Judged by Our Own Peers~December, 1863~26th to 30th

Judged by Our Own Peers~ General Sherman

Lincoln is praised by Harper’s Weekly and thanked by the Russian government. The Sherman brothers exchange letters on political and military affairs. Whitman hears from his brother and from a good friend. Reverend Finney deals with finances. George Templeton Strong remains anti-British. Fighting and hard times continue in the Confederacy. The world continues to turn.

December 26– Saturday– New York City– “The President has been often accused of tardily following instead of leading public opinion. But it is his great merit that he early saw this to be a war in which the people must save themselves. If they were unequal to the task, a popular government was a failure. And therefore he has sought only to be the executive magistrate of their will, which he has divined with more sagacity than any public man in our history. It is that sagacity which now admonishes him to put into clear and simple form the settlement to which the national common-sense irresistibly tends. He has done it. Not as an advocate, or partisan, or fanatic, but with the same wisdom and passionless equity which has marked his official career from the moment he commended himself to the prayers of his old friends and neighbors at Springfield, and set forth to undertake as vast a duty as was ever committed to man.” ~ Harper’s Weekly.

December 26– Saturday– Washington, D.C.– President Lincoln has an audience with Baron de Stoeckl, to receive the thanks of Imperial Russian government for reception given Russian navy. [Although Eduard de Stoeckl holds himself out as “Baron” he is not of noble Russian birth. His father was an Austrian diplomat and his mother the daughter of a Russian diplomatic translator or “dragoman.” At this time he is 52 years old. His wife is an American, Elizabeth Howard, whom he married in 1856. He will later negotiate the sale of Alaska to the United States.]

December 27– Sunday– Albion, Illinois– Birth of Louis Lincoln Emmerson, who will serve as governor of Illinois from 1929 to 1933.

December 27– Sunday– Columbia, South Carolina– Maria Martin, age 67, a nature painter and associate of John James Audubon, dies. When her sister died in 1848, she married her brother-in-law, John Bachman, pastor of a Lutheran church. Audubon described her work as one of “superior talents, [which] assists us greatly.”

Maria Martin Bachman

December 27– Sunday– McMinnville, Tennessee– “The fates seem determined that we shall be stripped of everything we possess. Oh! when I see the ruin around me, and think of our wasted time and home, and know that thousands among us have lost dear ones of the home circle, as well as property,– words cannot express the bitterness of my soul towards those who have plunged our people into this needless and unnatural war. Everyday my whole head and soul cry out—‘will it never, never end?’” ~ Journal of Lucy Virginia French.

December 27– Sunday– Grisson’s Bridge, Tennessee– Here and at four other locations in the state there are hard-fought skirmishes.

December 28– Monday– Copake, Columbia County, New York– “My last letter to you was dated from Springfield Mass. I went home on Saturday and had an opportunity to come up here and make some surveys for an Iron Company. I shall probably be kept here all this week and possibly part of next. . . . . Well, Walt here I am about 110 miles from New York, up in the Harlem and New York R. R. just on the edge of the state of Massachusetts, among a mass of high mountains and deep valleys. The night is one of the wildest that I ever remember, the wind is blowing a gale, the snow and sleet and rain by turns come plashing against the windows. I am boarding at an old fashioned country house . . . as comfortable quarters as I ever enjoyed– good living, good fire– good rooms and good bed– clever old Dutch-fashioned American people. I’ve just been drinking some good cider and eating some fine apples. Everything thing is as comfortable and country like.” ~ Letter from Jeff Whitman to his brother Walt.

December 28– Monday– General Lee’s headquarters, Virginia– “I have the honor to make application for Thirty days Leave of absence to visit my home in Georgia. It is over one year since I was last at home. I have during the past summer with the consent & approbation of the War Department had imported from England machinery of an important character for the purpose of manufacturing ‘card clothing’ for Cotton & woolen mills, of which all the mills of the Confederacy are much in need. The machines are not in operation, my personal attention being necessary to put them in full & successful operation, thereby advancing the interest of our whole country, as well as personal. By the Act of Congress, I could be exempted from all military duty, to remain at home & superintend said machines. But my first & greatest duty is for my country, and all I ask, is to allowed the above time now that I may be able to serve my own interest as well as my country’s.” ~ Request for leave submitted by Confederate Colonel Barrington Simeral King.

December 28– Monday– along the Hiwassee River, Meigs County, Tennessee– “A citizen named Trotter, came into our camp. He was an old man, and professed to be loyal. I interrogated him on the tobacco question. He replied, ‘The crop has been mitey poor fur a year or two. I don’t use terbacker myself, but my wife used to chaw it; but the frost has been a nippen of it fur a year or two, and it is so poor she has quit chawen ontirely.’ . . . . While we were encamped . . . a Union man, near seventy years old, was murdered by guerrillas. Not long before, a young lady, the daughter of a Methodist minister, was robbed and murdered near the same place. Murders and robberies are as common occurrences in that portion of Tennessee as marriages in Ohio, and excite about as little attention. Horse stealing is not considered an offense.” ~ Diary of Union General John Beatty.

John Beatty

December 29– Tuesday– Oberlin, Ohio– “Yours of the 24^th is received. I suppose I understand the nature of the business in which you and my son are engaged. I see no objection to it in either a legal or moral point of view. Dr Wright of your city, owes me in the neighborhood of $1000, including the unpaid interest. I understand he is ready to pay it. I believe you hold the note. I have been endeavoring to lay by enough to render me comfortable should I live to be old. I am now in my 72^nd year. I wish to so invest the little I have as to make it pay me ten percent punctually and annually and in such a way that by giving one or two years notice I or my heirs, can, if necessary withdraw the Capital from the concern. I wish to do this without assuming any risk or responsibility in regard to the management or the debts of the concern. My son tells me, as you do in this letter, that this can be done and that you and he will be amply paid for your labor and expense in managing the business. If you will draw up and execute an instrument that will put it in the right shape and send it to me, if it suits my views, I will forward it to my son for his hand and seal.” ~ Letter from Reverend Charles G Finney to G. W. Washburn. [Finney will live until August 1875. The $1000 debt would equal $18,900 today, based upon the Consumer Price Index.]

Reverend Finney

December 29– Tuesday– Lancaster, Ohio– “I wish you would introduce a bill in Congress increasing the number of cadets on this basis one from each congressional district per annum. . . . . Last summer we were called on to recommend candidates, and I was amazed to find so many worthy applicants. All who came forward for examination preferred West Point to a commission. The great want of the army is good subordinate officers. The army is a good school, but West Point is better. It is useless to deny that a special preliminary education is necessary to the military officers, and the cheapest school is now at West Point and is susceptible of infinite increase. . . . . Of course property-holding classes South deplore the devastation that marks the progress of their own and our armies, but the South is no longer consulted. The Army of the Confederacy is the South, and they still hope to worry us out. The moment we relax, they gain strength and confidence. We must hammer away and show such resistance, such bottom that even that slender hope will fail them.” ~ Letter from General William Tecumseh Sherman to his brother, Senator John Sherman. [General Sherman, on a short leave, comes home to find his brother, the senator, in New York. The general graduated from West Point in 1840. His roommate was George Thomas, now also a Union general.]

December 29– Tuesday– Mossy Creek, Jefferson County, Tennessee– In a battle that lasts about eight hours, Union forces turn back an attack by a Confederate force of about 2,000 soldiers. Federal losses total 151; Confederate losses amount to approximately 500.

December 29– Tuesday– Birmingham, England– “Learning by the last arrival from New York that [our] Government have built a fort on the site of a blast-furnace belonging to me at Chattanooga, Tennessee, situated on the bluff at the river’s bank in the town, I have taken the liberty to call your attention to a fact that is not generally known and which accidentally came to my knowledge. The site of the furnace or the fort is a bluff which rises about 80 to 100 feet perpendicularly from the river. In the face of this bluff, near high-water mark and accessible from the river, is a cavern, which I am told extends under the bluff and through the ridge for upward of 1 mile. This cavern has been the resort of fugitive slaves. It has occurred to me that as the army has been there but a short time the officers in command may not know of its existence. Judging from what I know of the position I have thought it might be a matter of some importance to you to be made aware of the fact. Whether it could be used as a mine to destroy the works over it your officers are betterable to judge than I am, but as this bluff commands the ferry, the river for some distance, and the town of Chattanooga, and the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, and in view of the scarcity of water in the town, it may safely be called the key of the position. And as the position is ranked as a ‘decisive strategical point of the highest order’ . . . I have taken the liberty to address you this letter.” ~ Letter from James Henderson to the War Department in Washington, D.C.

December 30– Wednesday– New York City– “Southern correspondents of British newspapers begin to write darkly and despondingly [sic] of the prospects of a slave-holding, woman-flogging Secessia, so dear to the gentry and the traders of Britain. In spite of myself, I feel more and more bitter against England every day for the moral support her ruling classes have given this atrocious rebellion . . . . as if I were to discover that one of my most intimate and trusted friends was a humbug and a scoundrel.” ~ Diary of George Templeton Strong.

December 30– Wednesday– Somerville, Massachusetts– “I found I could get nothing but promises from the booksellers for the present, so I sent you today a package of such books as I could pick from my own shelves, together with some newspapers– a variety in which I hope you will find a few things to suit your purpose. . . . . I can send you more newspapers– and perhaps more books– in a few days, if you wish for another bundle.” ~ Letter from John T. Trowbridge to Walt Whitman.

