States at War, Volume 3: A Reference Guide for Pennsylvania in the Civil War
()
About this ebook
Related to States at War, Volume 3
Related ebooks
States at War, Volume 5: A Reference Guide for Ohio in the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrganizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth Sudan: the Case for Independence & Learning from Mistakes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnfinished Business: Democracy in Namibia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Short Break in Libya Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes of the '90s - People and Money. The Modern History of Russian Capitalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Return of Egypt: Internal Challenges and Regional Game Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yemen Into the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUncertain Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Georgia's Rose Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInsight Guides Russia (Travel Guide eBook) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The War That Never Ended: A Short History of the Korean War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Transition to Peace Burundi 1993-2008 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBound by Conflict: Dilemmas of the Two Sudans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYemen's Road to War: Yemeni Struggle in the Middle East Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Democracy by Decree: Prospects and Limits of Imposed Consociational Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConstitutions and Conflict Management in Africa: Preventing Civil War Through Institutional Design Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Armenian Velvet Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAerial Operations in the Revolutions of 1922 and 1947 in Paraguay: The First Dogfights in South America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpain 1923-48, Civil War and World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGale Researcher Guide for: The Development of Communism in Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Man of Change: A study of the political life of Boris Yeltsin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth Yemen's Independence Struggle: Generations of Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTom Clarke: The True Leader of the Easter Rising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicken Street: Afghanistan before the Taliban: Clearing the Deadly Remnants of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe topos of Divine Testimony in Luke-Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Magna Carta Story: The Layman's Guide to the Great Charter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Soldiers in Siberia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth Yemen: Gateway to the World? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Road to Tahrir Square: Egypt and the United States from the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
History For You
The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for States at War, Volume 3
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
States at War, Volume 3 - Richard F. Miller
States at War
VOLUME 3
A Reference Guide for
Pennsylvania in the Civil War
RICHARD F. MILLER, editor
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND
Hanover and London
University Press of New England
www.upne.com
© 2014 University Press of New England
All rights reserved
For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
States at war : a reference guide for . . . in the Civil War / Richard F. Miller, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61168-619-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61168-620-3 (ebook)
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865. 2. U.S. states—History, Military—19th century. 3. U.S. states—Politics and government—19th century. 4. U.S. states—Economic conditions—19th century. I. Miller, Richard F., 1951–
E468.S79 2012
To Alyson
Contents
Thematic Listing of Material
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations List
Introduction
Organization of This Book
Editorial Considerations
Reading States at War
Principal Officers of the Department of War
Chronology of Events, Battles, Laws, and General Orders
Pennsylvania
War Geography
Economy in 1860
Governance and Politicians
Demography
1860
Key Events
State Military Affairs
1861
Key Events
Legislative Sessions
State Military Affairs
1862
Key Events
Legislative Sessions
State Military Affairs
1863
Key Events
Legislative Sessions
State Military Affairs
1864
Key Events
Legislative Sessions
State Military Affairs
1865
Key Events
Legislative Sessions
Supplementary Information
Recruiting, Manpower, and Casualties
Expenses, Bounties, and Debt
State Agencies and Private Aid
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Thematic Listing of Material
War Geography
Economy in 1860
Governance and Politicians
Demography
Key Events
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
Legislative Sessions
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
State Military Affairs
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
Supplementary Information
Acknowledgments
Editors of others’ works are under especially heavy obligations. Thousands of state legislators, numerous adjutants general, governors, memoirists, biographers, secondary source historians, genealogists, census takers, soldiers, and sailors—along with the War Department bureaucrats assembled by the able Provost Marshal General James B. Fry—did the acts and created the texts on which this work is based. Thanks are due to them in the same measures that are sometimes reserved for the other faces of the North’s Civil War, say, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. Causality is not stretched (at all) in noting that without the generally able (and sometimes extraordinarily able) efforts of governors, adjutants general, and state legislatures, there would have been no armies to command or funds to finance them.
Next, thanks are tendered to the custodians of this vast record. The staff in the Widener Library’s Reading Room was unfailingly helpful—despite the hardships of budget cuts—in the delivery and setup
of now frail, original sources kept in what the editor fantasizes as Harvard’s bottomless depository. Special thanks also are due to the staff at Harvard Law School’s Langdell Library. Since this editor’s dreary days in law school, many state statutes have become available online through in-library subscription services and, occasionally, through Google Books. Alas, few of these statutes cover the period from 1860 to 1866 and, after a hiatus of thirty-three years, the editor was once again in a law library scanning microfiche, although this time with far weaker eyesight. (The more things change, the more they are different.) The Langdell staff graciously assisted with finicky reader-printers, locating microfiche and, on more than one occasion, introducing the editor to the mysteries of Hein Online.
States at War was enormously improved by the criticism of Professor Emeritus James McPherson of Princeton University, Associate Professor of History Robert Bonner at Dartmouth College, and the dean of Vermont’s Civil War history, Mr. Howard Coffin.
When States at War is complete it will include all states and territories that were in—or temporarily out of—the Union. The value of such an extensive project is hardly self-evident. That UPNE editor Phyllis Deutsch found value here is something that exceeds this particular wordsmith’s smithy and so it will be left unsaid. I wish to thank production editor Amanda Dupuis and copyeditor Peter Fong whose efforts have not only improved this volume but also have contributed to the improvement of every volume to follow. I also wish to thank researcher Lori Miller (no relation) for her willingness to follow my bibliographic footprint, check sources and, in the process, save this work from manifold embarrassments. Thanks are also due to Joanne Sprott, whose efforts have enhanced the reader friendliness of this volume.
While errors are inevitable in projects like these, this editor alone is responsible for all that appears here, and can only repent in advance by inviting readers to communicate the mistakes found so that, should this work find favor, corrections can be made at a later time.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used throughout the text of this volume.
AAG: Assistant Adjutant General
AAPMG: Acting Assistant Provost Marshal General
ADC: Aide-de-camp
ASW: Assistant Secretary of War
AWOL: Away without leave
EO: Enrollment Officer
GO: General Orders
JAG: Judge Advocate General
NCO: Non-commissioned officer
PMG: Provost Marshal General
POW: Prisoner of war
PRC: Pennsylvania Reserve Corps
PSG: Pennsylvania State Guard
SO: Special Orders
UDC: Union Defence Committee
USA: United States Army
USCT: United States Colored Troops
USV: United States Volunteers
VRC: Veteran Reserve Corps
The following abbreviations are used throughout the notes.
