Circa1865

Senator John C. Calhoun classified communities into taxpayers and tax-consumers – the former favoring lower taxes, the latter favoring increased taxes, and a wider scope of government power. He wrote of “spoils” in its narrow sense as consisting of bounties and appropriations flowing directly from the public treasury. In the wider sense, he viewed spoils as advantages derived, directly or indirectly, from government action.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Vigilant Corps of Government Dependents

“When [government] offices, instead of being considered as public trusts, to be conferred upon the deserving, were regarded as the spoils of victory, to be bestowed as rewards for partisan services, without respect to merit; when it came to be understood that all who hold office hold [it] by the tenure of partisan zeal and party service, it is easy to see that the certain, direct and inevitable tendency of such a state of things is to convert the entire body of those in office into corrupt and supple instruments of power, and to raise up a host of hungry, greedy, and subservient partisans, ready for every service, however base and corrupt.

Were a premium offered for the best means of extending to the utmost the power of patronage, to destroy the love of country, and to substitute a spirit of subserviency and man-worship: to encourage vice and discourage virtue, and, in a word, to prepare for the subversion of liberty and the establishment of despotism, no scheme more perfect could be devised; and such must be the tendency of the practice, with whatever intention adopted, or to whatever extent pursued.

[Add to this] the greater capacity, in proportion, on the part of government, in large communities, to seize on and corrupt all the organs of public opinion, and thus to delude and impose on the people; the greater tendency in such communities to the formation of parties on local and separate interests, resting on opposing and conflicting principles . . . Among them, the first and most powerful is that active, vigilant and well-trained corps which lives on the government, or expects to live on it, which prospers most when the revenue is greatest.

The next in order – when the government is connected with the banks, when it receives their notes in its dues, and pays them away as cash, and uses them as its depositories and fiscal agents – are the banking and other associated interests, stock-jobbers, brokers, and speculators; and which, like the other profit the more in consequence of the connection – the higher the revenue, the greater its surplus and the expenditures of the government.”

(The Life of John C. Calhoun, Gustavus M. Pinckney, Bibliolife (original 1903), excerpts, pp. 106-110)

The Hampton area of Virginia was evacuated by Gen. John B. Magruder’s forces in early August 1861; the region had become unstable after the enemy seized property and slaves, and by late July the Hampton-Fortress Monroe area had nearly 1000 blacks seized during enemy raids on upriver plantations. The intention was identical to Lord Dunmore’s in 1775 – deny Virginia its agricultural workers and arm them against their former owners.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Lincoln’s Army of Roughs and Jailbirds

“On Monday, May 27 [1861] . . . soon after breakfast, several boats were seen loaded with [Yankee] troops going up the river and being so near the land, it was apparent they intended to land at the wharves. One can imagine the great excitement created by the sight of the troops. War seemed to have come in the midst of perfect peace.

Very soon after, a squad of marines came to the house and advised father to go and ask protection of the commanding officer, who turned out to be General [Northcott] Phelps. They said many of the soldiers were the rough and jailbirds of Boston and would steal and destroy everything unless it was guarded.

General Phelps was the colonel of the 1^st Vermont (Regiment) but on account of his West Point training had been made brigadier-general . . . There were three regiments landed: the 7^th New York, all Germans, were stationed next to our house, all on our land; the 1^st Vermont, and the Massachusetts, next to Captain Wilbern’s.

In order to conciliate the guard, we furnished them with food, but they were very suspicious, and I usually had to eat some of it to show that it was not poisoned.

Tuesday afternoon I went over to the [enemy] camp . . . and witnessed something of what war was. It seemed that the colonel of the Massachusetts Regiment was very mad because Phelps had been promoted over him and for this reason perhaps had given passes to a great many of his men to go out of the lines . . . At any rate, a large number had gone out of camp and plundered the whole neighborhood.

They seemed to have stripped the farms and houses of everything conceivable. I learned afterwards that the thieves, finding that they would be arrested, had left most of the plunder in the thickets outside the pickets, all of which was brought into camp, in the night.