December 30– Wednesday– Lancaster, Ohio– “We must all be judged by our own peers, stand or fall by their verdict. I know I stand very high with the army, and feel no concern on that score. To-day I can do more with Admiral Porter or the Generals than any general officer out West except Grant, and with him I am as a second self. We are personal and official friends.” ~ General William Tecumseh Sherman to his brother Senator John Sherman.

General Sherman

December 30– Wednesday– Richmond, Virginia– “It will not be long ere many of the Yankee prisoners, now in confinement on Belle Isle, will have an opportunity of breathing the salubrious air farther South, the Government having made selection of a spot in Georgia, near Andersonville, Sumtar county, for their reception and safe-keeping, their present place of confinement being rather over-crowded. The location is on the Southwestern railroad, between Oglethorpe and Americus, where no difficulty will be encountered in supplying their wants.” ~ Richmond Sentinel.

 

A Son Burried Beneath the Sod of Tennessee~December 1863~11th to 15th

A Son Buried Beneath the Sod of Tennessee ~ James Vascoy

Soldiers write of the deaths of comrades, winter conditions, suffer privations, deal with wounds and sickness, long for leave to visit home and continue fighting, particularly in Tennessee. President Lincoln seeks peace with a number of Native American nations while a Southerner speculates on next year’s upcoming presidential election in the North. Americans abroad observe Thanksgiving while Europe seethes with rumors of war. Navy Secretary Welles appreciates the international advantages of the visit by the Russian navy. The family of Walt Whitman has a serious problem. And the world continues to turn, babies born and the promise of change.

December 11– Friday– Athens, Tennessee– “He took from his pocket a Testament and gave it to me and told me to read it and meet him in Glory. He also told me to tell his wife to train up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and met him in Heaven. . . . . I thank God he has gone to Heaven oh my Dear parents you have a son buried beneath the sod of Tennessee but He rests in Jesus. And will rise at the last day to meet us in Glory if we but prove faithful. The next morning Aaron and I Buried him. Nicely to what all soldiers that fell there was although we had no coffin we dug a Vault and lined it with boards and then enscribed [sic] his named on the tree that we buried him under. And by this time the Regiment had passed and gone and I had to start in a hurrah to overtake them which I did that night.” ~ Letter from Union soldier James Vascoy to his parents in Indiana, describing the battlefield death of his brother Jacob.

December 11– Friday– near Rogersville, Tennessee– A reporter for the Richmond Whig writes that 3500 of General Longstreet’s soldiers are without shoes and coats.

December 11– Friday– Atlanta, Georgia– “Resolved by the General Assembly of Georgia, That the Committee on the State of the Republic, are hereby instructed to consider what action it may be prudent and proper for the authorities of Georgia to take, for the encouragement of the organization of a Volunteer Navy, for the service of the Confederacy, and to increase the number of vessels and seamen engaged in the Naval service; and to report by bill or otherwise, as early as practicable upon the subject.” ~ Resolution adopted today.

December 12– Saturday– New York City– The New York Times updates it readers on events in Europe. “In pursuance of President Lincoln’s Proclamation, the Americans in London observed the 26^th of November as a day of Thanksgiving. Business was suspended at the American Legation and Consulates, and a grand banquet was given at St. James Hall, under the Presidency of Robert J. Walker. The banquet was attended by Mr. [Charles Francis] Adams, the secretaries of the Legation, and many prominent Americans. Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation was read, and Mr. Walker delivered an address on the rebellion and the prospects of its speedy suppression. A prayer was offered up by Mr. Stella Martin, a fugitive slave, and a hymn was snug by the guests. A toast to the President was received with great enthusiasm . . . . The French deficit, owing to the Mexican and Cochin China [Vietnam] wars is reported at £10,000,000. . . . . Two divisions of the Prussian army are under orders to be ready to take the field. They number 35,000 men. A resolution was pending in the Prussian Chamber to place all means at the disposal of the Government for the energetic guardianship of German rights. The Wurtemburg Government urges the immediate occupation of Holstein [claimed by Denmark] by the Federal troops. . . . . Two hundred public functionaries had been arrested at Warsaw [by Russian soldiers], and condemned to deportation to Siberia.”

December 12– Saturday– Washington, D.C.– “To-day the Members of Congress very generally visited the Russian fleet. I did not go down, but detailed two steamers which were at the yard to convey the members. Our Russian friends are rendering us a great service. Senator Sumner called, and we had half an hour’s interesting conversation on the topics of the day and times. He compliments my Report.” ~ Diary of Gideon Welles.

Russian naval officers

December 12– Saturday– near Greeneville, Tennessee– “I knew you must be very uneasy. I was, dear Molly, in great danger but God delivered me out of all and brought me out without being hurt. I wrote you all the particulars. After our engagement, we learned that Bragg had fallen back from Chattanooga, that the enemy were marching on our rear in heavy force and that in a short time would be upon us front and rear, so there was nothing left us but to retreat as fast as possible. We left at dark on the night of the 4^th and marched all night, one of the coldest times I ever saw. . . . . I cannot tell how much I want to see you and the children although I confess that I have lost many of the sweet remembrances of home and friends. I confess that I can hardly realize that I have a sweet wife and two little children. This may seem very strange to you who [are] at and home and [with] those little blessings of heaven around you, but it is nevertheless a fact. This truly is a world of forgetfulness. I often stray off to some sweet place and sit down to think of days that is past and gone, yes, the day when my work was done and come home to meet your smiling face at the door, yes the happiest days of my life. I try to call them to memory but it seems almost like a dream.” ~ Letter from Confederate soldier William R Stilwell to his wife Molly.

December 12– Saturday– Adalsbruk, Norway– Birth of Edvard Munch, painter and printmaker whose work will focus on a strongly emotional treatment of psychological themes. His 1893 painting entitled The Scream will become his most famous work.

Edvard Munch, c1921

December 13– Sunday– Franklin County, Pennsylvania– “A warm foggy day. . . . . A good deal of fuss about the rebs to day. Think it is all Bosh.” ~ Diary of Amos Stouffer.

December 13– Sunday– Richmond, Virginia– “The coming year is to be an eventful one. We shall be able (I hope) to put 400,000 effective men in the field; and these, well handled, might resist a million of assailants from without. We have the center, they the circumference; let them beware of 1864– when the United States shall find herself in the throes of an embittered Presidential contest!” ~ Diary of John Jones.

December 13– Sunday– Atlanta, Georgia– “I forgot to say that yesterday I had to whip our woman Caroline for insubordination and impudence to her mistress. I am disgusted with Negroes and feel inclined to sell what I have. I wish they were all back in Africa, or Yankee Land. To think too that this cruel war should be waged for them!” ~ Diary entry of an Atlanta businessman.

December 13– Sunday– Hurricane Bridge, West Virginia; Dandridge, Tennessee; Strasburg, Virginia; Farley’s Mill, Tennessee; Ringgold, Georgia; Meriwether’s Ferry, Arkansas; Germantown, Virginia; La Grange, Tennessee– Skirmishes and raids.

December 14– Monday– Washington, D.C.– President Lincoln submits to the Senate and urges ratification of treaties made with various Native American nations: one with the Osage in Kansas; one with the Tabegauche band of the Utah; one with the Sac and Fox; and one with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache. He declines to see Congressman Fernando Wood (Democrat of New York), who seeks amnesty for Northern sympathizers with rebellion. In the evening the President and his family attend Ford’s Theatre to see James H. Hackett play Falstaff in Henry IV. [Fernando Wood, age 51, was mayor of New York City in 1861 and tried to have the city join the Confederacy. During the election of 1860 he had provided substantial financial backing to the campaign of Stephen A Douglas. At this time he serves in the House of Representatives, having won a seat in the fall of 1862. He has been extremely critical of the Lincoln Administration. His strongest opponent in the House of Representatives is Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Republican of Pennsylvania. Wood is married to his third wife and has fathered sixteen children.]

December 14– Monday– Washington, D.C.– “I told my surgeon this morning that I was going to start for home Thursday night so as to get home Saturday p.m. He shook his head, but I told him I had the strength of a magnet . . . to draw me and strengthen me for the journey. . . . . Bless you I am so happy at the thought of seeing you that weak as I am I feel as well as ever while I write.” ~ Letter from Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to his wife Fanny.

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

December 14– Monday– Richmond, Virginia– “We have President Lincoln’s message to-day, and his proclamation of amnesty to all who take an oath of allegiance, etc., and advocate emancipation. There are some whom he exempts, of course. It is regarded here as an electioneering document, to procure a renomination for the Presidency in the radical Abolition Convention to assemble in a few months. But it will add 100,000 men to our armies; and next year will be the bloody year.” ~ Diary of John Jones.

December 14– Monday– Tazewell, Tennessee– “At the crossing of the Clinch River (Evans Ford) I found a sufficient guard, under the command of Colonel Kise. The river was rising quite rapidly, but the guard had raised and repaired the ferry-boat, which was crossing successfully, being pulled back and forth by hand upon a cable stretched from one shore to another. I think that it would be well, as a matter of security, to have another boat built there, and will so notify Colonel Babcock. I found the road from Bean’s Station to Tazewell much better than I expected, and I think that it will prove a passable winter road. When I arrived here this evening it was too dark to see, but I will go over the ground early in the morning. I find that considerable [work] has been done here, and that fortunately there is an officer here with his regiment . . . who is perfectly competent to do whatever may be required in the way of construction.” ~ Report of Union Captain and Chief Engineer O M Poe.