AAC: The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events
AG: Annual Report of the Adjutant General of Pennsylvania
AP: Annual Report of Brigadier General A.J. Pleasonton
BD: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005
CGR: Report of the Commissary General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
CQ: Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections
CW: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
HJ: Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States
OR: Official Records
PL: Laws of the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania
QMG: Report of the Quartermaster General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
SGR: Report of the Surgeon General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
SJ: Journal of the Senate of the United States
Department of the Monongahela, Congressional Districts c. June, 1863
25 Eri - Erie
Cra - Crawford
24 War - Warren
McK - McKean
Elk - Elk
Cle - Clearfield
Jef - Jefferson
Cla - Clarion
Ven - Venango
For - Forest
23 Mer - Mercer
Law - Lawrence
Bea - Beaver
22 But - Butler
21 All - Allegheny
20 Was - Washington
Fay - Fayette
Gre - Greene
19 Arm - Armstrong
Ind - Indiana
Wes - Westmoreland
18 Som - Somerset
Cam - Cambria
Bla - Blair
Hun - Huntingdon
Department of the Susquehanna, Congressional Districts c. June, 1863
17 Bed - Bedford
Ful - Fulton
Fra - Franklin
Ada - Adams
Jun - Juniata
16 Per - Perry
Cum - Cumberland
Yor - York
15 Pot - Potter
Cli - Clinton
Lyc - Lycoming
Sul - Sullivan
Cen - Centre
Mif - Mifflin
14 Tio - Tioga
Bra - Bradford
Sus - Susquehanna
13 Way - Wayne
Pik - Pike
Mon - Monroe
Nrp - Northampton
Car - Carbon
12 Wyo - Wyoming
Luz - Luzerne
Col - Columbia
Mtr - Montour
11 Ntb - Northumberland
Sch - Schuylkill
10 Uni - Union
Dau - Dauphin
Leb - Lebanon
9 Lan - Lancaster
8 Ber - Berks
7 Buc - Bucks
Leh - Lehigh
6 Che - Chester
Del - Delaware
5 Mnt - Montgomery
4 -1
Phi - Philadelphia
Introduction
On June 7, 1863, thirty-two-year-old Captain Cyrus B. Comstock, first in his 1855 West Point class and now with the U.S. Engineers, found himself in the Washington offices of General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck. Four days earlier, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had begun to stir from its encampments near Fredericksburg. On this day, much about that army’s destination and intentions still remained unclear, save this: spearheaded by cavalry, Robert E. Lee was moving north. Halleck believed that it was time to implement the War Department’s plan for the defense of Pennsylvania. Accordingly, Comstock was handed orders instructing him to immediately repair to the city of Pittsburgh
and make preparations for the defense of that place against a possible rebel raid.
He was also told that Brigadier General William T. H. Brooks had been appointed to the command of that department,
with full power to make requisitions for arms, artillery, &c.
The name of that department
was not specified.¹
On June 9 and 10, the War Department’s full plan for Pennsylvania’s defense was publicly disclosed. The state was divided into two departments. Eastern Pennsylvania was designated the Department of the Susquehanna, commanded by Major General Darius Couch and headquartered in Chambersburg. The western border of this department was all of Pennsylvania east of Johnstown [Cambria County] and the Laurel Hill Mountains,
located in Fayette County, and whose southern border fronted the states of Maryland and West Virginia. Western Pennsylvania was included in the Department of the Monongahela (the unnamed department to which Comstock had been assigned), commanded by General Brooks and headquartered in Pittsburgh. The eastern borders of this department met the western borders of the Department of the Susquehanna, with the line being everything west of Johnstown and the Laurel Hill range of mountains.
But unlike the Department of the Susquehanna, the Department of the Monongahela stretched beyond the state of Pennsylvania into Ohio and West Virginia. The inclusions were telling: the West Virginia counties of Hancock, Brooke, and Ohio, which contained the city of Wheeling, and the Ohio counties of Columbiana, Jefferson, and Belmont. These six counties fronted both sides of the Ohio River, from the Ohio–West Virginia–Pennsylvania state lines south to Wheeling.²
This suggests that the Department of the Monongahela was conceived not just to defend the western quarter of a state but also to place under unified command a region—the Upper Ohio River Valley, a geographic feature that was far more important to the well-being of western Pennsylvania than were the cities of Philadelphia or Harrisburg. The shared boundary of both departments—the Pennsylvania Alleghenies—also implicitly recognized another aspect of state history: the role those mountains played in inhibiting east-west communications, and thereby fostering two different cultural and economic regions within the same state. Pittsburgh and its environs looked south to the western counties of Virginia and west to the borderlands of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois along the great Ohio River. The geography encompassed by the Department of the Susquehanna had another history and, in the spring of 1863, a different line of defense. East and south of Pennsylvania’s mountain ridges lay the Cumberland Valley, encompassing Franklin and Cumberland Counties, along with Maryland’s Washington County. The valley provided a natural highway deep into the state’s geographical center. A nineteenth-century invader, facing formidable mountain ridges west and north, would naturally turn east to the state capital of Harrisburg and beyond, to the North’s second largest city, Philadelphia. Only the many-bridged Susquehanna River separated an ambitious enemy general from the state’s wealthiest and most populated counties.
It is unclear who first conceived of this two-theater plan of defense or mapped its precise lines, but there is every reason to believe that it was heavily influenced by two men, one whose life took root in the Upper Ohio River Valley and one who was—by birth, education, and profession—more a product of eastern Pennsylvania. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton was born in the Ohio River town of Steubenville and established a brilliant reputation practicing law there and in nearby Cadiz; between 1847 and 1856, his star shone even brighter in Pittsburgh. He well understood Pennsylvania west of the Alleghenies, along with its connection to Ohio, western Virginia, and the great river. He served as lead counsel in State of Pennsylvania vs. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, which established free navigation on inland rivers and ranks as one of the most important Commerce Clause decisions of the nineteenth century. The other likely influence on Pennsylvania’s division was Governor Andrew G. Curtin. He was born to wealth in the central Pennsylvania town of Bellefonte (Centre County) and privately educated at Milton (on the east bank of the Susquehanna) and Dickinson Law School (in Carlisle).³
On May 29, 1863, nine days before Comstock was handed his orders, Stanton, Curtin, Maryland Governor Augustus Bradford, Baltimore-based Middle District Commander Major General Robert C. Schenck, and President Abraham Lincoln met in Washington. The subject was the defense of Pennsylvania and Maryland. At the time, General Robert E. Lee remained encamped around Fredericksburg but a spring offensive was considered imminent. On May 23, a worried Stanton had written Major General Henry W. Halleck, noting the possibility of an early raid by the enemy
and asking what provisions had been made to defend Alexandria, Baltimore, and Washington. He also solicited the general-in-chief for Any other suggestions you deem proper to make in respect to [the Army of the Potomac and its cavalry] for offense or protection.
