Circa1865

On April 19, 1861, Lincoln began his blockade of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports to deny imports to Americans in the South. This included much-needed medical supplies which would have saved the lives of thousands of civilians, young and old. Below, President Davis’s wife Varina writes of an imprisoned soldier’s fear for his family at home.

America’s Home Front, 1861-1865

“Our soldiers fought for the love they bore for their country, though it was a desperate fight. They had to contend against far more dreadful foes than the federal army. They fought cold, heat, starvation, and the knowledge that their families at home were enduring the same privations.

One poor fellow at Johnson’s Island, Ohio’s prison camp, who was dying of the want endured there, wrote and asked if I might write to his wife of his last hours and give her his love. “I have a letter from my wife,” he said. “She walked my little girl – who was just a month old when I saw her last – up and down, up and down, tried willow-tea and every other remedy she could think of for the baby’s chills; but the doctor said nothing but quinine could save her. And Madam, my wife did not have that so my three-year-old baby died, and now I am dying and my poor, starving wife will have nothing to comfort her. But, he wrote, “If our folks can remain freemen, it is alright.”

This spirit of devotion was manifested by the soldiers and officers of the Confederate States of America everywhere, and when their hearts failed them from brooding over the needs of their helpless families, the women choked back their tears, tried to forget their bare feet, their meagre fare, their thousand alarms by night, and all the grinding want that pressed them out of their youth and life, and wrote of the cheer our victories gave them, of their prayers for our success, and their power to resist unto the end.”

(Jefferson Davis: A Memoir by His Wife, Volume II. Varina Davis. Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America. 1990 (originally published 1890), pp. 495-496)

“The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took pains to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier and oblige them to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was raised. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so.”  Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Cooper, March 1814

Fear of Standing Armies

After the HMS Leopard seized American sailors in mid-1807 amid deteriorating relations with England, Congress began debating an increase in the US military. Though Thomas Jefferson’s administration had severely cut troop numbers in 1802, in 1808 the strength in men was only 6500.

“In 1811, Secretary of War William Eustis asked for 10,000 men to be added to the regular army. Senator William Branch Giles, a Virginia Democrat but violently anti-Madison, proposed 25,000 instead of 10,000.

Now began a lively debate in Congress between supporters and detractors of standing forces. Supporters insisted that a regular army of 30,000 could not possibly endanger civilian control of the military.

Detractors, on the other hand, drew upon history to prove that standing armies had more often than not overthrown free governments. Some detractors wanted to see the regular army abolished, for them the country would be forced to engage in nothing more than defensive military operations.

Neither geographical origin not party seemed wholly to govern the way men voted on the choice between regulars and militia. Federalists from Massachusetts and Connecticut reliance on militia because of the excellence of their own citizen soldiery, while Federalists from most other States usually spoke in favor of regulars. New York representative Peter B. Porter favored both types; he called the militia the shield of the nation and regulars the sword. His metaphor displeased most Democrats who did not want the nation brandishing a sword.

In the end all Senate Federalists joined with some Democrats to enact Giles’ augmentation – with Henry Clay and Porter pushing the Senate bill through the House, becoming law on 11 January 1812. The result was 10 regiments of infantry, 2 of artillery, and 1 of light dragoons – though the ranks were never more than half-filled. The new law made provision for two major-generals and five brigadiers, but not for a general-in-chief to give professional advice to the civilian secretary of war.

Twice in four years, in 1808 and again in 1812, Congress had tripled the size of the regular army on paper. One month after the second tripling it gave the President permission to alert 50,000 volunteers, appropriated $1 million to support them, and if called into federal service, to serve for one year.

Major-General Henry Dearborn requested militia from Connecticut in June 1812, got he got instead a note from Acting-Governor John Cotton Smith. The State council and concluded that the request was unconstitutional on two grounds: (1), the President had not indicated that there existed any of the three exigencies stipulated in the Constitution – an invasion, an insurrection, or a combination to break the laws – and (2), Connecticut militia could not be placed under the immediate command of federal officers when proper State officers were already designated for them.

The US Secretary of War, entering the dialogue, insisted that an invasion did exist or was imminent. The governor countered that neither a declaration of war nor the nearby cruising of a hostile fleet constituted an invasion or even the threat of one. He would send no State troops.”