December 14– Monday– Bean’s Station, Tennessee– In a day long see-saw battle, Confederate forces compel the Federals to retreat but are unable to gain any further advantage. Total Confederate losses– dead, wounded and missing– are approximately 900 and approximately 700 for the Union forces.

Bean’s Station, 1938

December 14– Monday– Boons Hill, Tennessee; Caddo Mill, Arkansas; Granger’s Mill, Tennessee; Meadow Bluff, West Virginia; Morristown, Tennessee; Catlett’s Station, Virginia; Clinch Mountain Gap, Tennessee– Raids, skirmishes, fire fights and vigorous gun battles.

December 15– Tuesday– Boston, Massachusetts– Birth of Arthur Dehon Little, the eldest of the for sons of Thomas and Amelia Hixon Little. He will become a chemical engineer and pioneer in industrial research, as well as a respected author of scientific writing. He will obtain a number of patents for processes in tanned leather, artificial silk, various petroleum products as well as paper and wood products. Also, he will conceive of the scientific education plan which will become the School of Chemical Engineering Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater.

Arthur Dehon Little

December 15– Tuesday– Springfield Massachusetts– “I came up here to make some surveys and run some levels for a Mr Worthen who has been appointed to make an examination and report on supplying the city with water. . . . . Since that [incident] we don’t allow Jess to come in our rooms, or rather we only allow him to come when he has some errand for Mother. He seems to have quieted down, but I still fear to trust him. He is a treacherous cuss any way. Probably had I been home he would not have done anything of the kind but if he had, so help me God I would have shot him dead on the spot. And I must confess I felt considerably like it as it was. . . . . All this occurred some 10 or 12 days ago and you see how I feel about the matter now. I haven’t written you before because I was afraid to think about it. . . . . Now Walt ain’t there some way in which we can take this immense load from the life of Mother It certainly is telling on her every hour– she is I think failing rapidly– and I am quite sure unless something is done [will] not live but a few years. There are three of us, You, George and I and it seems as if we ought to be able to relieve Mother in a measure of this thing– if Jess is sick why we ought to put him in some hospital or place where he would be doctored There certainly must be plenty of such places and it couldn’t cost much.” ~ Letter from Jeff Whitman to his brother Walt. [Jeff writes about an incident of almost two weeks before when Jess Whitman, the oldest of the brothers, had acted in a rather bizarre and unstable manner, verbally threatening their mother, Jeff’s wife and Jeff’s children. Eventually the brothers will place Jess in an asylum in December of 1864 where he will remain until his death in March, 1870.]

　

Solidarity of the Nation~December, 1863~the 1st to the 4th

Solidarity of the Nation~ Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass speaks of his vision for a nation reborn. A Baptist clergyman writes of the abuses of the slave system and its corrupting influence on American politics. The dome of the Capitol Building is completed at last, a sign of hope to some. Even as the year heads into its final month there is plenty of fighting and the tide shifts in Tennessee. A sick rebel spy is deported. One of Walt Whitman’s brothers dies. Some worry about excessive consumption of alcohol. The Russian Minister to the United States writes disparagingly of American democracy. And apart from war in American the world goes on.

Reverend Francis Wayland

December– Boston, Massachusetts– “If slaves are not chattels, they are human beings, with brains and muscles,– brains at least intelligent enough to comprehend the stake they have in this controversy, and muscles strong enough to do good service in the cause of constitutional liberty and republican institutions. Is it wise to reject their offered assistance? Will not our foes have good cause to despise our folly, if we leave in their hands this most efficient element of their power? . . . . And again, while you object to the enlistment of Negroes, you are unwilling that any member of your family should leave your household and expose himself to the many hazards of war. Now is it not too plain for argument, that every Negro who is enrolled in our army prevents, by just that unit, the necessity of sending one Northern soldier into the field? But will the slaves consent to enlist? Let the thousands who have forced their way to Union camps . . . tracked by blood-hounds, and by their inhuman oppressors more savage than blood-hounds, answer the insulting inquiry. Are they brave? Will they fight for the cause which they have dared so many dangers to espouse? I point you to the bloody records of Vicksburg, Milliken’s Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner; I appeal to the testimony of every Union officer under whom black soldiers have fought, as the most fitting reply to such questions. . . . . Blush for your own unmanly and ungenerous prejudices, and ask yourself whether future history will not pronounce the black man, morally, not only your equal, but your superior, when it is found recorded, that, denied the rights of citizenship, long proscribed, persecuted, and enslaved, he was yet willing, and even eager, to save the life of your brother on the battle-field, and to preserve you in the peaceable enjoyment of your property at home. Is the efficient aid of such men to be rejected? Is their noble self-sacrifice to be slighted? . . . . It is precisely because the awful and too long unavenged sufferings of the slave must be inevitable, while Slavery exists, that these questions must sooner or later be asked and answered, and that your political upholding of such a system becomes a monstrous crime against humanity. After all, my dear Andrew, why are you so sensitive on the subject of Slavery? You certainly can have no personal interest in the peculiar and patriarchal institution. . . . . You have lived to see the Dagon before which you and your friends have for so many years cheerfully prostrated yourselves fall to the ground, and lie a helpless, hopeless ruin on the very threshold of the temple where it lately stood defiant and dominant.” ~ From “Letter to a Peace Democrat” by Francis Wayland Jr in this month’s issue of the Atlantic. [Wayland (1796 to 1865) was a Baptist clergyman, educator, author, advocate of community libraries and the president of Brown University in Rhode Island for 28 years. At the time of this article he is retired from the ministry but remains active in civic affairs.]

December 1– Tuesday– Lancaster, Pennsylvania– “Pickpockets: At the recent dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, a great number of persons had their pockets picked. Forty empty pocket books were found the next day, at Hanover Junction.” ~ Lancaster Intelligencer.

December 1– Tuesday– Prospect, Tennessee– “It has been a most unfortunate blow for the rebels losing the control of this portion of Tennessee. We are well supplied with all kinds of Fresh Meat and Corn Meal. We have a Steam Bakery and get soft Wheaten bread about three times a week. What we want most is Salt, Candles, Soap, letters and Newspapers. I do not know anything that has happened since we came here as I have only seen two papers since our arrival. We have heard there has been a great victory near Chattanooga, but we know nothing of the particulars although we are in the same state and belong to the same Army.” ~ Letter from Union soldier George Cadman to his family.

December 1– Tuesday– Maynardville, Tennessee; Benton, Arkansas; Cedar Point, North Carolina; Jonesville, Virginia; Salyersville, Kentucky; Ripley, Mississippi; harbor at Charleston, South Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; Devall’s Bluff, Arkansas; Jenning’s Farm, Virginia; Jackson, Kentucky; Pulaski, Tennessee; Mount Sterling, Kentucky– Artillery bombardments, skirmishes, ambushes, fire-fights, brawls and armed clashes make folks wonder if the year’s fighting will ever end.

December 1– Tuesday– Washington, D.C.– Suffering from a bout of typhoid fever, Confederate spy Belle Boyd is deported to Richmond.

Belle Boyd

December 1– Tuesday– Christchurch, New Zealand– Opening of first steam-operated passenger railway in the country.

December 2– Wednesday– Andover, New Hampshire– Jane Means Appleton Pierce, wife of former President Franklin Pierce, dies at age 57 from consumption. Since leaving Washington in 1857 when her husband’s term expired, she has grown more and more withdrawn and focused on her two dead young sons, Frank, who died in 1844 of disease at age 4, and Benny, who was killed in a train accident in 1853 at age 12.

Jane Pierce

December 2– Wednesday– Washington, D.C.– Under the supervision of architect Thomas Ustick Walter, age 59,the dome of the Capitol Building is capped with the placement of the Statue of Freedom, completing the structure. [The work had begun in the fall of 1855. Walter had carefully unified the work of the three previous architects who had worked on the Capitol Building. President Lincoln refused to let the war delay the completion. The casting of the statute at the factory of a Mr Clark Mills in suburban D. C., was supervised by Philip Reid, a former slave and master craftsman, about 42 or 43 years old. The statute cost $23,796.23 to make. In today’s dollars, without adjusting for cost of materials, it would cost approximately $449,000 to make, based upon the Consumer Price Index.]

the figure on top of the Capitol Dome, Washington, D.C.

December 2– Wednesday– McGregor, Iowa– Birth of Charles Ringling, one of the seven sons of August and Marie Salome Juliar Rungeling. He and four of his brothers will establish what will become known as the Ringling Brothers Circus and in 1907 they will acquire Barnum & Bailey for a purchase price of $410,000. [That would equal $10.3 million today, using the Consumer Price Index.]

December 2– Wednesday– Dalton, Georgia– Confederate General Braxton Bragg relinquishes his command to General William Hardee.

December 2– Wednesday– Omaha, Nebraska–The official ground breaking for the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad takes place.

December 3– Thursday– Brooklyn, New York– “I have just telegraphed to you that Andrew was dead. Poor boy he died much easier than one would have supposed. I do hope to God you will come on. I have been with him . . . almost all the time since you left. . . . . Andrew was very desirous of having us all around him when he died. The poor boy seemed to think that would take nearly all the horror of it away. If you will come on I will try and give you the passage money. Mother and the rest take it very hard. I hope to get an answer by telegraph.” ~ Letter from Jeff Whitman to his brother Walt. [Andrew Whitman, age 36, had been ill for some time.]