Stanton did not ask for (nor did Halleck’s same-day reply include) any plans for protecting Pennsylvania.⁴
If this was an oversight, then Curtin was having none of it. He was deeply concerned for Pennsylvania’s security and with good reason. Over the past eight months, both ends of his state had been subjected to actual raids as well as entirely believable rumors of invasion. In September 1862, as Lee moved through Maryland, an anxious Pennsylvania had undergone the considerable expense of mobilizing 50,000 men to defend against an expected Confederate incursion. (See entries for September 4–7 and September 10–19, 1862.) The next month, General J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry had ridden north through the Cumberland Valley, raiding Chambersburg. Stuart’s men burned machine-shops and railroad depots, captured about 30 hostages, a large number of small arms, wagon loads of ammunition, and hundreds of horses, then made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the bridge spanning Conococheague Creek. (See entries for October 8–13, 1862.) Their escape was complete.
And Pennsylvania’s vulnerable tier of southern counties did not end east of the Alleghenies. On May 1, 1863, Curtin’s office was tossed into consternation after receiving reports that a 7,000-strong rebel army had repulsed federal troops in West Virginia and was now marching on western Pennsylvania. (This would not be the last time that Pittsburgh and its environs would panic at such reports. See entries for June 10, 12, 14, 15, 17–19, and 30, 1863.)⁵
When Stanton, Curtin, and the generals met under Lincoln’s eye, it is likely that they mapped out the defense of Pennsylvania. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the state’s entire Civil War experience can be aptly summarized by this recognition of an east-west division. Pittsburgh’s war would not resemble that of Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Pittsburgh merchants and manufacturers would float war materiel down the Monongahela River to Cincinnati and Louisville, and its shipbuilders would help arm Ellet’s ironclad rams for western river service (see entries for March and April, 1862). Many recruits raised west of Laurel Mountain would fight west of the Alleghenies, while Pittsburgh’s doctors and nurses would treat sick and wounded men on western battlefields or in city hospitals; similarly, its prominent citizens would be much involved in the affairs of the breakaway counties of western Virginia. For Philadelphia and Harrisburg, however, the war was in the east. Both cities were indispensable hubs in the nation’s densest network of telegraphy, railroads, ports, canals, and highways. Along with their own defense, one of their chief concerns was the defense of Washington; accordingly, it was Confederate movements in Maryland, eastern Virginia, and Pennsylvania that mattered most. And the two cities’ proximity by rail to eastern camps and battlefields meant hospitalizing vast numbers of casualties. While Harrisburg was the state capital, Philadelphia was a national asset—a cultural and economic center destined to take a lead role in forming Union League Clubs and recruiting German, Irish, native white, and colored regiments. By late 1862, Philadelphia also led the North in the manufacture of greatcoats, uniform coats, pantaloons, blankets, and tents. The fact that Pennsylvania contained both these cities and the Upper Ohio River Valley gave literalness of meaning to its moniker, the Keystone State.⁶
States at War (SAW) is based on one unremarkable assumption—that it is impossible to imagine, let alone to think, research, or write about the Civil War, without reference to the states. Indeed, without states at war, there would have been no war, for it was the states that first recruited, armed, and equipped their respective national governments. In April 1861 it could have been asked, what were these national
governments? Just after the Confederacy had been proclaimed, Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs, asked for the whereabouts of his department, famously if impiously retorted, In my hat, sir, and the archives in my coat pocket.
Matters in Washington were better—where there were both government buildings and an existing bureaucracy (though reduced by defections) to fill them. But Washington was isolated from the loyal states and, until these marched to the rescue, the federal government was little more than a pair of empty gauntlets. On April 22, Connecticut Governor William A. Buckingham wired Secretary of War Cameron several times on urgent matters but received no reply. Perhaps wondering who or what was at the other end of the wire, he dispatched his daughter’s fiancé, Colonel William A. Aiken, to Washington to seek out Lincoln and General Winfield Scott. After a harrowing trip through Maryland, Aiken arrived in Washington and found the unbroken silence of its hotels and apparent desolation of its streets.
He met with Scott, who sounded a desperate note, demanding to know, "Where are the troops?" But it was Aiken’s meeting with Lincoln that conveyed a sense of just how bleak prospects seemed. Aiken recalled:
No office-seekers were besieging the presence that day. I met no delay. Mr. Lincoln was alone, seated in his business room, up stairs, looking towards Arlington Heights through a wide-open window. Against the casement stood a very long spy-glass, or telescope, which he had obviously just been using. . . .
He seemed depressed beyond measure as he asked slowly and with measured emphasis, "What is the North about? Do they know our condition?"⁷
By the North
Lincoln meant the loyal states, in which final membership was still undetermined. If it is true, as Jefferson Davis said late in the war, that the South died of a theory
—in other words, that its own states, steeped in states’ rights doctrine, refused to make the sacrifices required for victory—then it can be fairly said that the North lived by a theory: namely, the inviolability of the Constitution and the supremacy of the federal government. It was this idea that made those states cede political rights and force themselves to digest much that for many had been inedible only shortly before: emancipation, conscription, unprecedented taxation, interference in state elections, suspension of habeas corpus, arbitrary arrests, political prisoners, suppression of newspapers, inflation and, the most dyspeptic reality of all, the deaths of fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers from inscrutable disease or, less often, bad luck on the battlefield or lethally inept commanders. Nevertheless, most Northern states—and a few states on the border with divided populations (after some prodding by Yankee bayonets)—chose to live by this theory.⁸
Over the past 150 years, historians of Civil War battles, military units, and the doings of the two national governments, and biographers of the era’s great and near-great men and women, have had their burdens lightened by distinguished reference works, increasingly available (via Google Books) collections of correspondence, famous memoirs, and renowned secondary sources. Likewise, federal statutes, resolutions, and debates, War Department orders, and the indispensable Official Records now can be accessed online. Meanwhile the relentless (and welcome) progress of digitization has begun to make newspapers, pamphlets, letters, and other ephemera available in the original (soon, historians will have only themselves to blame for transcription errors).
