One hundred fifty years ago today the New York Times reported that Confederate forces had retreated from Harpers Ferry to Manassas, Virginia. Harpers Ferry, which was home to a federal arsenal and the target of abolitionist John Brown’s raid in October 1859, “[was] not a position to hold against a powerful enemy.” Instead, as the New York Times explained, the location was “an admirable trap into which one may be decoyed to be annihilated.” The New York Times speculated that the Confederates had left only “long enough to see the approaching army of the West fairly caged, and then, reoccupying the surrounding heights, have every advantage in the work of slaughter.” As the Confederates retreated, they also destroyed bridges and buildings. The New York Times reflected on what those actions meant in terms of the differences between the Confederate and Union armies:

[Confederates] destroy bridges, tear up railroads, overthrow canal dams, and mark their retreat by so many wanton acts of the same character, that the idea of their being acts purely protective and defensive is inadmissible. The Northern troops, on the contrary, bring order, skill and civilization with them. It is for them to relay the displaced tracks, repair the disabled engines, rebuild the burnt bridges, erect the overthrown workshops, restore the damaged canals ; in short, to replace the malicious mischief of an enraged barbarism, with the splendid resources of civilization.

You can learn more about Harpers Ferry in Chester G. Hearn’s Six Years of Hell: Harpers Ferry During the Civil War (1999) and Dolly Nasby’s Harpers Ferry (2004).

One hundred fifty years ago today the Fayetteville (NC) Observer published excerpts from the New York Commercial Advertiser and Richmond (VA) Dispatch to show how “it [was] criminal now again… to speak [ill] of” President Abraham Lincoln in northern states. As the Commercial Advertiser explained, a merchant had been arrested in New York City for “using seditious language, and making scandalous assertions in regard to the character of the President of the United States and some members of his family.” While at first “he claimed… to speak from personal knowledge,” the merchant later admitted that “his information was derived from Southern papers.” After “a reprimand and warning,” authorities let him leave the city. The excerpt from the Richmond (VA) Dispatch, however, focused on conditions in Washington DC. The Dispatch had heard shocking stories from those who had “just arrived here from Washington” and condemned the Lincoln administration for the way in which they apparently treated some southerners.

“…numbers of men and women are confined in the basement rooms of the Capital as suspected persons either from the South, or who sympathize with the South. The tyrant Lincoln has the citizens arrested without form of law, gives them no trial, and in some cases not even deigns to let them know the cause of their arrest. The despotism and terrorism of the worst days of the French Revolution did not exceed this.”

Some southerners in Washington were apparently so concerned that they sent letters to friends and family in Fayetteville “without signatures.” While “relatives of course knew from whom [the letters] came,” the Observer noted that “the writer… had not dared to sign his name.”

One hundred fifty years ago today the Chicago (IL) Tribune published an excerpt from the Savannah (GA) Republican that described a new controversial order from Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown. If the Confederate War Department wanted to move any Georgia regiments out of the state, Governor Brown required that they first seek his permission. As “the Confederate States have existed but for a day,” the Savannah Republican explained that they had no choice but to “rely upon the several States” for men and supplies. Yet Governor Brown’s order came at the worst possible time. As the Savannah Republican argued:

“Governor Brown may be technically right in this order; but he has, at least, selected an unfortunate time for issuing it. From the beginning a misunderstanding seems to have existed between him and the Confederate authorities to be found with no other State, and it is high time it had been brought to a-close. It has been a source of serious confusion and embarrassment in all our movements for defence, and it allowed to continue, will wholly demoralize the service.”

You can read more about Gov. Brown in Joseph H. Parks’ Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (1977).

One hundred fifty years ago today the New York Herald reported on problems with the mail delivery to Union soldiers stationed around Washington DC. “Nothing is more frequent than to hear complaints of the non-receipt of letters at the various camps in and Washington,” as the Herald explained. Yet after the Herald investigated the problem it found that “the Post Office authorities [in New York] or at Washington” were not responsible. Instead, the problem was created by New York residents who were not mailing the letters properly. As the Herald described,

In most instances letters addressed to the members of the various regiments in service are dropped into the lamppost boxes in various quarters of the city, without bearing the extra one cent stamp in addition to the three cent stamp – the regular postage for letters deposited at the General Post Office.

If residents remembered to include the correct postage, the Herald hoped that “there will be no more complaints of missing letters.”

One hundred fifty years ago today the Savannah (GA) News published a short report on the serious conditions that existed in Missouri. The News characterized the situation as one in which the Republicans were trying to take over the state with force. They “are making open war upon the people of that State who refuse abject submission to Abe Lincoln,” as the News explained. In addition, the News described an incident in St. Louis in which Republicans had apparently killed civilians:

According to the newspaper accounts, the late massacre by his troops in St. Louis was of a more serious character than at first reported. – Some twenty persons – men, women and children – were killed, and a large number were wounded. It is further stated that no attack was made upon the troops by the people, who hooted and jeered the Lincoln troops, when three of the German companies fired upon them.