December 3– Thursday– Wheeling, West Virginia– “It has been a long time since our readers have heard of a temperance meeting. The subject of temperance was abandoned by its advocates some years ago, after having labored earnestly and faithfully, though vainly, to effect the needed reforms. Particularly since the rebellion has the question remained undisturbed. The discussion of the matter of a prohibitory liquor law until the public sentiment of the State shall have been prepared for it. Rev. Mr. Barnes, Senator Young, Dr. T. H. Logan, Delegate Wheat, and others, spoke upon the subject, in favor and against the passage of a prohibitory liquor law at this time. The meeting was unquestionably in favor of some kind of a liquor law, the only difference of opinion being in regard to the time the law should go into effect. It was finally resolved to continue the agitation of the subject, with a view of preparing public sentiment for such a law as the one now before the Legislature.” ~ Wheeling Intelligencer

December 3– Thursday– Washington, D.C.– “Your note with $20 from a friend, (formerly a Breckenridge democrat) came safe. Doctor, I have been away for a few days, but have now returned to remain here certainly for the winter & ensuing spring, & probably for two or three years. I feel much possessed with the wounded & sick soldiers– they have taken a powerful hold of me, & I am very happy among them– it is perhaps the greatest interchange of magnetism human relations are capable of. I have told you how young & how American they mostly are– so on my own account I shall continue as a missionary among them as sure as I live– I shall continue for years– tell your friend that his money is being distributed as money or what little purchase I find appropriate for the men of all states– I reject none of course– not rebel wounded nor blacks, nor any when I find them suffering & dying. Doctor to the other friends that assisted me in Boston & to yourself, I send my regards & love.” ~ Letter from Walt Whitman to Dr. Le Baron Russell.

December 3– Thursday– Camp Sedgwick, Virginia– “We moved to this camp . . . . I do not understand the late movements, but I presume General Meade does.” ~ Diary of Union officer Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

December 3– Thursday– Nashville, Tennessee– “Miss Maxwell of Davidson County is authorized to keep a shot-gun and pistols for protection of herself and property.” ~ Executive order from Union military governor Andrew Johnson.

December 3– Thursday– Knoxville, Tennessee– Confederate forces under General Longstreet begin a withdrawal to Greeneville.

December 4– Friday– Philadelphia, Pennsylvania– “We have outlived the old Union. We had outlived it long before the rebellion came to tell us– I mean the Union, under the old pro-slavery interpretation of it– and had become ashamed of it. The South hated it with our anti-slavery interpretation, and the North hated it with the Southern interpretation of its requirements. . . . . the better part of the people . . . shuddered at the idea of so sacrilegious a crime. They had already become utterly disgusted with the idea of playing the part of bloodhounds for the slave-masters, watch-dogs for the plantations. They had come to detest the principle upon which the Slave States had a larger representation in Congress than the Free States. They had already come to think that the little finger of dear old John Brown was worth more to the world than all the slaveholders in Virginia put together. What business, then, have we to fight for the old Union? We are not fighting for it. We are fighting for something incomparably better than the old Union. We are fighting for unity; unity of idea, unity of sentiment, unity of object, unity of institutions, in which there shall be no North, no South, no East, no West, no black, no white, but a solidarity of the nation, making every slave free, and every free man a voter.” ~ Speech by Frederick Douglass delivered at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Frederick Douglass

December 4– Friday– Washington, D.C.–The Russian Minister, Baron de Stoeckl, reports to the Tsar’s government that the number of problems in the United States come from “the rising streams of radicalism and universal suffrage . . . the influx of socialists and anarchists from Europe . . . . What can be expected from a country where men of humble origins are elevated to the highest positions?”

 

Eduard de Stoeckl

December 4– Friday– Kingston, Tennessee; Niobrara, Nebraska; Loudon, Tennessee; Meadow Bluff, West Virginia; La Fayette, Tennessee; Ripley, Mississippi– Skirmishes and plenty of shooting.

 

December 4– Friday– Charleston, South Carolina– Federal artillery and ships complete seven consecutive days of bombarding Fort Sumter, having lobbed more than 1300 rounds into already badly damaged remains of the structure.

 

December 4– Friday– London, England– James Duffield Harding, landscape painter and lithographer, dies at age 65.

 

The Act of Secession is Legally Nothing~November 1863~8th to 12th

The Act of Secession Is Legally Nothing ~ President Lincoln

President Lincoln denies the legality of the secession acts passed by southern states. He allows tobacco shipments to European powers who paid for it before the war began. Russian naval officers arrive in Washington. Soldiers write about fighting, wounds, furloughs, food, warm clothes of the lack of such things. Reverend Finney honors the wife of his predecessor. Slaves keep escaping. Labor unrest occurs in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. And the world continues to turn.

November 8– Sunday– Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria– Birth of Jean Raphael Adrien Rene Viviani, politician, who will briefly serve as Prime Minister of France from June, 1914 to October, 1915.

Viviani in 1914

November 8–Sunday– St Petersburg, Russia– The U S Minister advises Washington that the Tsar views the reception given by Americans to the Russian navy as United States’ support for Russia against Britain, France and Austria.

November 9– Monday– Oberlin, Ohio– Reverend Charles G Finney writes to the editor of the Lorraine County News. “The enclosed notice of the life and death of our Christian sister, Mrs. President Mahan, I cut from the Adrian [Michigan] Daily Expositor, of Oct. 28. It will much gratify the numerous friends of President and Mrs. Mahan in this place, to see it in your paper. All who knew Mrs. M. can testify to the truthfulness of this notice. We, who have best known her, can bear the fullest testimony to her many excellent traits of character. She was indeed a most judicious wife and mother, and as a Christian lady she was always exemplary. All who knew them in this community, sympathize deeply with the President and his family in view of their irreparable loss. I must not indulge my feelings in dwelling upon the excellencies of Mrs. M.; nor, on the other hand, upon the great loss her family has sustained. . . . . I have received two letters from the President in regard to the death of his wife. He is, as we should all expect, greatly sustained by the grace of our Lord Jesus. His inward consolation abounds under his outward sore bereavement. God bless him and his bereaved children.” [Asa Mahan served as the first president of Oberlin College and resigned in a dispute with the faculty in the summer of 1850. Finney was selected as president in Mahan’s place. Mary Hartwell Dix Mahan married Asa in 1828 and bore him seven children. Their son Theodore was mortally wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December of 1862.]

Asa Mahan

November 9– Monday– Washington, D.C.– “I have always thought the act of secession is legally nothing, and needs no repealing. Turn the thought over in your mind, and see if in your own judgment, you can make any thing of it.” ~ Letter from President Lincoln to Benjamin Flanders, a special agent of the U S Treasury Department in New Orleans, concerning whether or not a vote is officially needed to repeal Louisiana’s act of secession from January, 1861.

November 9– Monday– Washington, D.C.– “Received and entertained fifty Russian officers, the Cabinet, foreign ministers, and the officers of our own Navy who were in Washington, and all professed to be, and I think were, gratified. It was a question whether some of the legations would attend, but I believe all were present at our party.” ~ Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy.

November 9– Monday– Union Headquarters along the Rappahannock River, Virginia– “It was now late on this Sunday afternoon and the troops were massing, to bivouac. There seemed really no end of them; though but part of the army was there; yet I never saw it look so big, which is accounted for by the fact that the country is very open and rolling and we could see the whole of it quite swarming with blue coats. . . . We recrossed the Rappahannock at the railroad, and saw the fresh graves of the poor fellows who fell in the assault of the redoubt. The Rebel officers said it was the most gallant thing they had seen. Two regiments, the 6^th Maine and 7^th Wisconsin, just at sundown, as the light was fading, charged up a long, naked slope, in face of the fire of a brigade and of four cannon, and carried the works at the point of the bayonet. . . . . I think it no small praise to General Meade to say that his plans were so well laid out that our loss in all is but about 400. No useless slaughter, you see, though there was plenty of room for a blunder, as you would have known had you seen the lines of breastworks the fellows had; but we took part of them and scared them out of the rest.” ~ Letter from Union officer Theodore Lyman to his family.

November 10– Tuesday– Washington, D.C.– “In consideration of the peculiar circumstances and pursuant to the comity deemed to be due to friendly powers, any tobacco in the United States belonging to the government either of France, Austria, or any other state with which this country is at peace, and which tobacco was purchased and paid for by such government prior to the 4^th day of March, 1861, may be exported from any port of the United States under the supervision and upon the responsibility of naval officers of such governments and in conformity to such regulations as may be presented by the Secretary of State of the United States, and not otherwise.” ~ Executive Order issued by President Lincoln.

Lincoln depicted in a patriotic political cartoon

November 10– Tuesday– Washington, D.C.– “I do not know that I told you that both of my parents were dead but it is true and now Walt you will be a second Father to me wont you, for my love for you is hardly less than my love for my natural parent. I have never before met with a man that I could love as I do you still there is nothing strange about it for ‘to know you is to love you’ and how any person could know you and not love you is a wonder to me. Your letter found me still here and not yet ready to start home my Papers have not yet returned from headquarters. . . . I suppose you have heard that we received some 90 wounded men Sunday night a number of which were Rebels. Among the wounded were the Col and the Maj. of the 6^th Wisconsin Regt. and quite a number of privates a great many of them were very badly wounded, more so than any lot I have seen come in, eight of them died while on the way. And now Dear Comrade I must bid you good by hoping you will enjoy your visit and when you return have a pleasant and safe journey be assured you will meet with a warm welcome from many in Armory Square. You will yet be rewarded for your kindness to the Soldiers.” ~ Letter from Elijah Douglass Fox to Walt Whitman. Whitman is at home in Brooklyn, New York, visiting his family. [For information about Whitman’s difficult family circumstances at the time, see The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War by Roy Morris, pp 154 to 159.]