Resources are less available for those seeking information about the wartime histories of states. For historians, reference works can serve as sources for factoids, quotations, corroboration (or its absence), and bibliographic footprints (sources for sources). More broadly, such works can serve the inductive processes of historical thinking. With the exception of Series III of the Official Records (OR), however, there are few broad reference works that serve these needs for historians of states at war. What works are available are certainly distinguished (and remain useful) but may be too wide-ranging: consider William B. Hesseltine’s Lincoln and the War Governors, certain chapters in Fred Albert Shannon’s The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865, and the state-limited narrative of William B. Weeden’s War Government Federal and State in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana, 1861–1865. Or they may be excellent, but narrow in topic and limited in state coverage, such as Eugene Converse Murdock’s Patriotism Limited, 1862–1865: The Civil War Draft and the Bounty System (it deals chiefly with New York State). Or, if broad, then too specialized—for example, Murdock’s One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North, which deals almost exclusively with conscription. Historians of states at war must pry information from multiple censuses, official records of state statutes, state legislative journals, legislative committee reports, reports of the adjutant generals, governors’ speeches, annual messages, proclamations (often scattered through newspapers, biographies, and official state documents), local histories, and long out-of-print secondary narratives written by wartime contemporaries (usually defective as modern
histories but invaluable for otherwise long-forgotten details of state and local events).
In sum, historians seeking (between two covers) lists of important state general orders, war-relevant state legislation, coherent threadings of the correspondence contained in Series III of the OR, a culling of state adjutant general reports, or summaries of key census data, recruitment, draft, and bounty details—as well as an initial bibliography for answering questions relating to the foregoing—have had no single reference of their own.
SAW cannot be all of these things with any completeness, but it represents a start. However, several gaps must be acknowledged so that readers may comprehend some of that incompleteness. First, SAW has nothing to say about the peacetime responsibilities that states carried throughout the war. These included funding and administering schools, prisons, poor houses, insane asylums, public hospitals, and regulatory agencies affecting banks, insurance companies, and railroads. This omission was not for want of documentation; in some cases during the war years, the length of annual reports about these matters exceeded those about war activities. As in other situations, economy dictated omission.
There also is the lamentable fact that, among the hundreds of voices featured in this volume of SAW, three are sotto voce: specifically, those of women, African Americans, and labor organizations. SAW is a creature of its sources, and those on which it draws reflect the period’s gender, racial, and economic divisions: elected and appointed officials, soldiers, and others in power were nearly all white males; managing and fighting wars was a man’s business (and initially, only a white man’s business). Urban labor unions, which could be critical in marshaling (or opposing) support for the war effort, rarely appear.
In these official sources, women are present as mistresses of the home front, urgently raising funds, sewing, organizing sanitary fairs, and collecting and shipping vast quantities of goods to soldiers. Of course, in crediting women for these tasks, their male contemporaries had it right: this work was not just important but indispensable to maintaining morale’s double helix, with its entwined fronts of home and battle. Unfortunately, women’s efforts rarely rated more than a few paragraphs in official sources. Likewise, African Americans exist mostly in the third person in SAW’s sources: readers meet them chiefly as objects of official attention (sometimes sympathetic, other times hostile), as wedge issues deployed by Democratic politicians seeking to differentiate themselves from Republicans, or as credits against quotas in the eyes of manpower-hungry state officials. That black men ultimately appear as soldiers is a large part of the Civil War’s story, and that includes the history of states at war.
Organization of This Book
The stories of the five Mid-Atlantic states are divided among three volumes. New York’s chapter fills volume 2 of SAW, while Pennsylvania’s does the same for volume 3. Volume 4 includes New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. All state chapters are identically organized and should be read with reference to the Chronology of Events, Battles, Laws, and General Orders.
Chronology of Events, Battles, Laws, and General Orders
This chronology lists important battles, Acts of Congress, presidential proclamations, and General Orders and Circulars of the War Department that, in varying degrees, affected all states. This list serves two purposes. First, to avoid repetition in each chapter, the chronology provides, in one location, important details about the activities of Congress, the president, and the War Department, as well as the names and dates of major battles. Second, the chronology can help readers avoid becoming marooned within a chapter: many chapter entries prompt referrals to the chronology for more information, especially about legal texts. As with state laws, those of the federal government are sifted for provisions of special importance to states, then summarized.
State Chapters
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
Each state is introduced by a brief introductory essay divided into four sections: War Geography, Economy in 1860, Governance and Politicians, and Demography.
• War Geography considers the state’s geographic position not only as it influenced its economy (e.g., harbors for shipping, rivers for waterpower), but also as it affected a state’s experience with territorial insecurities. Thus, international borders (Canada), borders with states in rebellion, and seacoasts and lakeshores vulnerable to hostile navies influenced how states might allocate resources to frontier troops, coastal fortifications, garrisons, coast guards, and militias.
• Economy in 1860 highlights state industries, commerce, finance, and agriculture on the eve of war.
• Governance and Politicians discusses each state’s experience with slavery, and its responses to the Fugitive Slave Act; notes state constitutional provisions that are especially relevant to wartime matters; lists congressional districts in the Thirty-Seventh Congress and delegations to the Thirty-Seventh and Thirty-Eighth Congresses; notes legislators’ standing committee assignments, and gives biographical information (usually, to 1860) about each state’s senators, representatives, and the protagonists
of SAW, the governors and adjutant generals.
• Demography sketches each state’s 1860 urbanization, as well as its racial and ethnic composition, with particular reference to the 1850s Know-Nothings, whose legacy created special burdens for many wartime governors.
Readers will find that the information in all of these sections resembles concentric circles rather than discrete categories; thus, there are considerable overlaps.
CHRONOLOGY
Following the brief introductory essay, a detailed chronology is provided, outlining some major events and themes important to that state’s involvement in the Civil War. This chronology focuses on Key Events, Legislative Sessions, and State Military Affairs for each year from 1860 to 1865.
• Key Events are key
from SAW’s perspective. Because these volumes center on states at war, the actors whose doings matter are governors, lieutenant governors, and adjutant generals; also presidents, vice-presidents, the secretary of state, secretaries of war, members of Congress, senior (and sometimes junior) War Department bureaucrats, and state political party officials; occasionally, individual state legislators appear, as do state supreme court judges, general officers on recruiting missions, and private citizens with something to say. This cast is occasionally leavened by the acts of Confederate raiders, privateers, POWs, pro- and anti-war mobs, newspaper burners, peace men, genuinely disloyal citizens, informers, clergy struggling to find their place in the war, unscrupulous war contractors, highly organized and philanthropic men and women, and a few spies. Together with the Chronology, Key Events hopes to provide a skeletal (at best) narrative of how a state responded to some of the war’s challenges.
• Legislative Sessions are organized by date and statute (public acts,
laws,
or acts and resolves,
depending on state nomenclature). During this period at least one state held four meetings in a single year; several other states conducted three sessions each year. Each session is usually introduced by a quotation from the governor’s message to that legislature, which often set the agenda for the session. Readers should note that SAW’s summaries of statutes and resolutions have been substantially abridged.
