A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
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CHAPTER XXXIII, MR.LINCOLN'S CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH
I PROPOSE now to refer to the course which Mr.Lincoln's Administration pursued towards all in the North who differed from it. It has always been held that it was not only the right, but the duty, of every citizen to oppose the policy of any Administration, when he thought it wrong. Indeed, every patriotic person will work with zeal and energy to change any existing Administration whose policy he thinks ruinous to the country.
It was soon discovered, however, that Mr.Lincoln did not intend to allow any opposition to his policy. His organs called his administration of the Government the Government itself, and accused everybody of "opposing the Government" who protested against his unconstitutional acts. The war he was waging was not so much a war against the South as it was against the democratic and republican principle of government. Hence he was determined to put down the spirit of liberty wherever he found it.
The first warfare on these principles in the North which Mr.Lincoln indulged in was an assault on the freedom of the press. In July, 1861 he ordered that all the leading Democratic papers in New York city be denied circulation in the mails. This was one of the most arbitrary and tyrannical acts ever committed, but, strange to say, it was generally endorsed by the abolition newspapers, though their editors had been howling themselves hoarse for years in favor of a "free press."
This act was followed by a general attack upon the Democratic press all over the North. As if by a preconcerted signal the abolitionists excited mobs to attack and destroy Democratic printing offices wherever there was one that protested against Mr.Lincoln's usurpations. In some cases Democratic editors were killed, in others badly injured, and in a great many instances their offices were destroyed and their types cast into the street.
I am glad to say, however, that in some cases these cowardly mobbers got what they richly deserved. One of these mobs attacked the office of The Democrat, a paper published at Catskill, New York, when Mr.Hall, the editor, getting a hint of their approach concealed himself in his office, and as they began to pelt the windows with stones and brickbats he took deliberate aim and fired a whole charge of small shot right into the thighs of one of the leading mobbites. He jumped and yelled fearfully, and his companions, not expecting such a reception, ran away as fast as their cowardly legs could carry them.
I only regret that there were not a great many more of these mobs served in the same way.
It would occupy a book five times as large as this one to give the details of Mr.Lincoln's campaign against the Democratic newspapers of the North. Not less than three or four hundred were either denied the use of the mails, or mobbed. In Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri they were completely crushed out.
Mr.Lincoln, however, did not stop with suppressing the freedom of the press. He hated freedom of speech just as much. Mr. Seward seemed to relish the work of sending people to Bastiles without any charge being made against them. Up to December, 1861, a period of little over seven months from the time the war began, three hundred and fifty-one persons had been sent to the different military prisons by order of Mr.Seward alone, whose names were known and registered. Besides these there were one hundred and fifty more, known to have been arrested, whose names could not be ascertained, for after a time they gave orders that the names of those arrested should be kept secret.
The number of persons arrested in the East by Lincoln and Seward during three years of the war was estimated at ten thousand! Taking the whole North and the number could not have been less than thirty thousand!
A great number of females were among the prisoners. In many cases there seems to have been no ground for the arrest but an anonymous letter, some private gossip or the gratification of some old personal or political grudge. Every abolition politician seized the opportunity to persecute his Democratic neighbors. Thousands of letters were sent to Mr.Seward urging him to arrest individuals whom the writers accused of "disloyalty." One minister of the Gospel in Western New York wrote thirty letters to Seward in two months giving him in each letter lists of "traitors" to arrest.
All sorts of means were resorted to to intimidate people from expressing their opinions. In New York city the writer saw several copies of the following circular sent to ladies, to frighten them into submission to Lincoln:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE UNION VIGILANCE COMMITTEE, New York,April,1861.
MADAM: As a person favoring traitors to the Union, you are notified that your name is recorded on the Secret List of this Association, your movements are being strictly watched, and unless you openly declare your adherence to the Union, you will be dealt with as a TRAITOR.
By Order, 33,Secretary
At the same time the abolition papers were filled with mysterious threats. It was stated that lists of prominent "traitors" in New York city, who opposed Mr.Lincoln's policy, had been made out, by a secret detective police which "the Government" had formed. These spies, pimps and informers dogged the footsteps of every man whom they suspected of bold and unqualified opposition to Mr. Lincoln and his party. The abolition papers were joyous over these evidences of "vigor" as they called the illegal arrest and imprisonment of persons without any trial or charge being made against them. The New York Tribune, one of the loudest yelpers for (negro) freedom, declared that "the system of detective police was bearing the happiest fruits."
