Address of Reverend James Freeman Clarke at the Funeral of William Lowell Putnam, October 29, 1861

In the fatal battle a week ago, Putnam fell while endeavoring to save a wounded companion, — fell, soiled with no ignoble dust — “non indecoro pulvere sordidum.” Brought to the hospital-tent, he said to the surgeon, who came to dress his wound, “Go to some one else, to whom you can do more good; you cannot save me,” — like Philip Sydney, giving the water to the soldiers who needed it more than himself. And still more striking, as showing his earnest conscientiousness, is the fact that he refused to allow Sturgis to remove him, saying: “It is your duty to leave me. It is your duty to go to your own men, and leave me here.” And his friend was obliged to carry him away in spite of this protest.

How hard that these precious lives should be thus wasted, apparently for naught, through the ignorance or the carelessness of those whose duty it was to make due preparation, before sending them to the field! How can we bear it?

We could not bear it, unless we believed in God. But it is not any blind chance, nor yet any human folly, which controls these events. All is as God wills, who knows what the world needs, and what we need, better than we can know it. And the death of Christ has taught us that it is God's great law that the best shall be sacrificed to save the worst, the innocent suffering for the good of the guilty. This is the law, ordained before the earth was made; and every pure soul sacrificed in a struggle with evil is another “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

And do we not see, in these great sacrifices, that the heroism itself is already a great gain? Is it not something to know that we do not belong to a degenerate race? Is it not a great blessing to know that we also, and our sons, are still as capable as our fathers were of great and noble sacrifices, — that Massachusetts still produces heroes, — that these boys of yours, trained perhaps in luxury, can, at the call of their country, die cheerfully for their land?

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 274-5

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 10, 1860

We have been up to the Mulberry Plantation with Colonel Colcock and Judge Magrath, who were sent to Columbia by their fellow-citizens in the low country, to hasten the slow movement of the wisdom assembled in the State Capital. Their message was, they said: “Go ahead, dissolve the Union, and be done with it, or it will be worse for you. The fire in the rear is hottest.” And yet people talk of the politicians leading! Everywhere that I have been people have been complaining bitterly of slow and lukewarm public leaders.

Judge Magrath is a local celebrity, who has been stretched across the street in effigy, showing him tearing off his robes of office. The painting is in vivid colors, the canvas huge, and the rope hardly discernible. He is depicted with a countenance flaming with contending emotions—rage, disgust, and disdain. We agreed that the time had now come. We had talked so much heretofore. Let the fire-eaters have it out. Massachusetts and South Carolina are always coming up before the footlights.

As a woman, of course, it is easy for me to be brave under the skins of other people; so I said: “Fight it out. Bluffton¹ has brought on a fever that only bloodletting will cure.” My companions breathed fire and fury, but I dare say they were amusing themselves with my dismay, for, talk as I would, that I could not hide.

At Kingsville we encountered James Chesnut, fresh from Columbia, where he had resigned his seat in the United States Senate the-day before. Said some one spitefully, “Mrs. Chesnut does not look at all resigned.” For once in her life, Mrs. Chesnut held her tongue: she was dumb. In the high-flown style which of late seems to have gotten into the very air, she was offering up her life to the cause.

We have had a brief pause. The men who are all, like Pickens,² “insensible to fear,” are very sensible in case of small-pox. There being now an epidemic of small-pox in Columbia, they have adjourned to Charleston. In Camden we were busy and frantic with excitement, drilling, marching, arming, and wearing high blue cockades. Red sashes, guns, and swords were ordinary fireside accompaniments. So wild were we, I saw at a grand parade of the home-guard a woman, the wife of a man who says he is a secessionist per se, driving about to see the drilling of this new company, although her father was buried the day before.

Edward J. Pringle writes me from San Francisco on November 30th: “I see that Mr. Chesnut has resigned and that South Carolina is hastening into a Convention, perhaps to secession. Mr. Chesnut is probably to be President of the Convention. I see all of the leaders in the State are in favor of secession. But I confess I hope the black Republicans will take the alarm and submit some treaty of peace that will enable us now and forever to settle the question, and save our generation from the prostration of business and the decay of prosperity that must come both to the North and South from a disruption of the Union. However, I won't speculate. Before this reaches you, South Carolina may be off on her own hook — a separate republic.”