As only two of the Vermonters were arrested, and very few of the Germans, the Massachusetts Regiment became very indignant and made many threats. I now saw what a soldier would do if unrestrained and in what he conceived an enemy’s country . . . there was fear of mutiny, for we were informed by our guard that the Vermont Regiment was expecting an attack, and if we heard any firing we would know it was between them and the Massachusetts Regiment.

The Negroes had not tried to protect anything from the pillaging of the soldiers . . . What furniture or other things they wanted had been carried away by them. A small safe that father had used in his store in Hampton . . . had been taken out in the yard and broken open. The valuables were all stolen and books and papers scattered about the yard.”

(When the Yankees Came, Civil War and Reconstruction on the Virginia Peninsula, George Benjamin West, Park Rouse, Jr., editor, The Dietz Press, 1977, excerpts, pp. 47-50)

A twenty-two year old Virginian in 1861, George Benjamin West wrote his memoirs of the war thirty years after the war. He noted during his State’s early occupation by the enemy the prevalence of German rather than American soldiers in blue – and the same in 1865 as he rode through occupied Richmond. His observations reveal two distinct cultures in the United States of 1860.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Two Cultures of 1860 America

“Our servants stayed with us several weeks [after the capitulation]. I intended to get a parole, but father insisted that I could go about much freer and would not be subjected to so many interruptions by the guards around Old Point if I took the oath.

I went up to take the oath, and General Joseph R. Anderson, CSA, of the Tredegar Iron Works, a splendid looking man and soldier, was ahead of me, and I heard the questions asked him, and saw the manner of the (Federal) lieutenant, who felt his importance, and I became so indignant with the lieutenant and sorry for the general that when my time came I did not feel the humiliation and shame I expected.

Look around at the sight now. No people ever recuperated in such a short time. This whole section soon became a garden spot, and though most of the people had to lose even their land for security debts (often for the hire of slaves before the war), yet though not accustomed and often not really able to work, they made the best of the situation and determined if possible to start in life again and show the Yankees that they could live without their aid, and even without slaves or property.

I think the South believed that the North opposed slavery not so much because of their [abolitionists’] love for humanity as they pretended but because they were envious of the prosperity of the South and hated the aristocracy because they knew they were superior, and felt that their own mean pecuniary dealings and money-making propensity was condemned.

The South did not try to make money because money was the means by which they could elevate themselves, because they looked more to a man’s character and behavior than to his bank account.

The North had to work harder and live more economically to get along, and probably on this account they would take advantages and do little mean tricks which were looked upon by us as wanting in honor and honesty, and gentlemanly instincts.

The better classes of the North never visited the South, nor were the Southern people anxious to mingle with them at the North, so we grew wider apart every year. They hating and envying us more and more, and we looked down upon them.”

(When the Yankees Came, Civil War and Reconstruction on the Virginia Peninsula, George Benjamin West, Park Rouse, Jr., editor, The Dietz Press, 1977, pp. 97-98)

Andrew Jackson may have been another “fire-bell in the night” warning to Americans of presidential power in the hands of someone with independent views of their authority. The grave of Jefferson was barely cold before the Founders’ barriers to democracy had eroded and presidential power predictably increased under vain men; another twenty-eight years beyond Jackson’s Force Bill found a new American republic forming at Montgomery, Alabama.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Andrew Jackson’s Pernicious Doctrine

“But when it came right down to the legality of nullifying the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 [Senator John] Tyler was far less sure of himself. What he attempted to do was discover and occupy a middle ground on an issue which had no detectable middle. On one extreme of the question Calhoun maintained the legality of both nullification and secession and the unconstitutionality of Jackson’s Force Bill.

[Daniel] Webster, on the other hand, consistently upheld the illegality of secession and nullification and argued the propriety of using force in the circumstance. Tyler upheld the right of secession while denying the right of nullification. But he also denied the right of the federal government to employ force against nullification when it occurred.

Even firm States’ rights Virginians like St. George Tucker could not accept this peculiar dichotomy in Tyler’s thinking. It was a question of either submitting or seceding, and since South Carolina had not seceded, the federal government had no alternative but to compel the State to comply with federal legislation.