All this time, while Democratic newspapers were denied the use of the mails or mobbed, and while thousands of Democrats were being thrown into loathsome dungeons, for simply opposing the policy of Mr.Lincoln's Administration, the Boston Liberator continued to flaunt the motto, "The Constitution is a league with death and a covenant with hell." Mr.Lincoln not only did not object to that, but it transpired afterwards that he was at that very time a subscriber, reader, and supporter of this paper!
But I have not began to tell as yet one-half of the outrages perpetrated during this "reign of terror" in America. I must give you a few samples of the multitude on record.
On the Sunday of February 9th,1862, as the Rev.Mr.Stuart, of St.Paul's Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Va., was officiating at the altar, a brutal officer, with a file of soldiers, seized him, and wrenching the prayer-book out of his hand, dragged him from the altar, and through the streets, in his robes of office. The charge against him was that he did not pray for Mr.Lincoln! It is believed that about one hundred clergymen in all were arrested. One, Rev.J.D.Benedict, of Western New York, was seized at night, and spirited away in a carriage, and finally confined in the Old Capitol Prison, at Washington. His offence was preaching a discourse from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
Judges were arrested. In some instances dragged from their judicial seats to the dungeon, and kept for months in prison, and then discharged, no crime being alleged against them.
Ladies were seized and imprisoned, subjected to nameless insults, forbidden the visits of friends, and hurried from prison to prison by Mr.Lincoln's satraps. The case of a Mrs.Brinsmade may be mentioned. This lady came to New York from New Orleans, and went to Washington to visit some friends. While there she was arrested and brought on to New York city, and kept in a station-house for forty days, by order of John A. Kennedy, Superintendent of the New York Police.
I ought to have mentioned that the Police Department of New York had been the most serviceable tool of Mr.Seward's tyranny. Its superintendent, Kennedy, was a man of low and vulgar instincts, who seemed to rejoice when he had some one to persecute. He was a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and never seemed so well pleased as when making war on those whom he charged with "sympathizing with the South."
This is the man who had seized Mrs.Brinsmade, and he boasted that the police station was just "the place for her."
Kennedy had been appointed provost marshal, and no one could have been better fitted for the dirty work of tyrants. Among the appliances of torture which he kept for his victims was a place called "Cell No.4." The Black Hole of Calcutta or the prison hulks of the Revolution could scarcely compete with it. It was only about three feet wide by six in depth. A pine board had been nailed across one end as a pillow, and there were neither bed-clothes, mattress, nor straw-nothing but the naked floor for a bed. The door was composed of iron bars tightly riveted together.
It was the dirtiest, filthiest place possible to be conceived of. It swarmed with vermin, which ran riot over the unfortunate victims confined there, who could neither lie down nor sit down for very agony. In the hottest and most stifling weather, sometimes three persons were confined in this three by six cell at one time!
On one occasion a young man was arrested for refusing to give his name to an enrolling officer.
KENNEDY-"What is your name?
YOUNG MAN-"Well, I decline to give my name."
KENNEDY-"Oh, you do. Well, I think you will give it before being here a great while."(Rings his bell.) "Here, officer, take this man down stairs and give him No.4."
The iron door swung upon its ponderous hinges, and in went the young man. In less than fifteen minutes his cries were heard, and going thither, he was found in profuse perspiration, the vermin crawling over him and tormenting him beyond expression! He was glad to give his name to escape Kennedy's torture.
I have now to relate what seems most astounding of all. Even boys and young children were arrested, and imprisoned for months and even years. In September, 1861, a poor newsboy, named George Hubbell, was arrested on the Naugatuck Railroad, and sent to Fort Lafayette, for selling Democratic newspapers! In December, 1862, a boy seventeen years of age was released from the same Bastile, whose only known cause of arrest was that his father was an ardent Democrat of Connecticut. In Kentucky, a school of boys was seized and required to take what was called " the iron-clad oath." Most of them, I am sorry to say, got frightened, and submitted; but two brothers, named Woolsey, stoutly refused, and were sent to jail, where Lincoln kept them for over two years.
This showed the right spirit. We ought always to be willing to go to jail for our principles, and to yield our life even before we will give them up. If everybody who was arrested by Lincoln and Seward had followed the example of these noble boys, they would have been compelled to send so many to jail that their prisons would have been to small to hold them, and they would have seen such pluck exhibited that they might have got frightened, and given up their usurpations.
