THE SOUTHERN MESSENGER EDUCATION PAGE

For Classroom History Curriculum

 http://www.scv674.org/SH-Table.htm

        Great Example of Reconstruction

The Banner Messenger, Vol. IX, No 37 Buchanan, GA  Thursday September 29, 1892.   Letter issued by Capt. S. D. Bradwell, State School Commissioner.  To all Boards of Education in the State:     Georgia law requires that history not be taught in Georgia schools.  Some educators felt that it should be taught, but the law is explicit on what can be taught.  The letter warned that teachers who were conducting history classes might forfeit their pay for all classes.

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Government and Education

Public schools … as American as apple pie. Or are

they? From the mid-1600s to the mid-1800s, public

schools were quite rare. One in three of America’s

Founders had just a few months or less of formal

schooling. Yet, they were well educated – largely at

home. When public schooling became more common, it

was local with parental oversight. Quality? Take a look at

any McGuffey Reader, then in wide usage. Their content

puts today’s school curriculum to shame.

 

Recently, over 500 college seniors from 55 top schools

took a high-school-level American history test … four

out of five scored a "D" or worse! None of the colleges

even require American history to graduate. This is the

educational system into which the federal government

pumps many billions of your tax dollars each year.

 

Wasting cash is bad, but subverting young minds is far

worse. "Free education for all children in public schools"

-- a quote from the U.S. Constitution? No. It’s the 10th

plank of The Communist Manifesto! Control of

education is key for totalitarians. Castro’s "school"

quickly resumed indoctrinating Elian. When Vietnam fell,

independent thinkers were sent to re-education camps.

America’s youth are today targeted by radical federal

Pavlovian programs.

 

Our freedoms cannot survive a dumbed-downed

citizenry. A first step in restoring quality education is to

boot out the federal bureaucrats. Your congressman

must oppose any bill that permits federal meddling in

our schools. America can again become a land of

informed, moral people by returning education to its

free-market roots.

The Abolitionists are still among us, raging as roaring lions. The goal is now to abolish history, specifically, the history of the Southern Confederacy. Abolitionists, better than many Christians, understand the importance of symbols. So every symbol and vestige of heritage of the Old South must be abolished. Hence the Confederate battle flag must go, along with the statues of Confederate heroes, the street names honoring such heroes, and the memories of the Confederacy.

The Abolitionists tried to reeducate and reprogram the South. One hundred plus years of controlling government schools and imposing Yankee-fied textbooks on students has failed. Twelve bold Southern scholars and poets proclaimed that failure in the classic book, I'll Take My Stand. The high school boys who yearned for pickup trucks and deer season never read that book; but, thankfully, they didn't bother to read the textbooks either. Hank Williams, Jr.'s song "If the South Had Won, We'd Have Had It Made" and Charlie Daniel's "The South's Gonna Do It Again" did more to fortify Southern school boys in trusting the "fierce pull of blood" (to quote William Faulkner) than the schools did in erasing memory and heritage. The flags went on the license plates and baseball caps and the battle raged on.                                                                                   Rev. Ben House 

Martin Barker  replies to a student   Dear Crystal;

SOUTHERN HERITAGE:
Webster defines Heritage as: “1. Something inherited; inheritance; birthright.”
Webster defines Southern as: “1. Of or relating to ... the south. 2. n. A native of the south, esp. U. S., of the South.

What descendants of Southern ancestors have inherited or have claim to are moral standards of chivalry forever gone from our modern society at large. It encompasses a time when a man's word was as good as a binding contract. This inheritance denotes a duty of loyalty beyond ones personal comfort or gain. Loyalty, even when the cost might entail forfeiture one's life.

Duty was cherished as an example of being a part of Southern culture. Men and Women were expected to not only follow the examples set by their forefathers, but to love those examples and pass them on to their children.

After the War of Northern Aggression, while the South laid in ruins and personal fortunes were totally destroyed along with all the infrastructure of the Confederacy, all that remained was a spirit that no aggressor could take or destroy. These same men and women who so valiantly defended their homes and way of life were forced to call upon God and reserves of personal perseverance to rebuild their homes without benefit of Federal handouts or constructive intervention. The intervention that did come was under the auspices of “Reconstruction,” which was little more than the aggressor
keeping his heel on the neck of the vanquished. That act coupled with the war itself, possibly cemented the resolve of spirit you see today in those of us who revere our heritage.

This spirit then was our inheritance! It is a spirit of independence and self determination that was bred from the beginning of the Union and carefully worded in the Constitution of The United States. It is this spirit that many today resent, and some seek to destroy.

The relics of “The Old South,” specifically the Confederate Battle Flag and Confederate monuments, stand as a memorial and reminder of that spirit to those of us who celebrate our Confederate ancestors. Those who do not share this heritage find those reminders repulsive. Many of them, instead of accentuating the positive side of their own heritage, seek to destroy ours.

So, Crystal, our Southern Heritage is pride, spirit and humility. Pride in that our forefathers stood up to tyranny, spirit in that although defeated in battle their spirit was not broken and we are still willing to stand up to tyranny, and humble in that living in an occupied nation (The Confederacy was a Nation) we submit ourselves to the service of the well being of the reunified Union.  I hope this helps you in some small way.  Martin Barker

How Did Black Southerners Respond When War Was Declared?                                        Original Source Material                                                                                                       From: vp09@earthlink.net

Full bibliographic references  and other essays are at  www.rebelgray.com/BLACKREBS.htm  

Lincoln's war destroyed the original constitutional relation between the states and the federal government. His own defenders say so  in spite of his explicit, clear, and consistent professed intent to "preserve" that relation.

The Civil War wasn't just a victory of North over South; it was a victory for centralized government over the states and federalism. It destroyed the ability of the states to protect themselves against the destruction of their reserved powers.

Since the Constitution doesn't forbid the states to secede, the North found it necessary to violate the Constitution in order to suppress Southern independence. Lincoln was forced to usurp legislative powers by raising troops and money and by suspending the writ of habeas corpus; when Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled such acts unconstitutional, Lincoln wrote an order for Taney's arrest! He never followed through on that, but he did illegally arrest 31 antiwar members of the Maryland legislature and install a puppet government. He went on to crush freedom of speech and press throughout the North. Such was Lincoln's idea of "preserving the Constitution" and "government of the people, by the people, for the people."  Joseph Sobran

The Enumerated Powers and Duties. The very first sentence of the first
Article of the Constitution states: “All legislative powers herein granted
shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Neither the president
nor Supreme Court justices can make laws— except by usurpations tolerated by
Congress. The legislative power, together with the power of the purse, makes
Congress the most powerful [if they are not gutless as ours now appear to
be] of the three branches of the federal government.
Congressional Powers.
Many, but not all, of the powers of Congress are contained in Article I,
Section 8. The full list, including the law—making powers, follows:
>Levy Taxes. >Borrow money on the credit of the United States.
>Declare war. >Spend when authorized by an appropriations bill.
>Pay the federal debts. >Constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme
Court. >Coin Money. >Raise armies, a navy, [and now an air force] and
provide for the common defense. >Control the postal system. >Establish
federal courts lower than the Supreme Court. >Standardize the value of
currency. >Call a convention on the application of two–thirds of the
states.
>Override presidential vetoes. >Regulate interstate and foreign commerce.
>Regulate patents & copyrights. >Make its own rules and discipline its own
members. >Establish bankruptcy laws. >Fill a vacancy in the presidency in
cases of death or inability. >Conduct a census every ten years. >Provide
for punishment of counterfeiting, piracy, treason, and other federal crimes.
>Standardize weights & measures. >Introduce constitutional amendments and
choose the mode of ratification.
>Est laws governing citizenship. >Limit the appellate jurisdiction of the
federal courts, including the Supreme Court. >Est uniform times for
elections. >Exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.
>Receive electoral votes for the presidency. >Oversee all federal property
and possessions. >Keep & publish a journal of its proceedings. >Initiate
all bills for raising revenue (House only!). >Approve treaties,
cabinet–level appointments, and appointments to the Supreme Court (Senate
only!)
>Impeach (House only) and try (Senate only) federal officers.
These are the powers of Congress; there are no non–enumerated powers.
Leaving nothing to interference, the Constitution even specifies that
Congress may pass laws “necessary and proper” for executing its specified
powers. Congressmen have simply to study and apply the Constitution in order
to restore sound government. That most fail to do so is not the fault of the
Founders, but of the people who elect the congressmen and send them to
Washington.
Informed constituents should always evaluate how their U.S. representative
and senators vote in light of the constitutionally authorized powers of
Congress. They should use this knowledge not only to apply informed pressure
on their congressmen but to inform and activate their fellow citizens.
Executive Powers
The powers of the presidency follow
>Appoint Supreme Court justices and other federal judges (subject to Senate
confirmation). >Execute federal laws. >Convene &/or adjourn sessions of
Congress under extraordinary circumstances. >Conduct foreign affairs.
>Appoint cabinet-level officers (subject to Senate confirmation). >Veto b
ills. >Temporarily fill vacancies that may occur during the recess of
Senate. >Grant pardons and reprieves to federal offenders. >Recommend
measures to Congress to consider. >Report to Congress on the state of
the union. >Serve as commander in chief of the armed forces. >Commission
U.S. military officers. >Make treaties (subject to Senate confirmation).
Judicial Powers
The power of the federal Judiciary is limited to judging:
>all cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties;
>all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls;
>all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;
>controversies to which the U.S. is a party; and
>controversies between two or more states, a state and the citizens of
another state, citizens of different states, and citizens of the same state
claiming lands under grants of different states.
The chief justice of the Supreme Court has the exclusive authority to
preside at the Senate trial of an impeached president. The Constitution only
established a Supreme Court and granted to Congress the power to establish
lower federal courts (Article III, Section1). Thus Congress possesses the
power to abolish all federal courts except the Supreme Court. Congress can
also limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme court itself (see
Article III, Section 2). And of course, Congress can also impeach federal
judges, [such as Alcee Hastings of Florida who is now serving as a U.S. Rep
in direct violation of the Constitution] who are to serve only during times
of good behavior. The limited powers of the federal Judiciary and the checks
that Congress has over it make it the weakest of the three branches of
government.
Under our system of government, the federal government may not execute any
non-enumerated power, no matter how desirable, unless the power in question
is first granted to the federal government through the amendment process
(Article V). To do so without constitutional amendment is usurpation. States
may exercise numerous powers not listed above, although the articulars vary
from one state to the next depending on the state constitution. End of
quote.

When in the course of human events, those who are entrusted with any
particular duty decide to abdicate that responsibility and do other things,
they become irrelevant, at best, and tyrants at worst. When those charged
with preserving the liberty of a nation decide that it is more important to
guard their elite status, their rank and privilege, their salaries and
retirement, then those individuals and the institution which they comprise
becomes irrelevant.
The Constitution clearly provides that only Congress shall Declare WAR.
The founding Fathers greatly feared the inevitable tyranny of allowing one
man, or even one branch of government, the absolute power to determine
foreign policy and military policy for the nation. For this reason, they
established a "separation of powers", giving Congress the power to declare
war, and calling the President into the role of Commander in Chief when war
is declared.
It is perversion of the Constitution for the President to send troops when
and where he will, and to authorize himself with "Presidential Decision
Directives," such as PDD 25, which he claims is the basis on which Michael
New was ordered into Macedonia. (And which he then classified so that even
Members of Congress are not allowed to read it! It is an 8 page PDD, and an
unclassified summary consisting of 13 pages was made public to selected
members of congress).        Chester L McWhorter Sr

Confederate Memorial Day Address
by Larry Beane
Cumming, GA, 22 April 2000

First of all, I would like to thank the Hiram Parks Bell Camp of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans for inviting me to speak on this solemn and important
occasion.

Confederate Memorial Day is perceived by much of America as a quaint
Southern eccentricity, a stubborn gathering of a few odd people locked into
a nostalgic anachronism. Northerners, especially, find such celebrations
curious. Many transplants to Georgia are shocked to learn that Confederate
Memorial Day is actually still a State Holiday.

Now, I am myself a transplant to Forsyth, and to Georgia. But as an ethnic
Southerner who grew up in the North, I have a unique vantage point to
observe the cultural differences between North and South, between the
worldviews of Northerners and Southerners. But unlike many transplants, I
did not come to Georgia because my job sent me here, nor did I come looking
for prosperity. My wife and I chose to come to Georgia precisely BECAUSE of
Georgia's Southern heritage. To us, those who celebrate Confederate
Memorial Day are not the oddballs and the eccentrics - but rather those who
do NOT honor the memories of the Confederate dead are, to us, the folks that
we find strange and abnormal.

Like that of our Confederate ancestors, OUR generation is caught in a
whirlwind of rapid change and a sense that the old ways are swiftly becoming
caught in the rapid-moving stream of modernity. We too are in a war to
preserve the status quo from change. Like our ancestors, we also reject the
notion that all change is good, that all "progress" is an improvement, and
that long-standing social, political, and economic contracts need to be
abolished simply because self- declared social elites claim this to be the
case.

But unlike our ancestors, we are not in a literal war waged with shot and
shell, fought with infantry, artillery, and cavalry, executed with ‘right
wheels' and ‘ready, aim, fire.' Unlike our ancestors, we are not starving
and dying on a horrific battle ground in a melee of gunpowder, explosions,
and the shrieks of dying men. We are not being shot at. We are not being
killed. But we are in a war nonetheless.

We are in a war of CULTURE.

Our enemies are advocates of ‘change.' They do not merely seek to
surgically remove the elements of our culture that can and should be
reformed for the better. No, our enemies seek a sudden and irrevocable
revolution in the way we think, communicate, govern ourselves, and exist in
the context of family and society.

One simple example is the social construct of manners. The South is known
for "please," "thank you," "sir," and "ma'am." Southern gentlemen hold
doors for Southern ladies. Southern children rise for Southern elders.
Southern hats are removed when the Southern anthem Dixie is played or sung.
Southern people say grace before Southern meals. Southern culture is
ensconced in manners and politeness. Now, to some outside the South, this
is a refreshing attitude that calls to mind a time when civility and charm
were encouraged and expected. But to others, such antiquated mores and
customs are ridiculed, lampooned, and mocked.

Sadly, this Southern trait of politeness is giving way to the more brusque
and base "modern" and "progressive" means of communication. How often do
you hear someone at Kroger bark at the clerk: "Gimme a pound of
hamburger!" - no "please," no "thank you," not even a smile. Not even a
"hello" or "how are you?" But "GIMME" spoken like a spoiled and petulant
child. Sometimes, the customer is chatting away on a cell phone unable to
even make eye contact with the butcher. And this is progress? This is an
example of "change" so desired by the mockers of Southern culture?

Is it really to much to say "thank you?"

Perhaps this is why much of the United States mocks Southerners for
celebrating Confederate Memorial Day. In the mass media, we are told nearly
on a daily basis that since it is the year 2000, we need to "let go" to "get
in step" with the times, we need to "change," we need to "rejoin the rest of
the country" - we need to become "progressive" and stop wasting our thoughts
on the past. Mockers - which sadly are not all Northerners - would have us
give up our Southern identity, cease flying Confederate flags, abolish
Confederate Memorial Day, and learn to talk to the butcher like a dog - the
way that is perfectly acceptable in much of the country. After all, it is
the year 2000, isn't it? And when the year ends in three zeroes, isn't that
some sort of urgent imperative to "change" our entire moral code and social
contract? Yes, because of Y2K, the argument goes, we should cease saying
"y'all" and start saying "hey you." We should stop singing Dixie and start
singing whatever the top-40 charts tell us is popular.

After all, this is the year 2000.This Confederate Memorial Day celebration
is really about saying "thank you." It goes beyond mere politeness. Our
gratitude in this case is deeper than waving to a fellow driver who lets you
change lanes, or saying "thanks" to the waiter who doesn't charge you for an
extra cup of coffee. No, we are saying "thank you" because hundreds of
thousands of men gave their lives. When their State and country called,
these men put on the uniform and were willing to sacrifice their very mortal
existence. These men had wives, children, homes, farms, parents, and
communities. These were real, living, breathing people. They had hopes and
dreams just as we do today. But when their country called, they left it all
behind. A quarter of a million Confederate soldiers kissed their wives and
children, marched away from home for the last time, and never came back.
This ceremony today is a public act of appreciation. It is an affirmation
and an acknowledgment that we do not take their sacrifice for granted. It
seems so little in exchange for their precious lives.

As these men breathed their last on the battlefield, bled to death in the
hospital, and died of starvation and exposure in prison camps, they wondered
if their families were all right. They wondered if they would be remembered
back home. They wondered if they were dying in vain.

The mockers of today - the same people who gloat over the loss of the
Confederate States of America and the devastation of our land - would say
"yes, the Confederate soldier died in vain." They taunt us - as well as our
Fallen Dead - with hateful rhetoric that these men suffered and died for
nothing. But we know better. We are here today to answer the dying
veteran's three questions. First, yes, your families ARE all right. We
suffered some tough times after your deaths. Your families endured brutal
invasion, oppressive occupation, and corrupt puppet governments. But we
survived. We struggled through poverty, two world wars, and a great
depression. But we survived. We limped through Korea, Vietnam, and the
Civil Rights Movement. But we survived. We are still here, and we still
fly your flag and sing Dixie.

And yes, you men ARE remembered. Confederate memorial Day is still a
holiday in Georgia and many other States. Your flag is incorporated in two
State flags - including Georgia's. The Sons of Confederate Veterans has
more then 25,000 members - many times larger than its Yankee counterpart.
People still flock by the thousands to museums, battle re-enactments, and
battlefield parks. War Between the States books still fill the shelves in
book stores.

And no, you men did NOT die in vain. Yes, your cause of political
independence did not come to fruition. Your government was toppled. Your
Constitution was raped. But, ironically, in losing the political battle,
the South won the war of cultural independence. For in defeat, a nation was
born. The South's unique experience as a region and as a people is shared
by no other group of Americans. We were forged in the furnace of war,
occupation, and reconstruction. The battle flag carried by the men that we
honor today, has become a de facto national symbol of a proud, defiant, and
freedom-loving people.

The Confederate soldier gave us something more lasting and permanent than a
mere political nation. The Confederate soldier gave us an example of
manhood, of valor, of courage, of a burning desire for freedom, devotion to
duty, and love for one's family in spite of the odds, in the face of
overwhelming force, and in the very jaws of death.

These men did not request temples and pyramids in their honor. But they did
want to be remembered. It is fitting and proper that the citizens and
States who asked these men to lay down their lives say "thank you."  Our
neighboring State of South Carolina said "thank you" in 1962 by
commemorating the centennial of the War with a war memorial. Not made of
marble or bronze, this memorial was, and is, a simple cloth replica of the
military ensign these men rallied around in battle. The Memorial battle
flag was placed on the Dome of the State Capitol in Columbia. It still
flies today in graceful deference and submission to the sovereign U.S. and
State flags. It occupies the half-mast of the Capitol flag-pole as an
official "thank you" from the government and people of the Palmetto State
for the 26,000 men - soldiers, sailors, and marines - who did not come back
home.

However, there are people today who don't believe in saying "thank you."
Worse yet, there are people who want to take away your right to say "thank
you." The NAACP has launched a boycott of the Palmetto State in an effort
to force the State to cease saying "thank you" to the men that she asked to
die in her defense. The NAACP has made its goals clear: the complete
annihilation of any tax-supported monument, memorial, flag, ceremony, or
historical display that says "thank you" to any Confederate soldier,
anywhere. It is not enough that they refuse to say "thank you" to the men
who died - they wish to CRIMINALIZE the gratitude shown by the State of
South Carolina to her soldiers that died in her defense.

The South Carolina State Senate has just voted to bring down the flag. The
bill will now go to the house. The NAACP has already said they will not
support the current bill, since it leaves a single flag on State property to
fly on a short pole. Even with this pathetic concession - this slap in the
face to the veterans of the State - this bill is not in accordance with the
NAACP's "final solution" of complete and total eradication of all public
gratitude to these fallen military heroes.

This war against dead soldiers is being led by NAACP officers and other
racial agitators who are themselves millionaires, who drive luxury cars,
live in mansions, vacation abroad, rub elbows with heads of state and
diplomats, and make more money than even the President of the United States.
Yes, the business of convincing all of us of their "oppression" has served
them well. They live better than any of our Confederate Dead could have ever
hoped to.

And this juggernaut is coming to Georgia. Our beloved State also said
"thank you" to her veterans with the then-approaching centennial in 1956.
In that year, the State flag was changed to incorporate the beloved
soldier's flag in the design. For thirty years, this design was not
questioned. It offended no-one. The currently-anti-flag Atlanta Journal
and Constitution was on record in 1956 of enthusiastically supporting the
flag. For thirty years, the NAACP had no complaints about the design.
Martin Luther King never uttered a word about being "offended." In those
days, Southerners, black and white alike, still universally believed in
saying "thank you."

But in the year 2000, Martin Luther King III - whose name and parentage
guarantees that he will never have to work a day in his life, a man who has
never been denied the right to vote, a man never forced to sit in the back
of a bus or use segregated drinking fountains, a man who lives off the
coat-tails of his father - now claims that our State flag - our "thank you"
flag - has to go. He is calling for a similar boycott against us next year.
Jesse Jackson, another "oppressed" multi-millionaire agrees. Not only do
they not believe in saying "thank you," they seek to impede your ability to
do so. They want to criminalize any official act of "thank you" on behalf
of any level of government - in spite of the fact that these same
governments asked these men to die in their defense. Make no mistake,
ladies and gentlemen. If they have it their way, you and I would be jailed
today for meeting on public property in a public Confederate ceremony. We
may even one day be eligible to be tried in a Federal court on "hate crimes"
charges for saying "thank you" to our heroic veterans.

This is what the forces of "change" want. They want government suppression
instead of gratitude. They seek to impose the atheistic, vile, and deviant
culture of Madison Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard upon us. They do not want
you to sing Dixie, say prayers, nor teach your children that marriage is a
lifelong sacred pact between one man and one woman. They want movies and
television to portray you as evil, backward, and stupid. They want a
paternalistic, Marxist government that penalizes you for hard work and
claims authority over every aspect of life - even compelling you to answer
questions about how many toilets you have in your house. They seek racial
division and discord through discredited and failed quota systems. They
seek to elevate deviant sexual behavior to a benign lifestyle choice that
you will be compelled to accept. They seek to infiltrate orthodox
Christianity and turn the Church into an impotent social club devoid of
theology. They want public schools to be breeding grounds of socialism and
gun control.

Part of their agenda is to train us into not saying "thank you." They seek
to cut us off from our past by rewriting our history and brainwashing us
into hating our own ancestors. These elites demand that we accept, without
question or dissent, their blatant and Orwellian lies about our history in
an effort to bring about their version of Utopia. Unfortunately, in their
multicultural, "tolerant" Paradise of the future, people like you and me
will simply have to be disposed of.

So what do we do?

First of all, we need to look to our ancestors that we honor today. These
men set the standard. These men set the precedent. These men did not die
merely for States Rights, for Constitutional principles, nor to defend their
homes and lands from enemy invasion. Yes, they did fight for all of these
things - but NOT ONLY for those things alone. They fought for these things
in the context of bequeathing them to their children and grandchildren.
These men fought desperately to leave us a free country and a culture
unadulterated by a larger American culture already intent on
self-destruction.

So we must understand that just as our revolutionary ancestors fought for
their grandchildren, who in turn grew up to defend liberty as Confederates -
who in turn fought for us - we have the obligation to fight today for
generations yet unborn. We have the obligation to leave them a culture and
a nation cleaner and freer than the way we inherited it. In spite of the
odds, we must fight.

How do we do that? Again, let us take the clues from our ancestors of the
War Between the States generation: our great-grandmothers. For it was the
women of the South who kept our civilization alive in the aftermath of
defeat and reconstruction. These unsung heroes are the very people who
started Confederate Memorial Day. Year after year, it was the Steel
Magnolias of Southern womanhood who stoically kept the children fed, nursed
the wounded, comforted the dying, ran the farms and family businesses in the
face of economic hardship, the ever-present danger of brutal invasion, and
under the constant stress of knowing their husbands could die any day.
Indeed, our great-grandmothers are also worthy of our thanks and praise.
They also have lessons to teach us. They saw to it that their fathers,
brothers, husbands, and sons would never be forgotten - by erecting
monuments and memorials across the South in the decades after the war. Our
grandmothers transmitted our civilization to the next generation - with
grace, dignity, and unselfish devotion to their families. They never forgot
to say "thank you" - and neither must we.

It is fitting that we meet annually to publicly declare our gratitude to our
great-grandfathers - and to our great-grandmothers. But this is not enough.
We owe it to our brave and heroic dead to do more. If you are not a member
of the Sons of Confederate Veterans or its ladies' auxiliary - the Order of
Robert E. Lee - you should be. If you have no Confederate ancestry, there
are still many organizations you can join and support. Confederate heritage
is American heritage. No-one who wants to fight will be turned away. Every
Georgian - men and women alike, regardless of ancestry - can have a Sons of
Confederate Veterans' license plate on his car. Support our heritage by
flying a Georgia or Confederate flag at your home 24-7. Write letters to
the editor in defense of our heritage. Teach your children to sing Dixie
and recite the salute to the Confederate flag. Teach them the history of
the War for Southern Independence, as well as your family's or your
community's role in that great and noble cause. Don't swallow the lies of
the elites in media, government, and academia. Truth is on our side! Write
letters to your State Representatives encouraging them to draw the line at
our State flag. Tell them our fallen heroes are entitled to this simple
"thank you" - it was earned with their blood! They did not die in vain in
an evil cause - they died for Georgia, for freedom, and for you and me.

Beyond all of these things, there is something else we all can do to wage
this war. We can take our Southern identity seriously. We don't have to
take part in the violent, vulgar, and vapid culture of New York and Los
Angeles. We can - and should - secede from the Godless and self-absorbed
culture that dominates most of the U.S. By saying "please" and "thank you,"
by opening doors for ladies, by showing chivalrous deference to children and
the aged, by saying grace before meals, by attending church faithfully, by
educating ourselves about our history and unique culture, by being
hospitable to strangers, and taking our religious beliefs seriously in our
daily lives. And most of all, by doing all of these things in front of our
children, setting for them a real example of honor and righteousness - we
are continuing the struggle for independence waged by our valiant ancestors
of 135 years ago. We are insuring that their Cause of Independence will
continue forward to the next generation.

Thanks again to the Hiram Parks Bell camp of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans. Most of all, "thank you" to our great-grandfathers and
great-grandmothers for all they did for us. Thanks be to God for giving us
such a noble heritage - and the honor of its defense. May we prove
ourselves worthy in word and deed.

Thank you and God bless you.     Larry Beane

A history professor at St. Louis Community
College, who takes issue to the claim that "Black History Month is necessary
because current history textbooks fail to pay homage to contributions" of
black Americans. Instructor Brian Elsesser states that text books are
closely reviewed to make sure that Black Americans are not ignored. For
instance, he gives the example that there are checks to make sure
"references of Robert E. Lee do not outnumber references to Frederick
Douglas." Plus he mentions that every book has a chapter entirely devoted to
slavery.

Elsesser also mentions that we are in a lamentable state when students know
more about Malcolm X than about Harry S. Truman. He concludes his letter
with the conclusion, "We don't need a special month of ethnic studies laced
with pop culture to make up for bad textbooks; we need to begin taking
American History seriously."

Jerry C. Brewer

School Shootings: The Fruits of Our State Religion

A litany of disbelief has become the predictable response in the wake of
school shootings and murders. While looking for answers, Neighbors,
classmates, friends and acquaintances express incredulity that quiet kids
from “good families” could commit acts so heinous. The recent school
shooting at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma was no exception.

Most people in Fort Gibson shook their heads in disbelief when a
seventh-grade honor roll student was arrested in the shooting of four
classmates. ‘He’s not that kind of kid,’ many said. ...But what kind of
child is? (Lisa Tatum, “Common Threads Found in School Shooters,” The
Sunday Oklahoman, Dec. 19, 1999).

