Circa1865

A British Consul’s View

After the election of Lincoln in November 1860, British consul at Boston, Thomas Colley Grattan (1792-1864) wrote:

“The day must no doubt come when clashing objects will break the ties of common interest which now preserve the American union.  But no man may foretell the period of dissolution . . . The many retaining cause are out of sight of foreign observation. If a foreign nation hints at hostility, the whole union becomes in reality united. And thus, any contingency from which there can be danger, there is also found the element of safety.”

Yet, he added, “All attempts to strengthen this federal government at the expense of the State governments must be futile . . . The federal government exists on sufferance only. Any State may at any time constitutionally withdraw from the American union, and thus virtually dissolve it.”

(Great Britain and the American Civil War. Ephraim Douglass Adams. Alpha Editions, 2018. p.37)

The following is a glimpse of the Debates in the House of Representatives of the US during the First Session of the Fourth Congress, Part II, upon the subject of the British Treaty. Members of the House, especially those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were surprised that compensation for the loss of slaves by Americans during the war was not within the document. The following was written by William Renwick Riddell of Toronto, September 24, 1927.

Post-Revolution Dispute over Slaves

“When Britain accepted the Treaty, Washington proclaimed it on February 2, 1796, and sent a copy to both Senate and House.

In reading these debates I was struck by the prominence given to the claims for Negroes taken away [by the British] in 1783 and earlier. This was not one of the matters as to which [negotiator] John Jay was instructed to be insistent . . . But the greatest number of protests in the House were concerning these Negroes.

Mr. Maclay of Pennsylvania, on April 14, gave as his first objection to the treaty “that it did not provide for the loss of the Negroes” (p.34). Mr. S. Lyman of Massachusetts thought that Jay should have told the British Minister at the very first interview: “You have carried off our Negroes” (p.52).

Mr. Nicholas of Virginia complained that “of the Negroes [carried off by British troops] nothing is said in the present Treaty. Some Representatives, like Mr. Hillhouse of Connecticut, thought “Negroes, horses and other property were . . . placed on the same footing and that it was as much a violation of the Treaty to carry away a horse as a Negro.” He asked, “will any man say after reviewing the circumstances, that the 7^th Article was meant to secure the restitution of Negroes and other property taken in the course of the War?”

Mr. Findley of Pennsylvania considered that “the claim for recompense for Negroes was as strong as that for the recovery of British debts and as equitable (p.177).” Mr. Holland of North Carolina thought it strange that in things that were self-evident, there should be so great a difference of opinion and that the war-emancipated Negroes should be returned to their former masters in America (p.99). Mr. Gallatin of Pennsylvania agreed and said that the British ministry had agreed to this interpretation during Mr. Adma’s embassy, but the American ‘negotiator (Jay) had for the sake of peace waived that claim.

At his day we might ask ourselves, what would be thought of the United States if they had sent back South . . . the slaves emancipated by Lincoln? In the end, for the sake of peace Britain in 1826 paid $1,204, 960 for those slaves taken, though none were returned to the US.”

(Great Britain, Canada and the Negro. Journal of Negro History, Carter G. Woodson, ed., Vol. XIII, No. 2, April 1928. pp. 188-180)

A bronze equestrian monument of Maj. Gen. John F. Hartranft stands majestically outside the capitol building at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This memorial still stands today despite Hartranft waging war against Americans in the South who fought for political independence as did their ancestors in 1776. Under the Constitution Hartranft swore fealty to, Article III, Section 3 is clear regarding treason as waging war against a State.

After the death of Lincoln, Hartranft served as a special provost marshal during the show trial and predictable convictions, including that of Mary Surratt. He afterward personally led these Americans to the gallows in early July 1865.  In 1872 he became governor of Pennsylvania governor and won a second term in 1876 despite being accused of bribing leaders of the Molly Maguires to induce members to vote for him.

Monument to a War Hero Politician

Just prior to the battle of First Manassas in July 1861, the enlistment period of then-Col. Hartranft’s Pennsylvania regiment had expired, and they returned home. Assigned as an aide to another command during the battle, he was unsuccessful in his attempt to stem the wholesale retreat of Northern soldiers. For this latter action Hartranft was to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1886.

