesmen. While the nation is reeling and tottering like a drunken man, they seem all-absorbed in schemes of power, patronage and partisan success. – They look upon the war, and its train of dire calamities, as the means of perpetuating their own power, regardless of the dangers which threaten the very existence of the nation. What care they for the sufferings of the people, or the condition of the country, so long as the war contributes to their aggrandizement, and ends in the establishment of a despotism, both sure and irrevocable?

Recruiting for the war--scene at the recruiting tents in the park, New York (Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, 1864, March 19, p. 404.; LOC: LC-USZ62-93555)

recruiting in New York City, Frank Leslie’s March 19, 1864

It is written that in ancient Rome Martius “marked a return to the active life of farming, military campaigning, and sailing.”

Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Lincoln Administration, Military Matters, Northern Politics During War, Northern Society, The election of 1864 | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

those slanderous, intriguing Republicans

Posted on March 15, 2014 by SUMPTER

The following two articles were part of the same clipping in the Civil War notebook at the Seneca Falls public library. The Democrat newspaper criticized some Republican journals for slandering General McClellan and admitted that General Grant might possibly have been able to do good work in his new job as commander of all the U.S. armies, except for meddling Republican politicians in the federal capital.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in March 1864:

The Slander Upon Gen. McClellan.

The Republican papers have recently published and commented upon a very silly story, concerning an interview said to have taken place between Generals MCCLELLAN and LEE, soon after the battle of Antietam. Of course none of these radical journals believed what they published, and the story was only put forth for political affect. It is thus disposed of by the Washington correspondent of the New York Commercial Advertiser, a Republican print:

“The charge that Gen. McClellan had a secret interview with Gen. Lee the night after the battle of Antietam, has proved to be a fiction of a disordered brain. The person who made the astounding statement is a Mr. Francis Waldron, a Marylander, who is a schoolmaster by profession, and who has in years past been somewhat addicted to drink. He has been in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms since Wednesday afternoon, but refuses to make under oath the statement which he has furnished for publication.”

The eagerness with which this story was caught up by the more malignant of the radical press, was the best evidence of its false and slanderous character. In no single instance, however, has it been retracted by them, or reparation made for the utterance of a calumny, at once so vile and infamous.

             __________ . __________

Lieut. Gen. Grant.

By reference to an important army order published elsewhere, it will be observed that GRANT has been made a Lieutenant-General, and assigned to the command of the armies of the United States, with his headquarters at Washington. This is an important movement, and may result satisfactorily to the army and the country. Gen. Grant has the reputation of being a dashing and brilliant officer, and in his new position he may, despite the pernicious influences at Washington, lead our armies to victory. The country will look to him, hopeful and anxious that he may be instrumental in closing this most wretched and exhausting civil war. But we do not believe the intriguing, selfish cabal at Washington will allow him to succeed. The Administration will use him up, as other Generals have been used up, and at the close of the next campaign, Peace and Union will be no nearer at hand than at the commencement of this most disastrous war.

The Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War (pages XX-XXI) backed up the story that Francis Waldron was detained because of his refusal to take the oath and testify.

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pharisees

Posted on March 14, 2014 by SUMPTER

When I read that War is Disunion in a local Democrat editorial, I thought, wouldn’t a successful secession be disunion? Here a Republican-leaning editorial put the blame squarely south of Mason-Dixon, with a little helpo from northern doughfaces and copperheads

From The New-York Times March 13, 1864:

The Morals of the Rebellion.

If there is anything disgusting anywhere, it is the pharisaic assumption with which the rebels occasionally take to themselves all Christian excellencies. Here are a parcel of men who have raised a causeless revolt against a Government which had been nothing but beneficent to them; who have rebelled against free institutions in the interest of Slavery, the “sum of all villianies;” who began their work by robberies the most gigantic, frauds the most dishonest, breaches of faith the most atrocious; who have plunged a nation into civil war and shed oceans of the best blood of the land; who have beggared thousands of families, brought grief and shame into thousands more; who have in the name of liberty perpetrated the most atrocious crimes; who have been guilty of barbarities worthy of savages and utterly innumerable; who have shrunk from no oppression, refrained from no crime; whose whole career has been one of treachery, broken pledges, robbery, extortion and cruelty; and yet every now and then one of the gang will descant upon the purity of their motives, the nobleness and magnanimity of their actions, the glory of their deeds, and the innumerable merits of their cause.