November 10– Tuesday– near Knoxville, Tennessee– “Molly, I notice that since I wrote you that I thought I would get a furlough this winter that you have been writing every time for me to come home. Now you must stop that as it is only makes me feel bad and I cannot get one now. I will get one as soon as I can. There is no one that wants a furlough worse than I do. I have not tried to write to John and it is so cold that I am trembling now.” ~ Letter from Confederate soldier William Stilwell to his wife Molly.

November 11– Wednesday– near Morton’s Ford, Orange County, Virginia– “The Colonel was wounded through the right lung. He seemed to know that there was no chance for him to live. Our forces fell back that night after he was wounded so they had to move him to Gordonsville where he lived until last Thursday. . . . . I did not hear of the Colonel’s death until last night. Our Regiment is very sad about his death and besides we lost a good many others. The [loss] in our Regt is over hundred and fifty, most of them is taken prisoner. I hope God will give Miss Fannie and yourself strength to [bear] this sad news. For if we loved him who was no kin to him how much more must those that was so near to him. I shall have his Horse taken care of– you had better send Ransome [the Colonel’s slave] back after him and let him take him thru the country. The Colonel thought a good deal of his horse.” ~ Letter from Confederate Captain Gary Williams to Fannie Holmes’s husband, Dr. Allmond Holmes, describing the circumstances of Colonel William Sillers’ death. Fannie is the sister of William Sillers.

November 11– Wednesday– Richmond, Virginia– “Ran away from the subscriber, on the night of the 5^th of this month, (November) near Charlotte Court House, Virginia, my three men Pompey, Miles, and George– Pompey is a black, fat, stout, short man, 27 years old, and was my cook. Miles is a slender and rather dedicate gingerbread-looking man, 38 years old, and if made to hold out his hand is very tremulous, and was my carriage driver. George is a stout, slouchy walking gingerbread looking fellow, 25 years old, and is a pretty good blacksmith and carpenter. As these Negroes ran off without any provocation whatever, it is presumed their object is to make their way to the Yankees. They were raised at Weston, on James river, and no doubt will endeavor to make their escape in that direction. I will pay a reward of $100 each for the apprehension and imprisonment of these Negroes so that I get them again, or will pay $100 each and their expenses if delivered to me at Charlotte C H, Virginia. John A Selden.” ~ Richmond Dispatch.

 

runaway slaves

November 11– Wednesday– outside Chattanooga, Tennessee– “Food &clothing are both pretty scarce with the Army now, & I fear we shall suffer for both before very long. In fact, we do to a limited extent now. We can buy nothing at all to eat, & all are very scarce of clothing, especially shoes, socks & blankets. There are a good many men in the Army now without the sign of a shoe on their feet, & I know of but few who can say they sleep warm; & if things do not get better, I know a great many will desert this winter, & some are now deserting. . . . . We have not drawn any meat of any kind since day before yesterday, & Sam is cooking some peas without any grease for dinner or supper, just as you choose to call it, for we only eat twice a day. I am nearly barefooted both for shoes & socks, but I think I will get shoes before long &, as for socks, I have no idea when I will get any, & I only have one pair, which are cotton & full of holes & heels & toes all gone.” ~ Letter from Confederate soldier John Farris to his wife Mary.

November 11– Wednesday– Paris, France– Birth of Paul Signac, neo-Impressionist painter and political anarchist.

Paul Signac

November 12– Thursday– New York City– “In the coal region of Pennsylvania the strike is combined with organized resistence to the draft and has attained serious dimensions. . . . . in fact, a Copperhead insurrection that holds two or three counties. The insurgent strikers are mostly lewd fellows of the baser sort . . . committing all manner of murderous brutality.” ~ Diary of George Templeton Strong.

coal miners meeting

November 12– Thursday– Liberty, Virginia– “I get a plenty to eat. I do not eat all the rations I draw. We draw hard bread, pork, beef, beans, sugar, coffee, sometimes molasses and potatoes. There is no danger of anyone starving on that living. I have not drawed [sic] an over coat yet. I am in want of one very much. I expect to have one soon. I have a good warm blanket and a piece of tent, so I get along pretty well, only when I am on guard. Then I need an over coat. I think we shall soon be paid off, then you will get 60 dollars. I shall get enough to pay my passage home out of the 18 dollars. If you sell the wagon, don’t sell it less than 30 dollars. It is worth that if it is worth anything. I would like to keep it, but if you are short of money you better sell it.” ~ Letter from Union soldier Henry Butler to his wife Mary. [The $30 for the wagon would equal $566 in current dollars. However, the economic value of the wagon would equal about $6770 in today’s economy.]

When Will We See Peace Again?~September 1863~the 7th to the 10th

When Will We See Peace Again? ~ Myra Adelaide Inman

As fighting continues, civilans and soldiers worry and wonder. Mary Chesnut visits with Mary Custis Lee, has ice for sweets and attends a wedding. President Lincoln urges the recruitment of more black soldiers. A Union general urges promotion for Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin. France is spending a lot of money to conquer Mexico. The crisis in Poland still simmers. And life continues, shaping the future in ways not immediately visible.

Mary Chesnut

September 7– Monday– Richmond, Virginia– Mary Chesnut records a recent meeting with Mary Custis Lee, General Lee’s wife and a great-granddaughter of Mary Custis Washington. “That day, Mrs Lee gave me a likeness of the General in a photograph taken soon after the Mexican War. She likes it so much better than the later ones. He certainly was a handsome man then, handsomer even than now. I shall prize it for Mrs Lee’s sake, too. She said old Mrs Chesnut and her aunt, Nellie Custis (Mrs Lewis) were very intimate during Washington’s Administration in Philadelphia. I told her Mrs Chesnut, senior, was the historical member of our family; she had so much to tell of Revolutionary times. She was one of the ‘white-robed choir’ of little maidens who scattered flowers before Washington at Trenton Bridge, which everybody who writes a life of Washington asks her to give an account of. . . . Mrs Ould and Mrs Davis came home with me. Lawrence had a basket of delicious cherries. ‘If there were only some ice,’ said I. Respectfully Lawrence answered, and also firmly, ‘Give me money and you shall have ice.’ By the underground telegraph he had heard of an ice-house over the river, though its fame was suppressed by certain Sybarites, as they wanted it all. In a wonderfully short time we had mint-juleps and sherry-cobblers.” [Sybarites refers to residents of the ancient city of Sybaris, a Greek colony in Italy, whose inhabitants were known as lovers of luxury and pleasure.]

September 7– Monday– near Nicholasville, Kentucky– George Whitman writes to his mother. “I last wrote you, from Covington where we were having first rate easy times and fine living. We left there, August 26^th marched down to the Depot and took the Cars for this place. We are about 100 miles from Covington and 3 from the village of Nicholasville We are right among the farmers, so of course we are all right on the grub question, pedlars every day bring in fruit, vegetables, Eggs and all that kind of thing. We have been expecting orders to march every day, and this morning we were ordered to be ready to move at any moment, with 3 days rations in Haversacks, but a few minutes ago the orders to be ready, were countermanded for some reason or another, (I think likely that word has come from Burnside that he is not likely to meet with much resistance at Knoxville).”

September 8– Tuesday– Philadelphia, Pennsylvania– Birth of Jessie Willcox Smith, painter and illustrator. She is the youngest of the four children of Charles and Katherine Willcox Smith. Her illustrations for children’s books and her work for various magazines will give her financial success. She will never marry and at different times in her career she will provide financially for 11 different children, including the 3 of her invalid sister. By 1915, when she will win a silver medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition, she will be one of the best known artists in the United States.

Jessie Willcox Smith in 1917

September 8– Tuesday– Washington, D.C.– “Let me urge that you do your utmost to get every man you can, black and white, under arms at the very earliest moment, to guard roads, bridges, and trains, allowing all the better trained soldiers to go forward to Rosecrans. Of course I mean for you to act in co-operation with and not independently of, the military authorities.” ~ President Lincoln to Governor Andrew Johnson in Nashville, Tennessee.

September 8– Tuesday– near Warrenton, Virginia– “My personal knowledge of this gallant officer’s skill and bravery upon the battlefield, his ability in drill and discipline, and his fidelity to duty in camp, added to a just admiration for his scholarship, respect for his Christian character, induces me to ask your influence on his behalf. Colonel Chamberlin joined the brigade of which he is now the commanding officer, about a year ago. At all the severe conflicts of the army since, he has greatly distinguished himself for the skillful dis position of his command and for his personal bravery. Not a battle has been fought in which the 20^th Maine under his command has not added luster to our arms, and a brighter page to our history. . . . I would urge the promotion of this officer since the service, more than ever before, demands that high-toned, moral, patriotic Christian men shall lead its forces to victory.” ~ Letter of Union General James Rice to Senator William Fessenden of Maine, urging the senator to seek the promotion of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin to the rank of general. [Fessenden, age 56, a Republican and strong anti-slavery man, has served in the Senate since 1854 and at this time chairs the Senate Finance Committee.]

Senator William Fessenden

September 8– Tuesday– Charleston, South Carolina– Confederate defenders of Fort Sumter repulse an attack by Federal infantry. Union losses total 117; Confederate losses are unknown.