In April 1862, Hartranft was colonel of the 51^st PA regiment during Gen. Burnside’s invasion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The resulting occupation of the islands and afterward New Bern was marked by the wholesale looting and pillaging of businesses and civilians.

In May 1863, Hartranft’s 51^st Pennsylvania Regiment was near Jackson, Mississippi as Grant approached Vicksburg. At that time, the Lieber Code which would govern the conduct of northern armies in the field was being promulgated – it forbade the waging of war against innocent civilians.

At Jackson, one of Hartranft’s officers later wrote in 1866 of the 51^st Pennsylvania troops who “broke ranks and ransacked the town of Jackson for tobacco, whiskey and valuables . . . Grocery, dry goods, hat, shoe, millinery and drug stores were broken open and “cleaned out” of every vestige of their contents: private dwellings entered and plundered of money, jewelry and all else of any value were carried off; crockery, chinaware, pianos, furniture, etc., were smashed to atoms; hogsheads of sugar rolled into the street and heads knocked in and contents spilled . . . and soon some very splendid buildings were reduced to ashes.”

The writer continues: “As the 51^st Pennsylvania Regiment was marching out [of town] it made quite a ludicrous appearance, for the men were clad in female attire, some with hats having crowns a foot high, some with masks on, shawls, frock skirts, with crinoline all over instead of underneath . . . marching with bonnet and bandboxes in their hands.

They were followed by the colored females, screaming with delight and begging the “Yankees” to “gib us dat bonnit,” and “Massa, do please gib me dat frock.” By the time they reached their destination the colored ladies were in possession of nearly every particle of female wear which the men had stolen.”

(History of the Fifty-first Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. Thomas H. Parker, King & Baird, Printers, 1869, pp. 85; 363-365).

Gen. Robert E. Lee authorized leaflets sent to his adversaries encouraging desertions to his lines, parole and safe passage northward – thus preventing the soldier from being conscripted at home. Forced to draft unwilling northern men which produced riots, Lincoln found that greenback bounty money lured many but created another problem in the form of paid substitutes and bounty-jumping.

Gen. Grant admitted in late 1864 of receiving perhaps one effective soldier out of five sent, and among whom existed many bounty-jumpers seeking another opportunity to desert and reenlist in another State for its bounty.

Deserters and Bounty Jumpers

“A scrutiny of Union desertion by States reveals the largest actual numbers from New York with 44,913; from Pennsylvania with 24,050; from Ohio with 18,354; from New Jersey with the startling figure of 8,468; and from little Rhode Island with 1,384 to its credit.

The figures for several of the Border States prove interesting: notably, Maryland which produced 5,328 deserters; Tennessee which furnished 3,690; Kentucky which yielded 7,227; and Arkansas, which contributed 2,245. Likewise, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, where there was considerable disaffection with the war, rank relatively high in desertions in proportion to their population.

Usually, the recorded statements of specific instances of desertion, whether in Union of Confederate reports, show the slipping away of individuals or of small groups, varying from five to sixteen or twenty. At Pittsburgh, complaint was made that more than 300 men from two Pennsylvania regiments had absented themselves since their muster; from an Illinois regiment at Cairo, Illinois more than 700 men had deserted; 347 soldiers succeeded in making their escape from another Illinois regiment places at Memphis.

There were also cases of considerable bodies of soldiers departing. One conspicuous case savored of open mutiny as some 400 draftees departed from the forts around Washington on the 29^th of August 1864. They continued in a body with arms until they had secured civilian clothes, and then scattered in all directions.

A Confederate officer reported in January 1863 that he had gathered from the army opposing him some 2,000 deserters, with many others were seeking an opportunity to surrender in order to be paroled.”

(Desertions During the Civil War. Ella Lonn. University of Nebraska Press, 1998, pg. 152-153. (original American Historical Association, 1928)

The author below records that when Gen. Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac in late-Jan. 1863, desertions were occurring at a rate of several hundred a day – with about 25 per cent of his assumed strength missing. Senator Henry Wilson stated on the Senate floor in March 1864 that some 40,000 soldiers had already deserted despite executions occurring almost daily in that army.