(The War of 1812. John K. Mahon. Da Capo reprint, University of Florida Press, 1972, pp. 3-4; 32)

The author below writes that “Most Puritans sought a homogenous society that made any kind of stranger generally unwelcome,” and “their efforts to expunge untrustworthy members with white skin were legendary.” Those with white complexions from different cultures posed a “complicated dilemma” for Puritans, but the vast gulf between their own and Indian and African cultures made the latter unwelcome except as slaves.

Puritan Slaveholders

“Slavery began in New England during the first years of settlement in Massachusetts, and thus, the Puritans learned how to be slaveowners immediately on arrival. As white New Englanders established their new settlements, they enslaved Indian populations both to control them and draw upon them for labor. Although John Winthrop did not immediately see Indians as slaves, it dawned upon him that they could be used as such.

Winthrop recorded requests for Indian slaves both locally and in Bermuda. Wars with the Narragansett and Pequot tribes garnered large numbers of slaves, and the trading of Indian slaves abroad brought African slaves to Massachusetts shores. In 1645, Emmanuel Downing, Winthrop’s brother-in-law and a barrister, welcomed a trade of Pequot slaves for African slaves.

However, the enslavement of Indians had a different tenor than the enslavement of Africans. The indigenous slaves represented an enemy, a conquered people, and a great threat to Puritan society. African slaves represented a trade transaction, laborers without strings attached. Moreover, Indians slaves were part of peace negotiations and control of the region. They served as collateral with which to negotiate with local Indian leaders. Further, Puritan colonists could expel troublesome Indians out of the colony or simply control them as slave property.”

(Tyrannicide. Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts and South Carolina. Emily Blanck. UGA Press, 2014. p. 12-13)

In the judgement of George Washington, the government of the US was in form and nature a “Confederated, or Federal Republic” and all States within were small republics themselves. Further, the federal agent of the States was not a “republic,” but only the assigned agent of these individual republics. Montesquieu affirmed that in a confederation, the States do not forfeit or part with their individual sovereignty. Philosopher and diplomat Emmerich de Vattel asserted as well that “several sovereign and independent States may unite themselves together by a perpetual Confederacy without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect State, and together constitute a federation.

Abraham Lincoln ended this original intent of the Founders in 1861 with his war upon States wishing to voluntarily depart the 1789 agreement. Alexander H. Stephens wrote postwar that the 1861-1865 conflict was the result of Lincoln’s abuse of powers and forced national consolidation.

Washington’s Confederate Republic

“In the popular mind in the post-Revolution time, those representing the citizens of the States at large, each acting for themselves in their sovereign capacities.

“[The various] demonstrations, devices, mottoes and symbols, clearly showed how the great mass of people, in all the States, understood the new Constitution. It was nothing but a more perfect bond of union between the States. “Federal” was the watchword of the day in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond and Charleston. It was the grand symbolized idea throughout the whole length and breadth of the land. There can be no doubt that the people thought they were adopting a Federal Constitution – forming a federated union.

Now then, what is the meaning of this word “federal,” which entered so deeply into the thoughts, hearts and understandings of the people of that day?

Dr. Johnson, the highest authority of that day, in his Dictionary, thus defines the word: Federal – (Foedus, Lat.)  relating to a League or Contract. Federate, he defines (Federatus, Lat.) leagued, joined in a Confederacy. The great American lexicographer Noah Webster, says of this word “Federal,” that it is derived from the Latin word “Foedus” which means a League. A League he defines to be “an Alliance or Confederacy between Princes or States for their mutual aid or defense.” And in defining the meaning of the word “Federal,” he uses this language: “Consisting of a Compact between States or Nations; founded on alliance by contract of mutual agreement; as, a Federal Government, such as that of the United States.”

Federal, from its very origin and derivation, therefore, has no meaning and can have none, disassociated from a Compact or Agreement of some sort, and it is seldom ever used to qualify any Compacts or Agreements except those between States or Nations. So that Federal and Confederate mean substantially the same thing.