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¹ A reference to what was known as “the Bluffton movement” of 1844, in South Carolina. It aimed at secession, but was voted down.

² Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, 1860-62. He had been elected to Congress in 1834 as a Nullifier, but had voted against the " Bluffton movement." From 1858 to 1860, he was Minister to Russia. He was a wealthy planter and had fame as an orator.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 2-4

Speech of Senator James W. Grimes, January 30, 1860

It is true that the Republican party have been in possession of the government of the State of Iowa during the last five years and upward. They have had the unlimited control of the government of that State in every one of its departments. They have had a succession of Governors of that political party. They have had all the judicial tribunals, with very few exceptions; and all the judges of the Supreme Court have belonged to that party. Their majorities in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the State have been predominating, almost two to one, during four successive Legislative Assemblies. But it is not true that the General Assembly of that State has ever passed any law in violation of the Constitution of the United States, in regard to the fugitive-slave law, or in regard to any other act of Congress. No law has been passed by that State, either since it has been under the domination of the Republican party, or before it came under their control, that in the remotest degree contravenes the rights of any of the sister States, or interferes with the relation of master and slave, or master and servant.

I have not risen for the purpose of making this explanation, because I am disposed to censure or approve the acts of this kind that have been passed by other States. I have no judgment to pronounce upon that subject. I have no criticism to make on that species of legislation. It is no part of my business, as I understand it, to sit here and arraign the action of sovereign States of this Union in regard to their local laws, whether they may be as objectionable as are the laws of Louisiana and South Carolina to Senators, like the Senator from Massachusetts, or whether they are as objectionable as are the laws of Massachusetts and Connecticut to the Senator from Georgia, and others who act and feel with him. That is not my business. But I am not disposed to let the State of my adoption, where I have the happiness to reside, and which I have the honor here in part to represent, have either the glory or the discredit—whichever way they may be regarded by Senators — of passing any law which she did not pass. Whenever she shall see fit to pass a law of this kind, or of any other kind, I, as a citizen of that State, will express my opinion in approbation or in disapprobation of it, as my judgment shall dictate.

Nor do I allude to this subject at this time for the purpose of relieving myself, my State, or the people whom I represent, from the epithets which were so abundantly poured out upon them by the Senator from Georgia. If there are any people in my State who will be disturbed by them it will not be the men with whom I act, but those who profess a sympathy and affinity for the political party with which the Senator from Georgia associates. So far as the Republicans are concerned, I can vouch for them that they will never be won or intimidated by adjectives, no matter how boisterously, or how numerously, or how harshly, they may be applied.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 123-4

John M. Forbes to Colonel Richard Borden, April 17, 1861

Boston, April 17,1861.

To Colonel Borden, Fall River:

We send the four hundred men at two. Count upon your hurrying up. Must go right on board and start to-night, even at some extra cost. Massachusetts must keep up her end, and you are the man to do it.

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 209

Charles Russell Lowell to John M. Forbes, May 10, 1861

Washington, May 10, 1861.

An agent ought to be sent here permanently to manage Massachusetts interests. A vast deal of official and unofficial time and patience is wasted by new men going over and over old ground. Where so much is to be done it ought to be done by the best man and with the best tact. Otherwise it will be undone or done wrong. Judge Hoar was admirable. He always persisted till he got his answer. I should think some equally good man ought to be put here at once. Large quantities of Massachusetts Brigade stores are coming round here from Annapolis.  . . . I shall remain here for a week at least, and perhaps two or three. Any service I can render meanwhile will be a real gratification. I believe I am the only one of our family who is not doing or giving something, and I feel quite ashamed at wasting so much time about a personal matter. Will you yourself request whoever comes as agent to call on me for what work I can do ?¹

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¹ Yet, in these weeks, Lowell was by no means spending all his time on the “personal matter” of getting permission to give his best powers and life to his Country in the army. Mr. Forbes had purchased two steamers for the transportation of Massachusetts troops and stores, and Lowell was arranging for a supply of coal for one of these, the “Cambridge;'” also about unloading the supplies for the troops, and perhaps selling her to the government.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 205-6, 402-3

Amos A. Lawrence to Senator Jefferson Davis, December 22, 1859

Boston, December 22, 1859.