These crimes are the things toward which American society has inexorably
journeyed for at least four decades. They are the evil fruits of a society
which exalts self above others and worships at the shrine of Secular
Humanism. Webster defines “humanism” as “...a doctrine or way of life
centered on human values: esp : a philosophy that asserts the dignity and
worth of man and his capacity for self realization through reason and that
often rejects supernaturalism.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).
When the 1960s’ nihilistic philosophy of “Do Your Own Thing” replaced the
ancient verities of objective morality, and divine revelation confirmed by
the miraculous, (Hebrews 2:1-4), it created a moral vacuum into which
humanism rushed. A religion of self-denial was replaced with one of
“self-fulfillment” and “self-esteem” as individuals began a quest to “find
themselves.” Nothing short of moral anarchy, that emphasis on “self” has
become a narcissistic world view for much of society, including pampered
children who kill their classmates. 
Casting aside the ancient verities of objective morality, embodied in
biblical precepts, society proclaimed the religion of human subjectivity
and education moved from an objective foundation of right and wrong to the
sands of “self-esteem.” That be-all and end-all of a state-run education
system has now brought a plague of violent death to school children across
our land. Immunized to life’s realities by “sensitivity training” and
loosed from moral restraints by the state-sponsored dogma of Darwinian
Evolution, it should be no surprise that youngsters from “good homes” are
now killing their classmates. After all, if we are nothing more than
glorified apes, why should it be wrong for us to kill one another? That
perspective was chillingly reported in the wake of the Fort Gibson
shooting.

Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist in Knoxville, TN., who
works with
violent children---many of them murderers, has interviewed nearly 4,000
violent youths from Harlem to rural Tennessee...She says a distinct
personality trait stands out in school shooters: narcissism. Narcissistic
youths are those who do not care about other people’s feelings, Smith said.
They think they are special and entitled to rights others do not have.
(Tatum).

Narcissism is the fruit of a nihilistic culture. Nihilism is defined as,
“...a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that
existence is senseless and useless...a doctrine that denies any objective
ground of truth and esp. of moral truths...that conditions in the social
organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake,
independent of any constructive program or possibility.” (Webster’s New
Collegiate Dictionary).
Nihilism was the mantra of the 1960s, expressed in the cry, “Burn, baby,
burn.” A generation bent on destroying all religious and moral restraints,
they offered nothing to replace them but self. “Do your own thing,” was
their catechism and humanism their religion, and after worshipping at that
shrine for more than three decades they have produced a generation of
narcissistic killers. Of the 1960s, Robert Bork wrote,

Nihilism was the order of the decade. It came in two varieties:
hedonism
and political rage. Some students or dropouts exhibited both. The Hippies
rejected middle-class morality for an unprecedented permissiveness. The
incessantly repeated slogans were taken seriously: ‘If it feels good, do
it,’ ‘Do your own thing,’ and ‘It is forbidden to forbid.’ (Bork, Slouching
Towards Gomorrah, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., NY, 1996, p. 50).

Narcissism is the antithesis of all Jesus taught about self-denial, loving
God and loving one’s neighbor. (Matthew 10:38-39; Matthew 22:37-40).
Secular Humanism is the all-pervading state religion of American society
that has produced the fruit of narcissistic nihilism. It legitimizes the
murder of the unborn in the name of “self-choice,” destroys homes in the
name of “self-fulfillment,” broadcasts filth on our airwaves in the name of
“self-expression,” creates narcissistic youngsters in public schools in the
name of “self-esteem,” and constitutes a danger far greater to our nation
than any foreign enemy. 

Protests and threatened boycotts caused Calvin Klein to cancel his
semi pornographic ad campaign showing teenagers in sexually provocative
poses---a girl of 13 or 14 for instance, on her back, skirt lifted to show
her panties. Columnist John Leo of U. S. News & World Report called the ads
‘decadent.’ But a spokesman for Klein said that the ads were perfect for
today’s independent generation: ‘people who do only what they want to do.’
...There are words to describe the Klein attitude. One, obviously, is
narcissism; the other nihilism. One who is absorbed in himself and his
sensations, believing in few or no moral or religious principles, in
nothing transcendental, is a nihilist. A culture that preaches narcissistic
nihilism is asking for trouble. (Bork, pp. 125, 126).

Sowing the wind in the 1960s, America is reaping the whirlwind on the
threshold of a new century. The nihilism of that decade replaced God with
man, self-denial with self-esteem and love of righteousness with
narcissism. It should then come as no surprise, that in this age of
“heightened sensitivity” we have lost the capacity to love our fellow man
and that “good kids” kill their classmates. Having become inured to evil,
we no longer have a sense of moral outrage. Blithely ignoring the blood of
aborted babies that drips from the hands of Supreme Court Justices, we
paradoxically cry, “Why?” when school children murder their classmates. The
same secular, state religion that allows the former results in the latter.
Leaving nothing in its place but the vanity of soul expressed by Robert
Ingersoll at his brother’s grave when he said, “Life is a narrow vale
between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities,” Secular Humanism
repudiates Christ’s teaching of self-denial. Into the ears of the young, it
whispers its lie that, “ye shall be as gods,” (Genesis 3:5), while telling
them they are mere bits of matter, with no reason for being or a destiny
beyond this mundane sphere. Perhaps Pogo said it best: “We have met the
enemy and he is us.”    Jerry Brewer
308 South Oklahoma
Elk City, OK 73644

John Griffin contributed this article:

Education, Where do we go from here?

After working with on line committees, a final thought is that a standardized curriculum, age and grade appropriate should be developed by the SCV that could be made available to every teacher to teach Southern Heritage, History and Culture. We should work together to develop this curriculum guide, along with resources to support it’s teaching and have it available to all schools. We should be leading the instruction of teachers, showing them "how to do this" and where to find our Southern history.

I had always thought we needed to have some sort of FAQ to help educate or members, and now the school project to help our members educate or kids. Perhaps we should look at a national effort to develop our own history text and/or CD-ROM, keep it as cheap as possible, but lay out our story. Also with accompanying lesson plans, outlines, supplemental projects, supplemental and resource readings.

It may come down to creating teaching units to be used by our members and teachers to promote a Southern perspective, especially with regards to the war. Some may do this now as a supplement to their text. Of course, the problem for most of us teachers is usually one of time.

I was hoping this would be a beginning step to show what some of the action plans could be, some of the ideas, problems, possible solutions. It would be great to meld this with our FAQ project and develop some curriculum units. I believe it would be a worthy endeavor for our organization. Wouldn't it be great if we could get a corporate sponsor too?

One compatriot tells us

" Either way, my children will leave with a complete understanding of this tragic episode in our history, not the traditional pap fed them in classrooms across the nation. We have a lot to overcome out there,  but I, as I know you and many of our members are not going to give up."

I think many of us believe reaching the children and getting them tuned into discovering the truth is our only hope. I have found that by opening up some ideas and putting information out for them to review, and allowing them to draw their own conclusion works well out west here. If you preach too much that turns them off. If you start off with..."here is something that many of you take as fact..." and then give some examples of how it is Yankee propaganda...."and here is something you probably can't find in a text book, but thought you might like to hear of it...." and then give them access to books, internet sites, etc.

What is the old saying...converts make the best zealots? I have been moved by hearing many a student say ..."how come all this information has not been put into our textbooks....? or "why hasn't anyone ever told us about this before?"

If there was a book that our organization could agree to, then we could write lesson plans and activities, etc from it.

Questions:

1) Do you think there is a book that we could come to consensus to agreeing is "the best" to use?

2)What are the costs and how could we overcome this to put the books and curriculum into the schools?

3) Can we target one or two grade levels?

(In our schools 4th, 8th, and 10-12 grades study US History)

4) Could we make this a supplemental addition to the local curriculum and could we assist in the delivery of information (help teach, demonstrations, living histories, pre-presentation seminars for teachers to help orientate them to the material)?

5)Is there a book in the public domain that is no longer under copyright that we could re-print and thus only have the actual printing costs?

6) Should we look at CD-ROM versions and web sites that could deliver this information and making it available to anyone FREE to use? (nation-wide internet access goal is fast approaching)

7) Use of graphics, maps, photos, drawings, etc. would be very important to keep the interest (one picture=1000 words).

8) What about some states, divisions out there that were working on curriculums, can we hear from them and develop this project into a national access system?

Lots of questions, but to me this is so very important it should be a big focus. We have many battles for heritage (protecting our flag, cemeteries, monuments) let's don't forget to protect our children's education. Perhaps if we invest resources and energies now, the other heritage battles can be won when the next generation is "in power" because they had a good "Southern" education.

Just some thoughts. 

John Griffin

Is There Any Hope for Our Schools?
by Lt. Commander Randy Young

We have all seen examples of it, and most of us have experienced it. The
washing-over or the complete lack of history that favorably portrays the
South in the classrooms of America is an epidemic that has been 140 years in
the making, and appears to be a problem that will get worse before it gets
better.
Immediately following the War for Southern Independence, a systematic
removal of positive references in regard to the southern region as a whole
began, and continues to this day. The reason behind this effort was simple:
to remove the luster of uniqueness that has long been associated with the
region to better "homogenize" it into the Union.
It would seem, however, that in 1999, again nearly 150 years after the
Southern independence movement, scholars and administrators would not be so
hesitant at the inclusion of accurate portrayals of Confederate and Southern
history in their efforts to educate the young people of America.
Yet this is far from the actual case. We have already seen a high profile
case in North Carolina where a course on Southern history was yanked from
the curriculum of a college, no less, because it was deemed as politically
incorrect. The reaction from the education field was split nearly right down the
middle in regard to whether the course content was in fact accurate and
needed, or merely inaccurate and unnecessary in the age of the coming
millennium. Newspapers were plastered with letters and editorials in
reference to this, and again, opinion was divided.
What is the problem here? It appears that again, the basic Lincolnian
fundamental of Federal control over the individual state or person is at the
core. At least in the public school arena, the curriculum is often dictated
by Federal funds that specifies which core lessons will be taught from the
material available from that money. Simply stated, If a school or school
system decides to deviate from the "approved" areas of content in a
curriculum area, they risk their funding being taken away. In essence, the
message can be deciphered as "teach what we think you should be teaching, or
you do not get our funds.."
Public schools in America in 1999 can not exist without Federally based
funding. Even though much of that funding may be distributed through state
as opposed to Federal entities, the money in question is still Federal in
its origin. As a result, lack of individual creativity (or courage) on
behalf of the teacher leads to lessons not included in approved texts and
materials being virtually nonexistent.
What can be done? While the classroom teacher is limited by
"standardized" standards, they do have a certain amount of individual
freedom when it comes to actually facing their individual classes on a daily
basis. Even though the texts and standards they are using to base their
lessons on are often government based and approved, they do have the
freedom and ability to inject information they deem worthy into their
lessons for the benefit of their students.
Here is where Southerners have a window of opportunity. We must be
proactive enough not to merely complain that our children may not hear what
we know to be the accurate history of our region in their classes; rather,
we must meet with our children's teachers, and remind them that we feel this
knowledge should be a priority for all children. More times than not, these
teachers simply have not thought about it, or, more often, have not been
given a reason to.
And, in that light, we must remember that the teachers themselves are more
than likely uneducated in regard to accurate Southern history. Again, we
must not blame them, for they are victims of the same system today's students
(and many of their parents) are.
Rather, we should take the time and energy to compile and offer factually
based information to our educators for them to present to their students -
making sure not to present rumor or hearsay that renders our history
susceptible to attack and demeans the very reason behind our concerns. Only
by enlightening our teachers to facts they themselves may not be aware of
can they offer the same to our children.
Education in the new millennium can offer lessons in Southern history that
perhaps have never been covered in the public education forum. But for that
to occur, we as concerned citizens must take a positive and active role in
helping it happen.    Randy Young

THE DEATH OF FATHER ABRAM RYAN,
POET LAUREATE OF THE CONFEDERACY

"And the graves of the dead,
with the grass overgrown,
May yet form the footstool
of Liberty's throne;
And each simple wreck
In the way-path of might
Shall yet be a rock
In the temple of Right."

From Father Abram Ryan, "The South"


The Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, Father Abram Ryan,
died on April 22, 1886, in the convent of St. Bonifacius
of the German Franciscans in Louisville, Kentucky.
He passed away aged only 48 and the death was unexpected.

Father Ryan's wit could be sharp and stinging, but he had
a natural kindly way. An example of his wit is from New
Orleans, where he was a priest under the reign of General
B.F. "Beast" Butler. He had been accused of refusing
to bury a Federal soldier and was summoned before Butler.

Butler: I am told that you have refused to bury a dead soldier,
because he was a Yankee.

Ryan: Why, I was never asked to bury him, and never
refused. The fact is, General, I would like very well to 
bury the whole lot of you.

Butler: Good morning, Father - Good morning, Father.
You may go.

In April 1886 Father Ryan had come to make his annual 
Lenten retreat, and he had chosen a pleasant convent for 
the place. St.Bonifacius was situated about a mile from the 
then Louisville center. The church was built in 1838 and the pastoral
residence, in which Father Ryan died, was erected in
1858. When entering he was seemingly in good health and
spirit. With him he brought the manuscript, "The Crown for
Our King", on the life of Christ, and he wanted to complete
it. 

Near nine o'clock Father Ryan passed away and one of the 
brothers of the convent went into the death-chamber. He is 
recorded as having said: "I laid the shroud a little to one side 
and was greatly struck with surprise. He looked very beautiful,
and as if he were only forty years of age; whereas on the
first day that he arrived he had seemed to me and old man,
fully eighty years old." Marc Alvan, the Louisville sculptor, 
afterwards took a death mask of the poet and later made a 
bust of Father Ryan from it. 

Father Ryan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1840. Matthew
Abraham and Mary Coughlin Ryan, his parents, were
natives of Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, and
migrated to the United States some time in the decade
after 1828. That the first name of the poet is not
Abraham but Abram must have been because of
a certain lawyer by the name of Lincoln. Ryan was
educated for the priesthood , but when the WBTS broke out,
he entered Confederate service with his brother. 

At the close of the war he was located for a while near Nashville,
Tennessee, having taken part in the battle of Franklin,
Tennessee, on October 30, 1864. During the later
war years he served as parish priest in Clarksville,
Nashville and Knoxville.

In 1866 Father Ryan moved to Augusta, Georgia, and served
as an assistant at St. Patrick's Church. In 1868 he became
the founding editor of 'The Banner of the South', the
official paper of the Bishop of Savannah and many of
his poems were published there.

After he removed to Biloxi, Mississippi, near Beauvoir, where he
became closely acquainted with President Jefferson Davis.
In 1870 Ryan went to Mobile, Alabama. The poet's fame had
reached the city. The first time he preached a large crowd
was gathered in the old cathedral. Every service added to
his fame and his Sunday discourses gathered around
2,000 people. His sermons were truly prose poems. He
lectured widely for charitable causes and nobody could
raise more money in that part of the South. In 1878 Father
Ryan sought and obtained the Catholic church at Biloxi,
Mississippi. Later Ryan returned to Mobile and was
made pastor of St. Mary's Church, a small parish 
church on the outskirts of the city. In 1883 he started
lecturing all over the South. His health had started failing
already in 1881 and he left for health resorts in Europe
visiting England, Italy, France and Germany, received
everywhere with the greatest of respect. In 1883 he was
for a while at Boston College as a lecturer.

Father Ryan's poetry is full of strength with beautiful 
images, patriotism and a fine flow of words. He also
wrote extensively in periodicals.

His collected poems were published in 1879. Father
Ryan is buried in Mobile Cemetery near the grave
of Admiral Raphael Semmes. Mobile in 1913 erected
a monument in his honour and in Louisville
there is a bronze placque on the front wall of St. Bonifacius
Church, marking the site of the monestary where the
poet died.

Bertil Haggman

.

Georgia Division of SCV

CSA and Southern History 

A Curriculum Project

(a work in progress)

 

 Posted so that all may have access to this information, to study and to learn the truth about "The War for Southern Independence, also referred to as "The War Against Northern Aggression" or "The War Between States."  It was not a "Civil War" and it was not a war to abolish or preserve slavery.  

If you learned or are learning about the "Civil War" in school you need to review our curriculum.  You will be amazed at the facts left out of nearly all the textbooks.  Students, parents, teachers, administrators, school boards, and citizens...we encourage you to review our curriculum, check out many of the referenced readings and draw your own conclusions.  We believe the facts will speak for themselves.  

Sincerely,

John Griffin, 

member and webmaster of SCV Camp #674,footnote committee member, GA Division, SCV CSA History Curriculum Project, Educator, Zillah School District, Zillah, WA.

 

For more information that you likely were not taught in school visit our FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.

Note: This is a work in progress.  Currently the footnoting is continuing on this project.  As it nears completion it will be posted here.  In the mean time we have some files of foot notes, references, and recommended reading lists available upon request.

PART I. THE UNION AS CREATED BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS

The Articles of Confederation

 

In 1774 the First Continental Congress met. In 1775 the Second Continental Congress met and continued in existence until 1781. This congress passed the Declaration of Independence and drew up Articles of Confederation. This was done in hopes of forming a loose union amongst the newly declared independent states who were still in the midst of their revolution against Great Britain.

 

On June 11, 1776, a committee was appointed by the Continental Congress to prepare a form of government amongst the 13 independent states in the New World. The committee reported on July 12, of the same year, but no plan was agreed upon until November 2, 1777. The delay was due to the fact that each state was afraid that some of its rights might be encroached upon, so, finally, it was decided that each state was to have only one vote in Congress. Then again they disputed over the question of revenue, and it was decided that revenue should be raised by requisition on the states. The question of the public lands also prevented some colonies from giving hearty co-operation. Marylanders would not ratify the Articles of Confederation, even after they were adopted, so long as Virginia and other states refused to give up their claims to western territory. Finally, the states agreed to surrender their territory to the United States, then Maryland ratified the Articles of Confederation and they went into force, March 2, 1781.

 

A call was made to hold a general convention of the states, in September of 1786, to regulate trade among all the states. Representatives from only five states met in Annapolis, Maryland. There were too few states in attendance to accomplish anything definite, but they recommended that another convention should meet in Philadelphia, to provide "a Federal Government adequate to the necessities of the Union."

 

The Constitution

 

In 1787 delegates from 12 of the existing 13 states met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for "the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." Rhode Island declined to attend. Patrick Henry, an ardent champion of state sovereignty, suspected that the convention planned to establish a strong central government at the expense of state power. Although named a delegate, he stayed away because, as he put it, he "smelt a rat."

Samuel Adams, who also declined to attend the convention, shared Henry's suspicions. The convention met behind closed doors. The doors were locked and the members pledged themselves to secrecy. This pledge was faithfully kept for fifty years. After James Madison's death, his journal was published, and the particulars, as to parties and debates in the convention became known to the world. Some members advocated three republics; others one, with three presidents. Several issues arose in the convention that required compromise. Equal and fair representation by each state in the union was settled by creating a Senate, where each state had equal representation, and a House of Representatives, where each state was represented according to its population. 

Another compromise involved the counting of Negroes in determining representation. Northern states felt that Negroes should not be counted, as the Southern states had many more Negroes than did Northern states. Southern states felt the Negro population should be counted. The issue was settled by counting five Negroes as equal to three white men when determining representation.

In a third compromise the abolition of the slave-trade was introduced. South Carolina opposed immediate abolition. New England ship-owners made great profits by the trade. The New England states, South Carolina and Georgia voted that Congress should be powerless to stop the trade before 1808, extending the slave trade for twenty more years. Important to all states was the issue of states rights, which brought about the tenth amendment which states, "the powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, or to the people." This was brought about after Massachusetts demanded "that it be explicitly declared, that all powers not delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several states, to be by them exercised."

Each state firmly believed, that because they had freely entered into the Constitution they could withdraw from it as they saw necessary. Each state was to remain a separate entity and retain their individual sovereignty. Virginia, and New York, in their ratification of the Constitution, stated that the reserved the right to secede from the union whenever the National Government used its powers to the oppression and injury of the people.

 

Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratified the Constitution in 1787. The following year Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York ratified the Constitution. It was not until 1789 that North Carolina ratified the Constitution. Rhode Island finally ratified the Constitution in 1790. Prior to the ratification by all states there was no complete Union. The Union was

created by the states, with the consent of each individual state.

 

It is most important to realize that the formation of the United States, under the Constitution, did not create a new "nation" or a new nationality that would supersede the existing statehood. The people still remained citizens of the state in which they lived. The "U.S. citizen" did not exist. Daniel Webster himself said that all states are nations.

II. REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

Cultural Differences

 

The southern states and northern states were predominately settled by two different cultures of people. The settlers of the South were primarily, but not exclusively, of Celtic descent. The ancient Celts spoke various forms of an Aryan, or Indo-European language known as Celtic, or Keltic. They were called Celts because of the language they spoke, rather than because of the race to which they belong.

 

Celts were famous for their wit, their love of liberty, and their bravery in battle. In about 500 B.C. the Celts were found mainly in the areas now known as Southwestern Germany. They soon spread over most of western Europe. In the British Isles they were divided into two branches. One branch, which included the Irish, the Manx, and the

Highland Scots, spoke Gaelic. The other branch, to which the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Bretons belonged, spoke Brythonic. The Celts in Europe developed the Gaulish language. A majority of the settlers of the South came, primarily, from the western areas of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. These areas were populated by the Celtic tribes who were earlier driven out of the inner regions of England. Settlers of the Northern states

were primarily of English, Dutch and German descent.

 

At the time of the federal census of 1790, well over three-quarters of the people living in New England were of English origins; New York, having originally been a Dutch colony, retained a large Dutch component in its population, but the single largest group, comprising something over two-fifths of the people, was English; Pennsylvania was heterogeneous - two-fifths of the people were of Celtic origins, a third were German,

fewer than a fifth were English.

 

From Pennsylvania southward Celts dominated the frontier, where they constituted from 60 to nearly 100 percent of the total population. In the North Carolina tidewater districts, from 39 percent of the population in Edenton to 48 percent in Newbern were Celts, but in the upland interior they constituted 63 percent of the population in the Fayette district and almost 100 percent in the Hillsborough district. In the western Virginia counties of Fayette and Lincoln, Scots and Irish alone numbered nearly 80 percent of the population.

 

Such ratios of Celts to Englishmen suggests that the North and the South were settled and dominated numerically during the antebellum period by different people with significantly different cultural backgrounds.

 

The people of the South were referred to as "Crackers." This goes back to Old England, describing a person who is carefree, likes music, likes to drink and fight, likes to tell stories and crack jokes, or just simply likes to have a good time.

 

The first Celts were a mixed people. They tended to be fair-haired and light-skinned, but some had darker-colored hair and complexion. Southerners themselves like to explain their special culture in terms of ideals. Instead of being restless, unstable, and ruthlessly progressive, they said, they put their surplus energy into the life of the mind, and cultivated the greatest of all arts, the art of living. The South fostered conversational talent, while her platform oratory stimulated political thought more forcibly than the newspaper articles of the North.  The Southern ideal approximated closely to the ideals of eighteenth-century English life.

 

The well-born Southerner was convinced that he was a man of far more spirit and resource than the Northern counterpart. The Southern way of life, with much hunting, general use of horses, frequent marksmanship contests, the existence of two fine schools of war, the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, and the South Carolina Military Academy or "Citadel" at Charleston; and the memory of Southern prowess in the Mexican War, bred a deep conviction in Southerners of their people and their homeland.

 

Education for utility was steadily gaining ground in the North; education for character and grace held sway in the South, and the scope of education was far from identical. The nation, by 1850, had just over six thousand academies, of which the very respectable number of 2,640 were in the Southern states. Estimates of the section's

enrollment in these schools ran as high as two hundred thousand. The University of North Carolina early in the 1850's established professorships of civil engineering and agricultural chemistry.

 

Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1850Æs, boasted of six newspapers, two medical schools, one of extremely high standards. Several boys' academies existed, two seminaries for women, and a Mechanic's Institute which offered a library, free lectures, and a night school with technical courses.

 

Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1850, had a public library of five hundred volumes. The public school system, which an energetic Yankee superintendent, Dr. J.G. Holland, had briefly taken in hand in 1848, was one of the best in the South.

 

In 1860 Virginia had twenty-three colleges enrolling 2,824 students, as against New York's seventeen colleges listing 2,970 students; and Georgia's thirty-two colleges with 3,302 students nominally overshadowed the eight Massachusetts colleges with 1,733 registrants.

 

South Carolina had as many as a hundred thousand volumes in its public libraries. The South was a form of society rather than an area. Its special psychology, traditions, and principles ran far back into history. The doctrines on the Virginia school on State Rights and strict construction, crystallized by Madison and Jefferson in the Resolutions of 1798-99, continued to find a wide acceptance.

 

It was a land of simple dogmatism in religion, of Protestant solidarity, of people who believed every word of the Bible, and of faith frequently refreshed by emotional revivalism.

 

All visitors to the South quickly found out that two Americas really existed: the North and the South. Most of the go-ahead spirit and nearly all the "we-can-whip-universal-nature brag" was concentrated in the North; much of the leisure, courtliness, and pride in the South.

 

Many Southerners felt a deep-seated injury in the centralizing tendencies of the federal government. A belief that consolidated power spelled danger had become deeply ingrained. The Southern states followed the rule that the best government was the least government. The South was adamant in standing for no high protective tariffs, no ship subsidies, no national banking and currency system; in short, none of the measures which business enterprise deemed essential to its progress.

 

North and South had always, from early colonial days, found difficulty in understanding each other. William Byrd of Virginia and John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay had approached life from totally different points of view. By 1830, the divergent psychologies of the two sections presented the most serious obstacles to understanding.

What an Alabamian meant by "liberty" and "democracy" was something different from what a New Yorker meant by those terms.

 

The Yankee and the Westerner thought of the Union with the high emotional fervor which they had learned from Daniel Webster. They thrilled to the term with an intense spirit of nationality, a passionate attachment to the republic as a whole, a conviction that the people must stand as a unit in defense of national honor and freedom.

 

The dominant elements of the Lower South held a quite different conception. Their Union had to be yoked with State Rights. It was, next to their sectional liberties, most dear. They viewed the union as did John C. Calhoun, whose view was "a peculiar association in which sovereign States were held by high considerations of good faith; by the exchanges of equity and comity; by the noble attractions of social order; by the enthused sympathies

of a common destiny of power, honor and renown."

 

Naturally, the South thought of itself more and more as a separate nation. By 1857 the major Protestant denominations in the North and the South had split. One major political party, the Whigs, had first split in half and then disappeared. A deepening divide surfaced within the press, pulpit and education. With every passing year, the fundamental assumptions, tastes, and cultural aims of the North and South became more divergent.

 

The South was even distinct in that it had developed it's own dialect within the English language that is unlike any other region in the world. The South was almost exclusively dependent on agriculture. Their warm climate

provided an excellent environment for farming. The people of the North were very industrious. They were strong believers in education, they liked to read and write. Southerners read for personal enjoyment and cultivation; Northerners read to invent or to write.

 

This would explain why the history books on early America detail a lot of New England history. Even though there were Southerners living in Jamestown, Virginia, for some 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, you will find that the New Englanders wrote most all of the early history books and, thus, we study New England history quite extensively, even today.

 

Different standards, ideas, aims, outlooks, ideals; a different color of life and throb of pulse; different glories and different shames; different precedents and traditions; different fears and elations, had come to characterize the two sections, which in a word, were by this time lapped in two different cultures.

 

One must remember that the South has it's own distinct culture with it's own special history, heroes, traditions and values. The South gave the world Southern architecture, authors, chefs, statesmen, musicians, painters and outstanding leaders in many fields. The Southerner maintained a special bond with the land and her people.

 

The Southerner would demonstrate qualities of courage, devotion to duty, an indomitable spirit, a close attachment to home, family, state, nation and their firm belief in spiritual values.

 

The Population Shift

 

The population of the North and the South was comparatively equal at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. The federal government could approach regional issues on an even keel and, at worst, at least work out a compromise on issues. Both the North and the South had equal representation in the Senate and the House.

 

Within the next 70 years the nation's total population increased 800%, up to a total of 31 1/2 million people. New York's population had grown by 1,140% and had grown to 2 1/2 times that of Virginia. This growth in the North would attribute to the shift in representation in the House of Representatives, which is where all federal government appropriations were created. This would give the North total control of federal government spending. As the North grew in population so did their representation grow accordingly.

 

The population of Chicago doubled between 1852 and 1855, leaping from 38,000 people to 80,000. Milwaukee, which probably counted a greater proportion of foreign-born inhabitants than any other American city, had more than tripled in size within a decade.

 

The large influx of foreign population, which had neither state attachments nor state pride, had increased the Northern preference for a strong central government. The South was plainly falling behind in the race for population. Of the eight and a half million increase during the decade, the states of the future Confederacy claimed only about two million. By 1860 twenty-one new states had entered the union but only 9 were Southern states. This attributed to the Northern advantage in the Senate.