Washington, in one of his letters which I have just read, spoke of the new Government as “a Confederacy.” In another, to Sir Edward Newenham, dated the 20^th of July, 1788, he speaks of the new Government then ratified by enough States to carry it into effect as a “Confederated Government.” In . . . 1789 he expressed his conviction that “his happiness . . . that “the Senate would at all times cooperate in every measure which may tend to promote the welfare of “this Confederated Republic.” These are the terms by which he characterized “the union” after the present Constitution was formed and after it was in operation. There is no difference between the words Federal and Confederated as thus used and applied. We see that Washington used them both, at different times, to signify the same thing, that is, the Union of the American States under the Constitution.”

(A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Alexander H. Stephens. Sprinkle Publications, 1994 (Original: S.A. George, Printers, 1868), pp. 167-170)

The bloody carnage of 1862, capped by the north’s bloody Fredericksburg defeat in late December of that year, brought voluntary enlistments to an end. But rather than ending the war between Americans, Lincoln’s Republican party resorted to a conscription law in March of 1863 to fill their depleted ranks This was in practice a “whip” to gain those attracted by the generous bounty monies from federal, State, county and towns to satisfy Lincoln’s quotas. Recent immigrants, especially unskilled laborers, were a prime target of bounty monies or substitution.

Bounty Money in Buffalo

“I was born on the 16^th day of November 1843 in the province of Brandenburg, district of Potsdam, Kreis (county) Prenzlau in the Uckermark. I emigrated with my parents (Phillip and Auguste Albertine Schultze Milleville) to this country in the year 1847, landing in Buffalo on the 4^th of July 1847. My parents settled in the town of Wheatfield, Niagara County, in a German community called Neu Bergholz.

I lived at home until the age of 16, and then apprenticed to tailor Friedrich Parchart for three years for room and board. All the cash money I had during the three years was 75 cents which I received from a political candidate for delivering a letter.

In April 1862 I went to the city of Buffalo and got a job with tailor Adam Sipple on Main Street. I worked for $6 a month and board; after 6 months I asked for more pay, he let me go. Then I got work at nearby Fort Erie, Canada, at $8 a month with board for about 4 or 5 months. Then I got a job again in Buffalo, but my boss was a drunkard. He would work all day Sunday, and Sunday night he would go to a saloon and often not come home until Tuesday morning while his family suffered. Then I got a job at 32 Main Street with tailor Jacob Metzger.

There I stayed until the 20^th day of January 1864 when I enlisted in Company I, 2^nd New York Mounted Rifles. For enlisting I got $300 government bounty, $75 State bounty, and $110 County Bounty. Of the government bounty we got $50 every six months – the State and County money we received immediately.

As recruits we were taken to Fort Porter on the banks of the Niagara River. After a few days a fellow enlistee asked to borrow my overcoat to go into town for tobacco but forgot to come back. I guess he was a Bounty jumper. We then needed a pass to go into the city, but the boys would arrange with the guards to walk in opposite directions in order to slip through.

In early June 1864 we had our first battle at Petersburg, Virginia. The Rebels were following us and attacked in the rear. They then went around our left flank. We lost 13 men out of our company; some of the boys threw away everything and ran. The next day the Rebs had us bottled up and we barely slipped out.”

(Excerpt, Civil War Diary of Herman Henry Milleville: Historical Society of North German Settlements in WNY, Winter 2025 Issue. Eugene W. Camann Collection)

Despite their formerly-invincible political influence waning in the early 1890s, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) took aim at school textbook authors who suggested that the American South may have fought for the same independence and liberty their forefathers had in 1776 – branding it “disloyal history.”

School book authors mentioned below are John Fiske (1842 – 1901), born in Hartford, Connecticut; and Daniel H. Montgomery (1837-1928), a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island. Both States dominated the colonial transatlantic slave trade.

GAR War Upon “Disloyal History”

“Another phase of their patriotic campaign was the Grand Army’s intensified textbook warfare, in which the Confederate Veteran’s finally took up cudgels for the authors and point of view of their own section. Union veterans, feeling the general public reaction against liberality to old soldiers after the pension gift of 1890, sought some explanation for their declining prestige.