• State Military Affairs conclude each year’s entry. This section attempts to summarize the year’s military events or trends, which can be difficult to chronologize. Military
is broadly defined: among other things, it includes state financing of military necessities and recruiting expenses; conscription, enrollment, and recruitment data; and state operations supporting soldiers’ health and morale—portions of the latter often overseen by state military agents in distant cities. It is well to note here one aspect of the Civil War that bedeviled contemporaries as much as it has later historians: the utter irreconcilability of competing claims (between states and the War Department) for the numbers of men credited under calls. Aside from the influence of different interests (states argued that they had sufficient credits while the War Department confronted the reality of insufficient men), the answer depended on when one counted, whom one counted, and especially how one counted. Readers are advised to be mindful of Sydney Smith’s advice about fishwives and arguments.
Two fishwives from neighboring premises,
Perpetually courted their nemesis.
They could never agree
In their quarrels, you see,
For they argued from different premises.⁹
Editorial Considerations
While the format for each state chapter is the same, readers will note differences between chapters in the length and type of some content. For example, more information about finances, quotas, or militia will appear in some chapters than in others. This is because there were significant differences among states in adjutant general and legislative committee reports involving when, and especially what, information was reported. First, adjutant general reports evolved in form and content as the war progressed. Also, the competencies and especially the staffs and budgets of adjutant generals (as well as the information that executive and legislative branches sought) varied significantly from state to state—and this was reflected in the kind and quantity of reported material. And there were political concerns too: then (as now) the executive branch was reluctant to document its own shortcomings, especially when it involved an adjutant or quartermaster general’s mismanagement, incompetence, or corruption. (Nor did opposing parties’ claims of corruption necessarily mean actual corruption.)
Also, readers should be aware that executive-branch reporting requirements were very different among the states. In the Mid-Atlantic states, for example, the adjutant generals of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey published annual reports, while those of Delaware and Maryland did not. Similarly, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey also published reports of state agents, quartermaster generals, surgeon generals, and others; this was not true in Delaware and Maryland.
Biographical notes generally are not given for federal executive branch officials at the cabinet rank, for senior federal or Confederate army and navy officers (except those with strong state connections such as William Seward of New York, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, or Philip Kearny of New Jersey), for minor-party gubernatorial contenders, or for unsuccessful candidates for Congress. One of SAW’s objectives is to revive the narrative of state action during the war and this means biographical treatments of now obscure figures. SAW aspires to a uniform presentation of these lives more often than it succeeds. Less is known about some persons and what is known is not always the same information. Moreover, the information that does exist is often gathered from many texts, and the compiler asks readers’ indulgence for what may appear to be excessive sourcing. States waged their wars locally as well as on distant battlefields, and providing biographical information on local actors was an editorial priority.
What is true for less prominent state actors is also the case for many private soldiers’ welfare organizations. While national organizations such as the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission are well documented, neighborhood sewing circles, city auxiliaries of national organizations, and even some statewide groups have left fewer tracks. Regrettably, this paucity also is reflected in SAW.
State General Orders and Special Orders could be issued or signed by the governor, the adjutant general, or another subordinate, in his own name or on behalf of the governor or adjutant general. With few exceptions, SAW gives no special significance to particular signatories and attributes such orders to the state, as in New York issues GO No. 1.
However, whether dealing with states or the War Department, personalities can matter and where (in the opinion of the editor) they do, the actual signatory is identified.
Annual election results for state legislatures are given by party. In weighing these, readers are cautioned that in most cases the real
divisions were less between Republicans and Democrats than they were between Unionists (almost all Republicans along with those Democrats who, despite criticism of the Lincoln administration’s policies on civil liberties and war management, supported a vigorous prosecution of the war) and weak or anti-Unionists (mostly Democrats), who were often peace men
(pacifists, pro-secessionists, and even anti-secessionists who nevertheless opposed on constitutional grounds coercion of the South). The Mid-Atlantic region demands special attention here: outside of New York, the Republican
brand developed late in states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and was never an electoral winner in Delaware and Maryland; thus, more so than in other places, the not-Democratic
party often adopted the title of the Opposition
or, later, the Union
Party. As in New England (and the rest of the country), the war divided the Mid-Atlantic’s Democratic Party into peace and war factions. Even considering Ohio’s Clement A. Vallandigham, no other region produced quite the number of what can only be termed peace personalities,
men whose temperament and views combined to render them either celebrities or objects of hate, depending on one’s politics. New York’s charming and handsome Fernando Wood and his newspaper-publishing and novel-writing brother Ben; New Jersey’s James Wall, Daniel Holsman, and the relentless polemicist, former abolitionist, and Lola Montez public-relations agent C. Chauncey Burr; Delaware’s great gentleman of the U.S. Senate, James A. Bayard, Jr., and his notorious pistol-packing and hard-drinking colleague (an unfortunate combination), William Saulsbury; and Maryland’s brilliant inventor-engineer, Ross Winans, the scholarly S. Teackle Wallis, and Congressman Henry May—elected as a Unionist, who promptly went to Richmond, declared (or so he was quoted) that 30,000 Baltimoreans were ready to revolt against Washington and, on his return, was greeted with demands for his expulsion from the House. These men lend special tones to the voices of millions of Americans, opposed or uncertain about the war, discouraged over its casualties and defeats, dismayed at the suspension of civil liberties, and socially (and in some cases, economically) threatened by the prospects of emancipating a race that almost none believed was or should be the equal of whites.
Finally, readers should be aware of an editing peculiarity present throughout Series III of the Official Records. Many of the letters sent by the War Department to state officials were copied to other recipients or, in some cases, to all of the loyal governors or state adjutant generals. For reasons of economy, however, the OR’s editors chose to include only a single example of each letter; a list of other recipients appears nearby or, in a few instances, the statement Copies sent to all loyal governors,
or some such wording. Thus, in searching for cited correspondence between Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, or Delaware, readers may find the correct letter—but addressed to the governor of Maine! Examining the nearby list (if given) of other recipients should relieve any confusion.
Editorial Policies for Statutes and Resolutions
The federal and state statutes and resolutions selected for inclusion under each legislative session or in the Chronology are not the précis of statutes so beloved by law students; although every effort has been made to include original quoted material, the laws reproduced here have been doubly edited. First, statutory provisions that were purely procedural or irrelevant to a law’s main purposes have been omitted; second, what has been included has been paraphrased from the language of legal contingency into something like ordinary prose. However, the original names of statutes and resolutions are retained and sourced; statutes are grouped by legislative sessions and, when available, the dates of passage are given. (Note that capitalization in law and resolution titles is eccentric and often counterintuitive. They are reproduced here as they appear in the official texts.)