. . . Tyler informed Virginia’s Governor John Floyd on January 16, the day Jackson asked for a congressional authorization of force, that:

“If S. Carolina be put down, then may each of the States yield all pretensions to sovereignty. We have a consolidated govt. and a master will soon arise. This is inevitable. How idle to talk of me serving a republic for any length of time, with an uncontrolled power over the military, exercised at pleasure by the President . . . What interest is safe if the unbridled will of the majority is to have sway?”

By February 2 Tyler had warmed further to the theme that General Jackson was seeking to establish a military dictatorship in American. The old 1819 vision of the Man on Horseback returned. “Were men ever so deceived as we have been . . . in Jackson?” He asked Littleton Tazewell. “His proclamation has swept away all the barriers of the Constitution, and given us, in place of the Federal government, under which we fondly believed we were living, a consolidated military despotism . . . I tremble for South Carolina. The war-cry is up, rely upon it . . . The boast is that the President, by stamping like another Pompey on the earth, can raise a hundred thousand men.”

A few days later, on February 6, 1833, Tyler delivered his Senate speech against the Force Bill.

“Everything, Mr. President, is running into nationality. The government was created by the States, and may be destroyed by the States; yet we are told this is not a government of the States . . . The very terms employed in the Constitution indicate the true character of the government. The pernicious doctrine that this is a national and not a Federal Government, has received countenance from the late proclamation and message of the President.

The people are regarded as one mass, and the States as constituting one nation. I desire to know when this chemical process occurred . . . such doctrines would convert the States into mere petty corporations, provinces of one consolidated government. These principles give to this government authority to veto all State laws, not merely by Act of Congress, but by the sword and bayonet.

They would pace the President at the head of the regular army in array against the States, and the sword and cannon would come to be the common arbiter . . . to arm him with military power is to give him the authority to crush South Carolina, should she adopt secession.”

(And Tyler Too. A Biography of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler, Robert Seager, II, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963, pp. 92-93)

Below, author Langston Hughes recalls the distinct line of segregation drawn by black Americans between upper and lower classes, educated versus ill-educated, lightness and darkness of skin hue, and even between those with comfortable government employment and those not so blessed.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Ivy League Educated Black Segregationists

“. . . Washington colored people, as they called themselves, drew rigid class and color lines within the race against Negroes who worked with their hands, or who were dark in complexion and had no degrees from colleges. These upper class colored people consisted largely of government workers, professors and teachers, doctors, lawyers, and resident politicians. They were on the whole as unbearable and snobbish a bunch of people as I have ever come in contact with anywhere.

They lived in comfortable home, had fine cars, played bridge, drank Scotch, gave exclusive “formal” parties, and dressed well, but seemed to me altogether lacking in real culture, kindness, or good common sense. Lots of them had degrees from colleges like Harvard and Dartmouth and Columbia and Radcliffe and Smith, but God knows what they learned there.

They had all the manners and airs of reactionary, ill-bred nouveaux riches – except that they were not really rich. Just middle class.”

(The Big Sea, Autobiography of Langston Hughes, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1986 (original 1940), pp. 206-207)

Necessity being the mother of invention, the war and naval blockade thrust upon the American South forced its citizenry to rely on their ingenuity to not only survive, but fight tenaciously for independence against vast and overwhelming odds for four grueling years.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

An Isolated But Self-Reliant People

“One lasting a beneficial result of this situation somewhat compensates for the temporary inconveniences and sufferings. It stimulated the inventive genius of the Southern people and revealed to them a mechanical capacity which they did not know they possessed. Speaking to a New England audience in 1886 on “The Political and Social South During the War,” [former North Carolina governor and United States Senator Zebulon] Vance said:

“You can scarcely imagine the feeling which comes to a people when isolated as we were, and shut out from communication with all the world. A nation in prison we were, in the midst of civilized society, and forced to rely exclusively upon ourselves for everything. When the war began, with the exception of a few cotton and woolen mills and the crude establishments common to all plantations and villages, we were utterly without manufactures of any kind . . . But the land was full of resources, and the raw material for the manufacture of all that we needed.

