John M. Forbes, after July 12, 1863

We landed in New York on Sunday evening [July 12], the day before the great draft riots there broke out. When the pilot came on board, the news of our military success at Gettysburg was coming in, though we could not know at what cost of life among our friends. There was just time for Aspinwall to reach a train that would take him to his home on the North River, and so he left me with our servant John to take care of the rather numerous trunks.

It was after sundown that the little steamer landed John and myself on the wharf, far down the East River, among as bad-looking a lot of roughs as I ever saw assembled. We did not know that the great riot was about breaking out, nor luckily did the gentry around us know what a prize lay within their grasp; but it was easy to see that the dangerous classes were out: the police were hardly to be seen, outside of the custom-house officers, and these, knowing something of us, readily passed our baggage without examination; and I found myself on the wharf in the increasing darkness with my pile of trunks, which included three containing six millions of 5-20 bonds (worth to-day [1884] about eight millions in gold). With some difficulty I fought off, without an absolute quarrel, the horde of persistent hackmen who claimed me as their legitimate prey; and I was standing at bay, wondering what to do next, when I was saluted by the mellifluous Hibernian accent of a rough-looking customer. “Here, Mr. Forbes, take my carriage!” I looked at him without much to increase my confidence in his wretched trap, but asked how he knew me. “And was I not in the regiment at Port Royal when you was there?” “Take these three trunks, my good fellow,” said I, pointing to the treasure-bearers; “and, John, you must get a cart and bring the rest to the Brevoort.” We rattled safely over the rough, dark streets, and I was soon glad to deposit my charge among the heaps in the old Brevoort House entry, and then to find my wife and Alice awaiting me.

I found also that Governor Andrew was in town, and the intercourse with the North was already cut off by the mob. We heard that night the most exciting stories, from callers, of what was going on, and especially from Collector Barney of the New York Custom-house, whose house was threatened. The draft was made a pretext for the mobbing of negroes, as it was reported that the object of the draft was to free their race; and so the Irish were called upon to kill all Africans. It was said that about fifteen hundred persons were killed during the skirmishes of those two days.

For safety we dispatched Alice early Monday morning to Staten Island to our cousin, Frank Shaw,¹ where, as he was a well-known abolitionist, she found herself out of the frying-pan into the fire; but good George Ward took her and all the Shaws into his house, and no harm came to them.

Captain Anthony and his family were at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on their way to Europe, and he saw a great deal more of actual violence than we did. The house was threatened, and many of the guests and servants deserted it, but the captain stuck to his guns and helped to allay the panic.

We discussed with Governor Andrew the expediency of bringing Colonel N. P. Hallowell's 55th Regiment of Colored Troops, just leaving Boston on its way South, into New York, but decided that the experiment was too dangerous a one. The different method pursued in managing the riot at this time in Boston would be a good lesson for the future. Governor Andrew put into all the armories, and places like the Spencer Rifle Company's factory, where arms were made, a sufficient force to protect them, and only one was attacked by the mob. This was at the North End, and was garrisoned by a company of artillerymen under Colonel Stephen Cabot, brought up from the fort. He loaded his guns, and made arrangements by cutting slits in the windows to defend them, and then tried to persuade the mob to disperse. Brickbats drove him back into the armory, and they then began to batter down the doors. He waited till there was some danger of their giving way, and then fired through the doors with his cannon into the mob, as well as through the windows with musketry. It is said there were thirty men killed. However that may be, his prompt action put an end to all further disturbances, and this was the only real outbreak in Massachusetts. These riots were no doubt instigated by Southern conspirators for the purpose of rousing up the Irish element in opposition to the draft which was going on; and their attacks upon negroes were wholly in consequence of their well-known jealousy against negro labor. With the great foreign population of Boston once roused, the consequences might have been quite as bad as they were in New York.

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¹ Francis George Shaw, the father of Col. Robert G. Shaw. —Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 48-51

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Henry Lee Higginson, February 15, 1863

Readville, Feb. 15, '63.