One of the most remarkable displays of this kind is the following from the Richmond Whig:

“If our cause be just, it must triumph. If it be not just, then the greater portion of the enlightened world is deceived. On moral grounds the justice of our cause has been vindicated by the ablest intellects in Europe and by the best men at the North. England, the mother of Abolitionism, has sustained us; France, as thoroughly Anti-Slavery as England, though, not like her, a propagandist, has sustained us. FERNANDO WOOD, FRANKLIN PIERCE, SEYMOUR of Connecticut, sustain us in the moral issue at least. Thus sustained, we shall indeed lack manhood if we fail to meet this last hour of trial bravely and hopefully.”

What idea of “moral grounds” or a “moral issue” can this rebel Whig have, when he talks in this way? What sense can he have of what goodness is, if he calls SEYMOUR, PIERCE and FERNANDO WOOD, the “best men at the North?” England and France have helped sustain the rebellion, it is true, but it has been in spite of its immorality, because they thought it was their interest, and they would have sustained it ten-fold more, were it not that they dared not so insult the moral sense of the civilized world. How hard up this rebel must be for support when he has to grub for it in such a mire as this. Only think of it! The Richmond Whig rejoices in the support of FERNANDO WOOD “on the moral issue.” Was there ever such a sight? A polecat rejoicing in the moral support of a humble bug! and then the creature talks about “manhood!” Faugh!

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winter break

Posted on March 13, 2014 by admin

Apparently Old Man Winter put a crimp in old man Sumpter’s plans today.

Winter--Fifth Avenue (1892) (by Alfred Stieglitz; LOC: LC-USZ62-96557)

(Winter–Fifth Avenue (1892) Library of Congress)

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border fanatic

Posted on March 12, 2014 by SUMPTER

Maryland might have been a border state, bordering on Virginia, as a matter of fact, but that didn’t mean one of its representatives in the Yankee Congress couldn’t be a Blacker Republican that President Lincoln.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch march 12, 1864:

Henry winter Davis on slavery in Maryland.

Davis, of Maryland, is considered the leading opponent to Lincoln in the Yankee Congress, and recently succeeded in carrying the Maryland election against Old Abe. His opposition is not based upon the fact that Lincoln goes too far on the slavery question, but because he does not go far enough. In a debate in Congress on the 2d inst, on the bill establishing a Bureau for Freedmen’s Affairs, we find the following:

Mr. Davis.(Md.,) in reply to Mr. Brooks, (N. Y.,) defended the validity and moral force of the late congressional and other elections in Maryland. The defeated partisans only complain in that State of the result, the Union majority being thirteen or fourteen thousand. He denied that slavery was dead. and expressed the opinion that if it should be exterminated it would again become our masters. The Convention in Maryland which recently declared for immediate emancipation gave a significant admonition worthy of the State and the people. In speaking of the sinister influence and controlling element near the President in the great cause of emancipation in Maryland, we are, Mr. Davis said, under small obligation to the President for what the latter had done in that State. The people thought it wise, while expressing their approbation of the President, to pass the resolution to which he had referred for the President’s serious consideration.

He wished to show that their devotion was not personal, but on principle — for the cause, and not for the man — and that they will support the man so long only as he supports the cause. If the opposition elect their President, slavery was as much alive as when the first gun blazed on Sumter. If we, he remarked, lose the next election slavery is as powerful as it every was. We must either go backward or go forward Slavery is not dead by the President’s proclamation. What lawyer attributes to it the least legal effect? It is now executed by the bayonet, to the attend of the duration of the war, under the law of 1862. Re-establish the old Government, and slavery will resume its ancient away. In order to the readmission of States there should be a resolute declaration, as a condition precedent, that slavery shall be prohibited, and the Constitution should guarantee the fact, and the Government should be kept under the control of those whose views, and purposes afford the assurance that the law will be executed.