 

The balance was gone. This imbalance allowed the representatives of the North to force unfair tariff laws upon the states of the South. These unfair tariffs would force the South to buy manufactured goods from the North at high prices rather than buy cheaper imported goods from Europe. This growing imbalance played an important role in the 1828 threat of secession by South Carolina over unfair tariff laws that raised the prices of some imported goods as much as 45 to 50 percent, and South Carolina's passing of a Nullification Act in 1832 that declared the federal tariffs null and void, based on the sovereignty of the states and the state's rights.

 

The North was gaining more and more power on the federal level. Their true desire for the upper hand on the federal level could not be denied when in 1836 the question arose on the annexation of the Republic of Texas into the Union. The North openly opposed this annexation simply due to the fact that the South's powers in the federal government would be strengthened.

 

By 1861 there were about four million persons of alien birth living in the states that remained in the Union as opposed to only about one fourth of a million residing in the states of the Confederacy. Probably one out of every four or five U.S. soldiers was of foreign birth and only one out of every twenty or twenty-five Confederate soldiers were of foreign birth. German-born immigrants made up about 200,000 U.S. soldiers. There were about 150,000 Irish, Canadians and English totaled about 50,000. Forty-five of the North's 583 general officers were of foreign birth, including twelve Germans and twelve Irishmen.

 

It has been estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 Irish-born soldiers marched in the Confederate army and they outnumbered any other foreign group on the Southern side. Among the Confederacy's 425 general officers, only nine were foreigners, five of whom were Irish.

 

 

Southern Class Structure

 

In Southern society the major planters flourished at the apex of the social pyramid. They owned the largest plantations, the most slaves, and often the largest debts to Northern banks and financiers. According to Southern agricultural lore, an efficient plantation unit numbered about a thousand acres, worked by 50 to 100 slaves. Using that yardstick about 8,000 Southern planters qualified as major planters in 1850. 

 

William H. Russell, a military correspondent for the London Times, sampled the hospitality of planter John Burnside at Houmas Plantation in March, 1861, located about sixty miles north of New Orleans. Russell recorded his impression in his diary. According to his diary, he climbed a high bank to a road edged with a white picket fence that extended as far as he could see. Through a gateway, he discovered a tree-lined avenue adjoining a red brick walk. Proceeding, he came upon a white house surrounded by a carefully manicured lawn. Colorful climbing flowers clung to the six white Doric pillars that spanned the front, providing shade and fragrance to those who lounged on the first or second floor verandas. The house itself, surrounded on three sides by the imposing

columns and the porches they enclosed, rose in impressive new-Greek style to a widow's walk around the square cupola that crowned the structure.

 

Russell wrote that the fields of the plantation were as flat as a table top. He could see some slave cottages, plantation offices which looked "like large public edifices in the distance." All together, Russell discovered, the plantation contained 40,000 acres, 18,000 of which remained to be cleared, drained and cultivated.

 

These planters were the ones who did not favor secession. They had achieved wealth, status, and substantial land ownership. They financed their speculative undertakings through Northern banks and financial institutions. They were making money and enjoying life - traveling abroad and sending their children to fine schools. They had reached the pinnacle status of the Southern aristocrat. Their continued financial success was based upon (as they saw it) the continuation of slavery in the South. Plantation slavery, they declared, was a rational institution; it had logic and purpose and was engaged in purely as a financial investment to make the planter more money. Slaves were essentially property and treated as such by the planters. Slaves were viewed as assets by the planters and

were purchased to increase the wealth of the planter, not because the planter hated Africans and simply wished to make their lives as miserable as possible.

 

Since slavery already existed and was protected under the existing U.S. Constitution and the Southern states, it was assumed, would block any Constitutional amendment abolishing the practice many planters did not favor secession. As they viewed it, they stood to lose what they had already achieved.

 

There were actually many "Souths", only one of which represented the major planter whose measure could not be taken merely by the number of acres he cultivated. Incomplete statistics indicate that there were in the pre-War Between The States period about 700 of the 1,000 acre, 50-100 slave plantations in Alabama, and perhaps 900 in

Georgia. Long before 1860 the major planter's lifestyle had become the Southern model.

 

The second-rank planters who owned from 10 to 50 slaves emulated the major planter in many ways. There were about 84,000 such individuals in 1850. They were "on the make". They exploited the richness of the soil for all it was worth and put the profits back into their businesses. They enjoyed less leisure time than did the major planters. They worked in the fields, often alongside their slaves, and few of them employed overseers. As

their economic condition improved they upgraded their style of living.

 

A third group included most of the slaveholders in the South - over 154,000 in 1850 - all those who held nine slaves or fewer. About 60 percent of this group owned farms ranging in size from 50 to 300 acres. Over 60 percent of the non-slaveholding farmers of the South operated farms of about the same size as the small planter.

 

In the Appalachian highlands and the sandy pine woods dwelt yet another group of Southerners often referred to as Southern Highlanders. They were herdsmen, forced off the lower grasslands who moved into the grasslands of the pine belt and grassy hills and valleys of the highlands. These folks, who preferred the life of the hunter or herdsman to that of the farmer or planter, were then driven into the highlands and pine woods as the

agrarians preempted the better lowland soils. They built rough cabins, often cleared several acres and grew vegetables and perhaps some cotton or tobacco as well.

 

About 500,000 Southerners of yet another class, often simply labeled "poor whites," inhabited the South in 1860. They shared the pine woods and the highlands with the herdsmen, or they could be found on the edges of towns, or indeed in almost any corner of any Southern state, barely subsisting on neglected or unproductive lands. They lived primarily by hunting, fishing, and occasionally produced a few garden vegetables. The source of this poor white class is not clear, but the fact that almost every frontier in American history had similar elements suggests that they might have been bypassed by the Southern frontier and driven to less desirable areas by migrants and greater zeal.

 

Thus, except for the highlanders and poor whites, the smaller planters and non-slaveholding farmers composed the bulk of the white population in the South. By 1850, non-slaveholding white farmers were increasing more rapidly as a group than were slaveholders.

 

Although primarily a rural land, the South in 1860 had a lively urban population that included merchants and manufacturers centered in 20 cities with over 10,000 population each, the largest of which were Baltimore and New Orleans. By 1860, the South had more than $96,000,000 invested in about 20,000 factories. Nearly 110,000 factory workers were turning out products worth approximately $155,000,000 annually. Many of the laborers

toiled in the plants only a portion of their time, for many of the factories still operated on the old domestic or putting-out system. The professional classes of the South were not unlike anywhere else, except that their prosperity depended upon the success of the planters. The doctors, lawyers, journalists, and career-military officers - economically and socially tied into the planter economy.

 

Another class that existed in the South were the "free blacks". "Free", in reference to Southern black Americans who were not slaves. They had been freed by former masters legally, had bought their way out of slavery from masters who allowed it, or had been born to manumitted slaves. Most of the 250,000 free blacks lived in Virginia and Maryland, but clusters could also be found in Louisiana, particularly around New Orleans, in North Carolina, Tennessee, and in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. Free Southern blacks in most communities held unskilled jobs, working usually as farm hands or day laborers. Some were trained as artisans and followed trades such as carpentry or shoemaking.

 

A few became wealthy, like Thomy Lafon, a New Orleans tycoon who amassed a fortune of over $500,000. The "Charleston Mercury" reported in its Sunday, September 8, 1861, edition that free blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, had contributed $450 to the Confederate war effort.

 

Some free blacks became slaveholders themselves. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneer black historian, reported that 4,071 free blacks held 13,446 slaves in 1830. The largest concentration of black slaveholders were around New Orleans (753 owners with 2,351 slaves) Richmond, and in Maryland.

 

The final class we find in the South is the black slave. The slave existed in a closed system. Some masters allowed their slaves to purchase their freedom but the vast majority were the unconditional property of their masters. The master defined the slave's role, provided them with a clear and simple script, judged their performance, and rewarded or punished them according to its quality. In this closed system the slave had only limited contacts with free society. The masters provided the food, clothing, and shelter for their slaves.

 

Many slaves worked under the "task" system. This system provided the slave with a set of tasks to be completed within a given period of time. Should those tasks be completed before the given period of time had elapsed, the slave could then spend time in leisure, hire themselves out (with the foreknowledge of the master), or could work producing goods that could be sold, with the slave retaining all of the profits made from the sale. It was under the task system that some slaves were made able to buy their freedom.

 

Economic Issues

 

The U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) of the 1850's was driven by Southern exports (cotton, tobacco and sugar). By 1860 Southern agricultural exports accounted for at least 3/4 of the total federal budget. Southerners viewed this situation as one in which money was leaving the South and going to the North to fuel the Northern industrial revolution. Southerners were quick to point out that the South also furnished the largest parts of the nation's exports. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1850, cotton alone accounted for nearly half of the nation's foreign shipments, $71,984,616 out of $144,376,000. Ten years later the situation remained unchanged. The exportation of domestic produce in 1860 was $333,576,000 of which raw cotton represented $191,807,000.

 

The financial panic of 1857 saw the South best the collapse much better than the North. Senator James Hammond, of South Carolina, stated, "When the abuse of credit had... annihilated confidence, when thousands of the strongest commercial houses in the world were coming down and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed property were evaporating in thin air, when you came to a deadlock and revolutions were threatened, what brought you up? Fortunately for you, it was the commencement of the cotton season, and we have poured upon you 1,600,000 bales of cotton just at the crisis to save you from destruction."

 

The South was not receiving, proportionally, what they were contributing to the federal government. Unfair tariffs also placed the South in a financial situation that forced them to trade their agricultural goods, primarily cotton, with Northern factories. This allowed Northern factories to purchase Southern agricultural goods inexpensively. The factories could then sell their manufactured goods, made with those Southern agricultural products, to the South at inflated prices that were protected by federal tariffs on imported goods. The North used these tariffs to protect their industries from what they felt was excessive foreign competition.

 

The true reason for the war, wrote Richmond and Charleston newspapers, was that the North placed unequal burdens on the Southern people. The protective tariff, the fishing bounties, the charges of brokers, bankers, and shippers, all wrung a vast tribute from the South.

 

A plantation owner with 2,000 slaves declared, "Most of us planters are in debt; we should not be if out of the Union. We should have a direct trade with Europe. We should get a better price for our cotton, and our goods would cost us fifty per cent less than now... We must do it now or never. If we don't secede now the political power of the South is broken."

 

"We must separate," Edmund Ruffin was writing in 1857, "and the sooner it is done, the greater will be the relative strength of the Southern party, and the more sure will be the success of the movement."

 

South Carolina Governor Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the

$70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000.

 

Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus, wrote that Lincoln's election demonstrated that men eager to "destroy the peace, property, and prosperity of the Southern section" had gained control of the government, and that Mississippi must provide surer safeguards for life and liberty than could be hoped for.

 

Howell Cobb, Senator James Hammond, A. Dudley Mann, and others labored to establish direct trade with Europe and direct mercantile and banking connections with England, as the one way to lift the South to economic independence.

 

The extent to which the South cherished the ideal of separate nationality was demonstrated in the resolutions of the Southern Commercial Convention, which was held at Savannah, Georgia, after the election of Pres. James Buchanan. Not only did this body call for direct trade with Europe, as opposed to the "triangular trade" that had enriched New York, it also called for the construction by the Southern states and territories of a

railroad from the Mississippi, by way of El Paso, to the Pacific. The body also urged the Kentucky legislature to build the final Louisville-Cumberland Gap link in the railroads connecting the Potomac and Mississippi rivers. More so, the convention called for Southern ships to be built in Southern yards, and Southern seamen trained in large numbers by Southern states.

 

The crusade for Southern economic independence was compounded in half a hope to retain the more accessible profits, and half a desire to promote Southern nationalism. Convention succeeded convention. The most important were a series of Southern Commercial Conventions beginning in 1852 and ending in 1859. They adopted endless

resolutions - that the duties on railroad iron ought to be repealed or reduced; that a line of Southern steamers should ply direct from Southern ports to Europe; that a Southern route should be chosen for the railway to the Pacific; that all good citizens should use Southern manufactures; that people should buy Southern books, and visit Southern summer-resorts. Eloquent speeches were made. Banquets were held, where governors and mayors uttered valorous words. Articles of the do-or-die variety were printed in newspapers. Meanwhile, Southern railroad conventions were also held, and Macon, Georgia, witnessed in 1852 a convention of planters from all the cotton states dedicated to the worthy cause of making sure that cotton never dropped below ten cents a pound. Sen. James Hammonds wrote to Howell Cobb on March 29, 1859, "Give the South direct trade, give it a fair tariff, land, and taxation system, and it will yet lead the world."

 

State's Rights

 

The South stood by their beliefs in the existing Constitution, in that it provided for state sovereignty. Southerners felt that they should be governed locally and that the federal government was an agent of the states, to be used to the advantage of all of the states. The South felt that Northern politicians were trying to create a strong centralized federal government. They felt that the North was trying to shift powers away from the states and to the federal government.

 

The tendency toward a greater national power worried practical Southerners who, like Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, thought the strong government an instrument for sectional exploitation. "All that we ask of you is - keep your hands out of our pockets," said Stephens.

 

The South viewed a strong centralized government as a form of a monarchy. The South well remembered their War for Independence from Great Britain and they did not desire to come under such rule again. The South could see that the federal government was becoming more and more like the old government that their forefathers had shed their blood to free them from.

 

John Caldwell Calhoun

 

John C. Calhoun was an American statesman who was born in 1782, near Abbeville, South Carolina. He was an honor graduate at Yale in 1804. He played an important part in national affairs for forty years. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also served as Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and Vice-President.

 

He is best remembered as the theorist of the doctrines of state rights and nullification. It was John C. Calhoun's leadership in these doctrines that inspired the South's effort to achieve national independence in the War Between The States. 

 

Calhoun felt that his beloved South Carolina, and the South, were being exploited by the protective tariff. Calhoun wrote "The South Carolina Exposition" for his state's legislature in 1828. It declared that no state was bound by a federal law which it believed was unconstitutional.

 

The nation, Southerners said, was a confederation of sovereign independent states. Already the South had suffered heavily from the North in taxation, tariffs, and an unequal distribution of national benefits; and they would not tolerate the erection of a consolidated democracy, for this, as Calhoun had predicted, would end in control, proscription, and political disenfranchisement.

 

John C. Calhoun applied a theory of checks to the Constitution, involving state rights and state power of nullification. The general government was, in his view, not at all a national government; it was a confederated government, a political union to which the sovereign confederated states were parties. The government had not been created, nor the Constitution ratified, by the people as a whole, but by the people as organized into separate

states. The terms or conditions of the union were stipulated in the Constitution; and if they were violated, the parties to the compact had a right to withdraw from their engagement. Each state, that is, was judge of the measures and limits of the general government, and if it found them transgressed, might interpose its veto against any further action. The Southern people viewed John C. Calhoun as the "Sentinel of the South." Even though Calhoun died in 1850, long before the start of the War Between The States, his theory of checks to the Constitution involving state rights served as part of the foundation for government for the Confederacy.

 

Calhoun believed that liberty, if forced on a people, was a curse, for men must be capable of self-government before they can enjoy liberty.

 

 

Independence

 

When the South seceded from the union and came under attack by the United States, Southerners felt that their conflict equated that of the American Revolution. Many called it the Second American Revolution.

 

A kindling sense of patriotism swung even the dubious from their old allegiances. To join the new movement seemed (especially to the youth) an affirmative, progressive, heroic act. To resist it seemed negative and timid. Many churches in the South preached resistance. The official journal of the powerful Baptist denomination in Mississippi urged citizens to insist upon their full rights within the old nation, or win them outside in a new nation.

 

The Seal of the Confederacy even includes an equestrian image of George Washington. The South viewed George Washington as the father of their new country. The South even officially declares its founding date as February 22, 1862, which is the 130th anniversary of George Washington's birth.

 

Each state believed that they were sovereign and independent and were only part of the union because they had voluntarily agreed to enter into that union. Each Southerner cherished the liberty that their forefathers had fought to secure for them. The South wholeheartedly desired to co-exist peaceably with the United States.

 

 

Indentured Servitude

 

In 1607 three English ships arrived safely at Jamestown, Virginia, to found the first permanent English colony in the New World. Most of the passengers, other than the officers and gentlemen, were indentured to work for the Virginia Company for seven years in return for their passage and keep. At the end of that period they could either return to England or take up land for themselves in Virginia and work for the company as free laborers.

 

In a country where land was cheap and plentiful and resources abundant, the paramount need was for a large labor supply. Consequently, a system was adopted whereby people coming from Europe could be indentured to individuals as well as the Company. As an inducement to the colonists in the early years, for each indentured servant they brought in they were granted a "head-right" of fifty acres of land free. Although the practice of

granting fifty acres to the importer, and generally to the servant at the end of his period of indenture, gradually died out indentured servants, each of whom signed a contract to work for a master for a specified number of years, usually three to five, in return for his passage and room and board in the New World, after which he would be given a certain amount of clothes and other provisions to help him begin life on his own, along with various amounts of land if he so desired.

 

As the colony grew and prospered, the number of indentured servants continually increased. Out of almost 5,000 settlers in 1635, about half had arrived indentured to furnish the necessary labor to tame the wilderness into farms and plantations. By 1671 the number had grown to 6,000 and ten years later there were 15,000 indentured workers in Virginia alone. With the gradual development of the other colonies the demand increased proportionately, and it is generally estimated that indentured servants comprised over 60 percent of all immigrants into the colonies down to 1776.

 

The establishment of the Royal African Company in 1662, however, with its encouragement and official support of slavery, doomed the indentured servant system in the southern colonies when the tobacco and cotton crops demanded a huge supply of cheap labor which the system could not produce. And slavery also had other major economic advantages. The slave was owned for life, not just a few years, so he would not have to be continually replaced. Consequently, by 1800 there were virtually no indentured servants in the South.

 

In the Middle and New England colonies, however, where slavery was not economically feasible, there was a strong demand for indentured servants, particularly during the first half of the 18th century. Massachusetts in 1710 passed an act offering 40 shillings a head to any captain who brought in a male servant from age 8 to 25. Particularly needed were skilled workers such as experienced seamen, carpenters, blacksmiths, silversmiths, coopers, weavers, and bricklayers. Consequently Europeans came by the thousands, particularly Germans, who freely bonded themselves for a number of years in return for learning a trade of even just the language and customs of the new country.

 

Between 1737 and 1746 sixty-seven ships landed 15,000 Germans at Philadelphia alone. It was remarkable that any of them survived the crossing. Packed into unsafe and unsanitary ships "like so many herrings," they died by the score. The horrible conditions of these floating hells equaled those of the infamous "middle passage" for the African slave trade. Food was totally inadequate and often so rotten as to be inedible. In many instances the immigrants fought for the bodies of rats and mice in order to stay alive. On at least one ship cannibalism was resorted to and the bodies of six dead humans were consumed before another vessel brought relief to the maddened passengers. Disease and sickness were rife in the filthy holds of the ships as dysentery, smallpox, and typhus swept through them. Statistics indicate that in 1711, for example, only one out of three survived the crossing.

 

This high mortality often caused extra hardship for many of the survivors, as all passengers, living and dead, had to be paid for if possible before the ship's captains would release the immigrants. Thus it was not unusual to see a widow sold to pay for her husband's passage as well as her own, meaning she would have to serve double the normal time of indenture. Children were sold to pay for deceased or unwell parents. Consequently, families were often broken up, just as in the slave trade, never to meet again.

 

In the northern colonies, where the indentured immigrants served mostly as house servants and apprentices, they were also usually treated fairly, and after becoming freemen had every opportunity to succeed. A good example was Paul Revere, whose father had come to Massachusetts as an indentured servant.

 

By 1770 the colonies found it cheaper to hire native-born youngsters as apprentices, rather than pay the passage for indentured servants. As a result, and particularly after the Revolution with its emphasis on equality, the system gradually died out and by the early 19th century had virtually ceased to exist in the North.

 

 

The Slavery Issue

 

Even though the slavery issue was not the direct cause of regional conflict, it became a factor. As friction built between the two regions, more and more issues came between them.

 

Most, but not all, Northern states had abolished slavery by the early to mid-1800's. The Northern states had done away with slavery because they found it was not profitable in their new industrial society. When they did away with slavery there was not a mass emancipation of the slaves, for many of the slaves were simply sold southward. This

allowed the northern slave-owner to recuperate his financial investment in the slave.

 

The North found it more profitable to import European immigrants on labor contracts. These immigrants would work 16 hour days and more, for pennies a day. They would live in poverty in company housing and could only afford to buy, most often on credit, from the company store. There are many writings of this period that state the impoverished conditions in which these immigrants lived. Under these situations the immigrant worker was forced to fend for himself and his family and their lives belonged to the company in which they worked. Many of these immigrants were obligated under a labor contract to these factories before they left the shores of Europe. The cheap labor supply, continually fed from Europe, was a great forcing draft for Northern industrialism.

 

Another motivating factor behind the North's abolition of slavery is that many Northerners did not want black people living amongst them. Many northern states passed laws prohibiting blacks from entering their states. Massachusetts once passed a law that stated that if a Negro, native American or mulatto entered their state and stayed for more than two months they would be publicly flogged.

 

One Northern state after another stigmatized the free Negroes by excluding them from its borders. When Illinois drew up its constitution in 1848 an emphatic clause prohibited the entry of such folk, and the legislature five years later not only made it a misdemeanor for any Negro to enter with the purpose of settling, but provided that the offender might be fined and his time sold for a sufficient period to pay the penalty. Iowa, in 1851, severely penalized any free Negro who set foot upon her soil.

 

Indiana placed a Negro-exclusion article in her constitution of 1851, the people approved it by the tremendous vote of more than five to one. Oregon adopted a constitution in 1857 stipulating that no free colored people should enter, that those who came should be forcibly removed, and that anybody who harbored or employed them should be punished. It also forbade the Negroes already there to hold real estate, make contracts, or prosecute suits. Proposals for a general expulsion of free blacks were frequent in the border states and by no means unknown farther north.

 

Governor Washington Hunt unemotionally pointed out to the New York legislature in 1852 that the free Negroes were excluded from most institutions of religion and learning, were shut out from social intercourse, and were condemned to lives of servility and drudgery; a condition which, as he said, crushed the spirit of manhood and made improvement morally impossible. Uttering not a word of reproach to them, and recommending not a single reform of a domestic character, he urged simply that the Negroes for their own good be deported to Liberia.

 

The general public assumption in the North was that Negroes were inferior creatures who naturally fell into degradation and whom it was hopeless to assist. Many Northerners protested that whites in their states were having to compete with blacks for jobs. Thus, the Northerners sold the slaves southward.

 

Every slave that ever entered into this country came in on a northern built, owned and operated slave ship, or a European slave ship. Slave ships would primarily enter the U.S. into major northern ports, primarily New York and Boston. The early financial infrastructure of those cities were built primarily on the slave trade. These ships would take northern made rum into Africa and trade the rum with African tribes for slaves that these tribes had captured during tribal wars. You can still visit some of these old slave market docks along the west coast of Africa today.

 

The first legislation of slavery occurred in 1642 in the colony of Massachusetts. Many of the Puritans there argued that it was "God's will" that they bring the slaves to the colonies from Africa because of the heinous conditions in which they were "rescuing" them from.

 

The census of 1850 listed only eleven persons who owned five hundred or more slaves, and only 254 who owned two hundred or more each. Indeed, in all the vast range of the slave states from Delaware to Florida and from North Carolina to Texas, there were not eight thousand men who owned fifty or more slaves apiece. Among those who owned or hired slaves, the vast majority possessed fewer than ten apiece, and a clear majority fewer than five apiece. The "big-wigs" of whom Frederick Law Olmstead heard so much while traveling in the lower Mississippi Valley, the wealthy planters who figured so largely in the eyes of the North, constituted a very restricted body indeed.

 

Of the 6,184,477 white people in the slave states, only 347,525 were listed by the census of 1850 as slave-owners, and even this number gave an exaggerated impression of the facts. When a single person owned slaves in different counties, or in different states, he was entered in the returns more than once. Moreover, the census included slave-hirers as well as slave-owners, and unquestionably there were tens of thousands of hirers. Hinton

Rowan Helper estimated the true number of slaveholders as "certainly less than two hundred thousand."

 

The immediate families of these owners represented, at an average of five persons each, about 1,500,000 people; and if a generous allowance is made for overseer's families and other white employees on large estates, still those directly concerned with the ownership and management of slaves probably did not exceed 2,000,000.

 

Not one-third of the population of the South and border states had any direct interest in slavery as a form of property. This is a fact of great importance when we attempt to estimate the effect of slaveholding upon the culture and outlook of the Southern people. If not one-third of the people had any direct interest in slaveholding in 1850, not one-fourth had such an interest in 1860.

 

Blacks as well as whites practiced slavery. Blacks and whites both were enslaved as well. Indentured servitude was a major method of people obtaining transportation to the colonies from Europe. The very first legalized case of life servitude in the colonies occurred in 1653 when a black man named John Casor complained that his master,

Anthony Johnson, had kept him in servitude some years longer than he should have, which was a serious offense. Johnson, frightened, released Casor from all claims against him, but then found that Casor had bound himself to one Parker who had aided him in obtaining his freedom. Johnson then sued Parker, claiming that he, Johnson, was entitled to the lifetime servitude of Casor and won his case. (Johnson vs. Parker, Northampton County). The interesting fact of this case is that Anthony Johnson himself was a Negro. He was one of the original 20 Negroes who landed in 1619 and had earned his freedom in 1623 and acquired some acreage in Accomac. He imported some servants of his own and established a community of free Negroes.

 

The slavery issue began to grow as time went on. Many Southerners felt that the North was simply trying to antagonize the South with this issue. The fact was that more than 90% of Southerners never owned slaves. Several plantations in the South were actually owned by citizens of northern states. There were some Northerners who owned slave operated plantations on Caribbean islands.

 

According to the census of 1850, the total number of fugitive slaves was 1,011. According to the census of 1860 the total number was 803. These numbers were out of a slave population of 3,200,000 in 1850 and 3,950,500 in 1860.

 

Many of the large Southern plantation owners did not favor secession. Under the existing U.S. Constitution slavery was protected and could not be infringed upon unless a 2/3 majority vote could be reached, which would have been extremely difficult to achieve. As westward expansion continued, the slavery issue was brought up as each new state entered into the union. The abolitionists of the North (an extremely small number of people) said that slavery should not be allowed in the new western states. The South felt that the decision should be left up to the people of those states (referring to state sovereignty as expressed in the Constitution).

 

The South was in favor of gradual emancipation of the slaves whereas northern abolitionists demanded immediate emancipation. The South knew that a sudden emancipation of several million slaves could not be possible without a disastrous impact on the region economically. This impact would affect both the white and black people of

the region. The South also favored gradual emancipation so that the slaves themselves would be prepared to support themselves once freed.

 

Southerners knew that as the South became more mechanized (like the North) that slavery would die a natural death. At that point, slavery in the South would become a financial liability (as was in the North) as new technologies were introduced. Late in the struggle for it's independence, the Confederacy expressed it's willingness to abolish slavery in exchange for recognition by European powers, and the South adopted it's own emancipation plan through the arming of blacks as soldiers.

 

 

A Book That Left It's Mark

 

There was a book written and published in 1852 that must be reckoned with as a factor in the many causes that started the War Between The States. That book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a novel, a fictional story that greatly exaggerated the slavery system of the South. Harriet Beecher Stowe had never been down South and could only rely on other writings and word of mouth to draw from when writing her story.

 

But in 1857 a book was published that had a greater effect in fueling the fire, leading to war, than did any other book. The book, "The Impending Crisis," written by Hinton Rowan Helper, an anti-slavery North Carolinian, has been called "one of the most diabolical books ever published." In this book Helper declared "Never were the poorer classes of a people, and these classes so largely in the majority, and all inhabiting the same country, so basely duped, so adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged." Then again, "Except among the non-slaveholders, who besides being kept in the grossest ignorance, are under the restraints of iniquitous laws, patriotism has ceased to exist within her border."

 

In this statement Helper ascribed to the Southern slaveholder a virtual superiority, and that there were millions of non-slaveholders across the South who had no sense. Helper, in his book, stated "We contend that slaveholders are more criminal than common murderers." "...Were it possible for the whole number to be gathered together

and transformed into four equal gangs of licensed robbers, ruffians, thieves, and murderers, society would suffer less from the atrocities than it does now."

 

But the most crucial part of Helper's book that fed the fire of coming secession was in threatening violence and insurrection. The South was well aware of the slave insurrections that had taken place in Haiti. The Nat Turner rebellion was also on the minds of Southerners. Helper threatened such an event when he wrote "Henceforth, Sirs, we are demandants, not supplicants. It is for you to decide whether we are to have justice peaceably or by violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are determined to have it one way or another."  "Do you aspire to become the victims of white non-slaveholders vengeance by day and of barbarous massacre by Negroes at night?"  "Would you be instrumental in bringing upon yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too

terrible to contemplate? Shall history cease to cite, as an instance of unexplained cruelty, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, because the World - the South - shall have furnished a more direful scene of atrocity and carnage?"

