breathing and burning from prison

Vallandigham arrested in Dayton

On May 1, 1863 Ohio Peace Democrats held a meeting in Mount Vernon, Ohio to express opposition to General Ambrose Burnside’s General Order No. 38. As commander of the Department of the Ohio, Burnside outlawed “the habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy.” Two Union officers were at the May Day meeting and reported back to General Burnside that Clement Vallandigham had violated the order.

The general ordered his immediate arrest. On May 5, 1863, a company of soldiers arrested Vallandigham at his home in Dayton and brought him to Cincinnati to stand trial.

Burnside charged Vallandigham with the following crimes:

Publicly expressing, in violation of General Orders No. 38, from Head-quarters Department of Ohio, sympathy for those in arms against the Government of the United States, and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions, with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the Government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion.

Mr. Vallandigham didn’t waste any time getting a letter off to his fellow Democrats. He seems to have claimed that Southern rebels and Northern abolitionists both wanted him locked up.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in May 1863:

letter from a military bastile

“Words that Breathe, and Thoughts that Burn.”

MILITARY PRISON, CINCINNATI, O.,
May 5, 1862. [sic]

To the Democracy of Ohio:

I am here in a military bastile for no other offense than my political opinions, and the defence of them, and of the rights of the people, and of your constitutional liberties. Speeches made in the hearing of thousands of you in denunciation of the usurpations of power, infraction of the Constitution and laws, and of military despotism, were the sole cause of my arrest and imprisonment. I am a Democrat – for Constitution, for law, for the Union, for liberty – this is my only “crime.” For no disobedience to the Constitution: for no violation of law; for no word, sigh, or gesture of sympathy with the men of the South who are for disunion and southern independence, but in obedience to their demand, as well as the demand of northern abolition disunionists and traitors, I am here in bonds to-day; but

“Time, at last, sets all things even!”

Meanwhile, Democrats of Ohio, of the North west, of the United States, be firm, be true to your principles, to the Constitution, to the Union, and all will yet be well. As for myself, I adhere to every principle, and will make good, through imprisonment and life itself, every pledge and declaration which I have ever made, uttered, or maintained from the beginning. To you, to the whole people, to TIME, I again appeal. Stand firm! Falter not an instant!

C.L. VALLANDIGHAM