And strange as it may appear to you, it was full of mechanical capacity to deal with this material . . . Cotton and woolen mills quickly sprang up and the capacity of existing ones enlarged. Foundries for casting cannon, shops for making fire arms, swords and bayonets, and mills for making powder were set up in abundance. Shoes and blankets were made by the hundred thousand, and transportation wagons and camp equipages of all kind soon supplied the demand.

The situation called into active use all the mechanical talent of our people. The village or cross-road blacksmith refurnished his shop and made tools and agricultural implements for his neighbors; the shoemaker, the cooper, the wheelwright, and the tanner, all sprang into sudden importance. Even the druggist who compounded from the wondrous flora of the country substitutes for nearly all the drugs of commerce, which if not so efficacious were at least more harmless than the genuine article.

The devices and expedients adopted in all the industries, the social and domestic departments of our daily life, were most ingenious, though sometimes ludicrous.”

((North Carolina, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, Vol. II, R.D.W. Conner, American Historical Society, 1929, pp. 195-196)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a sterling example of serious religious differentiation between North and South as he resigned his pastorate in Boston due to an inability “to conceal disbelief in traditional creeds.” His “emancipated spirit soared” as he demonstrated that a philosopher could attain great heights in intellectual adventures, and believing one’s own thoughts before religious orthodoxy. To “realize the divine in every man, to be a nonconformist, with virtues that were more than penances . . . was his religion.” It would not take long for people like this to ignite open warfare.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

New England Unitarians and Universalists

“The deists of the late colonial period and of the infant republic were usually political radicals as well. They advocated independence, fought in the Revolution, and ended their careers supporting the French Revolution and Jeffersonian democracy. Indeed, Jefferson himself was the arch-deist, and for that reason all the more detested by the New England orthodox Federalist of the Fisher Ames sort.

Unitarianism was even more destructive of orthodoxy than was deism. In New England it cut across both Episcopal and Congregational-Presbyterian churches, taking over many whole congregations complete with clergy and church property. In 1785, the Episcopalian King’s Chapel in Boston turned Unitarian under its pastor, James Freeman, and when Freeman was refused ordination by the Episcopal Church he received it from his own congregation acting as an independent religious organization.

The English traveler, Thomas Hamilton, summarized the usual British estimate of Unitarianism:

“Unitarianism is the democracy of religion. Its creed makes fewer demands on the faith or the imagination, than that of any other Christian sect. It appeals to known reason in every step of its progress, and while it narrows the compass of miracle, enlarges that of demonstration. Its followers have less bigotry than other religionists, because they have less enthusiasm. A Unitarian will take nothing for granted but the absolute and plenary efficacy of his own reason in matters of religion. He is not a fanatic, but a dogmatist . . . and [chooses] religion as one does a hat, because it fitted him.”

Their importance and leadership however, were out of proportion to their numbers, for they were largely of the middle and upper classes, representing both wealth and learning. They were strong in the literary and cultural centers of New England.

If Unitarianism was the faith of the well-to-do, well-educated dissenters from the doctrines of Calvin, the poorer New Englanders with liberal ideas, adopted the Universalism brought to American by John Murray in 1770. There was little difference in theology between the two sects; the Universalist merely placed their emphasis on the denial of hell and the doctrine of universal salvation. There were few Universalist churches in the Eastern cities, but they were numerous in the country districts.

Yale College became a hotbed of radicalism — at least in the eyes of conservative divines. Students called each other by the names of French radicals and met to discuss the progress, perfection, and the rights of man. In the words of the author of a history of a neighboring college, “the dams and dykes seemed to be swept away, and irreligion, immorality, skepticism, and infidelity came in like a flood.”

In 1799 only four or five Yale undergraduates professed religion, and in 1800 there was only one church member in the graduating class. “A young man who belonged to the church in that day was a phenomenon — almost a miracle.” By the end of the century, with the appointment of Henry Ware to the Hollis Professorship of theology, Unitarianism was fairly entrenched in the old training school for Puritan divines.”