Statutes and resolutions appear in order by date of enactment and not by the statutory or other number later assigned. Thus, statutory enumerations may appear out of sequence. The section numbers within statutes are in numerical order but with omissions: only sections that embody the statute’s main points are listed, while purely procedural provisions are omitted (with apologies to legal scholars who know that the line between procedure
and substance
is often blurry).
Some statutes and resolutions are noted parenthetically but are not listed in full; these are designated by the words, not listed here.
These statutes are usually amendatory or derivative from the statute that is reproduced, and are provided in the chapter endnotes for researchers seeking threads across, between, or within legislative sessions.
It is with regret that necessary wordage limitations have forced the exclusion of certain classes of statutes: general congratulatory resolutions that praised armies, battlefield successes, soldiers, and units are usually omitted although occasionally referenced. Retained, however, are general resolutions that dealt with emancipation, and such policy questions as hard
or soft
war.
Reading States at War
Understood collectively, SAW’s principal sources—the Official Records, state adjutant general reports, legislative journals, state and federal legislation, federal and state executive speeches and proclamations, and the general and special orders issued by the military authorities of both governments—are actually a four-year conversation, in which most texts are linked to (or composed in response to) earlier texts or events. Thus, Robert E. Lee’s 1862 and 1863 invasions of Maryland provoke an event cascade
throughout the Mid-Atlantic region: conversations between Washington officials and Pennsylvania Governor Andrew G. Curtin send shock waves as telegraphs click furiously between Harrisburg and Trenton and Harrisburg and Albany; and when Wilmington prepares for invasion and Baltimore, especially during the 1863 crisis, entrenches its western perimeter, many forts are constructed by African Americans, men so determined to help the government that General Robert C. Schenck, commander of the Middle Department, pleads with Lincoln to recruit them into armed battalions of sappers and miners.
As historians know, however, the connections between most events, correspondence, and laws are not so tidy. And with a pretense to verisimilitude, SAW attempts to portray this untidiness by chronologically ordering the distractions, matters of real (or apparent) priority, random (but important) events, disasters, misunderstandings, and temperamental outbursts that operated to create (with apologies to von Clausewitz) the fog of governing in war.
To the modern eye, this structure might seem like the transcript of a streaming news chyron: battles, correspondence, and assorted factoids roll by for days, months, and years. These include queries and replies, if known (with a few queries and replies not in the record but inferred from prior correspondence), as well as events and their consequences, if known; each is placed in its moment. For readers’ convenience, when a substantial interval (or distraction) occurs between such related items, parenthetical notes refer to the earlier or later question, law, general order, or event that initiated or resulted from the thread. (Because summaries of state legislation are grouped separately, they are not included in this structure.)
Where the record discloses dialogue, the conversation
(usually telegraph exchanges) is couched in conventional narrative terms: Stanton said
or Buckingham replied.
On occasion, however, such phrases as Stanton was annoyed
or the governor boasted
appear. Readers are free to disagree with these characterizations and should be aware that they are the compiler’s inferences and not facts.
The streaming chronological structure invites two ways to read SAW. One is vertical, considering each chapter as an outline of a state at war: its laws, elections, and federal relations; how it financed, recruited, organized, armed, and equipped its military units; as well as its support programs for soldiers and their dependents, among other matters. When integrated with the Chronology of Events, Battles, Laws, and General Orders, each chapter might stand alone as a skeletal history of a state’s war years.
But SAW also can be read horizontally. In volumes 2, 3, and 4, for example, readers can scan the same month across all Mid-Atlantic states, comparing reactions to the same event, or the different (or similar) solutions that states developed to solve the same problems (e.g., the welfare of soldiers’ dependents), meet challenges (e.g., dissent, recruiting), or cope with frictions that occurred as the federal government intruded into areas previously under exclusive state control (e.g., the federal interference in elections in Delaware and Maryland).
What is different about SAW is not the facts it contains—these and the sources from which they derive have long been in the scholarly domain—but rather, its parallel presentments of states at war. The compiler of SAW can hope for no more than that some future, better mind will read this material and, through the inductive reasoning that such a presentation invites, discern previously unrecognized differences, similarities, and connections that eluded him.
Principal Officers of the Department of War
During the war, the federal officials that states usually dealt with on matters of recruiting, organizing, equipping, arming, transporting, and conscripting recruits were employees of the Department of War. The following list includes only the names of War Department bureaucrats that appear in this volume.¹
Secretaries of War
Joseph Holt, ad interim, December 31, 1860, appointed and confirmed by the Senate, January 18, 1861²
Simon Cameron, March 5, 1861³
Edwin M. Stanton, January 15, 1862⁴
Assistant Secretaries of War
Thomas A. Scott, appointment authorized August 3, 1861⁵
Peter H. Watson, January 24, 1862, to July 31, 1864⁶
Brigadier General Catharinus P. Buckingham, special duty, assistant to the secretary of war, July 16, 1862; resigned February 11, 1863⁷
Christopher P. Wolcott, appointed June 12, 1862; resigned January 23, 1863⁸
Adjutants General
Colonel Samuel Cooper, resigned March 7, 1861⁹
Colonel Lorenzo Thomas, March 7, 1861, promoted to brigadier general, August 3, 1861¹⁰ (From March 23, 1863, Thomas was on special duty and Col. Edward D. Townsend¹¹ assumed his functions.)
Judge Advocate General
Colonel Joseph Holt, September 3, 1862, promoted to brigadier general, June 22, 1864
Quartermaster General
Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs, May 15, 1861¹²
Chief of Engineers
Joseph G. Totten, died April 22, 1864,¹³ replaced by Brigadier General Richard Delafield¹⁴
Chief of Ordnance
Brigadier General James W. Ripley, retired September 15, 1863¹⁵
Provost Marshal General
Colonel James B. Fry, March 17, 1863¹⁶
ASSISTANTS TO THE PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL
Colonel George D. Ruggles, ADC, AAG, Brevet Brigadier General, to August 16, 1864¹⁷
Colonel N. L. Jeffries, VRC, Brevet Brigadier General, USV, from August 17, 1864¹⁸
Chronology of Events, Battles, Laws, and General Orders
1860
APRIL
23:The Democratic National Convention assembles in Charleston until May 3. Southern delegates walk out over Northern Democrats’ refusal to endorse pro-slavery planks.
MAY
9:The national convention of the Constitutional Union Party meets in Baltimore.
16–18: The Republican National Convention meets in Chicago and nominates Abraham Lincoln for president and Hannibal Hamlin for vice president.
JUNE
18–23: Democrats reconvene in Baltimore.