In the course of his remarks, Mr. Davis referred to the exposition of the views of President Lincoln, as given by Postmaster General Blair, who he said was near the person of the President, and whose comments had never been disavowed, and for which reason they were entitled to grave and respectful consideration. These comments were in the form of attacks on radical abolitionists, and also on the necessity of the emancipation policy under the proclamation of the President. It was said by the Postmaster General that the radical abolitionists wanted to change the Constitution and elevate the negro to the equality of the white, but that the two races could not five together on terms of equality and peace, and therefore it became necessary to prevent the massacre of the negro that he be exported and colonized. Why Mr. Davis asked, must the negro be colonized if he is to be free Where in history would gentlemen find facts on which to base such conclusions?

Mr. Davis then proceeded to show the injustice and impolicy of such colonization, characterizing it as instance and unchristian philanthropy. If you mean to source the removal of the negroes, then say so. If you don’t mean to coerce them, they will remain. You cannot offer them as good hames abroad as you can at home, among the scene of their childhood. If God made there unequal, or if God stamped inferiority upon them, you cannot turn a hair white or black or add an inch to their statutes. He appealed to gentlemen not to seek to add inherent difficulties to the problem, and proceeded to speak of the progress of emanelpation in Maryland. He was a Marylander, not a Northern Abolitionist. His father was a slaveholder, and he himself had been a slaveholder.

In this connection he referred to the convention in Maryland, in 1859, called for the purpose of removing the free blacks, and mentioned the name of ex-Senator Pearce as making a report that the committee could not recommend the expulsion of such persons from the State and deprive them of the right of freedom which they had acquired or inherited.

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why they play the game

Posted on March 11, 2014 by SUMPTER

The following commentary did kind of remind me a sports radio show with the gung-ho fan calling in to support his team before the big game: there’s going to be a match up problem for the South if Bragg is supposed to contain Grant.

OK, I’ll play Monday morning quarterback – President Davis got General Bragg off the field in time for the upcoming spring campaign.

From The New-York Times March 11 1864:

BRAGG AND GRANT.

BRAXTON BRAGG has just been appointed to the highest military office under JEFF. DAVIS, and ULYSSES GRANT, by his appointment as Lieutenant-General, assumes the highest rank of any officer in the army of the Union. The respective careers and fortunes of no two military men could be more opposite in character than those of these two ranking officers of the opposing armies. BRAGG’s name is synonymous with disaster — GRANT’s with victory. The Richmond Examiner says that BRAGG’s “career has been a long, unvaried and complete failure,” — the very reverse of which statement would be nearly the truth concerning GRANT, BRAGG’s first undertaking of any importance resulted in his failure at Pensacola; GRANT’s first large action was his triumph at Donelson. BRAGG’s last battle was at Chattanooga, where his whole army was routed by GRANT. Against GRANT’s Vicksburgh we have BRAGG’s Murfreesboro; against GRANT’s Champion Hills we have BRAGG’s Perryville. GRANT flanked the rebels at Bowling Green and Columbus, and BRAGG got flanked at Tullahoma and Shelbyville. GRANT began operations at Cairo, and the sweep of his successive victories, as he marched onward, extended a thousand miles. BRAGG once had his army upon the Ohio, and his successive retreats from there covered several hundred miles. So we might go on, contrasting in still other respects the history of the two Generals who are now the ranking officers in the two armies.

I thought of a team assuming the game was won at halftime when I saw the following image in the February 6, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South):

General-grant-columbia (Harper's Weekly 2-6-1864)

THANKS TO GRANT

The U.S. Congress had given Grant thanks and a gold medal. I don’t think General Grant let that stuff go to his head too much.

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war is krewel

Posted on March 10, 2014 by SUMPTER

Well, they say that “Writing is a form of therapy” [1]. 150 years ago today the New York 1st Veteran Cavalry’s beloved Major Jerry Sullivan was killed by John Singleton Mosby’s cavalry unit; later that very day the New York Cavalry’s SENECA correspondent wrote home about the sad events.

Col. John S. Mosby, C.S.A. (between 1860 and 1870; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-07587)

nemesis

From the First Veteran Cavalry.

CAMP SULLIVAN, March 10th, 1864
Near Harper’s Ferry, Va.