September 8– Tuesday– Cleveland, Tennessee– A local woman, Myra Adelaide Inman, confides her worries to her diary. “All of the southern soldiers have left today. Oh, I feel so sad to think the southern army has left and left us to our fate. We are looking for the Yankees in soon. Mr. Farrow was here this morn. We are very busy baking biscuits for some soldiers, the last we will cook for them in a long time, I am afraid. When will we see peace again? I never wish to pass such a week as the last has been, such confusion and noise I never witnessed. Cousin John Lea came and told us good-bye about 2 o’clock. He went down to Dalton [Georgia]. I am very lonesome this eve. The soldiers have all left and everything is quiet, looking for the Yankees [to come] in every minute. When will we see another southern soldier, we are now in the federal government, how I detest it. I do wish we could whip them. We are cut off from all of our friends and relatives. The town looks deserted. I took a good cry this eve about our fate.”

September 8– Tuesday– Sabine Pass, Texas– A small Confederate garrison surprises and routs a much larger Union force inflicting about 200 Federal casualties. The Confederates report no killed or wounded.

September 9– Wednesday– Cambridge, Massachusetts– “The Times [of London], I see, has now sent over an ‘Italian’ to report upon us– a clever man, but a double foreigner, as an Italian with an English wash over him. Pray, don’t believe a word he says about our longing to go to war with England. We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality, but the last thing we want is another war. If the rebel iron-clads are allowed to come out, there might be a change.” ~ Letter of James Russell Lowell to the English author Thomas Hughes whose 1857 novel Tom Brown’s School Days was a best seller in the United States as well as in Great Britain.

James Russell Lowell

September 9– Wednesday– near Warrenton, Virginia– “It was a somewhat sad sight to look at these veterans, with their travel-stained uniforms and their battered canteens; many of the regiments had no more than 200 men, and their flags were so tattered that you could barely read such names as Fair Oaks, and Williamsburg . . . . The men looked spare and brown and in good health; and also as if they would then and there fight French Zouaves or anybody else you chose to bring on. . . . Some divisions at Gettysburg marched thirty-six miles in one day; and then fought for two days after that, with scarcely anything to eat or to drink. Among the troops were the 11^th and 16^th Massachusetts regiments and the 10^th battery, and certainly none of the soldiers looked better. . . . The artillery looked even more serviceable than the infantry; and, independent of the large number of guns, was well horsed and well manned. As a rule I am much pleased with the aspect of our officers, high and low. They are cleanly and have a firm, quiet bearing. You can often pick out those who have been through the thick of it, by their subdued and steady look.” ~ Colonel Theodore Lyman, aide-de-camp to General Meade, in a letter to his wife, Elizabeth “Mimi” Russell.

September 9– Wednesday– Chattanooga, Tennessee– Federal troops enter the city following its evacuation by Confederate forces. Union forces also establish control of the critical Cumberland Gap, the intersection of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia.

September 9– Wednesday– Bishopsworth, Somerset, England– Birth of Herbert Henry Ball. In 1886, he and his new wife will move to Toronto, Canada, where he will work as a journalist, serve as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1926 to 1929 and as the King’s Printer, printing Canadian government documents from 1930 to 1934.

Herbert Henry Ball c.1921

September 9– Wednesday– Paris, France–A French government report reveals that French operations in Mexico have cost over 172,000,000 francs. [About 2.1 million U S dollars in 1863; about 37.751 million in today’s dollars.]

September 10– Thursday– Centreville, Virginia– “I to-day had to call attention in a general order to the prevalence of profanity in the command, and at the same time to add that perhaps I had not set them a good example in this respect. I don’t swear very much or very deep, but I do swear, more often at officers than men, and there is a great deal of swearing in the regiment which I wish to check; of course, I shall stop it in myself entirely; I shall enforce the Articles of War if necessary. . . . I think we must make up our minds to a long war yet, and possibly to a war with some European power. For years to come, I think all our lives will have to be more or less soldierly, i. e. simple and unsettled; simple because unsettled.” ~ Letter of Union Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to his sweetheart, Effie Shaw.

September 10– Thursday– Camden, South Carolina– “It is a comfort to turn from small political jealousies to our grand battles to Lee and Kirby Smith after Council and Convention squabbles. Lee has proved to be all that my husband prophesied of him when he was so unpopular and when Joe Johnston was the great god of war. The very sound of the word convention or council is wearisome. Not that I am quite ready for Richmond yet. We must look after home and plantation affairs, which we have sadly neglected. Heaven help my husband through the deep waters. The wedding of Miss Aiken, daughter of Governor Aiken, the largest slave-owner in South Carolina; Julia Rutledge, one of the bridesmaids; the place Flat Rock. We could not for a while imagine what Julia would do for a dress. My sister Kate remembered some muslin she had in the house for curtains, bought before the war, and laid aside as not needed now. The stuff was white and thin, a little coarse, but then we covered it with no end of beautiful lace. It made a charming dress, and how altogether lovely Julia looked in it!” ~ Diary of Mary Chesnut. [William Aiken, 1806-1887, was governor of South Carolina from 1844 to 1846 and U S Congressman from 1851 to 1857. No information seems to be readily available about his daughter.]

September 10– Thursday– Bayou Forche, Arkansas– Federal troops rout an entrenched Confederate force, thereby opening the way to advance on Little Rock.

September 10– Thursday– Little Rock, Arkansas– Confederate forces withdraw toward Rockport and this evening this important Southern center is occupied by Union troops.

September 10– Thursday– Paris, France– A correspondent for the New York Times reports on French newspaper opinion regarding the situation in Poland. “The Siecle publishes an article upon the Polish question, stating that the declaration of the Journal de St. Petersburg shows that Russia is not more accommodating at present than in July. The Siecle thinks it impossible that France, England and Austria should tolerate the present position of affairs. They will be forced to take one part or another, and say plainly, yes or no. If England and Austria should decline to sanction an ultimatum in reply to the unmeaning notes in which Russia scoffs at their remonstrances, the other Powers will be ready to go hand in hand with France for the deliverance of Poland. The insurgent Leader Lelewel had suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Russians. Lelewel himself is said to have been killed or wounded, and Grekowicz had undertaken the command of his corps. A later dispatch says Lelewel was left dead on the field, pierced by two bullets. The Paris Patrie urges the recognition of the Poles as belligerents by the great Powers.”

　

A Higher Courage, A Purer Patriotism~August 1863~the 12th to the 16th

A Higher Courage, a Purer Patriotism ~ Robert E Lee

Any number of crises and problems flourish on the international stage: tension over British sale of ships to the Confederacy, revolution in Poland, French intervention in Mexico, trouble in the Dominican Republic, a Confederate agent heads to Europe to seek help for her government. General Grant reports atrocities committed by the rebels against black soldiers and their white officers. George Whitman fumes about the riots in New York City. Frederick Douglass ceases his publication and redirects his efforts. General Lee calls on his army to observe a day of prayer and fasting. Many people long for peace.

August 12– Wednesday– Washington, D.C.– Gideon Welles is pleased by the fiery stand of the State Department in dealing with Great Britain. “[Secretary of State] Seward informs me in confidence that he has, through Mr. Adams, made an energetic protest to Great Britain against permitting the ironclads to leave England, distinctly informing the Ministry that it would be considered by us as a declaration of war. The result is, he says, the ironclads will not leave England. I have uniformly insisted that such would be the case if we took decided ground and the Ministry were satisfied we were in earnest.”

August 12– Wednesday– Richmond, Virginia– The Richmond Sentinel updates prices in the slave market. “A month ago we published the price of slaves then prevailing, viz: Young men ranging from $2,000 to $2,700, and young women from $2,000 to $2,500. There is now, we learn, an advance on these prices; all kinds of slaves commanding higher prices than ever before. Boys and girls and small Negroes are proportionably higher than grown ones.” [The $2700 for a human being would equal about $50,900 today.]

Southern slave auction

August 12– Wednesday– Vicksburg, Mississippi– General Grant submits to the War Department a report on the Confederate treatment of black soldiers and their white officers. “The day after the battle of Millikens Bend, in June last, the Marine Brigade landed some 10 miles below the Bend, and attacked and routed the guerrillas which had been repulsed by our troops and the gunboats the day previous. Major Hubbards cavalry battalion, of the Marine Brigade, followed the retreating rebels to Tensas Bayou, and were horrified in the finding of skeletons of white officers commanding Negro regiments, who had been captured by the rebels at Millikens Bend. In many cases these officers had been nailed to the trees and crucified; in this situation a fire was built around the tree, and they suffered a slow death from broiling. The charred and partially burned limbs were still fastened to the stakes. Other instances were noticed of charred skeletons of officers, which had been nailed to slabs, and the slab placed against a house which was set on fire by the inhuman demons, the poor sufferers having been roasted alive until nothing was left but charred bones. Negro prisoners recaptured from the guerrillas confirmed these facts, which were amply corroborated by the bodies found, as above described. The Negroes taken were to be resold into slavery, while the white officers were consumed by fire. Lieutenant Cole holds himself responsible for the truth of the statement.”

August 12– Wednesday– dateline: Paris, France– The New York Times carries an update from its Paris correspondent. “The secession press at Paris accept at last, but with a bad grace, the successes of the National arms. They try to obscure them as much as possible with the New-York riot, and all urge, with the London Times, that the successes in the Mississippi Valley are fully counterbalanced by the blow struck at the national power in the streets of New-York! . . . . Thus far we have no indications as to what effect the opening of the Mississippi will exert upon the Emperor’s Mexican policy. . . . . The Government papers are filled with accounts of the friendly reception given everywhere in Mexico to the French and their policy, and of the efficient cooperation of the Mexican allied troops, thus looking as if the Government was still clinging to the doctrine that, they have gone to Mexico as friends and civilizers. . . . . The alarm about a war with Russia is not so general as a week ago. This change of opinion is due to various causes. In the first place, it is evident to every one that the reply of Russia was based upon the supposition that an alliance between the three Powers was impossible, and that she would have made a much acceptable reply if she had known what, she now knows of the sentiments especially of Austria. Thus, while it is believed that Napoleon dare not go to war alone, for fear of a European coalition, it is also believed that Russia will not think of fighting the three Powers and that she will finally recede from the position she now occupies [regarding Poland].”