22:After Democratic delegates favoring secession walk out of the convention, Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson are nominated for president and vice president, respectively.
23:Democratic delegates who had abandoned (or been refused) seats meet briefly at the Maryland Institute in Baltimore and nominate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon for president and vice president, respectively. These delegates agree to reconvene on June 26 in Richmond.
26–28: Southern Democrats reconvene in Richmond and affirm the nomination of John C. Breckenridge for president and Joseph Lane for vice president.
DECEMBER
4:The U.S. House approves the appointment of one member from each state to form a Select Committee of Thirty-Three in an effort to adjust differences between sections. The Mid-Atlantic members are James Humphrey (New York), Henry Winter Davis (Maryland), William G. Whiteley (Delaware), and James H. Campbell (Pennsylvania).¹
17:A sale of U.S. Treasury notes fails, with no bidders below 12 percent interest.²
18:Kentucky senator John J. Crittenden proposes six constitutional amendments. First, that the 36°30' line be recognized as demarcating slave states (south of the line) and free states (north of the line.) Second, that Congress shall have no power to abolish Slavery in States permitting Slavery.
Third, that Congress would not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or prohibit federal officers and employees required to work in the District from bringing slaves there. Fourth, that Congress would not hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, whether by land, navigable rivers or sea.
Fifth, that if fugitive slaves were rescued
by violence or otherwise, Congress would compensate the owner for his loss and then sue the county wherein the rescue occurred for recovery. Finally, Congress shall never have power to interfere with Slavery in the States where it is now permitted.
³
20:South Carolina secedes.
24:South Carolina issues a declaration of independence. It names the following states as having enacted laws obstructing the return of fugitive slaves: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. It also singles out New Jersey as having once been compliant but now enacting laws which render inoperative the remedies by [her own laws and the Fugitive Slave Act].
⁴
26:Major Robert Anderson transfers command from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
1861
JANUARY
8:President Buchanan issues a message to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. While he repeats an earlier declaration that no State has a right by its own act to secede from the Union or throw off its federal obligations at pleasure,
he also asserts that, the executive department of this Government had no authority under the Constitution to recognize its validity by acknowledging the independence of such State.
He acknowledges that I certainly had no right to make aggressive war upon any State, and I am perfectly satisfied that the Constitution has wisely withheld that power even from Congress.
However, he does believe that the right and the duty to use military force defensively against those who resist Federal officers in the execution of their legal functions and against those who assail the property of the Federal Government is clear and undeniable.
He declares that The fact can not be disguised that we are in the midst of a great revolution
; if anything is to be done, however, Congress must do it: On them [i.e., Congress] and on them alone rests the responsibility.
Buchanan urges adoption of constitutional amendments to resolve sectional differences and adds that early on, I determined that no act of mine should increase the excitement in either section of the country.
Accordingly, he declines to send reinforcements to Major Anderson.⁵
9:Mississippi secedes. The Star of the West is fired upon as it attempts to resupply Fort Sumter.
10:Florida secedes.
11:Alabama secedes.
19:Georgia secedes.
21:U.S. senators David Yulee (Florida), Stephen R. Mallory (Florida), Clement Clay (Alabama), Benjamin Fitzpatrick (Alabama), and Jefferson Davis (Mississippi) resign from the Senate.
26:Louisiana secedes.
FEBRUARY
1:Texas secedes.
4:Seceded states meet in Montgomery, Alabama.
Meanwhile, in an effort to reconcile sectional differences, a conference of the states convenes in Washington at Virginia’s request.
8:Provisional Confederate Constitution approved.
9:Jefferson Davis becomes president and Alexander Stephens, vice-president, of the provisional Confederacy.
27:The February 4 peace conference adjourns. It produces a proposed constitutional amendment, Article 13, which has seven sections. (These are presented to many of the participating states’ legislatures for consideration.)
Section 1: North of the parallel of 36 degrees and 30 minutes of north latitude, slavery is prohibited. South of this parallel, slavery as it now exists
shall not be changed. Congress is prohibited from passing any law to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation.
Section 2: No territory shall be acquired by the United States without the concurrence of a majority of the Senators from States which allow involuntary servitude and a majority of all the Senators which prohibit that relation; nor shall territory be acquired by treaty unless the votes of a majority of the Senators from each class of States hereinbefore mentioned be cast as a part of the two-thirds majority necessary for the ratification of such treaty.
Section 3: Congress shall have no power to regulate, abolish, or control, within any State,
slavery, nor interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia without Maryland’s permission and that of the owners; Congress will have no power to inhibit the taking of slaves into any state or territory, nor shall Congress have the power to interfere with slavery in territories; however, the selling of slaves in the District of Columbia is prohibited.
Section 4: Reaffirms the third paragraph of Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, that No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from Such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service of Labor may be due,
and declares that nothing in that paragraph will be interpreted to prevent states and their agents from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from labor to the person to whom such service of labor is due.
Section 5: Forever prohibits the foreign slave trade and vests Congress with the duty to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or other persons held to service or labor.
Section 6: The first, third, and fifth sections of this amendment, together with Article I, Section 2, of the existing Constitution, shall never be amended or abolished without the consent of all the States.
Section 7: Congress will enact laws that compensate the owner of a fugitive slave who is prevented from recovering such slave by violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblages, or when, after arrest, such fugitive was rescued by like violence and intimidation.
Also, the Privileges and Immunities clause (Article IV, Section 2) will be secured by subsequent acts of Congress.⁶
MARCH
4:Abraham Lincoln inaugurated as sixteenth president.
APRIL
12:Fort Sumter attacked.
13:Fort Sumter surrenders.
14:Surrender ceremonies at Fort Sumter.
15:Lincoln issues a proclamation calling for 75,000 state militia. Secretary of War Simon Cameron simultaneously wires the governors, citing as authority for this call Chapter 36 (enacted February 28, 1795) and entitled, An Act to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions, and to repeal the Act now in force for those purposes.
This act includes the following provisions, among others.
Section 2 (Lincoln’s proclamation tracked the enabling clause of this section): That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings . . . that it shall be lawful for the President . . . to call forth the militia of such state . . . as may be necessary to suppress such combinations.
The militia may be continued until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress.
Section 4: no officer, non-commissioned officer, or private of the militia shall be compelled to serve more than three months.
Section 9: U.S. marshals shall have the same powers in executing the laws of the United States, as sheriffs and their deputies, in the several states, have . . . in executing the laws of the several states.
⁷
17:Virginia’s convention votes to secede, subject to voter approval. Separately, Jefferson Davis invites applications for letters of marque.⁸
19:Lincoln proclaims a blockade of Southern ports.