(Freedom’s Ferment, Alice Felt Tyler, University of Minnesota Press, 1944, pp. 26-29)

The South believed the invader of their land inferior and recalled that Hannibal had destroyed more than ninety percent of a vastly superior Roman army; Frederick the Great defeated an army twice the size of his in 1757; and Zachary Taylor defeated 15,000 Mexicans at Buena Vista in 1847 with 5,000 troops. Historian Bell Wiley noted: “Indeed, it is doubtful that any people ever went to war with greater enthusiasm than did Confederates in 1861.”

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

The South’s Invincible Bravery

“General Robert E. Lee had decided to disregard the advice of a division commander [to] assault the strong Federal position [at Malvern Hill]. For the task he selected country boys and men from the Deep South . . . together with regiments from North Carolina and Virginia. These were proud soldiers, even a bit cocky now because for nearly a week they had been pushing Yankees back . . . [the enemy general] thought they came on with “a reckless disregard for life . . . with a determination to capture our army, or destroy it.”

At Sharpsburg a Federal remembered that the advance of his unit was stopped by a “long and steady line of rebel gray . . . sweeping down through the woods.”

Another Northerner recounted the “invincible bravery” of the attacking Confederates and how his regiment “opened a withering, literally withering, fire on the rebels . . . but they still advanced. A color-bearer came forward within fifteen yards of our line, and with the utmost desperation waved a rebel flag in front of him.

Our men fairly roared, “Shoot the man with the flag! And he went down in a twinkling and the flag was not raised in sight again. Several charges at Sharpsburg cost the Twenty-sixth North Carolina Regiment sixty-two percent of its 325 men. One company lost all but five of its 30 men; two-thirds of the men and all of the officers in another company were killed or wounded.

The South lost 175,000 soldiers in the first twenty-seven months of combat. This number was more than the entire Confederate military service in the summer of 1861 and it far exceeded the strength of any army that Lee ever commanded. More than 80,000 Southerners fell in just five battles. At Gettysburg, three out of every ten Confederates present were hit; one brigade lost sixty-five percent of its men and seventy percent of its field officers in a single charge.

A North Carolina regiment started the action with some 800 men; only 216 survived unhurt. Another unit lost two-thirds of its men as well as its commander in a brief assault.”

(Attack and Die, Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage, Grady McWhiney and Perry Jamieson, University of Alabama Press, 1982, pp. 3-5)

Contemplating victory at New Orleans some 50 years prior, the British commander announced that his forces had come to “restore order, maintain public tranquility, and enforce peace and quiet under His Majesty’s laws.” The secessionists of that day were required to surrender their arms and suppress all flags except those of England. Full protection of person and property was held out to all who would renew the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and the band would play “Rule Britannia.” 

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa 1865.com

Lincoln’s Beast in New Orleans

“When the army transport Mississippi at noon on May 1 [1862] tied up to the wharf at the foot of Poydras Street, the New York Times correspondent on board reported:

 “I saw several instances of the bitter spirit of the rabble, and even of people whom one might have taken from their appearance to be respectable. The levee, for the whole length of the river front of the city, was constantly crowded by a turbulent throng and whenever a boat belonging to the fleet passed them, its occupants were jeered and hooted at . . . This wall of human beings stood there as enemies to bar our entry to the city.”

As the soldiers were disembarking, angry citizens had to be held back at point of bayonet. Voices from the mob called out “Picayune Butler,” “You’ll never see home again.” “Hallo, epaulets, lend us a picayune.”

 The picayune, Louisiana’s smallest coin in colonial days, had recently achieved minstrel-show fame in a jocular song about “the arrival of a mythical Picayune Butler at a mythical town for mythical purposes. General Butler, in his stateroom, hearing the outcries for “Picayune Butler,” paused in the composition of his proclamation to the citizens of New Orleans long enough to inquire if any of the bands could play the tune. As the music was unavailable, “Yankee Doodle” and “The Star Spangled Banner” were played instead.