 

The Republican party used his book. They titled a copy "A Manifesto of the Impending Crisis," distributing it throughout the North and West in batches of 100,000 copies. Sixty-four Republican members of Congress officially endorsed Helper's book.

 

Helper's suggestion of a slave insurrection may very well have encouraged John Brown to make his attempt to overtake Harper's Ferry and lead a slave revolt against Southern slave-owners. Helper's book inflamed both the slaveholder and non-slaveholder of the South.

III. SECESSION

 

Early American Secession Attempts

 

The secession of South Carolina in December of 1860 was not the first time that secession had been dealt with in the United States. There had been several secession threats and attempts prior to 1860.

 

The state of Massachusetts threatened secession in 1803. They were protesting the Louisiana Purchase. Massachusetts said that this purchase would dilute their power within the Union. Many of the politicians in Massachusetts argued that they had the right to secede. Daniel Webster defended Massachusetts in this attempt. The secession of Massachusetts was avoided by negotiation and compromise between Webster, Henry Clay and President Thomas Jefferson.

 

In 1810 the people living in the land of the Florida panhandle, stretching westward to the southern tip of what would later become Louisiana, declared independence. They declared that they were an independent nation, the "West Florida Republic." They raised the Bonnie Blue Flag as their national flag (a blue flag with one white star in the middle). This republic survived for three months until it was invaded and defeated by troops from the U.S.

 

The New England region, once again, was the subject of secession when in 1814 all of the New England states, who had earlier demanded that the U.S. enter the War of 1812, became dissatisfied with the war. They claimed that they were having to provide more than their fair share towards the war effort.

 

During the fall of 1814 twenty-six delegates from the New England states met in Hartford, Connecticut. This meeting is known as the Hartford Convention. At this meeting the New England states put together a list of demands in order to protect the interests of their region. The delegates also wrote up articles for secession.

 

Before the results of this convention could reach Washington, D.C., the war came to an end, when Andrew Jackson defeated the British and New England's secession became a dead issue.

 

The Hartford Convention had been organized by the Federalist Party. When the news of British defeat became known it so humiliated the attendees of the convention and, more so, the Federalist Party, that the party ceased to exist.

 

In 1828 the state of South Carolina threatened secession. The sectional differences on financial issues were already a big issue. The U.S. federal government was collecting most of it's revenues from the South but was not spending much of it in the South. Most of the federal spending was being done in the northern states, fueling their industrial growth. Also, unfair tariff laws were passed that economically discriminated against the South. One tariff that was placed on imported goods raised prices on some items as high as 45 to 50 percent above the original European price. This tariff was referred to as the Tariff of Abominations.

 

These unfair tariff laws would eventually lead to the 1832 Nullification Doctrine, by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, which stated that a state had the right to consider a federal law null and void within it's state boundaries.

 

In December of 1832, President Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation after reinforcing the federal forts off Charleston warning the people of South Carolina that no state can secede from the union "because each secession... destroys the unity of a nation." President Andrew Jackson was furious over the nullification measures and stated "If one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find." Jackson even asked Congress, in 1833, to pass a "force bill" allowing him to use the military to enforce the new tariffs.

 

Despite these threats Jackson, not wanting to push South Carolina into open rebellion, welcomed a compromise tariff bill, proposed by Henry Clay, that would reduce duties to 20 percent over a nine year period. South Carolina's leaders accepted this compromise. On March 1, 1833, Congress passed the compromise tariff bill and the South Carolina convention repealed the act nullifying the earlier tariff law, thus, avoiding South Carolina's secession.

 

IV. FAILURE OF COMPROMISE

 

 

Compromise, this time, was a failure between the sections of the union, the North and the South. Amongst the many reasons for this failure, there can be viewed three principal reasons. In the first place, the heart of the great national picture lay in burning hatreds, gnawing distrusts, and unbending prejudices which no new laws or statutory amendments could reach. Secondly, two compact, determined wings of opinion and leadership, the radical Republicans and the secessionists, were committed to mutually incompatible positions. Finally, Congress, a body of politicians too close to party and sectional objects, too prone to posturing for effect, and too little inclined to think nationally, was ill adapted for the statesmanlike labor required for compromise to prevail.

 

By 1859 a strong current of secession talk was running through the general speechmaking of Southern members of the two houses of Congress. Southern champions in Washington were now more determined than ever before to have Southern grievances addressed. Currents of sectional antagonism flowed from the House as well as the Senate. On the floor of the House of Representatives there were angry harangues, denunciations, and charges, emphasized by bursts of hand-clapping, foot-stomping, and raucous laughter. In the galleries, applause and hissing from the motley crowd of onlookers - loafers, clerks, politicians, handsomely dressed ladies and gentlemen. In the

lobbies, a seething, murmuring, ugly-tempered mass of hangers-on; everywhere at times, language that would have disgraced a barroom. Recurrently, speakers lashed out in passages that threatened to precipitate a general affray.

 

The scene was no better in the Senate as men raised their fists and shouted at each other. Threats of violence became commonplace. Sen. James Hammonds, of South Carolina, said, "the only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers. "For a time a New England Representative, a former clergyman, came unarmed, but finally he too bought a pistol. A Louisiana Congressman threatened to fetch his double-barreled shotgun into the House. Supporters of both parties in the galleries also bore lethal weapons and were ready to use them. A single shot or blow might have brought on a melee which would have shocked the civilized world and perhaps dissolved the government.

 

The road to separation was being followed. The birth of the Confederacy was coming closer as men began to see no hope of a formal resolution of Southern grievances. On December 6, 1860, Senators Brown of Mississippi, Iverson of Georgia, and Wigfall of Texas had made speeches implying that the heroic South would depart no matter what delusive concessions were made to her.

 

Howell Cobb had included in his address to Georgians, on December 6, 1860, a condemnation of compromise. Every hour that Georgia stayed in the union after Lincoln came into power would be "an hour of degradation, to be followed by certain and speedy ruin."

 

 

The Crittendon Compromise

 

Senator John J. Crittendon, of Kentucky, was part of a Senate committee called a "Committee of Thirteen," formed to address the crisis of the possible secession of the South. The committee consisted of: Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Robert Toombs, of Georgia, representing the Lower South.  R.M.T. Hunter, of Virginia, Lazarus W. Powell and Crittendon, both of Kentucky, representing the borderland. Stephen A. Douglas & William M. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, and Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota, represented the Northern Democrats.  William H. Seward, from New York, who was an ardent abolitionist who helped to form the Republican Party. Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, who was quiet, moderate, and industrious. Ben Wade, of Ohio, James. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and James W. Grimes, of Iowa, represented the Northwestern radicals.

 

At first, Davis declined to serve because of the position he and his state were known to occupy, but under the advice of friends he changed his mind. The committee was named on the very day that South Carolina seceded from the union. The committee had little time and would have to act rapidly. It should be noted that not one of the committee leaders was in close working relations with the President, especially after Jefferson Davis broke with him. Curiously, Seward, became the principal intermediary between the committee and the staunch Unionists of the Cabinet.  Leadership within the committee lay with Crittendon. On the day the committee was formed, Crittendon proposed six Constitutional amendments, seeking to satisfy both sides of the sectional crisis.

 

Crittendon’s plan, alone out of seven offered from within the committee, received earnest attention. Martin Van Buren declared that the amendments would certainly be ratified by three-fourths of the states. Sen. Crittendon received hundreds of assurances from all over the North and the border states that his policy had reached the popular heart. Before long, resolutions and petition were pouring in upon Congress. In New York City, 63,000 people signed an endorsement of the plan. Another petition bore the names of 14,000 women, scattered from North Carolina to Vermont. From St. Louis came nearly a hundred pages of names, wrapped in the American flag.

 

But the five Republicans in the committee were influenced not by general opinion but by personal conviction, party principle, and the voice of free-soil leaders and editors. The four minor Senators were inclined to wait for guidance from Seward. Seward was waiting for a statement of policy from Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had already made his mind up. He was never for a moment moved by the Crittendon Compromise.

 

This was one of the most fateful decisions of Abraham Lincoln’s career. The first committee vote was taken in Seward’s absence and the proposal was defeated by the Republican majority. Four days later the committee reported to the Senate that it could reach no conclusion.

 

Early in January, Crittendon rose in the Senate to make the remarkable proposal that his compromise should be submitted to the people of the entire nation for a popular vote. The proposal inspired widespread enthusiasm. Stephen Douglas declared in the Senate, on the same day Crittendon’s proposal was made, January 3, 1861, the he’d venture to prophesy that the Republicans themselves would approve the proposed amendments. Horace Greeley later declared that in a popular referendum, the compromise would have prevailed by "an overwhelming majority."  But neither radical Northerners nor radical Southerners liked the plan. Because of Republican obstruction, interposing delay after delay, it never came to a vote in the Senate.

 

 

Failure In The House

 

While compromise was failing in the Senate, it was doing little better in the House, which was even worse adapted to the task of peacemaking. A body too large, too contentious, and too strongly Republican for mediational effort.

The House had agreed, on December 4, 1860, to form a special committee of one from each state to discuss the condition of the union. Two days later, Speaker Pennington appointed the "Committee of Thirty-Three."

 

The committee consisted of sixteen Republicans, fourteen Democrats and three Opposition members. But he failed to name a single Douglas man from the North and most of his Southerners were unrepresentative of public opinion. He also chose too many radical Republicans. The committee was more inclined to quarrel than to agree.

No member of the committee offered a plan that caught the national attention like the Crittendon Compromise.

Final Attempts At Compromise

 

Governor John Letcher, of Virginia, proposed a national Peace Conference. The legislators attached alike to the South and the Union, immediately took up the subject. On January 19, 1861, they invited all the states to send delegates to a convention which should meet in Washington, D.C. on February 4, 1861. This would be the last effort to avoid the South’s leaving the union.

 

John Tyler presided over the convention. The Lower South, and Arkansas, boycotted the convention. They were forming the Confederacy and thought that the compromise was a game to hoodwink the border areas.  Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, with the two Pacific Coast states, were also unrepresented. This left twenty-one states with delegates.

 

A revealing incident illustrated the attitude of Northern extremists toward the convention. The Michigan senators were initially opposed to their state’s participation in the conference. But on February 9, both of them telegraphed their governor to send delegates. They did so on the grounds that moderate members of the assemblage seemed

likely to prevail and that more obstructionists were needed. J.A. Seddon of Virginia, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, and Lot M. Morrill of Maine, did their utmost to obstruct the gathering.

 

The absence of thirteen states was too great a hurdle for the convention to overcome. In the last days of the Buchanan Administration, the conference agreed to resolutions that resembled the Crittendon plan. When these resolutions were laid before a Senate committee, they were rejected 28-7. The House, on March 1, refused to suspend its rules in order to consider them.

 

V. THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 

 

The Republican Nominee

 

Abraham Lincoln was only the second presidential candidate ever nominated by the Republican Party. The election campaign of 1860 revealed just how split the country was. Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballot in ten southern states. Of all of the candidates, Lincoln was considered to be the relatively unknown. The

initial tendency in hostile quarters was to depreciate him but as he attained the Republican nomination positive reviews began to appear in the press and amongst members of the political arena.

 

The Republican platform was divided into four main segments. First, their immovable stand against any extension of slavery into any Territory at any time. 

 

Second, using the Covode Report (of which a hundred thousand copies had been printed for distribution) and other evidence, they asserted that the Democratic Party which had governed the country for eight years was a corrupt, bickering organization with a record barren of anything but quarrels, bargains and blunders, and that the time had come for a vigorous new administration, animated by constructive ideals.

 

Third, they greatly stressed their economic planks; and attempting to appeal to local and regional interests, they argued persuasively for a protective tariff (emphasized in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England), agricultural colleges, the homestead law (emphasized in the Northwest), internal improvements, and the Pacific Railroad (emphasized in the Mississippi Valley). 

 

Lastly, they held out to the alien-born assurances that they would permit no unfriendly legislation.

 

 

The Democratic Nominees

 

The Democratic Party split over the election campaign of 1860. John C. Breckenridge represented the pro-Southern Democratic faction. He had virtually no support in the northern states.

 

Breckenridge was not yet forty but was well known. He hailed from a noted family. His grandfather had been Attorney-General under Jefferson. His father was a promising leader whose career came to a premature end by death at the age of thirty-four. Breckenridge had reached Congress in 1851 from Henry Clay’s district. Noteworthy experience in the House preceded his election as Vice-President in 1856. Senator Stephen A. Douglas represented the pro-Northern Democratic faction. Only Douglas campaigned in both the North and the South. Douglas was seen as iron-willed, sleeplessly active and held a constructive vision of the nation’s future. He held great intellectual power and force of character.

 

Many good Unionists in the South believed that two Democratic tickets would throw the election of a President into Congress and ultimately into the Senate, where the South could choose a trusted son.

 

 

The Constitutional Union Party Nominee

 

John Bell, of Tennessee, was the party nominee. This party was the former Whig Party. The Constitutional Unionists denounced the sectionalism of the other parties. They hoped to rally conservatives in both South and North around a vague platform that supported the Constitution and one Union. The party also sought to appeal to the broad belt of border states. Bell had entered Congress while John Quincy Adams occupied the White House, and had defeated Polk for the speakership in 1834. Bell was a veteran politician who had encountered many a political engagement. A wealthy slaveholder, and a loyal Tennesseean, Bell always detested extremists, both

North and South.

 

 

The Election Outcome

 

In mid-October, 1859, Jefferson Davis was returning from a trip to Maine. On his way Southward, he stopped in New York to speak at Palace Garden. At this gathering he spoke of the current crisis as a contest over state rights and local home rule. Appealing to the Irish and Germans, he declared that federal encroachments were equally a menace to slaveholders in the South and the alien-born in the North. He was cheered as he threatened

secession. If one section of the union gained such a predominance that it could override the Constitution and legislate for the other sections, he said, the subjugated population would be placed in a colonial position and the would merely show the spirit of their sires if they struck down this tyranny by revolution.

 

Some New York Democrats gave Davis assurance that if there were a Northern army assembled to march for the conquest of the South, it would have to fight a battle at home before it reached the border.

 

On November 16, 1859, Davis addressed the Mississippi legislature. He declared that if a Republican were elected President in 1860 that disunion would be a necessity and he would tear Mississippi’s star from the American flag. Veteran Mississippi unionist Henry S. Foote agreed that secession was certain if Lincoln won. Even moderates thought this to be so.

 

Alexander H. Stephens, who initially opposed secession, predicted that South Carolina would secede, that the Gulf states would follow and that after some hesitation by the border region, war would begin.

 

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the election of President of the United States by collecting only 39 percent of the popular vote and carried every northern state except New Jersey. Breckenridge swept the deep South. Although Douglas finished last in the electoral college, he received more popular votes than anyone except Lincoln.  Lincoln was the first President to be elected by a purely sectional party, with it's strength entirely in the North. To Southerners the future was particularly alarming. A man had been elected President who was not even on the ballot in their part of the country. The North had simply outvoted them.

 

Lincoln did appear on the ballot in some Southern states but faired poorly. For instance, in Maryland it was Breckenridge who took 45.8% of the vote. Bell took 45.2%, Douglas 6.5%, and Lincoln had 2.5%.

 

One astonishing fact of the election was that Douglas, despite his lion-hearted fight, had won only twelve electors, nine in Missouri and three in New Jersey. If the popular vote for Breckenridge had been added to Douglas’s, the total would have exceeded that cast for Lincoln by 350,000. As it was, Breckenridge obtained the seventy-two electoral votes of eleven Southern states, and Bell the thirty-nine electors in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

 

Since the South now had only one third of the total white male population of the U. S., many Southerners concluded that the only way they could continue to play a role in any national government was to secede and form a government of their own. Women nor slaves were allowed to vote in any state during the election of 1860. Free

blacks, which accounted for 1 percent of the northern population, were allowed to vote in only Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

 

The moment the election of Lincoln was certain, much of the Lower South gave way to a frenzy of excitement for secession. In South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi the demand for action was so instant and aggressive that it took the North aback. South Carolina was like a smoldering bed of charcoal catching afire. The States Rights flag, a red star against a white background, was hung at public buildings. In Charleston, South Carolina, people crowded the streets, raising the palmetto flag at the office of the Mercury newspaper, amid wild cheering.

 

Secession fever seemed to rage less violently in Alabama and Mississippi, while in lowland Georgia it was intense. The night after the election, the largest mass meeting that Savannah, Georgia, had ever witnessed called for a State convention and rapid defensive measures.

 

The colonial flag of Georgia was raised at various points and Georgia citizens gathered at many county seats to organize minutemen. All of the prominent officers of Alabama - the governor, both Senators, all Representatives but one, the Supreme Court judges - were in favor of drastic action following Lincoln’s election.

 

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, an overwhelming demand had arisen for a special session of the legislature to discuss secession.  Lincoln’s election was followed by a sharp business panic. The stock market staggered uncertainly, the banks contracted their credit, and borrowers fell into distress. The South was just completing its cotton harvest, for the growing of which it had incurred the usual debts at the North. Now, in view of possible departure from the Union, it tended to hold on to the crop, meanwhile letting obligations to Northern merchants and jobbers stand over. It also moved to withdraw its balances from Northern banks. By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March, seven states had seceded from the Union. They were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.

 

 

The Morrill Tariff Is Passed

 

Lincoln had been elected on a pledge to raise tariffs. Soon after he took office, the Morrill Tariff was passed. To the South it was viewed as a mortal threat, for Dixie exported three-fourths of all she produced and imported much of her manufactured goods, in spite of the enormous import tariffs that already existed.

 

The Morrill Tariff was effective in parts of the Northeast, and particularly in Pennsylvania. Half of the iron of the country was made in Pennsylvania. The protectionists pointed out that only two Republicans in both houses had been against the tariff bill and one of these was an Ohioan.

 

With Lincoln's tariff the South would be forced to pay even higher prices for imports or find northern replacements and help pay for the northern industrial revolution. Either way, southern wealth would be siphoned off into the pockets of northern industrialists or President Lincoln's federal government.

 

What was viewed as a stimulant to industry, the tariff, again became strongly felt in the summer of 1862. The original Morrill tariff was passed just before the Sumter incident. But another Morrill tariff (July 14, 1862) went well beyond the avowed purpose of Thaddeus Stevens and Justin S. Morrill, the compensation of domestic producers for the sharp internal revenue taxes just laid. Western Democrats in Congress protested that the high duties, made still higher by the fact that they had to be paid in gold, laid an unjust burden on Western agriculture for the benefit of Eastern industry. "Let this process go on a few years, and the wealth of the West will be transferred to the pockets of New England monopolists and capitalists." And Francis Lieber wrote his friend Sumner declaring that such enactments fed the very real hatred with other sections felt for New England.

 

The Morrill Tariff should not be confused with the Morrill Act, also known as the "Land-Grant College Act. "This legislation, named in honor of Justin S. Morrill, was passed on June 10, 1862. This act provided for every participating state to receive 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative it sent to Congress. The same terms were extended to Southern states, after being readmitted to the union.

VI. SOUTH CAROLINA SECEDES

 

 

The January 9, 1861 Incident Near Fort Sumter

 

After the election of Lincoln it was evident to South Carolina that they would no longer have a large voice in the affairs of the federal government. It was also evident, based on Lincoln's campaign promise to increase tariffs even more (they were already extremely unfair to the South), that South Carolina must leave the union that she had voluntarily joined.

 

The South Carolina legislature had authorized the governor to spend $100,000 for arms; Senator Chestnut had resigned his seat in Washington and Senator Hammond followed suit. Telegrams from other states were requesting the support of volunteer corps. All over the state the Stars and Stripes were coming down and the red star or palmetto flags were going up.

 

On December 20, 1860, the Commonwealth of South Carolina came into existence. Upon South Carolina’s secession, Louisiana fired a hundred guns in New Orleans and displayed the pelican flag.  South Carolina proceeded to occupy military installations that she had previously provided for the U. S. government. Only Fort Sumter remained in federal hands. South Carolina representatives met with the U. S. federal government representatives and the two sides agreed that Fort Sumter would not be resupplied by the United States without

notifying South Carolina’s representatives.

 

President James Buchanan, testing South Carolina's will to fight, sent an unarmed ship, "Star of the West", loaded with supplies, arms and replacement soldiers towards Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861 the ship reached the waters outside Charleston harbor. Cadets from the Citadel were waiting for the ship. When the ship did arrive the Cadets fired on it with cannons. Two shots struck the ship. The ship turned around and went back north.  This incident went virtually unprotested as it was common knowledge to the North and South that the attempt to resupply the fort was an act of war by the United States.

 

As the Star of the West was approaching Charleston, on January 8, Secretary Jacob Thompson indignantly left the Cabinet. He declared that it had been distinctly understood that no further troops should be ordered south without prior Cabinet consultation, yet he had first learned of the projected reinforcement of Sumter from outside sources. On January 11, Secretary Thomas, after just a month in the Treasury Department, also made his exit, announcing that he could not approve of the policy adopted toward South Carolina, and probably could not support the President in an attempted reinforcement of the collection of duties there.

 

After the incident, South Carolina sent a response to President Buchanan, accusing him of breaking his pledge and choosing the path to war. It was returned with a brief endorsement that he refused to receive it. Jefferson Davis printed the response in the Congressional Globe with a cutting attack of his own on Buchanan, which several fellow Senators echoed.

 

Coincidentally, on the same day of this incident, the Republic of Mississippi was formed as the state of Mississippi voted to withdraw from the Union. Florida seceded on the next day, January 10, Alabama on January 11, Georgia on January 19 and Louisiana on January 26. These States agreed to hold a convention and designated Montgomery, Alabama as the location and February 4, 1861 as the date of the convention.

 

 

VII. THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA IS FORMED

 

 

The Confederate Constitution

 

The Confederate Constitutional Convention opened on February 4, 1861. Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, called the "Father of Secession" for initiating his state's withdrawal from the Union, thought that the model of the U.S. Constitution was best. The other 50 delegates agreed. He nominated Howell Cobb, a Georgia attorney and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to preside over the meeting.

 

In broad outline, the Confederate Constitution is an amended U.S. Constitution. Even on slavery, there is little difference. Whereas the U.S. Constitution ended the importation of slaves after 1808, the Confederate Constitution forbade it. Both constitutions allowed slave ownership. The preamble to both Constitutions was the same in substance and very nearly identical in language. The Confederate Constitution would make clear the

Confederate State's governmental role in the states of the Confederacy as a limited government. The preamble began, "We the people of the Confederate States" and would have the addition of "each State acting in it's sovereign and independent character."

 

The members of the Convention were hailed by their contemporaries as statesmen of unmatched stature. Thomas R. R. Cobb, of Georgia, one of the prime creators of the Confederate Constitution, wrote shortly after the deliberations in Montgomery: "The personnel of the Committee on the Constitution comprised the highest order of intellect, legal ability and statesmanship in the South, in no way inferior to the framers of the Constitution of 1789, and with the advantages of seventy years experience under that Constitution; and the instrument which they reported was perhaps as near perfect for it's purpose as the wisdom of man could make it."

 

The Confederate Constitution was a document of appeasement and compromise. With few divergences it followed the old United States Constitution. This was in part a compromise to the feelings of the "new secessionists," the former Union men who argued long and futilely against secession but, faced with it as a fact, went with their states into the new Confederacy. It was in part a concession to the specious belief that the Southern states could peacefully leave the Union.

 

The Confederate Constitution, in an attack against pork-barrel spending, gave the President a line-item veto. It also set the office of the Presidency to one, six-year term limit. The Confederate Founders also tried to make sure that there would be no open-ended commitments or entitlement programs in the Confederate States. The Constitution read "All bills appropriating money shall specify...the exact amount of each appropriation, and the purposes for which it is made." It continued "And Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, office, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered." Such a provision would have eliminated the "cost-overrun," a favorite boondoggle of today's government contractors.

 

The Confederate Constitution also eliminated omnibus spending bills by requiring all legislation to "relate to but one subject," which had to be "expressed in the title." There would be no "Christmas-tree" appropriations bills or hidden expenditures. These changes would have had a profound effect in keeping government small and unobtrusive. Their inclusion demonstrates much wisdom on the part of Confederate statesmen in improving on the Founding Fathers. Unfortunately, the United States federal government would not be willing to allow them to give their system a try.

 

The State of Texas would ratified Ordinances of Secession on February 23, 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America before the end of the Convention. On March 4, 1861, the granddaughter of the 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, unfurled the first flag of the Confederacy when it was raised over the Confederate capitol at Montgomery, Alabama.

 

On March 11, 1861, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America was unanimously adopted and referred to the states for ratification. Many newspapers throughout the South printed the new Confederate Constitution with the U.S. Constitution beside it on the front page. This was done to show Southerners that their new government was patterned after the Constitution that was created by the founding fathers, which they held in high esteem.

President Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet

 

During the Constitutional Convention in Montgomery, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President of the Confederate States of America. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, was elected Vice-President.

 

President Davis selected his own Cabinet. He insured that each of the states of the Confederacy was represented in the Cabinet. President Davis' Attorney General would be Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana. He was a Jewish man of West Indian descent. He and Davis had once in the past had a sharp exchange, nearly a duel, but the two then gained mutual respect for each other and became friends. C. G. Memminger, of Charleston, South Carolina, would be appointed Secretary Treasurer. Memminger was a German orphan who was quite shrewd, well trained and methodical. Robert Barnwell, a gifted, Harvard-educated, and gracious South Carolinian, then refused a Cabinet position because he objected to two cabinet members from the same state. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, was then offered the State Department. Stephen Mallory, Florida's outwardly phlegmatic senator who had served on the Naval Committee in Washington, was appointed Secretary of the Navy. From Texas came John H. Reagan, a poor boy from Tennessee who had done well in the West. He was appointed Confederate States Postmaster General. An Alabama lawyer, Leroy Pope Walker, was selected to head the War Department.

Walker had earlier been given the honor of announcing Alabama's withdrawal from the Union at the Charleston Democratic Convention.

VIII. THE FORT SUMTER INCIDENT

Lincoln Is Inaugurated

 

 

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in Washington, D.C. In his inauguration speech he made several statements that would reveal his feelings about slavery, secession and the value of the South and her revenues. Lincoln stated, "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

 

Lincoln, in a speech at Peoria, Illinois in 1854 said, "The slaveholder has a legal and moral right to his slaves."

These statements show that the United States did not go to war against the institution of slavery. It would have been hypocritical for them to do so as the United States practiced slavery as well. Slavery existed even in Washington, D.C. There were even black slave-owners in Washington, D.C. at this time.

 

In Lincoln's inaugural address he maintains that the Union was "unbroken," denying that the Southern States had a Constitutional right to secede from the United States on their own free will. This conflicts with a speech that he made in 1847 in which he said, "Any people whatever have a right to abolish the existing government and form a new one that suits them better."

 

Once again, Lincoln has made conflicting remarks at different times and during different situations. The United States Constitution was created by representatives of the 13 independent states and each state willfully joined this Union, each with full knowledge that they could withdraw from this Union at any time. Lincoln was very familiar with the Constitution and it's meaning. His statement in his inaugural speech was simply a political maneuver. He implied that the South had never left the Union and was simply in a state of rebellion against the U.S. government.

 

Another statement made by Lincoln during his inaugural speech was that he would not use any force against the rebelling states except to "collect the imposts," or taxes. This statement is more revealing of Lincoln's true motives than any other statement that he made. He had once been asked how he could advocate coercion. His reply was "What is to become of my revenue in New York if there is a ten per cent tariff at Charleston?"

This referred to the Confederacy's ten per cent tariff on imported goods, which was much less than the U.S. tariff.

 

Lincoln knew that the United States had lost it's most important source of revenues in the seceded Southern States. This would mean that the U.S. would have to change their tariff rates in order to become competitive with the newly formed Confederate States of America or collapse economically. The factories of the North would also be faced with either buying Confederate cotton with the U.S. tariff applied or look to trade with a foreign

country for their cotton, which would have been more expensive for them to do so.

 

It is clear that Lincoln's and the United States' reason for the War Between The States was economic prosperity for the United States. The issue for the United States would not be slavery nor Constitutional principles but would be clearly represented by dollars and cents. It would then be Lincoln's task to create a situation that would make the South look as if they had openly attacked the United States. Lincoln had a plan.