My Dear Henry, — I wrote you last a most “quaintly moral” letter.  . . . I think public opinion here is getting stouter, more efforts are making to educate the great unthinking. Good editorials are reprinted and circulated gratis.¹ A club is now forming in Boston, a Union Club, to support the Government, irrespective of party, started by Ward, Forbes, Norton, Amos Lawrence, etc., etc. This seems to me a very promising scheme. Clubs have in all trying times been great levers for moving events along. A similar club has already been started in Philadelphia under equally good auspices.

Our black regiment is likely to provoke discussion also, and in that way, if no other, to do good. Bob Shaw comes as Colonel, to arrive to-morrow, and Pen Hallowell as Lieutenant-Colonel (been here some days).² I have no idea that they can get a full regiment in New England, but think they can get enough intelligent fellows here to make a cadre for one or more regiments to be raised down South. I do not know how much you may have thought upon the subject, and I may send you a few slips to show you how we feel. I am very much interested without being at all sanguine. I think it very good of Shaw (who is not at all a fanatic) to undertake the thing. The Governor will select, or let Shaw select, the best white officers he can find, letting it be understood that black men may be commissioned as soon as any are found who are superior to white officers who offer. The recruiting will be in good hands. In the Committee of consultation are Forbes and Lawrence;² in New York, Frank Shaw; in Philadelphia, Hallowell's brother. You see this is likely to be a success, if any black regiment can be a success. If it fails, we shall all feel that tout notre possible has been done. If it fails, it will at least sink from under our feet the lurking notion that we need not be in a hurry about doing our prettiest, because we can always fall back upon the slaves, if the worst comes to the worst. You remember last September, upon somewhat the same ground, we agreed in approving the Proclamation, however ill-timed and idle it seemed to us. We shall knuckle down to our work the sooner for it. My first battalion (five companies, 325 strong) leave on Thursday for Fort Monroe. The battalion from California will be here in March. We have only about 175 more men to get here to reach a minimum. Now that Stoneman is Chief of Cavalry, I think I can get where I want to, so you can see me before the end of the summer.

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¹ The New England Loyal Publication Society had this origin: —

Mr. John M. Forbes kept an eye on the newspapers or other publications, irrespective of party, for any strong and sensible paragraph, speech, or article advocating a vigorous prosecution of the war. In the midst of all his important public and private works, he had these copied and multiplied and sent, at his expense, all over the country, especially to local newspapers. When the work became too serious an undertaking for one man, he formed the society, which became an important and efficient agency, during the last three years of the war, for the spreading of sound doctrines in politics and finance. Party and personal issues were excluded. Mr. Charles Eliot Norton took charge of the work as editor, and James B. Thayer, Esq., was the secretary. The Executive Committee were J. M. Forbes, President; William Endicott, Treasurer; C. E. Norton, J. B. Thayer, Edward Atkinson, Martin Brimmer, Rev. E. E. Hale, Henry B. Rogers, Professor W. B. Rogers, Samuel G. Ward.

² Readville, near Boston, was then the principal camp of assembly and instruction, and the Second Massachusetts Cavalry and the Fifty-Fourth Infantry were camped side by side. The latter was the first coloured regiment that went to the war from New England. It was regarded as a dangerous and doubtful experiment, — by some persons as a wicked one. Part of the men were obtained in Massachusetts, but a great number of them from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, by the energy and patriotism of Major George L. Stearns. Braving much hostile public opinion and ridicule, the field officers of the regiment, and many of the line, left white regiments to make the Fifty-Fourth a success.

The Colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, had served with credit in the Second Massachusetts Infantry; the Lieutenant-Colonel, Norwood Penrose Hallowell, a gallant fighter of Quaker stock, had already served in the Twentieth regiment, and later became Colonel of the Fifty-Fifth, while his brother Edward succeeded him as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth.

Major Higginson in his address, at the dedication of the Soldiers' Field, said of Robert Shaw: —

“I first saw him one evening in our first camp at Brook Farm — a beautiful, sunny-haired, blue-eyed boy, gay and droll and winning in his ways. In those early days of camp life, we fellows were a bit homesick, and longed for the company of girls . . . and I fell in love with this boy, and have not fallen out yet. He was of a very simple and manly nature — steadfast and affectionate, human to the last degree, without much ambition, except to do his plain duty. You should have seen Robert Shaw as he, with his chosen officers, led away from Boston his black men of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts amid the cheers of his townsmen. Presently he took them up to the assault of Fort Wagner, and was buried with them there in the trench.”