At 5PM, Butler began his march through the downtown section of the city to the Custom House [with Massachusetts and Wisconsin troops]. Crowds on the pavements craned their necks. Here and there a throat screamed: “Where is the damned rascal?” “There he goes, God damn him!” “I see the old damned villain!” Others taunted the Federals with “Shiloh!” “Bull Run!” “Hurrah for Beauregard!” “Go home, you damned Yankees!”  

In his proclamation to the citizens of New Orleans Butler emphasized the peaceful intention behind the mailed fist. There would be martial law, but only for so long as it might be necessary, since the United States forces had come to “restore order, maintain public tranquility, and enforce peace and quiet under the laws and constitution of the United States.”

Secessionists were required to surrender their arms and suppress all flags except those of the United States. Full protection of person and property was held out to all who would renew the oath of allegiance.

Mayor John T. Monroe, summoned on May 2, made his way to [Butler’s headquarters] through packed, sullen streets and was received in the . . . Ladies Parlor.  Monroe, remembering Butler as a fellow Democrat in prewar days, greeted the General as “always a friend of the South.”

“Stop sir,” Butler interrupted, “Let me set you right on that point at once. I was always a friend of Southern rights but an enemy of Southern wrongs.”

The interview was interrupted by loud shouts in the streets of “hang the traitor,” and an aide rushed in. “General Williams orders me to say that he fears he may not be able to control the mob.”  “Give me compliments to General Williams,” directed Butler, “and tell him, if he finds he cannot control the mob, to open upon them with artillery.”

[Butler’s wife] Sarah Butler relished the experience, and described it to her sister:

“And what do you think about being among the first to enter New Orleans . . . Mr. Butler ordering the opening of the St. Charles, compelling a hackman at the point of a bayonet to drive us to the Hotel. We had no guard but an armed soldier on the box and another behind the carriage. A regiment was drawn up around the hotel and four howitzers on the corners. The band was stationed on the piazza, and they played with fiery energy all the national airs from Yankee Doodle to the Star Spangled Banner.” 

[Butler stated] . . . “if a shot is fired from any house, that house will never again cover a mortal’s head; and if I can discover the perpetrator of the deed, the place that now knows him shall know him no more forever. I have the power to suppress this unruly element in your midst, and I mean to use it.”

(Lincoln’s Scapegoat General, A Life of General Benjamin F. Butler, Richard West, Jr., Houghton Mifflin, 1965, pp. 131-135)

In the small plantation communities where African slaves lived and labored it was Southern men like Presbyterian Rev. Charles Colcock Jones who brought them from heathenism to Christianity.  The elder Roswell King mentioned below was a Connecticut native who came South to manage the large antebellum estates of Pierce Butler in Glynn County, Georgia. The son, also named Roswell King, later moved to northern Georgia to establish cotton and woolen mills and the town of Roswell, Georgia still bears his name.  It was Northerner Eli Whitney who made large scale cotton production profitable — which supplied slave-produced material to hungry New England mills.  Manhattan bankers provided easy credit to enable land acquisition for more cotton production.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Introducing the Slaves to Jesus

“My experience with these people [African slaves] was very large, having been for long years the contract physician on the river plantations where religious opportunities were very limited. In many cases, the Negro preacher or watchman (as they were called) was the only teacher and leader they had. Though on a few of the larger estates, salaried chaplains were employed.

I recollect many years ago being engaged in correspondence on the subject. The Reverend Jones spent many years of his useful life, and liberally of his private resources, in endeavoring to do good to these ignorant and dependent people by religious teaching and preaching.

To reassure him in the self-sacrifice of time and means, he addressed a letter of inquiry to Mr. Roswell King of Butler’s Island, where there were nearly a thousand slaves, [asking] whether those professing religion were more orderly and faithful than the others.

I commended the pious work in which he was engaged, but it being often at night and involving a long ride, and his health not being strong, I begged him to assign his labors to some lesser light in the church who was more physically able.

There were wider and more congenial fields waiting for him where his education, talents, eminent piety, and zeal in his Master’s service made him an honored and distinguished name to his life’s end.”

(Dr. Bullie’s Notes, Reminiscences of Early Georgia, James Holmes, Cherokee Publishing Company, 1976, pp. 161-163)