The GAR veterans concluded that it lay in the growing tendency of literature and textbooks to minimize the American South’s “crime.” The Boston Grand Army Record asserted:

“It is often spoken of in [Grand Army] Post meetings and at Camp Fires and on other public occasions that the general public opinion is not so favorable to the surviving Union soldiers as it formerly was . . . voters who have studied School Histories since 1865 have no idea what the Union Army contended for, what sacrifices they endured . . . [and] the present emasculated public opinion regarding the Right and Wrong of the Rebellion is the natural fruit of these emasculated School Histories. The indifference regarding the duties of the present generation to the surviving Union soldiers is the legitimate product of False School histories written by Professor Fiske and Reverend Montogomery imported from England. Englishmen helped the Rebels when the United States was in what seemed its death throes. We do not now need the services of Englishmen to write up the Rebellion in our School History.”

While national and State GAR headquarters showered educational institutions with angry complaints, local GAR committees paid grim calls upon school superintendents. These committees made scathing reports on textbooks by Southern writers and wrote even more bitter reviews of those produced in the north for national sale.

A typical expression was that of the Massachusetts GAR that many histories were “open to the suspicion that that they had “soothed the wounded spirit of secession for the sake of Southern trade.”  They give over-prominence and over-praise to the  leaders and movements of the secession forces, and so treat the events of the war period as to leave the impression upon the youthful mind that the war was merely a quarrel between two factions, in which both were equally to blame.”

(Veterans in Politics: The Story of the GAR. Mary R. Dearing. LSU Press, 1952. p. 480-481)

Lt. John M. Kell was second in command on the Confederate States raider Alabama and wrote his wife in late December 1862 that “we are in quiet anchorage at the Arcas Cayes, and here we passed the holy season of Christmas. The time so full of home delights and good cheer was to be to us but a time of memories and work.” He wrote her the following on the first day of the New Year:

Christmas and the New Year at Sea

“January 1^st, 1863. Another New Year has rolled around, but alas, how few the inmates of the broken homes in our beloved Southland that are permitted to-day to greet each other with the time-honored salutation, A happy New Year!”

Let us not sorrow or despond but rather lift up grateful hearts that are still able to defend our homes and firesides from the wicked invasion of the hordes of the enemy and their vandal minions, and God grant that ere another year rolls around our land may rejoice in peace and acknowledged independence!”

(Recollections of a Naval Life, including the Cruises of the CSA Steamers, Sumpter and Alabama. John McIntosh Kell. Neale Company, Publishers. Washington. 1911, pg. 207.)

The author below was born in Ireland in 1822 and 9 years later came with his family to Philadelphia. He later studied law and theology before moving to Iowa in 1843 and was admitted to the bar in 1847. Politically active, Mahony was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives twice; co-founded the Dubuque Herald in 1852 and elected twice as Dubuque County sheriff.

He was arrested in mid-1862 for criticism of Lincoln’s government, held in Old Capitol Prison, and released in November after signing a document stating that he would “form an allegiance to the United States and not bring charges against those who had arrested and confined him.”

It was Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, and his Attorney General Black, who both determined that to wage war against a State and adhere to its enemies was the Constitution’s very definition of treason.

Lincoln’s War Proclamation

“One of the most flagrant acts of Executive violation of the United States Constitution was the proclamation of the third of May 1861, providing for the increase in number of the regular army and navy, and prescribing that volunteers called into the service of the United States under that proclamation should serve for a period of three years if the war might continue during that period. As part of the history of the subversion of the government, this proclamation is referred to as evidence of fact.

The United States Constitution, in the most positive, express and unequivocal terms, delegates to Congress the sole authority both to raise armies and to make rules for their government, as well as those of the naval force. This Constitutional provision was disregarded by the President in his proclamation of the third of May. He assumed the power in that proclamation which the Constitution had vested in Congress alone, and which no one ever supposed that a President had a right to exercise.

Thus, by almost the first official act of Lincoln did he violate the Constitution, which, little more than a month previous he had taken an oath to “preserve, protect and defend.” This oath, it seems, he has since construed so that it does not require him to obey the Constitution, as if he could both preserve, protect and defend it by the same act which disobeys it.

It was in vain that the Constitution vested in Congress only the power to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the governing of the land and naval forces. Lincoln by his proclamation assumed the right and power to do all this – a right which scarcely any monarch, if a single one, would dare to assume, and a power which no one but a usurper would attempt to exercise.”