The Attempt By Lincoln To Resupply Fort Sumter

 

An armistice had been entered into between South Carolina's government and the United States government, December 6, 1860. A similar armistice had been entered into between Florida and the United States government, January 29, 1861. These armistices agreed that the forts, Sumter and Pickens, should neither be garrisoned nor provisioned so long as these armistices continued in force.

 

Papers to this effect had been filed in the United States Army and Navy Departments and Abraham Lincoln knew this. Thus, Lincoln began a series of secret orders. U.S. Major Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. troops stationed at Charleston, South Carolina’s Fort Moultrie, took his men out of Fort Moultrie and into the island fort,

Fort Sumter, under the cloak of darkness. This in itself was a provocation that could have brought on conflict. But cooler heads prevailed and the South awaited Major Anderson’s evacuation of Fort Sumter.

 

Before his inauguration, Lincoln had sent a confidential message to General Winfield Scott to be ready, when his inauguration, March 4, 1861, should take place, to hold or retake the forts. President Lincoln, March 12th, directed Montgomery Blair, one of his Cabinet members, to telegraph G. V. Fox to come to Washington to arrange for reinforcing Fort Sumter. G. V. Fox, on March 15th, was sent to Fort Sumter, and arranged with Maj. Robert Anderson, the U.S. commanding officer at Sumter, for reinforcement. This alone was an act of espionage.

 

On March 29th, Abraham Lincoln, without consent of his Cabinet, ordered three ships with 300 men and provisions to be ready to go to Fort Sumter. All orders were marked private. A fourth expedition was secretly sent to Pensacola, Florida, under Lieutenant Porter, April 7th, on which date the three vessels were directed to go to Fort Sumter and on that same day President Lincoln directed Seward to say to the Confederate Peace Commissioners in Washington, "no design to reinforce Fort Sumter." In short there were four expeditions ordered to garrison and provision Forts Sumter and Pickens while the armistice was yet in force.

 

Not until sufficient time had elapsed to suppose that the vessels had landed were the Confederate Peace Commissioners informed of these facts. A storm delayed some of the ships. When the Confederate government was informed of this treachery, permission was given to Confederate General P.G.T Beauregard to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter. Anderson was ordered to surrender the fort. He refused until he could receive orders

from the United States authorities.

 

General Beauregard sent word that unless the fort was surrendered within a certain time it would be fired upon. The fort was not surrendered. At 4:30am on April 12, 1861, a staunch secessionist and renown agriculturalist, Edmund Ruffin, fired the first shot on Fort Sumter from Cummings Point.

 

Fort Sumter was bombarded for 33 hours. The U.S. troops inside Fort Sumter returned fire. The only casualty in the exchange of fire was a Confederate mule, although one U.S. soldier was killed in the retreat ceremony after the battle. The fort was surrendered at 2:30pm on April 13th.

 

The U.S. troops inside Fort Sumter came out, boarded ship and sailed out of Charleston Harbor. On their way out the Confederate troops along the shores removed their hats as the U.S. troops passed by on their way out to sea and home to the United States. A South Carolina flag bearing the palmetto tree was then raised over Fort Sumter. It would later be replaced by the First National Flag of the Confederacy, also known as the "Stars and Bars."

 

This event would be Lincoln's call to arms for the United States. He would state that the South had fired on the United States. This was an effort to obtain support from the general public within the United States, as previously, the general public of the North had felt that they should allow the South to leave the Union in peace. They felt that it would be unlawful to try to coerce the Southern States to remain in the Union if it was against their will.

 

Without his creating of the Fort Sumter incident there would have been very little, if any, support out of the North for an invasion of the South. Lincoln had successfully coerced the Confederate States into firing on Fort Sumter,

giving the United States the role of innocence that he desired. But read what several U.S. officials had to say about the incident and the events that led to it: Gideon Welles, U.S. Secretary of the Navy; "There was not a man in the Cabinet that did not know that an attempt to reinforce Sumter would be the first blow of war." "Of all the Cabinet, Blair only is in favor of reinforcing Sumter."

 

William Seward, U.S. Secretary of State; "Even preparation to reinforce will precipitate war. I would instruct Anderson to return from Sumter." Lincoln had sent a note to each member of the Cabinet, asking advice about holding Fort Sumter. Two may be said to have voted for it. Blair favored it; Chase was doubtful. He said, "I will oppose any attempt to reinforce Sumter, if it means war," but the others voted decidedly against it. Lincoln did not call a Cabinet meeting, nor did he call upon Congress. He knew that neither would favor war.

 

 

Lincoln Declares War On The South

 

On April 15, 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a call to the U.S. state governors for 75,000 militiamen. This call was made without the consent of Congress, which was a breach of the Constitution. Several states would refuse to supply men for this request. They believed that Lincoln did not have the authority to issue such a request.

 

Virginia was one such state. Virginia's reply to Lincoln was : "Virginians will never join you in your open and known violation of the Constitution nor unite with your forces in shedding the blood of Virginia's brethren for support of the Union. If Virginians must fight they prefer to espouse the cause of the Constitution, the backbone of the Union." Lincoln, immediately, implemented a naval blockade of the Southern ports, which was a direct violation of international law.

 

 

Sides Are Being Formed

 

As the states left the Union, some Cadets at West Point Academy resigned their commission in order to go home to support their home State and their people. The Academy would make an attempt to stop these resignations and would attempt to bolster the support of the remaining Cadets to the Union.

 

The Academy required that each remaining Cadet would take a new oath of allegiance which would be different than any that they had ever taken before. It would be an oath of allegiance to the United States of America. Previously the Cadets had taken their oath of allegiance to their home States. Many Cadets refused to take this oath and resigned and returned to their home in the South.

Six More States Leave The Union

 

Lincoln's illegal call for troops to make war on the seceded Southern States would initiate the secession of four more states. Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas would refuse to support the Union in which they had voluntarily joined, as they felt that the U.S. government was wrong in their refusal to allow the Southern States to leave the Union peacefully.

 

The four Southern States would not make war on their sister states, which they believed to be right in their cause of Southern Independence. Lt. Col. John R. Baylor, commanding the Confederate army in the Territory of Arizona, on March 1, 1861, at Mesilla, Arizona, the seat of government, issued a proclamation taking possession of the territory in the name of and on behalf of the Confederate States of America. The Confederate Congress passed "An Act to Organize the Territory of Arizona," on January 18, 1862. C.S. President Jefferson Davis signed the proclamation organizing the territory on February 14, 1862.

Though Maryland was considered a Southern state, secession there was prevented by an immediate military occupation of U.S. troops, ordered by Lincoln and aided by Maryland’s own governor, Thomas Hicks. Many Marylanders went southward and joined other regiments while some did organize a few Maryland Confederate units. Missouri and Kentucky both were officially represented in the Confederate government. Many of their men fought for the Confederacy. Both States were under U.S. military occupation a very short time after the incident at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Even still, the Missouri legislature approved an ordinance for secession on October 31, 1861. Kentucky adopted their ordinance for secession on November 20, 1861. The 12th and 13th stars on the flags of the Confederacy represented the States of Kentucky and Missouri.

 

IX. THE WAR FOR SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE

 

Perspectives of The War

 

The South fought this war as the Second American Revolution. The cause of the South was equated to that of their forefathers who had fought and won their freedom from Great Britain less than 100 years earlier. Many felt that it was not the old Union that they were leaving, for it was dead. Howell Cobb informed his fellow Georgians "The Union formed by our fathers was one of equality, justice, and fraternity. On the 4th of March it will be supplanted by a union of sectionalism and hatred."

 

The living social, economic, and intellectual interests of the Lower South, its sense of civic duty, its highest ambitions, had taken a definite turn away from the Union. Many voices expressed a resentment for past injuries, real or fancied. A belief that the outlook for the South would be hopeless in a Union no longer equal, just and generous was stated with a thousand variations.

 

The central factor which made the secession movement possible, and which must be viewed as fundamental to the national schism, was a triple-fronted sentiment which, for a long generation, had been inculcated among the Southern people: A fervent belief in State Rights, including the right of secession, as the palladium of their liberties; an ever-deepening hatred for the free-soil movement in the North; and an increasing readiness to

indulge the vision of a happy Southern republic.

 

The South had many close ties with their colonial forefathers. The Great Seal of The Confederacy bears an equestrian image of George Washington. The official date given to the birth of the Confederacy during the second, and permanent, Constitutional Convention was February 22, 1862. This date was purposely chosen because it was the anniversary of the birth of George Washington.

 

Many of the leaders of the South were descendants of several of our Founding Fathers. The wife of General Robert E. Lee, Mary Randolph Custis, was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. You will remember that many of our founding fathers were from the South. Thomas Jefferson was a Virginian, Patrick Henry was also a Virginian. The War was not a "civil war" as that implies that two groups of people within the same country went to arms against each other, each attempting to take control of the government. This clearly is not true. The War For Southern Independence was a war fought between two countries, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.

 

The South fought, defending their newly found nation against an invading army. The Confederacy, to Southerners, stands for liberty, the right of self-government and self-determination of people and states. It also stands for a constitutional government and ordered liberty, home rule and decentralized authority. One quarter of Southern men aged 18 to 45 years of age gave their lives fighting for the Confederate States of America.

 

 

Origin of The Confederate Battle Flag

 

It was at the Battle of First Manassas, about four o’clock of the afternoon of the 21st of July, 1861, when the fate of the Confederacy seemed trembling in the balance, that C.S.A. General Pierre Gustave Toutant (P.G.T.) Beauregard, looking across the Warrenton turnpike, which passed through the valley between the position of the Confederates and the elevations beyond occupied by the Union line, saw a body of soldiers moving toward

his left, and the Union right.

 

He was greatly concerned to know, but could not decide, what troops they were, whether U.S. or Confederate. The similarity of uniform and of the colors carried by the opposing armies, and the clouds of dust, made it impossible to decide. The unknown troops continued to press on. The day was sultry, and only at long intervals was there the slightest breeze. The colors of the mysterious column hung drooping on the staff. General Beauregard tried again and again to decide what colors they carried. He used his field glasses repeatedly. General Beauregard was now in a state of great anxiety, but finally determined to hold his ground, relying on the promised help from the right, knowing that if it arrived in time victory might be secured, but feeling also that if the mysterious column should be Union troops the day was lost.  Suddenly a puff of wind spread the colors to the breeze. It was the Confederate flag -the Stars and Bars! It was Confederate General Jubal Early with the 24th Virginia, the 7th Louisiana, and the 13th Mississippi.

 

It was while on this field and suffering this terrible anxiety, General Beauregard determined that the Confederate soldier must have a flag so distinct from the enemy that no doubt should ever again endanger his cause on the field of battle. Soon after the battle Gen. Beauregard entered into correspondence with Colonel William Porcher Miles, who had served on his staff during this day, with a view to securing his aid in the matter.

 

The proposed battle flag was designed by General Beauregard and was discussed at length between the two men. A meeting was subsequently held with General Joseph E. Johnston (a German). who approved of the design, to make a drawing of the flag. Meeting at Fairfax Courthouse (the headquarters of General Beauregard) Beauregard and his officers agreed on the famous old banner patterned after the Cross of Saint Andrew with

the field of red, the blue cross, and white stars. The flag was then submitted to the War Department and was approved.

Seven Indian Nations Ally The Confederacy

 

After the Fort Sumter incident seven Indian Nations officially allied with the Confederate States of America. Those nations were the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Creek, the Seminole, the Shawnee and the Seneca. The most well known leader to come from the Indian nations was General Stand Watie. Gen. Watie, a Cherokee Indian, was the last Confederate General to surrender to the United States. Gen. Stand Watie surrendered his troops in June of 1865.

 

The Indian Nations came from the Oklahoma Territory, which is where they had been driven to during the infamous "Trail of Tears." Cherokee chieftain John Ross, in a proclamation announcing the formation of an

alliance with the Confederate States of America on June 19, 1861, stated, "The probabilities are, that the next few days will witness the most momentous developments in the history of the continent. Of one result we feel assured, and that is of the final success of our great and glorious cause, and of the eventual defeat and humiliation of our vaunting enemies."

 

 

Lincoln Attempts To Compensate Northern Slave-owners

 

In the spring of 1862, Lincoln offered to representatives of the states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and West Virginia, compensation to the slave-owners of those states for the emancipation of their slaves. Those states did not accept Lincoln's offer for, at that time, they felt that it was impossible for the United States to defeat the Confederacy. They also did not feel that Lincoln's offer was sincere in view of the enormous expenditures of the United States government, the recent military situation and it's losses on the battlefield and the present strength of the Confederate States of America. This supposed compensation would have been made in the form of bonds, which added to the doubt of the sincerity of the offer and the United States federal government's ability to pay for the compensation.

 

To some it was felt that this offer was an attempt by Lincoln to appease the European governments and keep them from giving the Confederate States full recognition. It was said that "Lincoln's plan of compensated emancipation was pronounced chimerical and it's purpose insincere." The only result of this offer was the abolition, by Congress, of slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation to the "loyal owners."One million dollars was appropriated for the compensation.

 

 

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

 

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and issued it on January 1, 1863. This document was a pure political and strategic tool as it freed absolutely no slaves. The document stated that "all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free..."

 

The document then listed the following as "states and parts of states wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States..." "Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued."

 

What Lincoln was saying was that in territories that he had absolutely no governing power he was declaring slavery to be abolished immediately. In territories in which he had governing power, the areas of the United States and areas of the Confederacy which were presently under U.S. military occupation, were "left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued" or slavery would remain untouched.

 

This document was such a hypocrisy that many foreign nations would publicly rebuke it. Earl Russell, Britain's Foreign Secretary, said "The Proclamation... professes to emancipate all slaves in places where the United States authorities cannot exercise any jurisdiction... but it does not decree emancipation... in any states occupied by federal troops."

 

The New York World editorialized that the President has "proclaimed emancipation only where he has notoriously no power to execute it. The exemption of the accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia renders the Proclamation not merely futile, but ridiculous."

 

The London (England) Spectator said "the Union government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."

 

According to Rhodes, in his "History of the United States," Vol. IV., page 344, he says; "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was not issued from a humane standpoint. Lincoln hoped it would incite the Negroes to rise against the women and children."  "His Emancipation Proclamation was intended only as a punishment for the seceding

states. It was with no thought of freeing the slaves of more than 300,000 slaveholders then in the Northern army." "His Emancipation Proclamation was issued for a fourfold purpose and it was issued with fear and trepidation lest he should offend his Northern constituents. He did it: "First: Because of an oath - that if Lee should be driven from Maryland he would free the slaves." "Second: The time of enlistment had expired for many men in the army and he hoped this would encourage their re-enlistment." "Third: Trusting that Southern men would be forced to return home to protect their wives and children from Negro insurrection." "Fourth: Above all he issued it to prevent foreign nations from recognizing the Confederacy."

 

Lincoln admitted that he thought that the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation would "result in the massacre of women and children in the South." No mass insurrection ever took place. The violence that did occur as result of Lincoln's document took place in the North.

 

In New York, the most violent riot ever in the United States took place as citizens protested against Lincoln's political maneuver coupled with his initiation of the draft. On July 13, 1863, in New York City, a riot broke out and raged for 3 days in what historian Burke Davis called "the nearest approach to revolution" during the entire war.

Mobs surged through the streets, burned buildings, and destroyed the drum from which the names of 1,200 New Yorkers had been drawn for military service. There were no soldiers to check the violence, due to the concentration of all available troops at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, so policemen and militia units had to face the rioters alone.

 

The angry mob burned fine homes, business buildings, the draft office, a Methodist church, a Negro orphanage, and many other buildings. A Negro was hung, then burned as people danced around the burning body. More than thirty Negroes were killed - shot, hung, or trampled to death. It had been reported that Negroes were hung from the lamp posts along the streets. The mobs grew to an estimated strength of between 50,000 and 70,000. For three days they swarmed through the streets, setting up barricades on First, Second, and Eighth Avenues, where sometimes a force of only 300 policemen would have to face 10,000 attackers at a time. Some troops filtered into town, and the crowds took to alleys and rooftops where they killed soldiers with bricks and guns. The gangs caught the colonel of a militia unit, stomping and beating him to death. After dragging him to his home, men, women, and children danced around his body. Eventually, enough troops arrived to put an end to the rioting. Casualties were heavy -nearly 2,000 people were dead from the melee. 

 

Chaotic conditions in the North were in sharp contrast to those in the beleaguered Southland where one might have expected that the exigencies of war would necessitate curtailment of basic privileges, yet never was the writ of habeas corpus suspended during the lifetime of the Confederate States of America. Many soldiers in the U.S. Army, especially in the Western theater, laid down their arms due to Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. They refused to fight after finding that the federal government had implied that the war was, from that point, to be fought over the issue of slavery.

 

U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant said "Should I become convinced that the object of the government is to execute the wishes of the abolitionists, I pledge you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side." Governor William Sprague, of Rhode Island, said "We had to take a lot of abuse in return for an endorsement of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. We were hissed in the streets and denounced as traitors."

 

In Channing's book "Short History of the United States" Channing says "The Union Army showed the greatest sympathy with McClellan for the bold protest against emancipation. Five states, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York went against Lincoln on this account."

 

 

The Trent Incident

 

In October of 1861, the Confederate States government decided to send James M. Mason, of Virginia to London, England and John Slidell, of Louisiana, to Paris, France where they were to work for the recognition of the Confederacy. Mason and Slidell ran the blockade to Havana, Cuba and there they took passage on the British ship "Trent." On November 8, 1861 Captain Charles Wilkes, of the U.S.S. San Jacinto stopped the "Trent" in international waters and removed the two Confederate commissioners and their secretaries and carried them as prisoners to Fort Warren in the Boston Harbor.

 

In England both the government and the public flared with resentment against the U.S. government. Captain Wilkes had violated international law. Wilkes had no right to stop and search the British ship and arrest the agents of the Confederate States of America. The drafted response from the British government was a hot demand for an apology and the immediate release of Mason and Slidell. The husband of Queen Victoria of England, Prince Albert, then on his deathbed, succeeded in toning down the demand and the British Minister in Washington, D.C. presented it with tact.

 

William Henry Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State, wanted to defy the British. Northern public opinion was strongly in favor of Seward on this issue. The House of Representatives, with Lincoln's approval, voted Captain Wilkes a gold medal. Lincoln would soon take the opposite view. Lincoln claimed that the British were relying on principles which the United States had gone to war to defend in 1812. More importantly, Lincoln realized that in 1861 the U.S. could not push the issue and become involved in a second simultaneous conflict.

 

The conflict ended with Mason and Slidell being released and an apology issued to England. Normal relations between the U.S. and England were restored. England, with troops already on standby in Canada, had the opportunity to open a second theater of war involving the United States. The U.S., even with the industry they

had, could not have held out in a two front war. Had England invaded the United States from Canada and the Confederacy pushed into the North from the South, the outcome would have been much different. Lincoln's administration would surely have been forced to sue for peace and allow the Confederacy their independence.

 

 

The South's Support By Black Confederates

 

A very important fact of the War Between The States is the fact that black Southerners fought and died for the Confederate cause. As a matter of fact, black soldiers were fighting for the Confederacy before the United States allowed black soldiers to enlist in the U.S. Army.

 

There is overwhelming evidence of the black soldier's contribution to the Confederate cause. In 1862 Dr. Lewis Steiner, chief inspector of the United States Army Sanitary Commission, was an eyewitness to the occupation of Frederick, Maryland, by Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's army. Steiner makes this statement about the makeup of that army: "Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in this number (Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the Negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie-knives, dirks, etc....and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army."

 

Private John W. Haley, Seventeenth Maine Infantry, U.S., gives this account of a black Confederate sharpshooter: "There seemed to be a fatality lurking in certain spots....It wasn't long before Mr. Reb made his whereabouts known, but he was so covered with leaves that no eye could discern him. Our sharpshooter drew a bead on him and something dropped, that something being a six-foot Negro whose weight wasn't less than 300

pounds."

 

Captain Arthur L. Fremantle was a British observer attached to General Robert E. Lee's army. In 1863 Captain Fremantle went with Lee's army on the Gettysburg campaign. During this time he witnessed many accounts of black loyalty to the Southern cause, including one case in which a black soldier was in charge of white Yankee prisoners. These acts by the loyal blacks prompted the following remarks by the Englishman: "This little episode of a Southern slave leading a white Yankee soldier through a Northern village, alone and of his own accord, would not have been gratifying to an abolitionist,...Nor would the sympathizers both in England and in the North feel

encouraged if they could hear the language of detestation and contempt with which the numerous Negroes with Southern armies speak of their liberators."

 

Dick Poplar was a free black man from Petersburg, Virginia. He was well known before the war as a cook. He took that specialty with him when he entered the Confederate army. However, being a cook did not prevent him from being taken prisoner after the Battle of Gettysburg. At Point Lookout Prison, Maryland, the Negro guards tried their best to make this black man turn against his people. Dick Poplar maintained during this time that he

was a loyal "Jeff Davis man." He stayed in this hellish POW camp for twenty months. A word from him at any time would have set him free, but he never turned his back on the South.

 

In Mississippi, on February 11, 1890, an appropriation for a monument to the Confederate dead was being considered. A delegate had just spoken against the bill, when John F. Harris, a Negro Republican delegate from Washington County, rose to speak: "Mr. Speaker! I have arisen here in my place to offer a few words on the bill. I have come from a sick bed...Perhaps it was not prudent for me to come. But, Sir, I could not rest quietly in my room without...contributing...a few remarks of my own. I was sorry to hear the speech of the young gentleman from Marshall County. I am sorry that any son of a soldier should go on record as opposed to the erection of a monument in honor of the brave dead. And, Sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days' fighting around Richmond, the battlefield covered with the mangled forms of those who

fought for their country and for their country's honor, he would not have made that speech."

 

"When the news came that the South had been invaded, those men went forth to fight for what they believed, and they made no requests for monuments...But they died, and their virtues should be remembered. Sir, I went with them. I too, wore the gray, the same color my master wore. We stayed four long years, and if that war had gone on till now I would have been there yet... I want to honor those brave men who died for their convictions. When my mother died I was a boy. Who, Sir, then acted the part of a mother to the orphaned slave boy, but my 'old missus'? Were she living now, or could speak to me from those high realms where are gathered the sainted dead, she would tell me to vote for this bill. And, Sir, I shall vote for it. I want it known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in honor of the Confederate dead." When the applause died down, the measure passed overwhelmingly, and every Negro member voted "aye."

 

Black Confederates served in state and militia units throughout the war. Many black Southerners also served the Confederate army in the ordinance department, as cooks and as mule skinners (drivers of mules). They also built bridges and forts, dug trenches, performed scouting duties and drove wagons.

 

The Tennessee legislature in the first autumn of the war had empowered Governor Harris to enlist free Negroes for military service. Governor Moore, of Louisiana, had paraded 1,400 Negro militia and various Southern officers used slave labor for fortifications.

 

Black Confederate musicians, by law, received the same pay as whites, while black soldiers in the U.S. army were paid less than their white counterparts. It is interesting to note that famed black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that if the South gave the slaves their freedom, they would fight for the South.

 

 

Prison Camps

 

The study of prison camps from the War For Southern Independence presents us with a multitude of examples of extreme hardships that many POW's suffered through. Studying prison camps through U.S. history tends to place almost complete emphasis on one Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, otherwise known as "Andersonville," Georgia. The prison at Andersonville was built to house 10,000 prisoners. When U.S. General William T. Sherman began his march into Georgia the prison camp numbers soon swelled. At one point some 29,000 prisoners were sent there over a four month period. There were some 6,000 sick in the hospitals at one time and there was no medicine, for the United States had declared medicine to be made contraband of war, the first time in history that this had been done.

 

The extremely high death rate amongst the prisoners at Andersonville can be attributed to many causes. The single most cause of death was disease. The food supply was short there and many prisoners became weak and suffered malnutrition. But the food ration to the prisoners held there was exactly the same as was given to the Confederate soldier, including the guards at Andersonville.

 

As a matter of fact, the death rate amongst the Confederate guards at Andersonville was higher than that of the prisoners. The cemetery at Andersonville contains 12,912 marked graves. This was not done and is highly unusual at U.S. prisons containing Confederate POW graves. The most common scenario was that of Camp Douglas, located just south of Chicago, Illinois. On the grounds where it once stood there is a Confederate "mound" containing the bodies of the 4,450 or more Confederate POW's who died there.

 

The highest death rate at any prison during the War For Southern Independence was at Elmira, New York. Elmira was created in May of 1864. It was created by enclosing a 30 acre site containing 35 barracks (two-story, low-ceilinged, with unsealed roofs and floors) which held only half of the 10,000 prisoners (enlisted men only) with the rest living in tents or sleeping in the open, even in the worst winter weather.

 

Clothing and supplies sent from the South were warehoused by the Commandant and not distributed for up to six months. Food donated by local churches was sold to the prisoners by corrupt Union officers. Many more prisoners were transferred into Elmira from the Point Lookout, Maryland, prison. Broiled rat was regarded as a delicacy and any dog that wandered within reach was quickly slaughtered and consumed (a punishable offense).

 

A one acre lagoon of stagnant river water within the compound served as a latrine and dump, and led to large epidemics. More than 10% of the prisoners had no blanket, food was scarce and usually spoiled. Scurvy was common. The Commandant refused to "waste" medicines on prisoners and also barred Sanitary Commission inspectors from entering the stockade.

 

One doctor boasted "I have killed more Rebs than any soldier at the front." There were few escape attempts because few prisoners were healthy enough to try. Discipline was strict and brutal, even by contemporary military standards. Hanging by the thumbs was a popular punishment for infractions of the rules.

 

An Erie Railroad train jammed with Confederate prisoners collided with a freight train on July 15, 1864. More than 100 injured prisoners were dumped into the compound untreated and most died within a few days. Elmira is most popular for the observation towers that were built outside the compound walls. Private citizens could pay ten cents and climb the tower to view the Confederate soldiers within the compound. Lemonade and cookies were sold there as refreshments for the viewers. A second tower went up on the other side of the compound, competing for "business" with the existing tower. The second tower dropped the fee to five cents. Most of the customers were well dressed women.

 

Elmira's extremely conservative estimated overall death rate of 24% was the highest of any POW camp during the War For Southern Independence. The Confederacy held some 50,000 more U.S. troops prisoner than did the U.S. hold Confederate troops prisoner, yet, more Confederate POW's died in U.S. prisons than did U.S. POW's in Confederate prisons. Approximately 9% of all U.S. soldiers held prisoner in Confederate prisons died, while

some 12% of all Confederate soldiers held prisoner in U.S. prisons died. The U.S. did not have the problems of lack of supplies such as medicine, food, clothing and articles such as blankets as did the South.

 

When the food rations amongst the Confederate soldiers would become smaller due to the lack of food, the food rations for the U.S. POW's would, of course, become smaller but not smaller than that of the Confederate soldier. The U.S. government would then decrease the food ration that was given to the Confederate POW’s, not because the U.S. did not have the food to give the prisoners.

 

 

Grant Stops Prisoner Exchange Program

 

One contribution to the high death rate in prison camps was U.S. Gen. U.S. Grant's stopping of the prisoner exchange program. The Confederate government asked the U.S. government to accept an exchange offer but Grant would not agree. The Confederate government even told the U.S. of the condition of the prisoners at places like Andersonville, Georgia, but Grant still would not agree to exchange prisoners. Grant knew that exchanging prisoners would mean that the U.S. prisoners would return home as, more than likely, their enlistment would have already ran out whereas Confederate prisoners would return to the battlefield.

 

Charles A. Dana, U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, said after the war, "We think after the testimony given that the Confederate authorities and especially Mr. Davis (President Jefferson Davis) ought not to be held responsible for the terrible privations, suffering, and injuries which our men had to endure while kept in Confederate Military Prisons; the fact is unquestionable that while Confederates desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men

home, and to get back their own men, General Grant steadily and strenuously resisted such an exchange."

 

Charles A. Dana again said in the New York Sun newspaper, "It was not Jefferson Davis or any subordinate or associate of his who should now be condemned for the horrors of Andersonville. We were responsible ourselves for the continued detention of our captives in misery, starvation and sickness in the South."

 

General Grant and General Benjamin F. Butler held a conference at Fortress Monroe, April, 1864 on the matter of prisoner exchange. At this conference it was finally decided that they would agree to accept such Union captives as the Confederate might see fit to surrender, but that no Confederate prisoners would be delivered in return! General Grant once said, "Not to take any steps by which an able-bodied man should be exchanged until orders were received from him."

 

General Grant again said, "If we hold these men caught they are no more than dead men. If we liberate them we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated." General Grant wrote to General Butler on August 18, 1864, "It is hard on our men in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles."