August 12– Wednesday– Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada– The first commercial cargo of lumber from this area is shipped.

August 12– Wednesday– Limmerick, Ireland– Birth of Margaretta Eagar , who will become the nurse for the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra and will write a 1906 memoir entitled Six Years at the Russian Court about her time with the Romanov family.

Ms Eager with another nanny & 3 of the Tsar’s children

August 12– Wednesday– Gastein, Germany– King William writes to the Russian Tsar declining the Tsar’s request for diplomatic help with the Austrians because William is certain the Austrian Empire is conspiring against Germany.

August 13– Thursday– Orange Courthouse, Virginia– Confederate General Lee issues a proclamation to the Army of Northern Virginia. “The President of the Confederate States has, in the name of the people, appointed August 21st as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. A strict observance of the day is enjoined upon the officers and soldiers of this army. All military duties, except such as are absolutely necessary, will be suspended. The commanding officers of brigades and regiments are requested to cause divine services, suitable to the occasion, to be performed in their respective commands. Soldiers! we have sinned against Almighty God. We have forgotten His signal mercies, and have cultivated a revengeful, haughty, and boastful spirit. We have not remembered that the defenders of a just cause should be pure in His eyes; that ‘our times are in His hands,’ and we have relied too much on our own arms for the achievement of our independence. God is our only refuge and our strength. Let us humble ourselves before Him. Let us confess our many sins, and beseech Him to give us a higher courage, a purer patriotism, and more determined will; that He will hasten the time when war, with its sorrows and sufferings, shall cease, and that He will give us a name and place among the nations of the earth.”

August 13– Thursday– St George Bermuda– Confederate agent Rose Greenhow, on her way to Europe, writes to her friend Colonel A A Boteler in Richmond. “I have as you will see arrived here in despite of Yankee cruisers who gave us a close chase all the way. I was seasick of course but I am now entirely recovered and enjoying the dolce faneanti of this seducing climate with its beautiful tropical trees and fruits. I shall leave here the middle of the coming week en route for Southampton. And when I reach this point I will tell you your impressions of matters and things. I have met with River friends Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Walker with whom I spend all my time are very charming and cultured people. He is certainly a most indefatigable and valuable officer to the Confederacy and by his prudence and high trust conduct him the consideration of all here, and is there by enabled to render service to the country of a magnitude that would be startling if it were prudent to speak yet.”

August 13– Thursday– Paris France– Eugene Delacroix, painter, dies at age 65.

Eugene Delacroix

August 14– Friday– Lawrence, Massachusetts– Birth of Ernest Thayer, writer.

August 14– Friday– New Orleans, Louisiana– Sarah Morgan writes in her diary, opening a fresh new volume. “Doomed to be bored! To-night Miriam drags me to a soiree musicale; and in the midst of my toilet, I sit down with bare shoulders to scratch a dozen lines in my new treasure which has been by me for three days, untouched. I don’t know what tempts me to do it except perversity; for I have nothing to say. . . . . Here comes Miriam after me! What a bore! What a bore! And she looks as though it was a pleasure to go out! How I hate it! Glancing up the page, the date strikes my eye. What tempted me to begin it Friday? My dear Ada would shiver and declare the blank pages were reserved for some very painful, awful, uncomfortable record, or that ‘something’ would happen before the end of it. Nothing very exciting can happen, except the restoration of peace; and to bring that about, I would make a vow to write only on Fridays.”

August 15– Saturday– Bethany, West Virginia– “The Union men of Bethany raised a tall pole, from the top of which a beautiful American flag, made by the loyal ladies of the place, was flung to the breeze. After the pole raising there was a public dinner, at which all the good things of the earth were provided, which were indulged in by all present. Several addresses were delivered and a good time generally was had.”~The Wheeling Intelligencer

August 15– Saturday– Orange County Courthouse, Virginia– Confederate soldier Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara, his wife. “The glorious sun is sinking behind the distant Blue Ridge, looking at me away here in the tented field and at you, away yonder in our quiet home, but lonely; my thoughts follow his setting & I fain would, like Milton’s Angel, ride up to the Ridge top one sunbeam & down to you on another, but I will do the next best thing, write you a long letter, especially as I have so long neglected you my Love, so long that you wrote to me first, a kind sweet letter, thus gently chiding me for my long silence since that sweet dream of home, one day in its blissful retreat – but I have been so busy, but that is always the case & I will not bring that as an excuse, though your kind heart will pardon, for you know I have daily thought of writing & as often something has interfered.”

August 15– Saturday– Savannah, Georgia– Authorities have caught a local man selling dog meat as mutton.

August 16– Sunday– Rochester, New York– In an open letter to his readers Frederick Douglass announces that he is ceasing the publication of his newspaper in order to work in the recruitment of black soldiers. “Let it also be understood that I do not abandon my paper because I shall cease to think and write upon vital social questions concerning colored men and women. I shall think, write and speak as I have opportunity, while the slave needs a pen to plead his cause, or a voice to expose his wrongs before the people.”

Frederick Douglass

August 16– Sunday– near Covington, Kentucky– Union soldier George Whitman, in a letter to his mother, Louisa, evaluates the recent riots. “We have had full accounts of the proceedings of the mob in New York, and its almost enough to make a fellow ashamed of being a Yorker, the first accounts we saw were in the western papers, and I could hardly believe, that a thing of that kind would be allowed to get such headway in the City of New York, it strikes me that it would have been a good idea to have taken Fernando and Ben Woods, Governor Seymour [all three are Democratic politicians opposed to the Lincoln Administration] and a few more of the wire pullers and strung them up to one of the trees in the city Hall park. what a pity it is that 4 or 5 of the old regiments, had not of been there to of straightened things up a bit, as for myself I would have went into that fight with just as good a heart, as if they had belonged to the rebel army. I am only sorry there wasn’t 10 times as many killed of the rioters as there was.”

August 16– Sunday– Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic–A group of insurgents make a daring raid on the city and raise the Dominican flag on the capitol. This action, known as “El grito de Capotillo” is the beginning of a war against Spanish attempts to retake the country and will last until 1865 when the last Spanish troops will be withdrawn.

To Honor Heroes~Lest We Forget

 

from “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio, broadcast on Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Shaw Memorial, by American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, stands11 feet by 14 feet, like a giant bronze diorama, on the corner of Boston Common.In it, 40 or so black soldiers march to war alongside their white colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, on horseback.The statue memorializes the firstAfrican-American volunteer infantry unit of the Civil War, the 54thMassachusetts Regiment, which was crushed 150 years ago Thursday in a battle atFort Wagner in South Carolina.”It shows in their stance, in their eyes, theirpride, and it shows them marching out of Boston for what they know is going to be a sea change in the history of their generation,” says Beverly Morgan-Welch, executive director of the Museum of African-American History in Boston.

In the 1989 film Glory, Massachusetts Gov. John Andrew,abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Shaw’s father introduce the watershed idea of a regiment of black soldiers. The Shaw Memorial is also cinematic it hasthe kind of movement you’d expect to see in the frame of a movie, says HenryDuffy, curator of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, N.H.,where the 19th century artist lived and worked. Another mammoth Shaw Memorial rises up from the estate’s well-groomed grounds. In the front, the procession is led by a drummer, but half the drum is outside the frame of the picture. In the back, the last soldier’s legs are cut off. It gives you a sense that there’s more happening both in front and behind. The meticulous Saint-Gaudens trained inParis. He was already world famous when a committee in Boston commissioned him to make a monument in 1883.”He was originally focusing just on Col. Shaw,” Duffy says, “and it was Shaw’s parents who told him, ‘No, if you’re going to do a monument to our son, you have to include his men, because he was dedicated to his men and the men have to be part of it.’ “A Haunting SacrificeRecruiting black soldiers was strategic and symbolic during the Civil War. The carnage was far worse than expected, and the Union needed more men. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect in January 1863, enabled newly freed slaves to join. Shaw, the son of a wealthy Boston abolitionist, chose to fight with the 54th at Fort Wagner rather than command from the sidelines. Six hundred men stormed the fort; 272 died. Shaw, just 25 years old, was the first to fall, making him a hero to his surviving men and the rest of the Union. Duffy says he thinks the colonel’s sacrifice inspired Saint-Gaudens to the point of obsession. He was supposed to complete his commission in six months — instead he took 14 years.”It haunted him,” Duffy says. “I think he just couldn’t get it out of his mind.”

Even after installing the first sculpture in Boston, the artist continued to tinker with other versions for three more years. Finally, he stopped with the one at his home in New Hampshire.”I think, like Shaw himself, Saint-Gaudens had his eyes opened,” Duffy says. “He had never had much to do with black people, just like Shaw, so that when he had to do this he was faced with having to, for the first time in his life, I think, look at people and not stereotypes.”Saint-Gaudens sat for hours with black models in his studio. The realistic faces he captured have stirred people from the moment the Boston memorial was dedicated in 1897, including writer Henry James, poet Robert Lowell and composer Charles Ives.”[The] Shaw Memorial is the first time black Americans were ever portrayed in a work of sculpture as heroic,” says historian and Bostonian David McCullough, “otherwise they were background. But here they are the heroes who would, many of them, paythe ultimate price.”That’s one reason the Boston’s Black Heritage Trail walkingtour starts at Saint-Gauden’s memorial.