Dear Sir, — I am sorry to see, by a reported speech of yours, that you are among those who have been duped by vile fellows who believe that a large number of decent men in this part of the country are implicated in the affair of Harper's Ferry. Among other names I find my own, and I am the person alluded to as a cotton speculator who employed Brown to do his work. To show you how absurd this whole plan of libel will appear when it is examined, I will state my own case.

1st. I am the son of Amos Lawrence, now deceased, whom you knew, and who brought me up to be a “national” man, as we understand that term. 2d. I have been so decided in my own opposition to the formation of sectional parties, that those who voted for Fillmore in Massachusetts, in 1856, nominated me for governor, but I declined. They have requested me to be a candidate every year since that, and last year I did run against Mr. Banks. 3d. Though largely interested in cotton factories as a shareholder, I never owned a bale of cotton in my life, and never had any business with any person whom I knew as a speculator in cotton. Some years ago I took a great interest in our people who settled in Kansas, many of whom went from Lowell and Lawrence with their families. They were shockingly abused, and if it were not for my wife and seven children at home, I would have taken a more active part in that business. But that has passed long ago; it did not induce me to join the Republicans, though it did most of my friends. I took part with Mr. William Appleton and my relative Mr. F. Pierce in the Faneuil Hall meeting here the other day, and with most of our people am called a “hunker,” and even in Mississippi should be a law and order man. You will do me a favor, if you will prevent my being summoned to Washington on so foolish an errand as to testify about Harper's Ferry.

Respectfully and truly yours,

A. A. L.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 136-8

Governor Henry A. Wise to Lydia Maria Child, October 29, 1859

RICHMOND, Va, Oct. 29th, 1859.

MADAM; Yours of the 26th was received by me yesterday, and at my earliest leisure I respectfully reply to it, that I will forward the letter for John Brown, a prisoner under our laws, arraigned at the bar of the Circuit Court for the county of Jefferson, at Charlestown, Va., for the crimes of murder, robbery and treason, which you ask me to transmit to him. I will comply with your request in the only way which seems to me proper, by enclosing it to the Commonwealth’s attorney, with the request that he will ask the permission of the Court to hand it to the prisoner. Brown, the prisoner, is now in the hands of the judiciary, not of the executive, of this Commonwealth.

You ask me, further, to allow you to perform the mission “of mother or sister, to dress his wounds, and speak soothingly to him.” By this, of course, you mean to be allowed to visit him in his cell, and to minister to him in the offices of humanity. Why should you not be so allowed, Madam? Virginia and Massachusetts are involved in no civil war, and the Constitution which unites them in one confederacy guarantees to you the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States in the State of Virginia. That Constitution I am sworn to support, and am, therefore, bound to protect your privileges and immunities as a citizen of Massachusetts coming into Virginia for any lawful and peaceful purpose.

Coming, as you propose, to minister to the captive in prison, you will be met, doubtless, by all our people, not only in a chivalrous, but in a Christian spirit. You have the right to visit Charlestown, Va., Madam; and your mission being merciful and humane, will not only be allowed, but respected, if not welcomed. A few unenlightened and inconsiderate persons, fanatical in their modes of thought and action, to maintain justice and right, might molest you, or be disposed to do so; and this might suggest the imprudence of risking any experiment upon the peace of a society very much excited by the crimes with whose chief author you seem to sympathize so much. But still, I repeat, your motives and avowed purpose are lawful and peaceful, and I will, as far as I am concerned, do my duty in protecting your rights in our limits. Virginia and her authorities would be weak indeed — weak in point of folly, and weak in point of power — if her State faith and constitutional obligations cannot be redeemed in her own limits to the letter of morality as well as of law; and if her chivalry cannot courteously receive a lady’s visit to a. prisoner, every arm which guards Brown from rescue on the one hand, and from lynch law on the other, will be ready to guard your person in Virginia.