 

General Butler put on record the reason why General Grant and himself refused the offer to exchange: "Many a tribute has been paid to the soldier of the South by those for whom he fought, by those of the same blood and faith, by those who gloried in his splendid courage and pitied his terrible sufferings, but the highest compliment that ever was paid to the tattered and half-starved wearer of the gray was that of the Commander-in-chief of the Union armies who, in a council of war, took the ground that the Confederate prisoner was too dangerous to be exchanged."

Lincoln's Tyranny In The North

 

During the war period, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln made himself an enemy to many Northerners due to his disregard for them in the overall scheme of subjugation of the South. Soon after the outbreak of war, Lincoln sought to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. According to the Constitution this action was reserved to an act of Congress. Lincoln disregarded the Constitution and proceeded to arrest innocent citizens of States in the North, simply for speaking sympathetically for the South publicly. These people would never be charged with any crimes.

 

U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Lincoln had overstepped his power, maintaining that only Congress had the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.  Lincoln responded by threatening to arrest Chief Justice Taney! The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865 stated that the total number of military arrests in the North, during the War Between the States, had been thirty-eight thousand.

 

The records of the Provost Marshal’s office, in Washington, D.C., also show that from June, 1861, until January 1, 1866, the cases of some thirty-eight thousand citizens had been arrested and made prisoner without the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, allegedly told Lord Lyons, the British minister in Washington, the he could ring a bell on his desk and arrest a citizen anywhere in the United States. Could even the Queen of England do as much? Seward asked.

 

One of the most shocking cases of Lincoln's actions involved a Mr. Clement Vallandigham, a prominent politician from Dayton, Ohio. Vallandigham opposed preservation of the Union by war. After the Fort Sumter incident he had become the leader and chief spokesman of the Peace Democrats, or "Copperheads," so called because they

wore copper pennies as identifying badges. To meet the Copperhead agitation, Lincoln declared the State of Ohio a military department and placed it under the command of U.S. Maj. Gen. Ambrose T. Burnside. On May 1, 1863, Vallandigham, now running for governor, opposed this measure in a speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio. Burnside considered the speech treasonable and ordered Vallandigham arrested and tried before a military court.

 

In the middle of the night of May 5, 1863, one day after the crushing Union defeat at Chancellorsville, Virginia, a company of U.S. troops barged into Vallandigham's home, broke down the door, and dragged him from his bed. He was hurried off to Cincinnati, Ohio, to be tried for sedition. As news of his arrest spread, a group of Vallandigham's friends gathered at 110 Main Street, the office of the Dayton Journal. The paper had made itself obnoxious to those who opposed the war. The crowd became unruly, and the worried mayor of Dayton called out

the fire department and extra policemen.

 

Rioters cut the fire hose and threw rocks and blazing pitch-balls through the windows. One ball landed inside in a collection of newspapers, and soon the entire building was aflame. The fire spread to adjacent buildings and destroyed nearly half a downtown business block, doing some $90,000 damage. In addition, the mob hindered the efforts of firefighters.

 

Republicans had feared a riot and earlier had asked Gen. Burnside to detail troops to Dayton. These troops quickly brought the riot under control, and Dayton was placed under martial law. Burnside also suspended publication of the Empire, whose inflammatory editorials had fanned the flames of the riot, and arrested editor John. T. Logan. At a farcical trial in Cincinnati, Vallandigham was put before eight U.S. officers for violation of Burnside's Order No. 38, which stated, "The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department."

 

Vallandigham refused to enter a plea in the sham proceedings, noting that "I am here in a military bastille for no other offense than my political opinions." Regardless, Vallandigham was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment at Fort Wagner in Boston Harbor. In reply to New York protesters, Lincoln said simply, "The

imprisonment of Mr. Vallandigham's case was to prevent injury to the military service." Protests against this arrest continued. Lincoln faced a major political embarrassment. If he undercut the court's findings, he would look soft on Copperheads - the last thing he wanted on the eve of a vital election. On the other hand, if he allowed the sentence to stand, Vallandigham would continue to be an obvious martyr to despotic injustice. Finally, faced by continued protests, Lincoln took action, commuting Vallandigham's prison sentence and having him conveyed, under a flag of truce, across Confederate lines at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on May 25, 1863.

 

Vallandigham went on to North Carolina and then took passage to Bermuda and then left there to settle in Windsor, Ontario. While in Canada, the Ohio Democratic Party nominated him for governor. A 20-1 vote against Vallandigham by U.S. soldiers tipped the election in Republican John Brough's favor and Vallandigham's moment of political fame was over.

 

Travelling secretly, he unexpectedly appeared at the state Democratic convention in Hamilton, Ohio, later that summer, "by his own act and pleasure." Many Northerners protested Lincoln's actions with Vallandigham. The Lacrosse, Wisconsin Democrat said that Lincoln, "is the fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism...a worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than existed since the day of Nero."

 

Even a longtime Lincoln supporter, New York diarist George Templeton Strong, was dismayed by Lincoln's policy of arresting innocent civilians. He said, "Not one of the many hundreds illegally arrested and locked up for months has been publicly charged with any crime. All this is very bad - imbecile, dangerous, unjustifiable."

Information from various sources received in August and September, 1861, convinced the U.S. government that there was a serious threat of the secession of Maryland. The secessionists of that state possessed about two-thirds of each branch of the state legislature, and the U.S. government had what it regarded as good reasons for believing that a secession convention of the legislature was about to be convened at Frederick on the 17th of September in order to pass an ordinance of secession.

 

On the 10th of September Hon. Simeon Cameron, Secretary of War, instructed U.S. Gen. Banks to prevent the passage of any act of secession by the Maryland legislature, directing him to arrest all or any number of the members, if necessary, but in any event to do the work effectively.

 

On the same day the Secretary of War instructed U.S. Gen. Dix to arrest six conspicuous and active secessionists of Baltimore, three of whom were members of the legislature. Gen. Dix sent to Secretary Seward and Gen. George B. McClellan marked lists of the legislature. In his letters he strongly approved of the intended arrests, and advised that those arrested should be sent to New York harbor by a special steamer. The total number of arrests made was about sixteen, and the result was the thorough upsetting of whatever plans the secessionists of Maryland may have entertained. Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key, had been among many

Baltimoreans arrested in September of 1861. By December 1862, he had finished a manuscript about his prison experiences, and the book made its appearance in print early in 1863. Howard’s work made a special point "to show... how men who were guiltless..., were treated in this age, and in this country" and stressed the crowded conditions and spartan hardships of prison life.

 

Howard was arrested on the morning of September 13, 1861, at about 1 o’clock, by order of U.S. General Banks, and taken to Fort McHenry. Howard said of his condition, "When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star-Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed."

 

Missouri was the unhappy birthplace of trials by military commission in the United States. For a four-year period, then, Congress indulged the military establishment’s view that it must be able to deal with its direct suppliers by the methods of military discipline and justice. Thus the trials of contractors listed in the judge advocate general’s register of courts-martial were technically courts-martial and not trials by military commission. The congressional act of July 17, 1862, made some army contractors triable by courts-martial. Congress went further in 1863 and made defaulting contractors a part of the army, subject to the articles of war.

 

More than half (55.5%) of the trials of military commission of civilians occurred in the strife-torn border states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland. By far the largest number from any single state occurred in Missouri. Dozens of British, Irish, or Canadian citizens were arrested and still more prisoners claimed foreign citizenship in hopes of being released. For such persons, the State Department was the logical place to inquire, but other distressed relatives and lawyers must have been puzzled about whom to approach. Lincoln never issued a public proclamation giving authority over these matters to the State Department. The War and Navy departments also made arrests on their own, and State’s authority over civilian prisoners was never certain or clear, nor necessarily effective. Generals made arrests, and state officials ordered them as well.

 

At a Democratic mass meeting in Lima, Ohio, in the fall of 1863, the central theme of the elaborate floats in the giant parade was "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. "That particular slogan appeared on a wagon holding sixty-four ladies pulled by a sixteen-horse team. "Peace, and no Dictator!" proclaimed another float, while six four-horse teams pulled wagons with girls aged five to nine chanting "Vallandigham and Liberty." Over five

hundred women rode horseback in the parade, and there were over three hundred wagons. Eight horses pulled a float called the "Lincoln Bastille," with eight old men representing prisoners in Ohio’s different military prisons.

X. NORTHERN ATROCITIES

 

Osceola, Missouri

 

James H. Lane, a United States Senator from Kansas returned to his home state of Kansas in the summer of 1861 to command what was called "Lane's Brigade." Lane was to retain his Senate seat while occasionally rampaging through Missouri.

 

His brigade was composed of Kansas infantry and cavalry. This force was, in fact, a ruthless band of Jayhawkers (plundering marauders) wearing United States uniforms. James H. Lane was known as the "Grim Chieftain" for the death and destruction he brought on the people of Missouri.

 

In September of 1861 Lane and his men descended on the town of Osceola, Missouri. This community of 2,000 was the county seat of St. Clair County, Missouri. It was here that Lane and his men established their criminal reputation. When Lane's troops found a cache of Confederate military supplies in the town, Lane decided to wipe Osceola from the map. First, Osceola was stripped of all of it's valuable goods which were loaded into wagons

taken from the townspeople. Then, nine citizens were given a farcical trial and shot. Then Lane's men went on a wild drinking spree. Finally, his men brought their frenzy of pillaging, murder and drunkenness to a close by burning the entire town.

New Manchester, Georgia and The Roswell, Georgia Mills

 

In July of 1864, Sherman's troops approached Atlanta, Georgia, during Sherman's "March To The Sea." Enroute, Sherman left a trail of utter destruction behind, leaving nothing for the civilian population in his path.

 

At ten o'clock on Saturday morning, July 2, 1864, two regiments of U.S. cavalry, commanded by Colonel Silas Adams and a strong force of infantry under Major Haviland Thompkins appeared at New Manchester, Georgia, a town that once stood in present day Douglas County on the present site of Sweetwater Creek State Park.

 

From high ground across Sweetwater Creek, Confederate scouts saw them set up artillery within sight of the factory, but they could do nothing. From the windows of the mill, anxious employees watched as a line of blue-uniformed skirmishers approached the building. Not a shot was fired, however, and Major Thompkins and Colonel Adams were soon in the mill office demanding to know who was in charge.

 

Henry Lovern and A.C. "Cicero" Tippens were quickly brought before the officers and placed under arrest, along with every man, woman and child in the nearby town. The mill was shut down and the citizens of New Manchester returned to their homes under guard, having been misled after being told that once transportation arrived that they would be moved west out of the path of the armies where they would be safe from harm. For the next several days, Federal soldiers searched the town, broke open the company safe-it was empty-and sent patrols up and down Sweetwater Creek to check out the Ferguson-Merchant Mill to the north and Alexander's Mill to the south.

 

Meanwhile, Major Thompkins led part of the cavalry force in his command up the Chattahoochee River to Roswell, Georgia, where the Roswell Mills were located. Here he encountered a defiant Frenchman named Theopholie Roche. In a desperate attempt to save the Roswell Mills, the owners, without consideration, deeded the property to Roche. He was an "attaché" of the factory and was as that time a citizen of France, a foreign national. Roche ran up a French flag and claimed protection under it. When told of this, General Sherman became furious. "I repeat my orders," he raged at U.S. General Garrar, "that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, where I will send them by cars to the North." "If you hang Roche," he screamed, "I approve the act beforehand!"

 

On Friday, July 8, Major Thompkins arrived back at New Manchester where he informed Colonel Adams of General Sherman's determination to destroy the town and deport it's people. The next morning Major Thompkins sent a guard for Henry Lovern to tell him of the decision.

 

Thompkins had burnt the Roswell Factory on the previous Thursday. Thompkins advised Lovern that the New Manchester hands "must fix up to go west where they could get provisions as they intended to destroy everything in this part of the country."

 

On Saturday, July 9, 1864, a detachment of eight men went to the factory and set fire to it in several places. One by one the company store, the machine shops and the homes around the mill were put to the torch. Great clouds of smoke filled the air as the civilians of New Manchester watched their homes burn.

 

Major Thompkins then ordered that the 300-foot-long wooden dam across the creek above the mill be cannonaded. After several shots ripped holes in the dam the swirling waters of Sweetwater Creek finished off the destruction. Within minutes, several hundred thousand dollars worth of property perished in the flood, including one piece of Union artillery. The transport wagons then arrived, not to take the citizens to safety westward but to

take them to Marietta, Georgia, where they would board trains for deportation to the North.

 

When the transport wagons proved to be insufficient, each cavalryman was ordered to take a second rider on his horse. The women hated riding behind the soldiers, but it was "a very fine sight," one Illinois soldier wrote home, one "we don't often see in the army." "The employees were all women," he continued, "and they were really good looking." Since the men had not been near a woman for months, order and discipline quickly broke down.

 

Besides, one soldier later wrote in his defense, "we always felt that we had a perfect right to appropriate to our own use anything we needed for our comfort and convenience." The Yankee troopers' "delirium," one soldier confided to his diary, "took the form of making love to the women." In this manner, the people of New Manchester set out for the sixteen-mile trip to Marietta, Georgia. Before night, one officer found it necessary to move his troops one mile north of the prisoners to restore a semblance of order and discipline within his troops.

 

By the time the New Manchester women reached Marietta, Georgia, they had long since ceased to exist as identifiable individuals. They had been merged with groups of other mill prisoners and were huddled together - 400 in the group - the male prisoners having been segregated from the female. This group hereafter was referred to in official reports and dispatches simply as the "Roswell Women," or the "Factory Hands."

 

Once they arrived in Marietta and were housed in the Georgia Military Institute building, the battered women became an embarrassment to U.S. General George H. Thomas, who wrote to Sherman on July 10: "The Roswell Factory hands, 400 or 500 in number, have arrived at Marietta. The most of them are women. I can only order them transportation to Nashville where it seems hard to turn them adrift. What had best be done with them?" Sherman replied, "I have ordered General Webster at Nashville to dispose of them. They will be sent to Indiana."

 

On July 15th, these women were given nine days' rations, placed on trains and were sent to a distribution point in Nashville, Tennessee. On July 20th, they were again moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where a local newspaper reporter noted their arrival: "The train which arrived at Louisville from Nashville last evening brought up from the South two hundred and forty-nine women and children, who are sent by order of General Sherman, to be transferred north of the Ohio River, there to remain during the war. We understand that there are now at Nashville fifteen hundred women and children, who are in a very destitute condition, and who are to be sent to Louisville to be sent North. A number of them were engaged in the manufactories at Sweetwater at the time that place was captured by our forces."

 

By this time, however, General Sherman's wholesale deportations had caused a furor in the North. One New York newspaper wrote: "...it is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity...as to drive four hundred penniless girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek their livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our own from this frightful disgrace."

 

In April 1865, a great silence descended across the land - the war was over. The South, shattered and defeated, had become a conquered province. Nowhere was the silence greater than at New Manchester. Not one of the New Manchester women ever returned and only a handful of the men. Henry Lovern, for instance, returned in January 1866 and became an employee of the Princeton Manufacturing Company's textile mill in Athens, Georgia. Nathaniel Humphries, who ran the company's store at New Manchester was confined for eleven months at Jeffersonville, Indiana. From there he returned to Georgia and spent the remainder of his life in Cobb and Carroll Counties. W.H. Bell, second in the card room, finally returned, as did Gideon J. Jennings, who had been employed at the factory as a machinist.

 

In March 1868, these were the only men who could be found within the state who had a first-hand knowledge of the events at New Manchester on those fateful days. Most of them never saw their families again. One husband traced his wife to Louisville, Kentucky, where they were reunited, but this was an exception. Most of them died never knowing the whereabouts of their wives and children.

 

On October 26, 1882, Theopholie Roche, the Frenchman, brought suit against the government of the United States claiming damages in the amount of $125,000 for false arrest and destruction of the Roswell Mills. When this case came to a hearing before the French-American Claims Commission on July 2, 1883, it was dismissed "for want of prosecution." Roche had escaped the hangman's noose but not Gen. Sherman's wrath.

 

 

Sherman's March Through The South

 

U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman's march through the South, notably, through Georgia and South Carolina, may qualify as the most hideous of all military assaults against a civilian population in modern history. The list of recorded accounts of events that Sherman was wholly responsible for would be entirely too long to attempt to cover in this publication. But, several examples from the Official Records of Sherman's actions will

surely leave the reader convinced that Sherman detested the Southern people.

 

Brigadier General Edward M. McCook, First Cavalry Division of Cavalry Corps, at Calhoun, Georgia, on October 30, 1864, reported to Sherman, "My men killed some of those fellows two or three days since, and I had their houses burned....I will carry out your instructions thoroughly and leave the country east of the road uninhabitable." 

 

Sherman, on November 11, 1864, telegraphed Halleck, "Last night we burned all foundries, mills, and shops of every kind in Rome, and tomorrow I leave Kingston with the rear guard for Atlanta, which I propose to dispose of in a similar manner, and to start on the 16th on the projected grand raid.....Tomorrow our wires will be broken, and this is probably my last dispatch."

 

In Kingston, Georgia, Sherman wrote to U.S. Major General Philip H. Sheridan, "I am satisfied...that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory, so that hard, bull-dog fighting, and a great deal of it, yet remains to be done....Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results."

 

Captain Orlando M. Poe, chief engineer, Military Division of the Mississippi, reported: "The court-house in Sandersonville (Georgia), a very substantial brick building, was burned by order of General Sherman, because the enemy had made use of it's portico from which to fire upon our troops."

 

Sherman, in Milledgeville, Georgia, issued Special Order no. 127, "In case of...destruction (of bridges) by the enemy,...the commanding officer...on the spot will deal harshly with the inhabitants nearby....Should the enemy burn forage and corn on our route, houses, barns, and cotton-gins must also be burned to keep them company."

 

General Howard reported to Sherman, "We have found the country full of provisions and forage....Quite a number of private dwellings...have been destroyed by fire...; also, many instances of the most inexcusable and wanton acts, such as the breaking open of trunks, taking of silver pate, etc."

 

Sherman reported to Grant, "The whole United States...would rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina to devastate that State, in the manner we have done in Georgia."

 

On December 22 in Savannah, Georgia, Sherman advised Grant, "We are in possession of Savannah and all it's forts....I could go on and smash South Carolina all to pieces." On December 24 Sherman wrote Halleck, "The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina."

 

When Sherman had reached Savannah he was ordered to board ship and sail to Virginia to join Grant outside Virginia. Sherman rebelled in rage. He pledged, "I'm going to march to Richmond...and when I go through South Carolina it will be one of the most horrible things in the history of the world. The devil himself couldn't restrain my men in that state." General William T. Sherman also issued the following military order at Big Shanty, Georgia (presently Kennesaw) on June 23, 1864: "If torpedoes (mines) are found in the possession of an enemy to our rear, you may cause them to be put on the ground and tested by a wagon load of prisoners, or if need be a citizen implicated in their use. In like manner, if a torpedo is suspected on any part of the road, order the point to be tested by a carload of prisoners, or by citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope."

 

General Sherman also wrote to U.S. Brig. Gen. John Eugene Smith at Allatoona, Georgia, on July 14, 1864: "If you entertain a bare suspicion against any family, send it to the North. Any loafer or suspicious person seen at any time should be imprisoned and sent off. If guerrillas trouble the road or wires they should be shot without mercy."

 

General Sherman also wrote to U.S. Brig. Gen. Louis Douglass Watkins at Calhoun, Georgia, on Oct. 29, 1864: "Can you not send over to Fairmount and Adairsville, burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon from Resaca to Kingston."

 

And, finally, Gen. Sherman writing to U.S. Maj. George H. Thomas on Nov. 1, 1864: "I propose...to sally forth and make a hole in Georgia that will be hard to mend."

 

Sherman's march through the South will be remembered by generations still yet to come. Sherman himself estimated that the damage done by his troops in Georgia totaled $100,000,000. His statement on the destruction done to Georgia; "This may seem a hard species of warfare, but it brings the sad realities of war home." The ultimate attempt at total genocide by the U.S. troops under Sherman would have to be the multiple cases of troops sowing salt into the soil of an area in which they were about to leave. Thus, leaving the entire area unfit to grow any crops in the near future.

 

 

The Forced Enlistment of Southern Blacks Into the U.S. Army

 

 

Much is said about ex-slaves who enlisted in the U.S. army to "fight for their freedom." Much evidence is available to dispute the totality of this statement.

 

In South Carolina, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor, U.S. Forces at Beaufort, on December 30, 1864, reported to Secretary of War Stanton: "I...report my doings for the current year....The recruiting (into the U.S. Army of former slaves) went on slowly, when the major-general commanding, General John G. Foster,

ordered an indiscriminate conscription of every able-bodied colored man in the department....The order spread universal confusion and terror. The Negroes fled to the woods and swamps....They were hunted to their hiding places....Men have been seized and forced to enlist who had large families of young children dependent upon them for support."

 

"Three boys, one only fourteen years of age, were seized in a field where they were at work and sent to a regiment in a distant part of the department without the knowledge or consent of their parents. A man on his way to enlist as a volunteer was stopped by a recruiting party. He told them where he was going and was passing on when he was again ordered to halt. He did not stop and was shot dead, and was left where he fell....The soldiers desired to bring him in and get the bounty offered for bringing in recruits...." "I found the prejudice of color and race here in full force, and the general feeling of the army of occupation was unfriendly to the blacks. It was manifested in various forms of personal insult and abuse, in depredations on their plantations, stealing and destroying their crops and domestic animals, and robbing them of their money."

 

"The women were held as the legitimate prey of lust....Licentiousness was widespread....The influences of too many [officers and soldiers] was demoralizing to the Negro, and has greatly hindered the efforts for their improvement and election. There was a general disposition among the soldiers and civilian speculators here to defraud the Negroes in their private traffic, to take the commodities which they offered for sale by force, or to pay for them in worthless money."

 

Edward L. Pierce, special agent, Treasury Department, wrote Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase on May 12, 1862, from Port Royal Island, South Carolina. "This has been a sad day on these islands...The scenes of today...have been distressing...Some 500 men were hurried...from Ladies and Saint Helena to Beaufort,...and then carried to Hilton Head...The Negroes were sad...The superintendents...aided the military in the disagreeable affair, disavowing the act. Sometimes whole plantations, learning what was going on, ran off to the woods for refuge. Others, with no means of escape, submitted passively to the inevitable decree...This mode [of enlistment by] violent seizure and transportation...spreading dismay and fright, is repugnant."

 

The next day at Pope's Plantation, Saint Helena Island, Pierce wrote to U.S. Major General David Hunter: "...scenes transpiring yesterday in the execution of your order...The colored people became suspicious of the presence of the companies of soldiers detailed for the service, who were marching through the islands during the night...They were taken from the fields without being allowed to go to their houses even to get a jacket..." "There was sadness in all. As those on this plantation were called in from the fields, the soldiers, under orders, and while on the steps of my headquarters, loaded their guns, so that the Negroes might see what would take place in case they attempted to get away..." "On some plantations the wailing and screaming were loud and the women threw themselves in despair on the ground. On some plantations the people took to the woods and were hunted up by the soldiers...I doubt if the recruiting service in this country has ever been attended with such scenes before."

 

On May 13, L.D. Phillips at Dr. Pope's Plantation, also wrote to Pierce: "The whole village, old men, women, and boys, in tears, (were) following at our heels. The wives and mothers of the conscripts, giving way to their feelings, break into the loudest lamentations and rush upon the men, clinging to them with the agony of separation...Some of them, setting up such a shrieking as only this people could, throw themselves on the ground and abandon themselves to the wildest expressions of grief..." "The old foreman [at Indian Hill]...said it reminded him of what his master said we should do...I have heard several contrast the present state of things with their former condition to our disadvantage." "This rude separation of husband and wife, children and parents, must needs remind

them of what we have always stigmatized as the worst feature of slavery...Never, in my judgment, did major-general fall into a sadder blunder and rarely has humanity been outraged by an act of more unfeeling barbarity."

 

Five and a half months later on October 29, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton in Beaufort informed Secretary of War Stanton, "When the colored regiment was first organized by General Hunter no provision was made for it's payment, and the men were discharged after several months' service, receiving nothing for it. In the meantime their families suffered...This failure to pay them for their service has weakened their confidence in our promises for the future and makes them slow to enlist."

General Benjamin Butler "The Beast" in Louisiana

 

Louisiana has always been viewed as two unique portions: the Southern, or Cajun, area with it's rich French and Catholic traditions, and the Northern, Scotch-Irish and Protestant section. When war began, both sections contributed to the defense of their home state and they both suffered for their devotion to the true spirit of the constitution.

 

United States General Benjamin Butler earned two distinctive nicknames for his actions during his invasion of Louisiana. He was called Butler the "Beast" for many degradations that he placed against the defenseless civilian population of Louisiana. He was also called "Spoons" Butler for his reputation of stealing silverware from the homes of the civilian population of Louisiana.

 

Butler was also made famous for his Order no. 26, which stated, "As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." Some of the "contempt" the women displayed:

 

1. Leaving street cars when Union soldiers boarded them.

2. Walking across the street rather than passing Union soldiers.

3. Singing "Dixie" in public.

4. Turning their backs when Union soldiers walked by.

 

When the Mayor of New Orleans, John Monroe, protested this order Butler had him arrested.

 

When the U.S.S. Pensacola landed in New Orleans on April 26, 1862, after the evacuation of the city by Confederate General Mansfield Lovell, a small force of U.S. soldiers entered into the defenseless city and hoisted the United States flag over the Mint Building and then retired to their ship. Unoccupied and unwilling to see the hated emblem of tyranny flying above the city, a young man of twenty-one years climbed to the roof and removed the United States flag. Being young and patriotic was not considered a virtue by Butler's troops.

 

Gen. Butler demanded that the man responsible for the act be thrown in jail. The young man was arrested and sentenced to death by hanging for the act of lowering the United States flag. News of this decree swept the city and the South. All of the city, including the mayor, leading citizens, and church leaders pleaded with the Yankee invaders for the life of the young man.  Young William Mumford was hanged. A small portion of the rope which was used to murder this innocent young man is maintained in the Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans to this day.

 

As the United States army then moved out of New Orleans, they left a trail of devastation and degradation to innocent civilians throughout Louisiana. Some of the acts were:

 

In Lafayette: At the home of an infirm and bed-ridden man, all valuables were taken, including the covering on which the invalid was lying.

 

At Petite-Anse Island: United States soldiers entered the home of a man ninety years old, taking all his clothing and other valuables including the covers from his bed.

 

At St. Mary Parish: United States troops ransacked the home of a Mr. Goulas, stripping his family of all their clothes, even the infant's clothes, and all bedding.

 

At Fausse Pointe: While in the process of being robbed by U.S. troops, a Mr. Vilmeau heard his wife crying for help. Going to her aid, he found several soldiers fighting with her for her personal jewelry. While one succeeded in getting a ring from her hand by biting her finger, causing it to bleed profusely, another jerked her earrings out of her ears, tearing the flesh and causing them to bleed. Vilmeau was shot twice while trying to assist his bleeding

wife.

 

At Morgan City: Even the resting place of the dead was not left alone by the U.S. soldiers. In this city the late Dr. Brashear's tomb was broken into by the Yankees, and his earthly remains were tossed out. His metal coffin was taken for their own use.

 

At New Iberia: The materials from graves were used for chimneys and hearthstones for the United States army. The cemetery was used as a horse corral. While the families of the deceased watched in horror, the U.S. troops ransacked the burial vaults of the dead, scattering the remains upon the ground.

 

The U.S. troops would not remain completely victorious though, as Confederate troops met and defeated the invaders and sent them back to New Orleans. U.S. General Nathaniel Banks then ordered another expedition into Louisiana's heartland. This time he attempted to take his army to Texas via Shreveport.

 

This invasion of Northwest Louisiana also met with the same disaster for the Yankees. At the Battle of Mansfield, the United States troops were completely defeated by General Taylor. The following day, the U.S. Army was hit again by the Confederates at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. All this pressure was enough to cause the U.S. troops to retreat down the Red River into Alexandria.

 

It was in Alexandria that the invaders, with the victorious Confederates hot on their heels, decided to vent their wrath on the defenseless people and town. Upon the United States troops withdrawal, without any notice given to the inhabitants, the U.S. troops set fires that spread throughout the town. Very little was saved; women and children were forced from their homes by the inferno and driven by the flames down to the river's edge to escape the heat. A Yankee reporter from the St. Louis Republican was so moved by this wanton, barbaric act that he wrote an account of the burning. He stated, "Women gathering their helpless babes in their arms, rushing frantically through the streets with screams and cries that would have melted the hardest hearts to tears; little boys and girls, running hither and thither crying for their mothers and fathers; old men leaning on a staff for support to their trembling limbs, hurrying away from the suffocating heat of their burning dwellings and homes."