Northern Desertions, 1863

“Perhaps Lee and the commanders in the South saw with the eyes of the Union scout who wrote from Virginia on November 20, 1862, that desertions form Union lines were so frequent as to be disgusting to Southerners as well.

It is about this time that Lincoln recognized and presented the situation in realistic terms. He pointed out to a group of women calling upon him that while Gen. McClellan was constantly calling for more and more troops, that deserters and furloughed men outnumbered the new recruits; and that while that general had 180,000 men on the rolls for the Antietam battle, he had had only some 90,000 with which to enter the fight, as 20,000 men were in hospitals and the rest “absent,” and that within two hours after the battle, some 30,000 had straggled and deserted.

Northern General Pope in September of that year had reported the straggling as so bad that unless something were done to restore tone to the army, it would “melt away before you know it.”

No less a figure than Gen. Halleck charged that not a few Northern soldiers voluntarily surrendered to the enemy in order to be paroled as prisoners of war. Even the vigilance of escorts and guards was materially affected by the alluring thought that captivity meant liberty and relaxation. Many Northern soldiers, according to Generals Meade and McClellan, dispersed and left during the Antietam battle.

Every Northern defeat was marked by a long line of stragglers and deserters, who, if the outcome had been different, would probably have remained to press on the advantage. And the number absent without leave in late December 1862, after Gen. Burnside’s disaster at Fredericksburg, worsened the losses and the demoralization of Lincoln’s army was complete.”

(Desertions During the Civil War. Ella Lonn. University of Nebraska Press, 1998, pg. 144-145. (original American Historical Association, 1928)

Before condemning the American South for its use of African labor in its agricultural production, one must first highlight the roles of the African tribes who sold their own people into slavery. One must add to this the Portuguese, Spanish, British and French – and later New Englanders who conducted the transatlantic slave trade. Below, prominent Wilmington attorney and Attorney General of the Confederate States, lamented postwar the inauguration of slavery into Carolina by British Colonial Governor Yeamans.

A Most Portentous Event

“We draw a veil over the sad scenes enacted there, but we recall the fact that it was not until after the slave traders of the North had received full value of their human merchandise from their Southern brethren that our neighbors began to realize the enormity of the institution of slavery.

With reference to the introduction of slavery into Carolina by the Colonial Governor John Yeamans, from Barbados in 1671, the late George Davis said:

‘This seems to be a simple announcement of a very commonplace fact; but it was the little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. It was the most portentous event of all our early history. For Yeaman’s carried with him from Barbados his negro slaves; and that was the first introduction of African slavery into Carolina. (Bancroft, V2, p. 170; Rivers, p169.)

If, as he sat by the camp-fire in that lonely Southern wilderness, Yeamans could have gazed with prophetic vision down the vista of two hundred years, and seem the stormy and tragic end of that which he was then so quietly inaugurating the beginning, must he not have exclaimed to Ophelia, as she beheld the wreck of her heart’s young love:

“ ‘O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see’”!

(Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear, 1661-1896. James Sprunt. LeGwin Brothers, Printers & Publishers, 1896.

The following is noted as “a summary of the report made by Tyler to Virginia Gov. Letcher on his return from Washington. The text of this report, with the letters passing between Tyler & Buchanan, was published in the Richmond Daily Dispatch, February 1861.”     The fortress was built to protect Virginia, not wage war upon it.

American Citizens Targeted

“Tyler left Washington on January 29 with the expectation of returning to the Washington Peace Convention, which was to assemble on February 4. On the day before leaving, he sent another letter to President James Buchanan, in lieu of a call which other engagements prevented. In this letter he expressed appreciation of the courtesies that had been shown him and pleasure at hearing the President’s message read in the Senate.

Tyler’s letter also spoke of a rumor that at Fortress Monroe the cannon had been put on the landward side and pointed inland. His comment of this report was “that when Virginia is making every possible effort to redeem and save the Union, it is seemingly ungenerous to cannon leveled at here bosom.”

To this letter Buchanan sent a very courteous reply, stating that he would inquire into the rumors with reference to Fortress Monroe’s cannon.”

(John Tyler, Champion of the Old South. Oliver Perry Chitwood. American Political Biography Press, 1939 – pg. 438)