I could not permit an insult even to woman in her walk of charity among us, though it be to one who whetted knives of butchery for our mothers, sisters, daughters and babes.  We have no sympathy with your sentiments of sympathy with Brown, and are surprised that you were “taken by surprise when news came of Capt. Brown’s recent attempt.” His attempt was a natural consequence of your sympathy, and the errors of that sympathy ought to make you doubt its virtue from the effect on his conduct. But it is not of this I should speak. When you arrive at Charlestown, if you go there, it will be for the Court and its officers, the Commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff and jailer, to say whether you may see and wait on the prisoner. But, whether you are thus permitted or not, (and you will be, if my advice can prevail,) you may rest assured that he will be humanely, lawfully and mercifully dealt by in prison and on trial.

Respectfully,

HENRY A. WISE.

SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence between L. M. Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 4-6


See Also:

• Lydia Maria Child's Reply to Governor Henry A. Wise

Diary of Gideon Welles, Wednesday, September 3, 1862

Washington is full of exciting, vague, and absurd rumors. There is some cause for it. Our great army comes retreating to the banks of the Potomac, driven back to the intrenchments by Rebels.

The army has no head. Halleck is here in the Department, a military director, not a general, a man of some scholastic attainments, but without soldierly capacity. McClellan is an intelligent engineer and officer, but not a commander to head a great army in the field. To attack or advance with energy and power is not in him; to fight is not his forte. I sometimes fear his heart is not earnest in the cause, yet I do not entertain the thought that he is unfaithful. The study of military operations interests and amuses him. It flatters him to have on his staff French princes and men of wealth and position; he likes show, parade, and power. Wishes to outgeneral the Rebels, but not to kill and destroy them. In a conversation which I had with him in May last at Cumberland on the Pamunkey, he said he desired of all things to capture Charleston; he would demolish and annihilate the city. He detested, he said, both South Carolina and Massachusetts, and should rejoice to see both States extinguished. Both were and always had been ultra and mischievous, and he could not tell which he hated most. These were the remarks of the General-in-Chief at the head of our armies then in the field, and when as large a proportion of his troops were from Massachusetts as from any State in the Union, while as large a proportion of those opposed, who were fighting the Union, were from South Carolina as from any State. He was leading the men of Massachusetts against the men of South Carolina, yet he, the General, detests them alike.

I cannot relieve my mind from the belief that to him, in a great degree, and to his example, influence, and conduct are to be attributed some portion of our late reverses, more than to any other person on either side. His reluctance to move or have others move, his inactivity, his detention of Franklin, his omission to send forward supplies unless Pope would send a cavalry escort from the battle-field, and the tone of his conversation and dispatches, all show a moody state of feeling. The slight upon him and the generals associated with him, in the selection of Pope, was injudicious, impolitic, wrong perhaps, but is no justification for their withholding one tithe of strength in a great emergency, where the lives of their countrymen and the welfare of the country were in danger. The soldiers whom McClellan has commanded are doubtless attached to him. They have been trained to it, and he has kindly cared for them while under him. With partiality for him thay have imbibed his prejudices, and some of the officers have, I fear, a spirit more factious and personal than patriotic. I have thought they might have reason to complain, at the proper time and place, but not on the field of battle, that a young officer of no high reputation should be brought from a Western Department and placed over them. Stanton, in his hate of McC., has aggrieved other officers.

The introduction of Pope here, followed by Halleck, is an intrigue of Stanton's and Chase's to get rid of McClellan. A part of this intrigue has been the withdrawal of McClellan and the Army of the Potomac from before Richmond and turning it into the Army of Washington under Pope.

Chase, who made himself as busy in the management of the army as the Treasury, said to the President one day in my presence, when we were looking over the maps on the table in the War Department, that the whole movement upon Richmond by the York River was wrong, that we should accomplish nothing until the army was recalled and Washington was made the base of operations for an overland march. McClellan had all the troops with him, and the Capital was exposed to any sudden blow from the Rebels. "What would you do?" said the President. "Order McClellan to return and start right," replied Chase, putting his finger on the map, and pointing the course to be taken across the country. Pope, who was present, said, "If Halleck were here, you would have, Mr. President, a competent adviser who would put this matter right."