(Prisoner of State. Dennis A. Mahoney. Addressed to Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton and entered by Act of Congress in the year 1863. Published by Crown Rights Book Company, 2001, pp. 29-31)

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland vetoed the “Dependent Pension Bill” which sought to reward a favored Republican constituency, the North’s veterans of the Civil War. Since 1865, the Republican party had created and expanded a virtual national welfare program to attract their votes. Viewing this bill as simply a “raid on the US Treasury” benefitting the Republican party, Cleveland incurred the wrath of Northern veterans as he believed it was charity, and his veto the honorable path to take.

The Daily Advertiser of Boston in early September 1865 contained the letter of an astute resident who advised the public to give veterans work and a full share of public offices. Otherwise, he feared, “we shall guarantee a faction, a political power, to be known as the soldier vote . . . I wonder if our State politicians remember that 17,000 men can give the election to either party.”

America’s First Welfare Program

Lincoln’s government initiated a military pension system in mid-July 1862 and included a $5 fee for Claim Agents who assisted veterans; attorneys could charge $1.50 if additional testimony and affidavit were required. The House of Representatives set this latter amount given the temptation for unscrupulous attorneys to take undue advantage of the pensioners. With this Act passed, practically every member of Congress became anxious to provide for soldiers, sailors and their dependents – more than a few began to take advantage of the political power that lay in the hands of the “soldier vote.” A Mr. Holman, representing Indiana in Congress, praised the 5,000 Indiana men “who gave up the charmed circle of their homes to maintain the old flag of the Union.”

As the war continued into 1864 and the spirit of revenge in the North increased, it was officially proposed to create a large pension fund for Northern soldiers by confiscating Southern property.  In September 1865, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a former slave-State, “proposed a plan whereby he hoped the government would realize over three and a half billions of dollars by confiscating Southern property. Although no such a measure ever became law, it reveals the attitude which several members of the House had toward the question of pensions.”

The abuse of the pension system by 1875 caused the commissioner, Henry Atkinson, to state that “the development of frauds of every character in pension claims has assumed such magnitude as to require the serious attention of Congress . . .”

(History of the Civil War Military Pensions, 1861-1865. John William Oliver. Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 844, Vol. 4, No. 1. pp. 11-12; 14; 20; 41)

The men of the 51^st Pennsylvania Regiment, mostly of Harrisburg, mustered in late 1861 to help “save the Union.” Their early service was at North Carolina’s Outer Banks through the capture of New Bern in March of 1862, where blue-coated soldiers ransacked homes and businesses. Afterward, empty troopships returning northward were said to be loaded with stolen furniture, paintings, libraries, jewelry and antiques. It is recalled that Willam Penn and his Quakers were slaveholders, and in the early 1700s were kidnapping Tuscarora children in North Carolina for slavery in Pennsylvania.

In mid-July 1863, the 51st Regiment was attached to Gen. W.T. Sherman’s army. Ordered to destroy anything considered “military or commercially related” at Jackson, the regiment first helped themselves to the possessions of the citizenry.

The Sacking of Another American City

“After the 51^st Pennsylvania Regiment under Col. John Hartranft planted its colors in the front of Mississippi’s State Capitol at Jackson, it stacked arms in the street. A detail was made to guard the stacks and another to guard prisoners who had been paroled at Vicksburg.

The remainder of the regiment not on special duty then broke ranks and ransacked the town for tobacco, whiskey and such valuables as had been left behind by the fleeing citizens on the retreat of Gen. Joe Johnston. Tobacco warehouses had been broken open, and the invaders freely supplied themselves with the weed of the very best brands; none other suited them now. Whiskey was the next thing to be sought out, and a copious supply was found and used. After supplying themselves to repletion with the above, then private property had to suffer.

Grocery, dry goods, hat, 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 was carried off; crockery, chinaware, pianos, furniture, etc., were smashed to atoms; hogsheads of sugar rolled into the street and the heads knocked in and contents spilled.

About noon the Pennsylvania regiment was ordered to occupy a large fort near the city. As the regiment was marching out it made quite a ludicrous appearance, for the men were dressed in the most laughable and grotesque habiliments that could be found. Some clad in all female attire, some with hats having crowns a foot high, shawls, sunbonnets, frock skirts, with crinoline over all instead of underneath; in fact, everything was put on that a head, hand, arm, body, a foot or feet could get into, and . . . carrying bonnets and bandboxes in their hands.

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

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