Saint-Gaudens

*******

editorial notes:

>Period accounts make clear that Colonel Shaw was NOT the first man nor even the first officer to fall

Robert Gould Shaw~”Blue-eyed Child of Fortune”

>Shaw’s style of leading fron the front was common which was why so many high rabking officers died in the Civil War

>the 54th had more free-born Northen black soldiers than fugitive Southern slaves

the fight at Fort Wagner

February’s Frustrations–Part the First–1862

In both capitals and in both the Union and the Confederacy, people feel frustrated in the second month of the year 1862. Frederick Douglass berates the army for its inactivity, its refusal to enlist African Americans and the government’s inactivity on the end of slavery. Richmond worries about Federal victories at Fort Henry and at Roanoke Island. Dante Gabriel Rossetti finds his wife’s body. Julia Ward Howe attempts to stir patriotic fervor. European conservatives see a liberal government come to power in the Netherlands. President Lincoln sends a conciliatory letter of condolence to Britain’s Queen Victoria whose husband, Prince Albert, died about six weeks ago in the midst of the crisis over the Trent, and a letter of thanks to the King of Siam but spends his birthday with a very sick young son.

　

February– Rochester, New York– In this month’s issue of Douglass’ Monthly, Frederick Douglass gives voice to the exasperation many in the North feel about the war. “We say nothing of its progress–for it has made none, unless getting together a large army on the Potomac, which has remained idle through the summer, waiting for autumn,–idle through the Winter, waiting for Spring, and which will probably remain idle through the Spring, waiting for good roads, thus completing a year of inactivity, money sinking, marching, counter-marching– can be called progress. . . . It is enough to exhaust the patience of Job.”

Her Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria

February 1– Saturday– Washington, D.C.–President Lincoln sends a letter of condolence to Queen Victoria on the death of her husband, Prince Albert. “The People of the United States are kindred of the People of Great Britain. With all our distinct national interests, objects, and aspirations, we are conscious that our moral strength is largely derived from that relationship, and we think we do not deceive ourselves when we suppose that, by constantly cherishing cordial friendship and sympathy with the other branches of the family to which we belong, we impart to them not less strength than we derive from the same connection. Accidents, however, incidental to all States, and passions, common to all nations, often tend to disturb the harmony so necessary and so proper between the two countries, and to convert them into enemies. It was reserved for Your Majesty in sending your son, the Heir Apparent of the British Throne, on a visit among us, to inaugurate a policy destined to counteract these injurious tendencies, as it has been Your Majesty’s manifest endeavor, through a reign already of considerable length and of distinguished success, to cultivate the friendship on our part so earnestly desired. It is for this reason that you are honored on this side of the Atlantic as a friend of the American People. The late Prince Consort was with sufficient evidence regarded as your counselor in the same friendly relation. The American People, therefore, deplore his death and sympathize in Your Majesty’s irreparable bereavement with an unaffected sorrow. . . . I know that the Divine hand that has wounded, is the only one that can heal: And so, commending Your Majesty and the Prince Royal, the Heir Apparent, and all your afflicted family to the tender mercies of God, I remain Your Good Friend, Abraham Lincoln.”

February 1– Saturday– Amsterdam, the Netherlands– Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, a Liberal, becomes Prime Minister for the second time in his life. In the tumultuous period of 1848-49, he led the drafting of a constitution which moved the Netherlands to a constitutional monarchy with limitations on the power of the king. Historians will consider him one of the most important Dutch politicians of the 19^th century.

Dutch Prime Minister Thorbecke

February 2– Sunday– New York City–At Coopers Institute, Henry Ward Beecher speaks out in favor of women’s rights.

February 3– Monday– Washington, D.C.– President Lincoln sends a letter to King Somdetch Phra Paramendr Maha Mongut of Siam to thank him for gifts which the President accepts on behalf of the American people and declines the King’s offer of war elephants. “I have . . . received in good condition the royal gifts which accompanied those letters,— namely, a sword of costly materials and exquisite workmanship; a photographic likeness of Your Majesty and of Your Majesty’s beloved daughter; and also two elephants’ tusks of length and magnitude such as indicate that they could have belonged only to an animal which was a native of Siam. . . . Under their [the U S Congress] directions the gifts will be placed among the archives of the Government, where they will remain perpetually as tokens of mutual esteem and pacific dispositions more honorable to both nations than any trophies of conquest could be. I appreciate most highly Your Majesty’s tender of good offices in forwarding to this Government a stock from which a supply of elephants might be raised on our own soil. This Government would not hesitate to avail itself of so generous an offer if the object were one which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the United States. Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant, and steam on land, as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of transportation in internal commerce.”

February 3– Monday– Washington, D.C.– Senator Zachariah Chandler, Republican from Michigan, presents a resolution from the Michigan state legislature which urges strong Federal action to quell the insurrection, the seizure of Southern property and the abolition of slavery.

February 3– Monday– Paris, France– Jean Baptiste Biot, mathematician, physicist and astronomer, dies at age 87. He greatly influenced Louis Pasteur’s interest in science.

February 4– Tuesday– Kirkman’s Old Landing, Tennessee– Elements of two Union divisions under the command of General Grant begin landing north of the ten acre Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.

February 4– Tuesday– New York City– Lawyer George Templeton Strong writes in his diary. “Fifty years hence John Brown will be recognized as the Hero or Representative Man of this struggle up to 1862. He will be the Wycliffe of the anti-slavery Reformation.”

February 5– Wednesday– Boston, Massachusetts–In this issue of the Atlantic Monthly there appears a poem entitled “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe.

February 5– Wednesday– London, England– Her Majesty’s government lifts the ban on the export of gunpowder, arms, ammunition and military supplies.

February 5– Wednesday– Tecamac, Mexico– Birth of Felipe Villanueva, composer.

February 6–Thursday– near Kirkman’s Old Landing, Tennessee– Even before General Grant’s 15,000 troops are fully in position, Union gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Foote begin heavy shelling of Fort Henry. About 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the Confederate commander surrenders. Almost in spite of the heavy artillery exchange, Confederate losses total 21 dead, injured or missing while the Union casualties amount to 47 dead, wounded or missing. The Union capture of Fort Henry opens a way for Federal troops to make a thrust down the Mississippi River Valley.

Union gunboats fire on Confederate Fort Henry

February 7– Friday– New York City– Birth of Bernard Maybeck, architect who will design a number of important buildings in the San Francisco Bay area in the 20^th century, including the Palace of Fine Arts (1915).

February 7– Friday– Paris, France– The physician Prosper Meniere dies at age 62. His study of deafness and hearing loss leads to the recognition of what is now called Meniere’s disease.

February 8– Saturday– Roanoke Island, North Carolina–Making an attack with an amphibious force, Union troops capture the island, taking 2,765 Confederates as prisoners and capturing 30 canon. Confederate defenders lose a total of 85 killed or wounded while the successful Federals lose a total of 264 dead, injured and missing.

February 8– Saturday– London, England– The three act opera Lily of Killarney by Julius Benedict premieres at the Covent Garden Theater. The 29 year old soprano Louisa Pyne sings the lead role.

February 9–Sunday– Washington, D.C.– Held responsible for the Union defeat at Balls Bluff last October, Brigadier General Charles Stone is arrested and imprisoned for almost six months at Fort Lafayette, New York and placed in solitary confinement. Apparently this is mostly for political reasons. He never receives a trial and after his release he will not again hold a significant command during the war. He will never be told the reason for his imprisonment.

February 10– Monday– Washington, D.C.–The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, forms an organization to review inventions and technical developments. The group will become the National Academy of Science.

Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles

 

February 11– Tuesday– London, England– Lord Russell advises Lord Lyons, the British Minister in Washington, that he received Mason, the Confederate emissary, as a private citizen. Lord Russell reaffirmed to Mr Mason that Her Majesty’s Government will remain neutral regarding the American Civil War.

February 11– Tuesday– London, England– Elizabeth Siddal dies at age 32 from an overdose of laudanum, perhaps an accident, perhaps a suicide. Siddal, a much in demand artist’s model and herself an artist and poet, had been sickly for several years. She married Dante Gabriel Rossetti two years ago and in trying to give him a child, birthed a still–born daughter. Rumors will later circulate that Rossetti found and destroyed her suicide note in order to give her burial in a church graveyard as English law at the time regards suicide as a crime and both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches at the time forbid church funeral and burial for a suicide.

Elizabeth Siddal at work sketched by her husband, Rossetti

February 12– Wednesday– near Dover, Tennessee– Federal troops under General Grant create a semi-circle around the Confederates at Fort Donelson.

February 12– Wednesday– Washington, D.C.– In the White House, although it is President Lincoln’s 53^rd birthday, he spends most of the day with his sick son Willie.

February 12– Wednesday– Boston, Massachusetts– Speaking at Tremont Temple, Frederick Douglass again calls for the Union to use willing black soldiers. “Colored men were good enough to fight under Washington. They are not good enough to fight under McClellan.” Douglass goes on at length to address the future of the slave population after the war. Asserting that emancipation must accompany victory, he says, “deal justly with them; pay them honest wages for honest work; dispense with the biting lash, and pay them the ready cash; awaken a new class of motives in them” and then “shall be learned the highest ideas of the sacredness of man and the fullness and perfection of human brotherhood.”