As I have said, Democratic editors were arrested and sent to these Bastiles. Mr.J.A.McMasters, editor of the New York Freeman's Journal, was not only thus arrested, but carried hand-cuffed through the streets to Fort Lafayette. Mr.F.D.Flanders, editor of the Malone Gazette, and his brother Judge J.R.Flanders, both prominent men opposed to Lincoln's policy, in Franklin County, New York, were also arrested, and confined by order of Mr.Seward in Fort Lafayette. No doubt, he thought he would by this means stop the bold little paper which Mr.Flanders published.
But in this I am happy to say he was mistaken; for his wife, a brave and talented woman, seized the pen herself, and with great energy and determination kept the paper going while her husband was in prison for opinion's sake. The name of this lady, Louisa B.Flanders, ought to become as historic as that of the brave woman of the Revolution, who at the battle of Monmouth, when her husband, who was a cannoneer, was shot down, seized the ramrod and loaded the gun herself. All through this war, it is the noble women, whether North or South, who seem to have grasped, as if by instinct, how horrible is the crime of trying to degrade and debauch our race to a level with negroes.
The character of the prisons where Democrats were confined was entirely on a par with "Cell No.4." In Fort Lafayette rats were at one time very numerous. One night a prisoner was awakened by finding several on his bed-clothes, and at another time felt one nibbling at his toes. At Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, there was also a political prison, where five or six hundred prisoners were sometimes confined at a time. The prison was awfully filthy, alive with lice and vermin. A man was found dead in the dead yard one morning, covered all over with vermin. Two men got into a scuffle one day, trying their strength, when the guards shot among the prisoners, killing an old man named Jones from West Virginia. These prisoners, it should be remembered, were convicted of no crime, did not even know why they were arrested, but were simply held to gratify some one's spite and malice.
Sometimes people were arrested for the most trivial causes. For instance, Mr.David C.Wattles, of North Branch, Mich., was arrested, and sent all the way to Fort Lafayette. And for what? Why; his children had raised upon a pole an old shirt, which had been dyed red by straining blackberry juice through it. Some one on the strength of this reported that Mr.Wattles had raised a secession flag, and without a why or a wherefore, he was kept in Fort Lafayette five months! Dr.L.M.Ross, of Illinois, was arrested and kept for months in the Old Capitol, at Washington, because he had been seen in the public street to draw his finger under his nose. It was reported to Seward that this was the private signal of a secret organization, but it was found afterward that no such organization existed!
Early in 1861, almost the entire Legislature of Maryland had been arrested. The Police Commissioner of Baltimore, Mr.Charles Howard, and his associates, had also been sent to Fort McHenry, by order of General Banks. Afterwards the editors of the Baltimore Exchange, subsequently the Gazette, together with many other prominent citizens of Maryland, were seized and immured in Bastiles, where some of them remained nearly two years.
So great had these outrages become, both on the press and upon persons, that the fall elections of 1862 were generally carried by the Democrats. Horatio Seymour was nominated for Governor of the State of New York, by the Democratic party. He was a gentleman of the highest social character and position, and deservedly popular. He was pledged to restore the freedom of the press in the State at all hazards. On this ground he received the united and earnest support of all Democrats, and was elected.
When Mr.Lincoln and Mr.Seward heard of this, they were a little cowed; and as they did not wish to provoke an issue with the great State of New York, they did just what they had done when John Bull demanded Messrs.Mason and Slidell-they backed down. Before the day of Mr.Seymour's inauguration, January 1st, 1863, they issued an order, allowing all papers to circulate in the mails as usual. Thus there had something been wrenched from the usurpers.
They also thought it prudent to relax a little in their system of arbitrary arrests. Mr.Seward, after boasting to Lord Lyons that "he could ring one bell on his right hand, and arrest a citizen in New York, and another bell on his left, and arrest a citizen in Ohio," turned the matter of arrests over to Stanton, of the War Department, who instituted a kind of mock trials before military commissions, by which they tried to give a semblance of legal form to their usurpations.
It must be confessed, however, that the stoppage of Democratic newspapers and the large number of arrests had produced the effect that Lincoln and Seward anticipated. It prevented a full and free development of public opinion, which would, no doubt, have put Mr.Lincoln; and his party out of power. It operated on the timid, and thousands were roped in and made to serve the purposes of the abolitionists by the cry of "supporting the Government."
Such was the real effect of Mr.Lincoln's campaign in the North.
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