FRIEND STOWELL: – This has been a sad day in the camp of the Veterans. One of our bravest and most beloved officers has fallen. Major SULLIVAN, while gallantly leading a charge against a vastly superior force of the enemy, commanded by the notorious Moseby [sic], was shot through the body and died almost instantly.

A detachment of our regiment was out upon “picket” near Charlestown, under command of Major JERRY SULLIVAN, and at daybreak this morning Moseby, the Guerilla [sic] Chief, with one hundred and fifty of his men, surprised and captured one of the posts consisting of two Lieutenants and forty men from companies L and M. Major SULLIVAN who was at the main post, immediately mounted and with fifteen or twenty men rushed to the rescue, sending into camp for aid. Mosby at once fell back up the valley, closely pursued by our gallant Major, who overtook the rebels at a small place called Cabletown. Here the guerillas to the number of eighty made a stand, sheltered by the houses of the town. Nothing dounted, [daunted?] and thinking his reinforcements close at hand, the brave Sullivan, with Lieut. Baker of Company G, and nine valiant comrades, amid a storm of bullets, dashed in upon Moseby and his men. The conflict was short and desperate, most of the prisoners were retaken, but before aid could arrive the gallant major and three of his men were killed, Lieut. Baker and two othe[rs] severely if not mortally wounded. In a few moments our squadrons came pouring down the road, but, alas, all to [sic] late, for Sullivan was dead, and Moseby off again. – We chased the flying enemy until he crossed tne Shenandoah, and took refuge among the fastnesses of the Blue Ridge, and then returning with sad hearts escorted the remains of our beloved officer into camp.

To-morrow the body is to be embalmed and sent to Rochester, the officers of the Regiment already raised $250 dollars to defray expenses.

These guerrillas show but little mercy to our men. One poor fellow was shot dead by them as he lay wounded on the ground vainly begging for his like, and another only escaped being murdered, after he surrendered, because the pistol which was leveled at him missed fire. The villains robbed the bodies of all who fell, even tearing off Major Sullivan’s watch while he was dying on the road, and with a revolver at Lieut. Baker’s head forced him to give up whatever valuable he had as he lay beside his expiring commander.

Woe be to these miscreants if they ever fall into our hands. Over the dead bodies of their murdered comrades, the Veterans have sworn never to take another prisoner from Moseby’s command.

We now have lost five commissioned officers and about fifty men from our Regiment. The first who fell was Capt. W.L. Morgan, of Co. A, who was killed by one of Moseby’s men while scouting in the Loudon Valley about two weeks since. The next day his body was found, and excepting a little of his under clothing completely stripped. Twelve others of of companies A and F were lost at the same time. Co. D lost twenty men a few days afterward in a skirmish in Snicker’s Gap, and to-day major Sullivan is killed, Lieut. Baker of Co. G, wounded. Lieut. Brandt, Co. L., and Lieut. Herrick, Co. M, sent on to Richmond, and over twenty of their respective companies killed, wounded or missing. So we go. Thus far, Co. K has escaped – not a man lost yet, but our time may soon come.

Group portrait showing Col. John Singleton Mosby and some members of his Confederate battalion (photographed between 1861 and 1865, printed between 1880 and 1889; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-35436)

Mosby and some of his men

But you must not think the game is all on one side, for during the same two weeks we have done some pretty severe work. Riding up and down the valley of the Shenandoah again and again, and becoming well acquainted with the numerous cross roads and bye-paths with which this country is filled, fording the river, dashing through the passes of the Blue Ride [Ridge], scouting up the Loudon Valley, and having now and then a “right smart skirmish,” and keeping our account of killed, wounded and prisoners at least about square with the enemy. Of this Co. K, has done its share, I assure you, having already captured a number of Guerrillas, brought in about twenty C.S. Horses minus their riders, and “confiscated” sheep, pigs, turkeys, ducks and chickens without number, until we are now known as “Krewel K.”

Major General Sigel who has been assigned to this Department, has arrived and assumed command.

A deserter from Gilmore’s band has just come in and reports that Gilmore is preparing to make a raid upon us. Let him come. We are prepare [sic] to give him a warm reception. When he gives us a call I will tell you how he liked the entertainment.