The President, without consulting any one, went about this time on a hasty visit to West Point, where he had a brief interview with General Scott, and immediately returned. A few days thereafter General Halleck was detached from the Western Department and ordered to Washington, where he was placed in position as General-in-Chief, and McClellan and the Army of the Potomac, on Halleck's recommendation, first proposed by Chase, were recalled from in the vicinity of Richmond.

The defeat of Pope and placing McC. in command of the retreating and disorganized forces after the second disaster at Bull Run interrupted the intrigue which had been planned for the dismissal of McClellan, and was not only a triumph for him but a severe mortification and disappointment for both Stanton and Chase.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 106-9

Sick Soldiers Homeward Bound

BALTIMORE, May 20.

The steamer State of Maine, with 461 sick soldiers, mostly convalescent and able to travel homeward, arrived this A. M.  The men are mostly New York and Massachusetts regiments.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, May 21, 1862, p. 1

A Darkey's Speech

In one of the small cities of Massachusetts, the colored population held a meeting to discuss the propriety of celebrating the anniversary of the West India emancipation.  At one of these meetings a conservative gentleman was exceedingly surprised to see some of the “fair sex rising and taking part in the discussion.”  After two or three of the sisters had “freed dar mines” on matters under debate he spring up in a greatly excited state and addressed the audience.

Feller citizens.  Ef I’d spose at de ladies would be permitted to take part in dis yere discussion – (sensation) – ef I’d none dat de ladies cud jine in dis yere debate – (all eyes turned on the speaker) – ef I’d belebe for one moment, feller citizens, at de female sect would dare rase thar voices in dis yere meeting, I’d Feller citizens –

“Wot – wot would you’ve did ef you’d a none it?” shouted two or three of the sisters and the white of their eyes flashed on the speaker.

I – (scratching his wool) – I’d a brung my wife along wid me.

Here the discomfited orator dropped into his seat completely exhausted.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 3

Illinois now has 3,041 miles of railway . . .

. . . laid out and in operation, being 71 miles more than Ohio, which ranks next, having 2,970 miles.  The cost of building and equipping the railroads in Illinois is put down at $113,591,015.  Pennsylvania ranking next to Ohio, has 2,918 miles in operation, New York, next, 2,758, and Indiana, next to New York, has 2,159.  Massachusetts has 1,257 miles, which is less than Virginia and Georgia, the former of which has 1,729 and the latter 1,419 miles.  The entire extent of railroads in operation in all the Free States is 20,683, that of the slave states, 11,111 – total, 31,794.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 1

Iron-Clad Vessels

BOSTON, March 14. – An order was unanimously adopted in the House to-day authorizing the construction of one or two iron-clad steamers on the plan of the Ericsson steamer Monitor, for the protection of Massachusetts harbors.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 4

Massachusetts Responds

BOSTON, May 26 – The Massachusetts 32d, Col Parker, left for Washington this evening.  The old 1^st light battery, Capt. Jones leaves to-morrow morning.  Over three thousand troops appeared on the Common this noon ready for service, and the number will be greatly augmented by arrivals to-morrow.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 31, 1862, p. 4

BOSTON, May 28 [1862]

Gov. Andrew has issued an order relieving the militia who rallied in obedience to the proclamation of Monday and they are returning to their homes except such as volunteer for three years or the war.  The men generally preferred to serve three or six months not knowing that an act of Congress required the service for an indefinite period.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 31, 1862, p. 3

How To Raise The War Tax

This is the leading question just now, as it is one in which every person is directly interested.  It touches the pocket and that with many individuals is the most sensitive part of their persons.  Now we will make a proposition how to pay this tax, and we appeal to every lady in the land if a single gentleman would be affected to the amount of a shilling by the operation.  It is simply to enforce a law now on the statute books of one of the most thrifty States in the Union.  In Massachusetts there is a law which imposes a fine of not less than one dollar nor more than five, for every profane oath uttered.  We will submit to the ladies if the enforcement of such a law would affect gentlemen, while we know that if rigidly enforced a sufficient sum would be raised to meet the current expenses of the war, unless a wounderful reformation were speedily effected.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 1