MAY
3:Abraham Lincoln issues a proclamation requesting 42,034 volunteers—thirty-nine regiments of infantry and one regiment of cavalry—to serve three years or the war. In addition to the volunteer service, the Regular Army is to increase by 22,714, and the Navy by 18,000 men.⁹
Separately, a governors’ conference convenes in Cleveland, Ohio. Morgan (New York) and Yates (Illinois) cannot attend and send representatives. Present is General George B. McClellan and Governors Dennison (Ohio), Morton (Indiana), Curtin (Pennsylvania), Randall (Wisconsin), and Blair (Michigan). The conference reflects dissatisfaction with what its organizers believe is Washington’s timorous policy in prosecuting the war, its lack of military organization and leadership, its seeming indifference to the importance of securing the Mississippi River, and its apparent inattention to the border states. Governor Randall writes Lincoln about these concerns.¹⁰
4:U.S. adjutant general’s office issues GO No. 15, specifying the size and organization to which state-proffered regiments must conform to be accepted into federal service. GO No. 15 also specifies that each regiment’s company and field officers will be appointed by the Governor of State furnishing it.
But the president will appoint brigade and higher-level officers. Requirements also specified in GO No. 15 include division and brigade organization; allowances for clothing, transportation, and bands; benefits to accrue in the event of wounds or death; chaplaincy appointments; and promotion from the ranks.¹¹
6:Arkansas and Tennessee secede.
The Confederate Congress passes An Act concerning the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States; and concerning Letters of Marque, Prizes and Prize Goods.
Section 1 authorizes the Confederate president to issue to private armed vessels commissions
that sanction attack on the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the United States, and of the citizens or inhabitants of the States and territories thereof.
However, such cargo aboard neutral ships is exempt from seizure, and ships belonging to U.S. citizens and inhabitants (but not the U.S. government) are granted thirty days to leave port before being subject to the act.¹²
20:North Carolina secedes.
The Confederate Congress votes to transfer its capital to Richmond, Virginia.
23:Virginians vote to secede.
24:Federals seize Alexandria, Virginia. Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s first martyr,
is killed while lowering a secession flag from the Marshall House.
28:In Philadelphia, the Cooper Shop Volunteer Saloon and the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon open. Their patrons will include thousands of New England troops in transit.
JUNE
10:Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia.
JULY
4:Congress convenes in special session.
11:Battle of Rich Mountain, western Virginia.
13:Cameron issues a circular that declares, No more troops will be received by this Department till authorized by Congress.
He has exhausted his recruiting authority.¹³
19:War Department GO No. 45 affirms that, vacancies occurring among the commissioned officers in volunteer regiments will be filled by the Governors of the respective States by which the regiments were furnished.
This order also prohibits the enlistment of volunteers who are unable to speak English.¹⁴ (But see entry for August 8.)
21:Battle of First Bull Run.
22:Congress enacts Chapter 9: An Act to authorize the Employment of Volunteers to aid in enforcing the Laws and protecting Public Property.
Section 1: Authorizes the president to accept the services of volunteers not exceeding five hundred thousand, as he may deem necessary, for the purpose of repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, enforcing the laws, and preserving and protecting the public property.
Enlistment terms will not be less than six months nor more than three years. Before receiving into service any number of volunteers exceeding those now called for and accepted the President shall . . . issue a proclamation, stating the number desired . . . and the States from which they are to be furnished, having reference, in any such requisition, to the number then in service from the several States . . . and equalizing, as far as practicable, the number furnished by the several States according to Federal population.
(This establishes the call-quota-recruit pattern for the rest of the war.)
Section 4: The governors of the States furnishing volunteers under this act, shall commission the field, staff and company officers requisite for said volunteers.
Section 5: Authorizes a bounty of $100 to Every volunteer non-commissioned officer, private, musician, and artificer
who has served a minimum of two years or the duration of the war and is honorably discharged.
Section 6: The legal heirs of servicemen killed or disabled in service, in addition to all arrears of pay and allowances, shall receive the sum of one hundred dollars.
Section 12: Authorizes the secretary of war to introduce an allotment system by which the family of the volunteer may draw such portions of his pay as he may request.
¹⁵
25:Congress enacts Chapter 17: An Act in addition to the ‘Act to authorize the Employment of Volunteers to aid in enforcing the Laws and protecting Public Property,’ approved July twenty-second, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.
Section 1 reiterates the 500,000-man call but adds the clarification that the president now may make such calls as the exigencies of the public service may in his opinion demand.
Congress also passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, blaming the war squarely on the South and adding that this war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions [i.e., slavery] of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union . . . and as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease.
The War Department issues GO No. 47, Section II of which requires that officers of volunteer regiments will be subject to examination by a military board,
adding that Those officers found incompetent will be rejected.
¹⁶
27:Lincoln appoints Major General George B. McClellan commander of the Federal Division of the Potomac, which includes all troops in the vicinity of Washington.
Congress passes Chapter 21, An Act to indemnify the States for Expenses incurred by them in Defence of the United States.
It directs the treasury secretary to pay to the Governor of any State . . . the costs, charges, and expenses properly incurred by such State for enrolling, subsisting, clothing, supplying, arming, equipping, paying, and transporting its troops in aiding to suppress the present insurrection against the United States, to be settled upon proper vouchers, to be filed and passed upon by the proper accounting officers of the United States.
¹⁷
29:Congress enacts Chapter 25: An Act to provide for the Suppression of Rebellion against and Resistance to the Laws of the United States, and to amend the Act entitled ‘An Act to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union,’ &c., passed February twenty-eight, seventeen hundred and ninety-five.
Section 3: The president may call the militia to serve not longer than sixty days after the commencement of the next regular session of Congress, unless Congress shall expressly provide by law therefor.
Section 4: Militiamen not responding to the president’s call may be fined up to one year’s pay and imprisoned for up to one year.
Section 7: Federal district marshals shall have the same powers in executing the laws of the United States as sheriffs and their deputies in the several States have, by law, in executing the laws of the respective States.
¹⁸
AUGUST
5:Congress passes Chapter 45: An Act to provide Increased Revenue from Imports, to pay Interest on the Public Debt, and for other Purposes.
Section 8: That a direct tax of twenty millions of dollars be and is hereby annually laid upon the United States, and the same shall be and is hereby apportioned to the States.
Section 9: Authorizes the president to divide the states and territories into convenient collection districts
and, with Senate approval, appoint an assessor and a collector for each such district.
Section 49: Provides that from January 1, 1862, the income of "every person residing in the United States [from whatever source that] exceeds the sum of eight hundred dollars, a