K company goes out on picket to-night to take the place of L and M, “gobbled up” this morning. “Boots and saddles” has just been sounded so I must exchange my pen for my sword.

Yours ever,

SENECA.

You can read more about embalming at the civilwarundertaker.

Jeremiah A. Sullivan

dauntless major Sullivan

  1. [1]Graham Greene↩
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threats north and west

Posted on March 8, 2014 by SUMPTER

150 years ago today General Meade, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, was concerned about the Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was investigating his performance at and after Gettysburg. Moreover, General Grant, the new overall commander of the federal armies, was scheduled to arrive in Washington – and who knew what Grant had planned for Meade and his army? From The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade … (page 176):

To Mrs. George G. Meade:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, March 8, 1864.

I am curious to see how you take the explosion of the conspiracy to have me relieved, for it is nothing less than a conspiracy, in which the Committee on the Conduct of the War, with generals Doubleday and Sickles, are the agents. Grant is to be in Washington tonight, and as he is to be commander in chief and responsible for the doings of the Army of the Potomac, he may desire to have his own man in command, particularly as I understand he is indoctrinated with the notion of the superiority of the Western armies, and that the failure of the Army of the Potomac to accomplish anything is due to their commanders.

Scouts and guides, Army of the Potomac ( 1864 March; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-03656

new boss on horizon? (“Scouts and guides, Army of the Potomac” March 1864)

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two nations

Posted on March 7, 2014 by admin

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch March 7, 1864:

In Press, and will be out in a few days,
the two Nations: a Key to the History of the American
War. by the author of the first and second years of the War.

The publishers announce from the prolific pen of Mr. Edward A Pollard one of the most attractive political pamphlets of the times — a psychological review of the war, with a new theory of the Yankee character.

Price, one dollar.

Dealers should send in their orders at once.

The usual discount to the trade.

Ayres & Wade,
Publishers.
Richmond, Va.

The beginning of the pamphlet:

THE TWO NATIONS.

It has been a sentimental regret with certain European students of American History that the colonies of America, after acquiring their independence, did not establish a single and compact nationality. The philosophy of these optimists is that the State institutions were perpetual schools of provincialism, selfishness and discontent, and that they were constantly educating the people for the disruption of that Union which was only a partial and incomplete expression of the nationality of America. These men indulge the idea that America, as a nation, would have been colossal; that its wonderful mountains and rivers,
its vast stretch of territory, its teeming wealth, and the almost boundless military resources, which the present war has developed and proved, would then have been united in one picture of grandeur, and in a single movement of sublime, irresistible progress.

These are pretty dreams of ignorance. …

Mr. Pollard went on to give credit to John C. Calhoun for his espousal of States’ Rights, but that did not mean that there were really 35 “nations”. North and South were distinct and separate cultures that could support two united nations. As for the Yankee character, the author objected to the Lincoln administration’s apparent reversal on the question of whether the war was just to keep the states united: ‘the South could keep its slaves’. The Emancipation Proclamation changed that. Furthermore, the war encouraged the love of Union and the flag in the North, but Yankees were mostly fighting a materialistic war – as could be seen by the atrocities they committed. The Confederate government was bereft of good, new ideas, but it was early days in the revolution. The heroes of the war were the Southern privates of all white classes who were united in defending their country. The Confederate army was a socialist’s dream realized:

We have put into the field soldiers such as the world has seldom seen — men who, half-clothed and half- fed, have, against superiour numbers, won two- thirds of the battles of this war. The material of the Confederate army, in social worth, is simply superiour to all that is related in the military annals of mankind. Men of wealth, men accustomed to the fashions of polite society, men who had devoted their lives to learned professions and political studies, have not hesitated to shoulder their muskets and fight as privates in the ranks with the hard-fisted and uncouth labourer, no less a patriot than themselves. Our
army presents to the world, perhaps, the only example of theoretical socialism reduced to practice it has ever seen, and realizes, at least in respect of defensive arms, the philosopher’s dream of fraternal and sympathetic equality.

To get a little ahead of the story, as the Park Service link above points out, Mr. Pollard was captured by the Union blockade in May 1864 and spent three months in Fort Warren before being paroled.

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