 

He went on to say how the people were driven to the river to save themselves, salvaging only the clothes on their backs. Ninety percent of the city was consumed by the fires set by the United States troops.

 

The United States troops, expecting to find the most horrid examples of slavery when they entered the South, were shocked to find numerous free blacks living in the South but were even more shocked to find that many of these free blacks were slaveholders themselves.

 

In Louisiana, at the Olivier Plantation, the U.S. troops were surprised to find that the owner was a widowed, free lady of color who presided over a large plantation run by slave labor. A member of the Twelfth Connecticut in a letter home stated that he had been surprised to find as many free blacks down South as he had seen in the larger cities of the North. He wrote, "Some of the richest planters, men of really great wealth, are of mixed descent." He stated that these Negroes would gather to stare at the Northern soldiers as they passed, and "These are not the former slaves, observe, but the former masters." These excerpts are from the Official Records of the war and are official records held by the United States government.

The Massacre At Palmyra, Missouri

 

On September 12, 1862, Col. Joe Porter and the Confederate troops under his command rode into U.S. occupied Palmyra, Missouri in an effort to free the town from it's occupation. On this raid they captured and made prisoner of a man named Andrew Allsman, a sixty-year old citizen of Palmyra.

 

There is an interesting background to Andrew Allsman. Allsman enlisted in the United States army when war broke out in 1861, but was soon discharged due to his age and the idea that he could better serve as an informant in his hometown area. This would be important to the United States as there was much Southern sentiment amongst many people of Missouri even though the state had been occupied since the early period of the war. Thousands of people were being arrested, simply for speaking publicly of their sentiment with the Confederate States and their cause.

 

Allsman was called upon, frequently, to testify of the disloyalty to the United States of certain individuals. If Allsman said a man was a Rebel the U.S. authorities believed him without question. These accused Rebels were thrown into jail immediately while their families at home would be robbed by U.S. soldiers. There was deep resentment for Allsman in the town of Palmyra. Reportedly, when Col. Porter had captured Allsman, some of the ladies of Palmyra had said to Col. Porter, "Don't let old Allsman come back."

 

Three days after Allsman's capture Col. Porter decided he could no longer take Allsman around with him as he slowed down the movement of his troops in their retreat southward. Allsman was offered release but he did not want to be left alone while on his way back home for he feared that his civilian enemies would kill him, so he requested to remain a prisoner of war under Col. Porter. Col. Porter agreed that Allsman could choose six of Porter's men as an escort to the nearest home of a U.S. sympathizer.

 

While enroute to the home of a U.S. sympathizer more men from the Confederate camp approached Allsman and the party of Confederate troops that escorted him. These troops took charge of Allsman and began to continue the trip to the supposed U.S. sympathizer's home.

 

These new troops took Allsman out into the woods and told him that he was going to pay for the deeds that he had done as an informant. Allsman was shot dead by three men and his body was covered with brush and leaves in the dense underbrush of the thicket. Allsman body was never found, nor were his executioners ever identified. Meanwhile, not knowing the whereabouts of Allsman, someone published a notice in the Palmyra Courier on October 8, stating to Col. Porter that if Allsman did not show up, unharmed, within ten days, he could rest assured that ten Confederate prisoners in Marion County jails would be executed in retaliation. A supplementary notice was sent to Col. Porter's wife.

 

Union authorities had already killed Confederate Colonel McCollough and fifteen of his comrades in August in Kirksville, only seventy miles to the northwest. U.S. General Merrill had also executed ten prisoners who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

 

The threat had been issued by the provost marshal of northeast Missouri, William R. Strachan. When someone had approached Strachan to plead for his revocation of this order, Strachan, who was more often than not intoxicated, stated that the ten men would be shot according to the order. Strachan's authority came through Gen. John McNeil. Gen. McNeil was asked even by citizens of U.S. sympathies to stop this order. His simple reply was, "My will shall be done."

 

The ninth day after Strachan's order had passed. It seemed evident to Strachan that Allsman was not going to turn up (they were not aware that he was already dead). Col. Porter had been making his way southward since before the threat was issued and was most probably not aware of Gen. McNeil's warning. McNeil ordered Strachan to go to the jail and select the "worst rebels" for execution. He further directed that those who could not read nor write were to be left alone, taking instead those "of the highest social position and influence."

 

Strachan walked into the jail where twelve men waited to hear the verdict. Only five of those twelve would be selected while five more would be selected from the Hannibal jailhouse and brought to Palmyra for execution.  One of the ten men selected, Willis Baker, was sixty years old and had never served in the Confederate army but had two sons who had. Mr. Baker had been charged with harboring them and their companions, and, when a Union man had turned up murdered in the area, he was charged with complicity in that crime.

 

Willis Baker was not hardly a religious man and the death threat did not quite him, as it surely had the nine other men, and Baker stormed and swore that he had done nothing to deserve being shot like an animal, and that he would see "old McNeil and Strachan miles in Hell" before he would forgive them. The names of the other nine men selected were: Capt. Thomas A. Sidenor, from Monroe County, Thomas Humston, from Lewis County, Morgan Bixler, from Lewis County, John Y. McPheeters, from Lewis County, Herbert Hudson, from Ralls County, John M. Wade, from Ralls County, Francis W. Lear, from Ralls County, Eleazar Lake, from Scotland County, William T. Humphrey, from Lewis County. These nine men were most all family men and all of them were active in their churches.  All of them had been soldiers in the Confederate army.

 

The first man that Strachan had put on the death list was that of William T. Humphrey. Upon learning of this, his wife, Mary Humphrey, with her two step-children and her two-week-old baby, fled to the provost marshal's office, begging for her husband's life. She was sent to General McNeil.

 

General McNeil was grimly determined to kill her husband, but she succeeded in convincing him that her husband, though invited by Porter's men, refused to rejoin them, fearing that his parole would be revoked. Once assured of her statement, McNeil directed Strachan to choose another man to replace Humphrey.

 

Back at the jail, old Willis Baker was somewhat more calm than before, only occasionally calling down an imprecation upon the Yankees. He was seated in one corner of the jail, telling a young boy named Hiram Smith what to tell his family after he was gone. Tears streamed down young Hiram's face as he listened to the old man speaking in low, sad tones. How he dreaded relating all of this to the tortured faces of Willis Baker's wife and sons.

 

From the hallway came the jailer, who stepped near the cells and called in a loud voice, "Hiram T. Smith!" Brushing the tears from his eyes, young Smith walked to the cell door and looked through the bars. At that moment Provost Marshal Strachan appeared, asking "Is your name Hiram Smith?" "Yes sir," was the polite reply. "Well then, prepare yourself to be shot with the other men today at 1 o'clock."

 

Silence fell like a rock. Then, as Smith's fellow prisoners tried to comfort him, William Humphrey, reprieved but saddened at Strachan's diabolical choice of another youth who could neither read nor write, offered to write a letter to his family. His parents were dead, so young Hiram Smith dictated a letter to his sister, written in detail by the man whose place he would take before the firing squad.

 

Only Hiram Smith and Thomas A. Sidenor had no wife nor children. Hiram Smith was twenty-two years of age. Sidenor had been a Captain in the Confederate army but his unit had been destroyed in battle and there after disbanded. He had then taken up the life of a civilian and was engaged to be married.

 

Thomas Humston was only nineteen years old. Contrary to Gen. McNeil's arbitrary stipulations, Humston could neither read nor write. He was in jail only because he had been picked up by a scouting party on routine duty.

 

On October 18, 1862, at 1:00pm the ten men were loaded onto wagons, seated on newly made coffins, and taken to the Palmyra fairgrounds where they were to be executed. On reaching the fairgrounds, the men were placed in a row and seated on their coffins. A few feet away stood thirty United States soldiers. Behind those thirty were an equal number of reserve troops. The order to fire was given. Only three men were killed instantly. One man was not even hit. The reserve troops were then called in. They took their pistols and went from man to man, shooting him until he stopped moaning. Mr. Bixler was the one who had not been shot. He had to sit and watch as the reserve troops shot his friends at point blank range until they came and shot him.

 

President Lincoln promoted McNeil shortly after the Palmyra Massacre. He was just one of many U.S. officers who were promoted by Lincoln after committing atrocities such as the one at Palmyra, Missouri.

 

 

The Hanging of Sam Davis

 

Sam Davis was a student at Western Military Institute, in Nashville, Tennessee, when the War For Southern Independence broke out. At the young age of 19, Sam returned home to Rutherford County, Tennessee and joined the Confederate army unit, the "Rutherford Rifles," which soon became Company I, 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, CSA.

 

By April of 1862, Sam Davis had already served under four of the greatest leaders that the war would produce, Generals Albert Sidney Johnston, P.G.T. Beauregard, Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Davis was making his mark in the Confederate army as a splendid soldier. Because of his reputation he was selected to be a member of an elite, close-knit group of men known as "Coleman's Scouts." In this unit he would operate behind enemy lines, collecting vital information for Braxton Bragg's army. Once, when Davis was in U.S. occupied Nashville, he was seated in the dining room of the St. Cloud Hotel as the same table as U.S. General William S. Rosecrans, listening to the plans of the unsuspecting Yankee general. Many times Coleman's Scouts proudly wore their Confederate gray trousers and their butternut jackets behind enemy lines, making their presence all the more dangerous.

 

In November of 1863, Davis slipped into his home, Rutherford County, which was deep into U.S. occupied territory. While there his mother gave him an old U.S. army overcoat that she had dyed with the only dye available at that time, butternut hulls. This would be the jacket that Davis was wearing when he was captured. After stealing a peek at the sleeping children in the house, Davis stole away from his home and family, for the

last time.

 

Davis set out from Smyrna, Tennessee and went to Nashville, then traveled south, where he made a rendezvous with Coleman. It was there agreed that each man should go into north Alabama and then head east towards the Confederate line at Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they would give their scouting observations to General Bragg. It was also at this meeting that Coleman (in reality Captain Henry Shaw) gave Sam Davis the papers for General Bragg which were to cost young Davis his life within little more than a week.

 

On November 20, 1863, Davis was captured in Giles County, Tennessee and taken at once to Pulaski, eleven miles north of where he was captured. He was jailed and put under direct charge of General Dodge. General Dodge quickly became convinced that Davis knew the true identity of the elusive E. Coleman. He accused Davis of being a spy, threatening him with a U.S. court-martial and death by hanging if he didn't tell him who gave him the papers. Due to the accuracy of the papers that Davis held, General Dodge was laboring under the possibility

that E. Coleman must be, in reality, someone on his own staff or very near it.

 

Davis refused to give any information, reportedly saying, "I know that I will have to die, but I will not tell where I got the information, and there is no power on earth that can make me tell. You are doing your duty as a soldier, and I am doing mine. If I have to die, I will do so feeling that I am doing my duty to God and my country."

 

The general held a hasty court-martial in which all of the soldiers in the arresting party testified that Davis was, indeed, dressed as a Confederate soldier when captured, conclusive evidence that he was not a spy. Regardless, the commission sentenced Sam Davis to be hung as a spy, and the date for hanging was to be Friday, November 27, 1863.

 

Davis repeatedly refused to divulge any information, amidst offers from U.S. officers to save his life if he would. Davis said that he would never betray the trust placed in him and that if Tennessee could not be restored to the Confederacy, he would prefer to die anyway.

 

On November 20, three other Scouts were rounded up and placed in the same jail as Davis. Joshua Brown and W.L. Moore were two of those placed in the jail, but the most ironic twist of all was that the third person arrested was none other than Captain Henry Shaw - alias E. Coleman. The man that Gen. Dodge was looking for was there in his own jail, only, he did not know it.

 

It would have been so very easy for Sam Davis to point out Capt. Shaw to save his own neck. But not for Davis. He would not sell out his country to save his own life. Many times, Shaw and the other men would watch as Davis responded to the offers for his life if he would only name his informants. 

 

Many U.S. soldiers, noting Davis's firm resolve came to have admiration for him. They often visited him in his cell, begging him to save himself from such a useless death. Sam replied that life was, indeed, so sweet and that he did so much want to live, but that he could not betray a friend and would rather die a thousand deaths. The citizens of Giles County even visited him. Chaplain James Young, of the 81st Ohio Infantry, was so touched by the plight of this boy that he spent the final day and night with him. He prayed with him to the end. At Sam's request, on the night before the execution, the chaplain sang with him "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand." He was there when he spoke his last words, refusing one last offer of freedom if he would betray his friends and country.  Before he died, Davis gave the coat that his mother had dyed for him to his new friend, Chaplain Young. Sam also wrote one last letter to his parents that he committed to Chaplain Young for delivery to his mother and father.

 

On November 27, 1863, at 10:20am, Sam Davis was hanged. A soldier named John Randal - one of those who had helped capture Davis - said that never in all his life had he witnessed such a pathetic and heroic scene; that he sat on his horse with tears streaming down his face; that he saw many other Federal soldiers in tears.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Davis, hearing the story through the grapevine that their son had been hanged, asked a most trusted and able friend, Mr. John C. Kennedy, to go to Pulaski for them. There he was to obtain all of the details possible and, if it were Sam, to bring home the earthly remains of their boy.

 

Mr. Kennedy tells of the trip, in that when he reached Pulaski he went to the Provost Marshal and told him that he had come for the body of Sam Davis, that Sam's parents wanted it at home. The Provost Marshal immediately changed his manner of stubbornness and told Mr. Kennedy, "Tell them for me that he died the bravest of the brave, an honor to them, and with the respect of every man in this command." When he was asked, by Kennedy, if there would be any problems with him removing the body from the grave, he replied, "No sir. If you do, I will give you a company...yes, a regiment, if necessary." Mr. Kennedy exhumed Davis's body, verifying his identity after he was dug up. He then met Chaplain Young who gave him the keepsakes that Sam had asked him to see that his

mother and father received.

 

The body was placed in a new casket and loaded onto Mr. Kennedy's wagon. Upon reaching Nashville, the body of Sam Davis was turned over to a Mr. Cornelius, an undertaker, with specific instructions about shrouding the body, as Mr. Davis had told Mr. Kennedy, "If you think it is best that Jane and I should not see him, do as you think best about the matter."

 

On the evening of the seventh day after leaving home, Mr. Kennedy, with the casket on his wagon, drove into the big gate of Sam Davis's home. Mr. and Mrs. Davis were watching, and when they saw the casket, Mrs. Davis threw her arms above her head and fell. All was sorrow in that home. Mr. Kennedy was going to go home, but Mr. Davis prevailed upon him to stay.

 

The next morning, while standing in the yard, Mr. Davis came to Mr. Kennedy. He hesitated, then catching his breath almost between each word, said, "John, don't you think it's hard a father can't see the face of his own child?" Mr. Kennedy replied that he thought it best that he and Mrs. Davis should remember him as they saw him last. Mr. Davis turned and left. Mr. Kennedy drove the carryall that afternoon, across the creek to the old family graveyard where he buried Sam Davis. 

 

The Confederate Medal of Honor was authorized near the end of the war, but due to day to day situations across the South at that time, no one was ever bestowed with the honor. But, in 1976, at the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ convention in Memphis, Tennessee, with great pride it was unanimously decided that Sam Davis would become the first to receive the honor. The medal is on display at the Sam Davis Home in Smyrna, Tennessee.

The United States' Use of Human Shields

 

In the summer of 1864 the city of Charleston, South Carolina was under a U.S.

blockade. The guns of the Yankee-held forts and navy were shelling the city. The

Confederate army was returning fire from ashore. The U.S. government then took 600

Confederate POW's and sent them to Charleston. These POW's, often referred to as "The

Immortal 600," were to be placed in a stockade less than two acres square, directly

beneath the guns of a United States fort which was located on Johnson's Island.

According to Captain Walter MacRae of the Seventh North Carolina, who was one of

the POW's, they were situated so that every shot from the Confederate guns "must either

pass over our heads or right through the pen. Any which fell short or exploded a tenth of a

second too soon, must strike death and destruction through our crowded ranks."

The POW's were placed under the guard of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts and their

cruel commander, Col. E. N. Howell. Col. Howell gave an order to the black troops of the

Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts to shoot into any gathering of POW's larger than ten men or at

any POW who broke any other rule of the prison. Any POW who walked too close to a

roped off perimeter that was inside the stockade was also ordered to be shot.

The POW's food ration consisted of provisions that had been condemned by the U.S.

federal government as unfit for U.S. troops. These "rations" consisted of worm-and insect-

infested hardtack, a one-inch square, one-half-inch-thick piece of pork, and eight ounces

of sour corn meal. They had to eat, sleep, and care for their wounded in the same place

where garbage and sewage were dumped. Their only supply of water was from holes they

dug in the sand. The water holes quickly filled with a mixture of rain water, salt water,

garbage and sewage.

The attempt by the United States army to use Southern POW's as human shields to

protect their positions did not work though. Captain MacRae noted that the Southern

gunners did slow down and take more time to aim. With each well-placed shot from the

Confederate artillery, a great shout of joy would go up from the POW's. When the

Confederate guns fired, someone in the stockade would shout and everyone would hit the

dirt and watch as the friendly fire would hit it's mark.

After a few months of this bombardment, the POW's were removed to another prison

where they were treated no better, but at least they were in no danger of being killed by

their own men.

In contrast, United States Major General C. V. Foster stated: "Our officers, prisoners of

war in Charleston, have been ascertained to be as follows [rations]: Fresh meat three

quarters of a pound or one half pound hard

bread or one half pint of meal; beans, one fifth pint."

"Many of the people of Charleston exerted themselves in every way to relieve the

necessities of our men, and freely, as far as their means would allow, made contributions

of food and clothing."

He also stated that the kind treatment of the U.S. POW's by their Southern captors had

induced over half (sixty-five percent) of the men to go over to the Southern cause and sign

an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Only one percent of the six hundred POW's held

by General Foster went over to the U.S. side.

U.S. Gen. W.T. Sherman assured his wife in the summer of 1862 that if the North could

hold on, the war would soon take a turn toward the extermination not only of the rebel

armies but of civilians! He quickly put his ideas in practice. Exasperated by the way in

which Confederates fired on supply steamboats from the banks of the Mississippi, he

ordered an Ohio colonel, September 24, 1862, to destroy every house in the town of

Randolph, scene of such an attack, and this without inquiry into the guilt of the

inhabitants. Three days later he ordered that for every instance of firing onto a boat, ten

families should be expelled from Memphis, and began placing Confederate prisoners on

boats exposed to attack!

 

General Grant's Slaves

 

In 1862, U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant's army had become encumbered by runaway

slaves. Grant decided to go into the cotton business, using the runaway slaves to pick

cotton in the Mississippi fields.

Gen. Grant did pay them though - a small wage which was just enough to cover the cost

of their food that was provided for them..

The cotton was shipped back to factories in the North, with Grant collecting the profit.

Grant did not own the land or the crops!

Also of note, General Grant owned slaves that were not freed until the passage of the

13th Amendment.

 

 

 

The Order To Execute

 

On March 13, 1862, U.S. Major General Henry Halleck, Commander of the Department of the West, issued "Order Number Two." The order labeled all Confederate guerrillas as outlaws and required that they be

executed immediately upon capture.

 

In contrast, the Confederate Congress, on April 21, 1862, passed the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act, which recognized Southern guerrilla forces as legal military groups with official officers. With this action by the Confederate Congress any Confederate Partisan Ranger (legally a Confederate soldier) captured by the U.S. armed forces should have been treated as any captured Confederate soldier. The U.S. authorities refused to recognize these men as part of the Confederate States’ armed forces. The U.S. extermination policy continued to be practiced throughout the remainder of the war. This was simply the authorized murder of Confederate prisoners of war by a United States General.

 

 

Ewing’s General Orders No. 10 & 11

 

U.S. Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, commanding the District of the Border, issued General Order No. 10 in August of 1863. General Order No. 10 included this drastic provision:

 

"...officers will arrest, and send... for punishment, all men (and all women not heads of families) who willfully aid and encourage guerrillas, with a written statement of the names and residences of such persons and of the proof against them. They will discriminate as carefully as possible between those who are compelled, by threats or fears, to aid the rebels and those who aid them from disloyal motives. The wives and children of known guerrillas, and also women who are heads of families and are willfully engaged in aiding guerrillas, will be notified by such officers to remove out of the district and out of the State of Missouri forthwith. They will be permitted to take, unmolested, their stock, provisions, and household goods. If they fail to remove promptly, they will be sent by such officers, under escort, to Kansas City for shipment south, with their clothes and such necessary household furniture and provision as may be worth removing."

 

General Order No. 11, issued on August 25, 1863, is regarded by some as one of the cruelest and most unusual orders issued by a general during the War Between The States. This order, issued by U.S. Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, commanding the District of the Border, ordered the evacuation of four counties in western Missouri. Independence and a few other settlements were exempted, and part of one county fell outside the

boundaries of the military district; otherwise, every resident had to move. Those who could establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the nearest military post would be issued certificates allowing them to move to military posts in the state. Everyone else was supposed to leave the state.

 

The order, it is estimated, may have created as many as twenty thousand refugees from the western Missouri counties. Though it did not directly create any political prisoners, many of these homeless refugees must have wandered eventually into Union lines and were doubtless arrested.

 

President Lincoln approved of the notorious General Order No. 11, far more than he did of interfering with freedom of speech or political organization. Thus, he wrote U.S. General John M. Schofield, commanding the Department of the Missouri, on October 1, 1863, with this broad advice:

 

"Under your recent order, which I have approved, you will only arrest individuals, and suppress assemblies, or newspapers, and when they may be working palpable injury to the Military in your charge; and, in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form, or allow it to be interfered with violently by others. In this, you have a discretion to exercise with great caution, calmness, and forbearance. With the matters of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion."

 

 

Ivan Turchin

 

One U.S. officer who distinguished himself by savagery was Ivan Turchin, a Russian who had come to the United States after serving in the Crimea, and had been made colonel of the Nineteenth Illinois. Insisting that war should be ruthless, he subsisted his men on the country so freely that Southerners called him the robber colonel. He gave notice that if his force was attacked after a town surrendered he would punish the community ruthlessly, and in Athens, Alabama, allegedly told his men: "I close my eyes for two hours. "His troops looted stores and dwellings indiscriminately, destroyed civilian property in the most wanton manner, and insulted women. Buell ordered him court-martialed, and he was sentenced to dismissal. But the War Department made him a brigadier general, his

Chicago admirers presented him with a sword, and although the South outlawed him and set a price on his head, many in the North regarded him as a hero.

XI. AFTER THE WAR

 

Reconstruction

 

What some called "Reconstruction" meant something completely different to the people of the South. During the period of 1865 until the late 1870's, the South was divided into military districts, given U.S. federal government appointed military governors and the South was occupied by United States army troops. Confederate veterans were not allowed to vote nor wear any part of their Confederate uniforms, including the buttons.

 

During this time there were many Southerners who lost all that they had - to the U.S. federal government. Taxes skyrocketed in the South during reconstruction. Southerners, who were already devastated by the ruin of war left by the U.S. army, just simply could not pay the demands of the U.S. government so they lost their property. Observers in the South found discouraged men, eager to sell their property and move elsewhere. Advertisements of plantations for sale at far below their pre-war value filled the newspapers. As little as $2.00 an acre would buy prime Virginia land that commanded fifty times that price before the war. The figures differed, but the facts remained the same all over the South. The South’s economic system had broken down.

 

The upper Shenandoah Valley, traversed again and again by both armies, was a melancholy waste. Between Winchester and Harrisonburg not a horse, cow, pig, chicken, crop, or a fence, could be found. Travelers described the area between Richmond and Washington as a desert, with burned farmhouses, untilled land, and no cattle.  In the track of Sherman’s army, across Georgia and South Carolina, the distress was enormous. Reports told of women and children who had walked miles in search of bread; of others who were found crouching half-naked beside old brick chimneys, all that remained of their homes; of ten counties in northern Georgia that produced less food than could be found on any ordinary Northern farm.

 

A visitor to Charleston, South Carolina, described the city as one "of ruins, of deserted streets, of vacant houses, of widowed women, of deserted warehouses, of weed-wild gardens, of miles of grass-grown streets." Once admired for its broad avenues, shaded by beautiful trees and flanked by fine lawns and gardens, the city had become a wilderness of ruins.

 

Knoxville, Tennessee, had suffered as well. "Burnt houses and solitary chimneys over one whole quarter of the city, showed that the heart of East Tennessee loyalty had not been without its sufferings," reported newsman Whitelaw Reid.  Atlanta, Georgia, was clearly stamped with the signs of Sherman with gaping windows and roofless houses, heaps of ruins on the principal corners and traces of unsparing destruction everywhere.

 

Abraham Lincoln, while the war was still in progress, had turned his thoughts to the great problems of reconciliation and devised a plan that would restore the South to the Union with minimum humiliation and maximum speed. But there had already emerged in Congress a faction of radical Republicans, sometimes called Jacobins or Vindictives, who sought to defeat what they felt was a generous program.

 

Motivated by a hatred of the South, by selfish political ambitions, and by crass economic interests, the radicals tried to make the process of reconstruction as humiliating, as difficult, and as prolonged as they possibly could.  With Andrew Johnson’s succession to the Presidency upon Lincoln’s assassination, the old Jacksonian Unionist took advantage of the adjournment of Congress to put Lincoln’s mild plan of reconstruction into operation. Under this plan Southerners organized loyal state governments, showed a willingness to deal fairly with their former slaves, and in general accepted the outcome of the war in good faith. 

 

In December of 1865, when Congress assembled, President Johnson reported that the process of reconstruction was nearly completed and that the old Union had been restored. But the radicals unfortunately had their own sinister purposes: they repudiated the government Johnson had established in the South, refused to seat Southern Senators and Representatives, and then directed their fury against the new President. After a year of bitter controversy and political stalemate, the radicals, resorting to shamefully demagogic tactics, won an overwhelming

victory in the congressional elections of 1866.

 

Riding roughshod over Presidential vetoes and federal courts, the U.S. Congress put the South under military occupation and formed new Southern state governments. The South, decimated by the war, was powerless to offer resistance. Not satisfied with reducing the South to political slavery and financial bankruptcy, Congress even laid their obscene hands on the pure fabric of the U.S. Constitution. They impeached President Johnson and came within one vote of removing him from office. Congress denied the power to raise militias of their own to all of the former Confederate states. Arkansas, among others, begged Congress to repeal the law, and Congress obliged after some debate. In March 1869, Alabama, Arkansas, the Carolinas, Florida, and Louisiana were once more granted the power to establish militias. In 1870 Congress extended the privilege to Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.

 

In the spring of 1877, the Tragic Era finally came to an end when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the federal troops from the South and restored home rule. But the legacy of reconstruction remained in the form of a solidly Democratic South and embittered relations between the races. To give you an idea of just how far the U.S. controlled "state governments" of the reconstruction South went, consider this: In 1868 in South Carolina, the Republican Party (the ruling party at that time) raised a state tax to cover the cost of the South Carolina constitutional convention. This convention wound up it's proceedings by transforming itself into the Republican state convention and nominating a full ticket for the party. The total cost that the convention levied against the taxpayers of the state was more than $2,250,000. This tax alone was almost six times larger than the entire state tax that was collected in 1860, when South Carolina was one of the wealthy commonwealths.

 

The convention membership was seventy-three black and fifty-one white. Of the white men twenty-three were actual residents of the state. Tim Hurley, a wandering jockey from Northern race tracks, was chosen to call the assemblage to order. Of the seventy-three black members only thirteen paid any taxes at all.

 

The first General Assembly under the new constitution consisted of 85 black men and 72 white men, the vote on joint ballot being 136 Republican and 21 Democratic or "Conservative." Of the black senators, only three paid any taxes which amounted to a total of $2.19. Of the black representatives fifty-eight were non-taxpayers. The state was passed officially from control of the United States army, under General Canby, on July 25, 1868.

 

One of the first acts of the new legislature was to appropriate $800,000 with which to buy land to be sold to actual settlers on easy terms. This was a definite beginning for the "forty acres and a mule" promise to each black citizen, but it failed to materialize because most of the money was stolen outright. One investment was Hell Hole Swamp, which was bought by the commissioners for $26,000 and sold to the state for it's colored wards for

$120,000. This land enterprise was the third or fourth of the series of open, bare-faced thefts of public money that continued seven years unchecked. In that time the state's bonded debt was increased from less than five to more than seventeen million in six years and then in one year jumped to twenty million, or more than ten per cent of the total taxable values. The speaker of the House and president of the Senate gave pay certificates, sight demands on the treasure, on any pretext that struck their fancy and to anybody they chose to bribe or pay, including their gambling losses. In one year $1,168,000 of such certificates were issued.