³ Of the summer of 1862, Mr. Forbes wrote in his notes: —

“In that summer I had the satisfaction of getting up the Committee of a Hundred for promoting the use of blacks as soldiers, and acted as chairman of it.

“We raised, I think, about $100,000 by subscription among the most conservative Republicans.  . . . I was able to do something towards the choice of the right officers, as well as in raising the men.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 234-6, 414-5

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, September 19, 1862

Headquarters, Army Of The Potomac,

Sept. 19, 1862.

We had a severe fight day before yesterday — a good many officers on our side wounded because the men in some brigades behaved badly. Frank Palfrey is wounded, not seriously, — Paul Revere, slightly wounded, — Wendell Holmes shot through the neck, a narrow escape, but not dangerous now, — Hallowell badly hit in the arm, but he will save the limb, — Dr. Revere is killed, — also poor Wilder Dwight, — little Crowninshield (Frank's son) shot in the thigh, not serious, — Bob Shaw was struck in the neck by a spent ball, not hurt at all, — Bill Sedgwick very badly wounded.¹ A good many others of my friends besides are wounded, but none I believe in whom you take an interest. None of General McClellan's aides were hit.²

This is not a pleasant letter, Mother: we have gained a victory — a complete one, but not so decisive as could have been wished.

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¹ This was the great battle of the Antietam, at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The friends here mentioned were officers of the Twentieth and Second Infantry, two of the best regiments that Massachusetts sent to the war. Colonel Palfrey of the Twentieth has already been mentioned. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (now Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States), was captain in the same regiment. His father, the Doctor, has told the story (“My Hunt after the [wounded] Captain”) in his works. Norwood P. Hallowell became colonel of the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts (coloured) regiment. Dr. Edward Revere (a grandson of Paul Revere), a noble man and devoted surgeon in the Twentieth, after arduous work among the wounded under fire, was shot dead as he rose from operating on a hurt soldier. Lieutenant-Colonel Dwight, early in the war, wrote, after hearing of a military success elsewhere, “I had rather lose my life to-morrow in a victory than save it for fifty years without one. When I speak of myself as not there, I mean the Massachusetts Second in whose fortunes and hopes I merge my own.” He had been largely instrumental in raising that, the first three-years regiment from his State. His wish was granted.

Lieutenant Francis Welch Crowninshield was a youth of delicate constitution, whose great spirit carried him through the whole period of the war, although he was struck by bullets at Winchester, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and elsewhere. Yet he steadily returned to his regiment, the Second Massachusetts Infantry, which he encouraged to reenlist. He became a captain, shared in the actions of the Atlanta Campaign, and, in spite of his frequent injuries, marched through to the sea with Sherman. The year after the war ended, his constitution succumbed to the effects of wounds and exposure, and he died in Italy. Of Robert Shaw much has been already, and will be, said in this volume.

William Dwight Sedgwick, of Lenox, Massachusetts, a good and strong man, well born, and of excellent attainments, was practising law in St. Louis when the war broke out. Eager in his patriotism, he at once joined the Second Massachusetts Infantry as a first lieutenant. The next year he was placed on the staff of his uncle, the gallant and loved General Sedgwick, with the rank of Major and Assistant Adjutant-General. While carrying orders at Antietam he was shot in the spine, and died in the hospital ten days later.

The stories of all these officers are told in the Harvard Memorial Biographies.

²  Lowell said no word of his important service, as one of the aides of the general in command, in helping to rally General Sedgwick's division, of the Second Corps, broken and retreating before the terrible fire. An officer who recognized him said, “I shall never forget the effect of his appearance. He seemed a part of his horse, and instinct with a perfect animal life. At the same time his eyes glistened and his face literally shone with the spirit and intelligence of which he was the embodiment. He was the ideal of the preux chevalier. After I was wounded, one of my first anxieties was to know what had become of him; for it seemed to me that no mounted man could have lived through the storm of bullets that swept the wood just after I saw him enter it.” (See Professor Peirce's Life of Lowell in the Harvard Memorial Biographies.)

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 224-5, 409-10