 

In 1874 in the county of Charleston 2,000 pieces of real estate were forfeited for taxes. In nineteen counties 93,293 acres were sold and 343,891 forfeited for taxes. This is but a brief sample of some of the things that happened in one state. The stories like these continue on from one Southern State to another. It was during this period of time that black and white relations in the South would take a considerably sharp downward turn. The U.S. federal government found opportunity after opportunity to drive a wedge between the black and white community in the South. Even still, race relations in the South remained much better than they ever were in the North.

 

The Southern economy and society were decimated. The Southern land lay in ruins from the invading armies. Entire cities were destroyed, all food and supplies were, in large areas, destroyed. No other section of the present-day United States has ever suffered such devastation. The South was then invaded by what became known as "carpetbaggers," individuals from the North who came South to make money off of the shattered South. The carpetbaggers bought land for practically nothing from poor and starving Southerners, or simply purchased it from the government because of back taxes due.

The Southern Exodus To Brazil and Mexico

 

After the War For Southern Independence had ended, many Southerners simply refused to remain in a land that they considered to be ruled under a tyrannical government. As Generals Lee and Johnston surrendered their forces to officially end the war, many Southerners embarked on a journey to new lands.

 

Confederate Brigadier General Joseph Shelby never surrendered, but led his brigade into Mexico in 1865, tossing their battle flags into the Rio Grande as they crossed. Confederate General Mosby Parsons also refused to surrender and he and his staff crossed into Mexico and enlisted in the army of the Imperialist Mexican forces.

Other Confederate Generals would likewise make their way into Mexico. Some were John Magruder, William P. Hardeman, Henry W. Allen, Sterling Price and Thomas C. Hindman.

 

Another place that many Southerners left for after the close of the war was Brazil. Some 20,000 Southerners packed all of their belongings and boarded ships with names like "Talisman," "Vixen," "Red Gauntlet" and "Mariposa" at the ports of New Orleans, New York City, Mobile and Galveston.

 

The Brazilian government was very sentimental to the Confederate cause. When Southerners disembarked in the town of Santos there was a band there to greet them, playing "Dixie." Sometimes the leader of the band was Emperor Dom Pedro. The Emperor's government had arranged for inexpensive transportation to Brazil for the

Southern emigrants. He offered them land at 22 cents per acre.

 

Settlements were begun in the states of Espiritu Santa, Para, Parana, Minas Gerias, Pernambuco, Bahia and Sao Paulo. Only the colonies in Sao Paulo state - in Vila Americana and in the surrounding villages of Campinas, Bom Retiro and Santa Barbara d'Oeste - have survived.

 

These emigrants came to be known locally as "Confederados." There was one short-lived settlement along the Amazon River at Santarem. Even today, certain Amazon tribes decorate their pottery with the design of Confederate flags, the result of having encountered the colonists who chose to settle in the vast jungle. Two Confederate Generals, A.T. Hawthorne and W.W. Wood, emigrated to Brazil. Also, Ben and Dalton Yancey, sons of the Alabama secessionist Senator William Lowndes Yancey, joined the colonists in Sao Paulo state. A Texan, Fran McMulland and 152 other colonists also emigrated to Iguape (Sao Paulo state).

 

In the town of Vila Americana there exists a Protestant Chapel that descendants of Confederate colonists attend services in on each Sunday. Upon the altar are draped the banners of Brazil, the United States and the Confederate States of America. "Dixie" is played at the services where sermons are preached in Portuguese and in English. A Confederate monument exists there also. In the same village Confederate veteran Napolean Bonaparte McAlpin is buried. Upon his tombstone is inscribed "Soldado descansa! Tua luta acabou..." "Soldier rest! Thy warfare o'er..."

The Imprisonment of President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens

 

As the Confederate capitol at Richmond, Virginia fell into the hands of U.S. troops the Confederate government retreated to Danville, Virginia on April 2, 1865, where President Jefferson Davis issued his last order. They would remain in Danville for one week before retreating further southward. General Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9th and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered on April 26th. Lincoln had been assassinated on April 14th and the North cried for President Davis's head.

 

Orders for the capture of Confederate government officials were quickly issued and the flight of President Jefferson Davis began. As Davis and his escorting party headed southward some of the party would break off from the rest at different points in an effort to divert the pursuing U.S. troops. It was the goal of the Confederate escorts to get President Davis into Texas and then Mexico.

 

On May 10, 1865 President Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia. Propaganda surrounding his pursuit and capture was rampant, as was much of the northern media's coverage of the South. President Davis was even accused of being part of a conspiracy that led to Lincoln's assassination.

 

Harper's Weekly, on June 17, 1865 said: "Davis is as guilty of Lincoln's murder as is Booth. Davis was conspicuous for every extreme of ferocity, inhumanity and malignity. He was responsible for untold and unimaginable cruelties practiced on loyal citizens in the South." Propaganda such as this had Northerners crying for the immediate execution of President Davis. The New York Tribune, in 1861, said: "The hanging of traitors is sure to begin before the month is over. The nations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff Davis will be swinging from the battlements of Washington at least by the Fourth of July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice."

 

One northern writer even went as far as to accuse President Davis of theft and questioned his manhood. Cheney, who wrote "History of the Civil War", said in his book: "Davis had in his possession $100,000 in gold belonging to the Confederate government." "He was arrested near Macon disguised as a woman, with a shawl over his head and carrying a tin pail."

 

Those who captured and arrested President Davis testify to the falsity of this charge. The testimony of James H. Parker, Elburnville, Pennsylvania said: "I am no admirer of Jeff Davis - I am a Yankee, full of Yankee prejudices, but I think it is wicked to lie. I was with the party that captured Jeff Davis; I saw the whole transaction from the beginning. I now say that Jeff Davis did not have on at the time he was taken any such garment as is worn by women. He did have over his shoulders a water proof article of clothing, something like a havelock. He was not in the least concealed. He wore a hat and did not carry a pail, bucket or kettle of any kind. I defy any person to find a single officer or soldier who was present at the capture to say that he was disguised in woman's clothes, or that his wife acted in any way unlady-like or undignified on the occasion."

 

Upon President Davis's capture he was transported to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. There he was shackled and chained in a damp cell. He had absolutely no privacy as he was put in an open casemate where guards and the curious were allowed to watch him at their leisure. A light was kept burning twenty-four hours a day, giving him virtually no rest, until after many months his wife was allowed to make him a mask for his eyes.

 

Bvt. Lieutenant Colonel John J. Craven, M.D., was the physician assigned to President Davis during his confinement from May 25, 1865 to December 25, 1865. Dr. Craven attended to President Davis under the authority of a vindictive General Miles, who resented all evidences of humanity in dealing with Davis. This eventually led to an order by Gen. Miles to Dr. Craven that he give no order for the prisoner, such as one ordering woolen underwear and a thick overcoat, without prior notice to him. Gen. Miles also ordered that Dr. Craven should confine his conversations with Davis to medical matters. Not satisfied with these evidences of his character, Gen. Miles had Dr. Craven relieved from duty on Christmas Day, 1865.

 

President Davis's health deteriorated dramatically during his imprisonment. He was in shackles and chains until they had to be removed for medical reasons. President Davis would finally, on May 11, 1867, be released on $100,000 bond provided by prominent Northerners, among them old abolitionists Gerrit Smith and Horace Greely. Although still scheduled to be tried for charges of treason, he would never be tried. Had the U.S. government persisted with their charges it would have been possible and likely that President Davis would win in a court of law what was lost on the field of battle.

 

President Davis was excluded from the general amnesty of Confederates, through the ambition and vindictiveness of Senator James G. Blaine of Maine. President Davis would live out his life without holding U.S. citizenship until it was restored in 1978 as a token gesture.

 

President Davis would live his life, first abroad, to regain his health to some degree. He would end up living in Biloxi, Mississippi at Beauvoir. It was there that he wrote and published his "Rise And Fall of the Confederate Government." Though he did not often appear in public, he occasionally spoke at various Confederate monument dedications across the South where he received the adoration of a grateful people.

 

At 81, he went to Brierfield on some business, and became ill. Starting back home, he made it to the home of Judge Fenner, a long time friend. On December 6, 1889 he passed away.

 

As President Davis lay in state in the New Orleans City Hall, which like every business building in the city was draped in black, people came to show their respect for the deceased leader of the Confederate cause. Ten thousand people viewed his body on the first day, December 7th. Viewing hours were quickly lengthened to 10:00pm each night. At noon, December 11, the casket was removed to the porch where the funeral eulogy

was presented to a sea of people filling every standing space as far as the eye could see. The funeral procession itself numbered 10,000. The crowd was the largest ever assembled in the South for a funeral, numbering over 200,000 people. The people of the North were shocked by the display of affection for President Davis, but were firmly convinced of the South's dedication to their now deceased leader and the cause for which he stood.

 

Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, was also imprisoned after the close of the war. Although his imprisonment was not as lengthy as that of President Davis it was still a cruel experience.  Vice President Stephens was arrested and sent to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor, where he would spend six months in prison.

 

In 1866 Stephens was elected to the Senate but would be refused his seat. In 1869 he became crippled when an iron gate fell on him, confining him to a wheelchair. Stephens would later be elected Governor to the state of Georgia. Four months into office, in 1882, Stephens passed away. In Virginia, flags were flown at half-mast. In

Vermont, state offices were closed. Flags were lowered over the U.S. capital as newspapers around the country reported his death.

 

 

The Execution of Major Henry Wirz

 

Major Henry Wirz was the commandant of Camp Sumter, the infamous Confederate prison located at Andersonville, Georgia, from March of 1864 until the close of the war. On May 7, 1865, Maj. Wirz was to spend the last day of his life with his ten-year-old daughter.

 

On that day U.S. Captain H.E. Noyes came to Andersonville on orders from General Wilson. Capt. Noyes demanded the records of the prison from Wirz, and then advised Maj. Wirz that he had been directed to take him to Gen. Wilson's headquarters. Maj. Wirz was taken to Macon, Georgia, where he was questioned at considerable

length about the prison records. In the course of about two hours the General told him that that was all he wanted and that he could return to his family. Maj. Wirz bid General Wilson goodbye and went to the train depot to go to Andersonville. The train was a few hours late, and after waiting at the depot for more than an hour, an officer with a few soldiers from General Wilson's headquarters came to the station and arrested Maj. Wirz and put him under guard. A few days later he was sent to Washington, D.C., and placed in the Old Capitol Prison on May 10, 1865.

 

On August 23, 1865, Wirz's trial began. He was charged with 13 murders, one of which supposedly happened in February of 1864, which was before Wirz even arrived at Andersonville. Of the other 12 charges of murder, each and every one of the "victims'" names were unknown.

 

Of the 160 witnesses called by the prosecution, 145 testified that they had no personal knowledge of Wirz ever killing or mistreating anyone. Only one of the 160 could give the name of a prisoner allegedly killed by Wirz. The problem with this testimony was that the date given by the witness did not agree with any date used in the charges against Wirz. The court "corrected" this situation by simply changing the date in the indictment to match the

testimony already given.

 

The court decided which witnesses it would allow the defense to call. Several key witnesses were not allowed to testify on behalf of the defense. While the U.S. court restricted the defense, it would compliment prosecution witnesses for their "spirited testimony." One defense witness was arrested and jailed when he arrived to testify on behalf of Wirz.

 

Major Henry Wirz was found guilty of murder. After spending six cruel months in prison and on the day of his death, Maj. Wirz sent a letter to Mr. Louis Schade, an old friend:

 

Dear Mr. Louis Schade:

 

It is the last time that I address myself to you. What I have said often and often I repeat - accept my thanks, my sincere, heartfelt thanks, for all you have done for me. May God reward you. I cannot. I still have something more to ask of you, and I am confident you will not refuse to receive my dying request. Please help my poor family, my dear wife and children. War, cruelest, has swept everything from me, and today my wife and children are beggars! My life is demanded as an atonement. I am willing to give it, and hope that after a while I will be judged differently from what I am now. If any one ought to come to the relief of my family, it is the people of the South, for whose sake I have sacrificed all. I know you will excuse me for troubling you again. Farewell, dear sir. May God bless you.

 

Yours thankfully,

H. Wirz

 

Maj. Wirz had, on November 6, 1865, written President Andrew Johnson, asking him to please pass his sentence upon him as he had lived for six months in prison, alive yes, but only "the mechanical functions I perform, and nothing more."

 

On November 10, 1865, after saying parting words with his weeping wife, Maj. Wirz was led to the gallows in front of U.S. troops, pounding the butts of their rifles into the wooden planks, chanting "Andersonville, Andersonville" and then Major Wirz was hanged.

 

The most outrageous injustice of the court proceedings was connected with the prosecution's key witness. A man claiming to be one De la Baume testified that he personally saw Wirz shoot two prisoners. His testimony was so compelling that the court gave the witness a written commendation for his "zealous testimony" and rewarded him

with a government job. Eleven days after Wirz was hanged, De la Baume was recognized by Union veterans as one Felix Oeser, a deserter from the Seventh New York Regiment. The veterans were so outraged they went to the Secretary of the Interior and had the deserter fired from his government job. Upon his discovery, the deserter admitted that he had committed perjury in the Wirz trial. But the only reason that the Union veterans were angry was because the deserter was on the government payroll, not because he had perjured and aided in the killing of an innocent man.

 

The unfair treatment accorded the defense caused three of the original five defense attorneys to quit early in the case. The remaining two finally gave up and quit after their motion for time to prepare their closing argument was denied. The court then allowed the prosecution to present the closing arguments for both the prosecution AND the defense!

 

 

The Laws Passed Against Partisan Rangers

 

After the end of the War For Southern Independence there were laws which were passed that were specifically written against Confederate Partisan Rangers, groups of guerilla troops that, for the most part, came out of Missouri. The laws prohibited any Confederate veteran of the Partisan Rangers from voting, holding any public office and from holding office in their local churches. This is just one example of how Reconstruction’s harshness was aimed at a specific group of Southern individuals.

 

 

Eviction From The United States

 

The Southern states, after the close of the war, once again had representation in the United States government. Several major events took place shortly after the war. The 13th Amendment, which would abolish slavery in the U.S., was proposed and passed. Then, the 14th Amendment was proposed. This would transfer powers from the

government on the state level to the government on the federal level. This would also, for the first time, define a citizen of the United States.

 

The 14th Amendment was a radical departure from the original letter and spirit of the Constitution. The Southern states would not vote for the 14th Amendment as it was in direct conflict with the beliefs that supported their secession in 1861. Of the 37 States voting on the 14th Amendment, 28 were needed to ratify the measure. Only 22 states voted in favor of it, 12 voted against it (all 12 were Southern States) and 3 did not vote. Mississippi's rejection resolution did not reach Washington, and it is numbered with the non-voting states.

 

On March 2, 1867, the Northern-majority Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, declaring the Southern States to be outside the indivisible Union. They denied majority rule in the Southern States by the disfranchisement of large numbers of the white population.  U.S. troops re-entered the South and implemented U.S. military rule. The Southern States were then required to ratify the amendment as the price of readmission to the

Union. Otherwise, they would remain under military rule.

 

After the implementation of the Reconstruction Act the 14th Amendment was then passed by the remaining Northern states in the Union. This drew protest from the state of New Jersey who said that one of it's Senators had been excluded from voting and that his seat had been vacated in the federal Senate when the 14th Amendment was proposed. The states of Oregon and Ohio also repealed their ratification of the 14th Amendment.

One by one each Southern state accepted the U.S. government's demands and were readmitted to the Union, under their conditions. The State of Georgia was the last state to be readmitted, which took place, first in 1870, then again in 1878.

 

 

XII. SUMMARY

 

 

Why The Southerner Fought

 

The South is most often accused of fighting to preserve slavery. The South, clearly, was not fighting to preserve slavery. Only approximately 6% of Southerners ever owned slaves. There were more slave-owners enlisted in the U.S. army than there were in the Confederate army. Several key U.S. army officers were slave-owners during the war, supposedly "fighting against slavery."

 

The South fought to preserve the Union, as it had been created by their forefathers. The Northern states' politicians were aggressively attempting to implement a monarchial form of government, which was precisely what the early colonists had fought against in the American Revolution. Also, the Northern states were taking advantage of their superior numbers in the federal government and were using their advantage to implement unfair tariffs against the South. Enormous amounts of money were taken from the South and funneled into the Northern states.

 

The Union was formed by independent, sovereign states and they were united, first, under the Articles of Confederation, then, again, united under the Constitution. The Southern soldier fought to protect his home, State and Nation from the invading United States army. He fought in honor of his forefathers who had fought against British tyranny. His cause was even more just than that of his forefathers.

 

The South fought, simply, for their independence, as the United States federal government of the Northern states refused to allow the South to leave peacefully. Had the U.S. not invaded the South, there would have been no war.

The South was right in their cause as they abided by the contents of the document that created the Union, the Constitution.

 

The name "civil war" implies that two, or more, groups of people within a country take up arms against each other in a struggle for the government. This was not what took place in the South between 1861 and 1865. It was an invasion of one nation into another independent, sovereign nation.

 

The Confederate States of America did not want war with the United States. The Confederacy made several attempts to maintain their link to the U.S. The First National Flag of the Confederacy was very similar to the U.S. flag and this similarity was intentional. Rather than it having 13 stripes upon it, it carried 3 broad stripes, or "bars," as the flag was called the "Stars and Bars." The struggle is properly called "The War For Southern Independence," as that is the most correct description of the reasoning behind the war.

 

 

Why We Should Remember Them Today

 

We should never allow the memories of the Confederate soldier to vanish. They stood for freedom from oppressive government and they believed in self determination and local control of their lives. The 19th century Southerner has carried the burden of ridicule since the early 1800's. That ridicule exists even today. There are efforts all over the country to abolish the symbols of our once independent nation. So called "multi-culturalists" see nothing wrong in trying to represent the Southerner by their peasantry. A war of misinformation rages as

falsehoods on the history of the South are presented to our children and are perpetuated throughout our national media. Our ancestors deserve to be held in our memory in honor of the sacrifices they made. We should hold them as an example because of their determination to stand up for their cause of independence.

 

 

XIII. SUGGESTED READINGS

 

Listed are but some of the many good books that are available for reading. These books will present to the reader a perspective of the War For Southern Independence that many books do not present.

 

"The South Was Right" by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy. Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, Louisiana 1991, 1994.

 

"Southern By The Grace of God" by Michael Andrew Grissom. Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, Louisiana 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992.

 

"The Rise And Fall Of The Confederate Government" by Jefferson Davis. Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, 1961, 1971.

 

"The True Story of Andersonville Prison" by James Madison Page. The Neale Publishing Company, New York and Washington, 1908. The Iberian Publishing Company, Athens, Georgia, 1991.

 

"A View Of The Constitution" by William Rawle. Originally published in 1825. Available with annotations by Walter D. Kennedy and James R. Kennedy. Land And Land Publishing Company, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1993.

 

"The Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses In The Official Records" by Thomas Bland Keys. The Beauvoir Press, Biloxi, Mississippi, 1991.

 

"The Prison Life of Jefferson Davis" by John J. Craven, M.D. Carleton, Publisher New York. 1866. Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, Missouri 1979.

 

"A Southern View Of The Invasion Of The Southern States and War Of 1861-1865" by Captain Samuel A'Court Ashe. Last published in 1938.

 

"Truths Of History" by Mildred Lewis Rutherford. Publishing date unknown. Most of her works were originally published in the 1900-1925 timeframe.

 

"The South Must Have Her Rightful Place In History" by Mildred Lewis Rutherford. Published in 1923.

 

"Facts The Historians Leave Out" by John S. Tilley. The Paragon Press, Montgomery, Alabama, 1951.

 

"War For What" by Francis W. Springer. Bill Coats, Ltd., 1990.

 

"A Defense Of Virginia And The South" by Robert L. Dabney. E.J. Hale & Son, New York, 1867. Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 1991.

 

"The Flags of The Confederacy: An Illustrated History" by Devereaux D. Cannon, Jr. St. Luke's Press, Memphis, Tennessee and Broadfoot Publishing, Wilmington, North Carolina, 1988.

 

"The Real Lincoln" by Charles L.C. Minor. Everett Waddey Company, 1904. Atkins- Rankin Company, 1928. Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 1992.

 

"The Secret Six: John Brown And The Abolitionist Movement" by Otto Scott. Times Books, New York, 1979. Foundation for American Education, Columbia, South Carolina, 1987. Uncommon Books, Murphys, California, 1993.

 

"Maryland: The South’s First Casualty" by Bart Rhett Talbert. Rockbridge Publishing Company, 1995.

 

"Ordeal of the Union (Volumes 1, 2, 3 & 4)"by Allan Nevins. Collier Books, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, New York, 1992.

 

"Civil War Trivia and Fact Book" by Webb Garrison. Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1992.

 

"The Civil War: A Narrative" by Shelby Foote. Random House, New York, New York, 1974.

 

"War of The Rebellion - Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (130 Volumes also available on CD-ROM)" Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.

 

"Mr. Lincoln’s Army" by Bruce Catton. Doubleday and Co., Garden City, New York, 1965.

A Confederate Catechism, The War for Southern Self-Government, by Lyon Gardiner Tyle, 1935

Southern Historical Society Papers - 52 Volumes (Also Available on CD-ROM)

Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865 by George Edmonds, 1904

The Story of the Confederate States or History of the War for Southern Independence by Joseph T. Derry 1895

The Story of the Confederacy by Robert Selph Henry, 1931

The Federal Government: Its True Nature and Character, C.C. Burr,

Confederate Military History, 1899 by Edited by Gen. Clement A. Evans

Crimes of the Civil War and the Curse of the Funding System by Judge Henry Clay Dean 1868

Prison Life During the War, by Fritz Fuzzlebug 1869

The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the States by Hunter McGuire and George L. Christian 1907

A Constitutional View of the War Between the States by Alexander H. Stephens

Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology about Black Southerners by Kelly Barrow

The Coming of Glory by John S. Tilley, 1948

Truth of the War Conspiracy of 1861 By H.W. Johnstone, 1921

Miss Rutherford's HISTORICAL NOTES (Different Topics each month) (Contrasted Lives of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln Jan 1927-Dec 1927)

Miss Rutherford's SCRAP BOOK 1923 Topics (The Causes That Led to the War Between the States, Secession Was Not Rebellion, Who Was Responsible For War?, Was Coercion Constitutional ?, Army and Navy of the Confederate States Organized, Battles and Leaders The Surrender and Results)

Miss Rutherford's SCRAP BOOK 1924 Topics (The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction Days of 1865-1876, The 13th and 14^th Amendments, The South's Responsibility) Miss Rutherford's SCRAP BOOK 1925 Topics (Things That Make for Peace - What is Meant by Peace?, Disputed Points in Southern History - Proofs Given, What Has the Negro Meant to the South? What Has the South Meant to the Negro?)

Wrongs of History Righted By Mildred L. Rutherford Nov 13, 1919.

What The South May Claim or Where The South Leads, By Mildred L. Rutherford

14 Months in American Bastille’s 1863

The Bastille’s of the North: By a Member of the Maryland Legislature 1863

The Bastille in America or Democratic Absolutism 1861

Southern Rights Convention of Maryland Feb 18-19, 1861

Inside of Rock Island Prison from Dec 1863 to June 1865 By J.W. Minnich 1908

The Treatment of P.O.W. 1861-1865 By Samuel E. Lewis M.D. of Washington D.C. 1910

300 Days in a Yankee Prison: Imprisonment at Camp Chase Ohio. By John H. King, M.D. 1904

Report of the Joint Committee of the State of the Republic (Georgia) on Nov 9th, 1866 - Reasons for rejecting the 14^th Amendment

The Tragic Era : The Revolution after Lincoln By Claude Bowers

States' Rights The Law of the Land By Charles J. Bloch 1958

The Right of Recognition: A Sketch of the present policy of the Confederate States By a Recent Tourist 1862

The Recognition of the Southern Confederation By James Spence, London 1862

Free and Impartial Exposition of the Causes Which Led to the Failure of the C.S. to Establish Their Independence. Oct 14, 1865

The Negro , North & South: The status of the Colored Population in the North & South Compared, By Robert Trimble 1861

Give us back the Constitution of our Fathers, By Henderson Hallman June 3,1924

War Claims Against The U.S. By Wm Whiting 1866

The South Vindicated From The Charge of Treason & Rebellion. By Wm E. Boggs 1881.

The Letters of Judah P. Benjamin to Ambrose Dudley Mann, Minister of the Confederacy to Belgium & the Vatican

Black Slave-owners By Larry Koger

Gladstone, Morley, & the Confederate Loans of 1863. By John Bigelow 1905

The Shackling of Jefferson Davis By T.K. Oglesby 1899

The Defense of Battery Wagner July 18th, 1863 By Lt. Col. Twiggs

The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry into American Constitutionalism by Marshall L. DeRosa University of Missouri Press, 1991

Men in Gray By Robert Catlett Cave, 1911

Was Jefferson Davis Right? By James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy

Why Not Freedom, By James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy

 

References: 

Available on request for information contained in this curriculum from:

The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, 

Southern Historical Society Papers

Confederate Military History

Currently available for:

American Indians-The Seven Nations and the Confederacy

Andersonville and Prison Camps

Beast Butler

Black Confederates

Crittendon Compromise

CSA Constitution

Election of Lincoln

Emancipation Proclamation

Federals Force Blacks to Join the Union Army

Incidents Involving Firing on Fort Sumtner

Ivan Turchin

Lincoln's Attempt to Re-Supply Fort Sumtner

Lincoln's Policies Bring War

Lincoln's Tyranny

Massacre at Palmyra

New Manchester and Roswell Mills War Crimes

Northern Prison Camps

Northern War Crimes

Nullification and Comprises

Origins of the Confederate Battle Flag

Planned Assignations of Jefferson Davis and CSA Cabinet

Prisoner Exchanges Inhumanly Cancelled by the Union

Reconstruction

Sam Davis, Southern Patriot

Sherman's March of Destruction on Civilian Populations and Property

Tariffs and other Economic Issues

Trent Affair

Union Orders to Execute in Missouri

.................................................................other footnotes and documentation coming.

 

Census of 1860:

State	White	Free Colored	Slave	Total
Alabama	526,534	2,630	435,132	964,296
Arkansas	324,186	137	111,104	435,427
California	376,200	3,816	............	380,016
Connecticut	451,609	8,452	............	460,151
Delaware	90,697	19,723	1,798	112,218
Florida	77,778	908	61,753	140,439
Georgia	591,638	3,459	462,232	1,057,329
Illinois	1,704,684	7,069	............	1,711,753
Indiana	1,340,072	10,869	............	1,350,941
Iowa	673,925	1,023	............	674,948
Kansas	106,487	623	............	107,110
Kentucky	920,077	10,146	225,490	1,155,713
Louisiana	357,642	18,638	333,010	709,290
Maine	627,081	1,195	............	628,276
Maryland	516,128	83,718	87,188	687,034
Massachusetts	1,221,611	9,454	............	1,231,065
Michigan	742,289	6,823	............	749,112
Minnesota	171,793	229	............	172,022
Mississippi	353,969	731	436,696	791,396
Missouri	1,064,369	2,983	114,965	1,182,317
New Hampshire	325,622	450	............	326,072
New Jersey	647,084	24,947	............	672,031
New York	3,831,730	49,005	............	3,880,735
North Carolina	631,489	30,097	331,081	992,667
Ohio	2,303,374	36,225	............	2,339,599
Oregon	52,343	121	............	52,464
Pennsylvania	2,849,997	56,373	............	2,906,370
Rhode Island	170,703	3,918	............	174,621
South Carolina	291,623	9,648	402,541	703,812
Tennessee	826,828	7,235	275,784	1,109,847
Texas	421,411	339	180,682	602,432
Vermont	314,534	582	............	315,116
Virginia	1,047,613	57,579	490,887	315,116
Wisconsin	774,392	1,481	............	775,873
Sub Totals	26,727,512	470,716	3,950,343	31,148,571
		Territories
Colorado	34,153	44	............	34,197
Dakota	4,839	............	............	4,839
Nebraska	28,775	71	10	28,836
New Mexico	93,447	70	24	93,451
Utah	40,236	30	29	40,295
Washington	11,548	30	............	11,578
Dist. of Columbia	60,788	11,107	3,181	75,076
Totals	27,008,081	482,122	3,953,587	31,443,790