Yet even though northerners were “collecting supplies to be sent immediately to the Lincoln forces in Missouri,” the News remained confident “that the day of retribution… is not far distant.” As the News concluded, “there is a spirit of resolute resistance in both Missouri and Maryland, that will not be easily subdued.” You can learn more about the war is Missouri in Bruce Nichols’ Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, 1862 (2004) and Donald L. Gilmore’s Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border (2005).

One hundred fifty years ago today the Chicago (IL) Tribune reported on the recent announcement that the United Kingdom would not intervene in the struggle between the United States and the Confederacy. “The only crumb of comfort for Jeff. Davis…[is] that the Southern Confederacy will be recognized, not as a power, not as a Government, but simply as a “belligerent,” as the Tribune noted. As a result, “Jeff Davis’s privateers [would] not be seized” unless they interfered with English merchant ships. Some Confederates had predicted that the United Kingdom would immediately intervene in the Civil War, but the Foreign Secretary’s announcement had dashed those hopes. “The wild idea that England will send out a naval force to break through the blockade established by the United States Government, is not mentioned as a thing which has ever been dreamed of in Downing street,” as the Tribune explained. You can read more about this issue in Howard Jones’ Union in Peril: The Crisis Over British Intervention in the Civil War (1992), Blue & Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations (2010), and Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided (2010).

One hundred fifty years ago today the Cleveland (OH) Herald published a report from the Philadelphia (PA) Press on how the New York Zouaves in Washington, DC were called in to put out a fire at the famous Willard’s Hotel. As the soldiers were unable to find any ladders, the Press‘ correspondent described how:

The New York boys…sprang to the windows of the telegraph office, between the burning store and the main entrance to the hotel; from the window they raised members of the company on their shoulders to the next window, and thence they continued from window to window until the top of the building was gained – an adventure worthy of great commendation, as it was accomplished only through heroic daring and effort. Hose pipes were immediately handed up, and water applied to the flames, which had then broken out on the roof of the wing…. The New Jersey and New York men worked heroically, and a prospect of saving the main building began to be realized.

John Hay, who worked as President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary, noted in his diary that “Ellsworths Zouaves covered themselves with glory… in saving Willard’s Hotel and quenching a most ugly looking fire.” “They are utterly unapproachable in anything they attempt,” as Hay concluded. Yet almost two weeks later the New York Zouaves’ commander, Elmer E. Ellsworth, was killed after he removed a Confederate flag from a building in Alexandria, Virginia. “So much of promised usefulness to one’s country, and of bright hopes for one’s self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed as in his fall,” as President Lincoln told Ellsworth’s parents. You can learn more about Ellsworth in John Hay’s “Ellsworth,” Atlantic Monthly (1861) and Ruth Painter Randall’s Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: A Biography of Lincoln’s Friend and First Hero of the Civil War (1960).

One hundred fifty years ago today the New York Times argued that anyone who described the Civil War as a war “against the South” and “Southern institutions” had made “a great mistake.” The only reason that President Abraham Lincoln had called for 75,000 troops after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was to restore the Union. “What [northerners] demand of the seceding States is, not that they shall change their domestic institutions, their Constitutions, their policy or their laws, but that they shall return to their allegiance to the Government,” as the New York Times explained. While soldiers were prepared to “fight to the death against the traitors,” the New York Times noted that they “have no lust of conquest…[or] thought of subjugation.” Not only was slavery not an issue, but the New York Times pointed out that the new southern government  did not represent a significant change:

The Constitution of the Federal Government in all its essential features has been adopted as the organic law of the new Confederacy, while the Constitutions of the States themselves remain unchanged. Their relations to the central Government differ in no material respect from their relations to the Government at Washington.

Yet despite this fact southerners had “rush[ed] into rebellion as if the overthrow of government and the initiation of a bloody civil war were no crime.” In addition, the New York Times predicted what would happen after the war. While the “hanging of individual traitors and the scattering of demagogues” might occur, the New York Times believed that “the seceding States… will come back with all their rights unimpaired, their sovereignties fully guaranteed, and their domestic institutions as subject to their own control as are those of New York to-day.” You can read more about the New York Times during this period in Augustus Maverick’s Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for Thirty Years (1870) and Francis Brown’s Raymond of the Times (1951).

One hundred fifty years ago today the Fayetteville (NC) Observer refuted northern newspapers’ claims “about [the] indignities… heaped upon Northern men in all the Southern States.” As the Observer noted, one northern editor published a story on how:

“[Virginia] Governor [John] Letcher and his satellites had purposely inaugurated mob law and anarchy for the purpose of enriching themselves and their followers out of the private property of citizens who may be driven out of the State by the mob. Men of property, who are suspected of being loyal to the flag that has so long protected them, received notice to leave their homes at a few hours’ warning and they and their families are compelled to fly Northward with only the clothes they wear and what loose cash they may chance to have in their possession. The property they leave behind is clutched by the rebels.”

The Observer was surprised “that even that maddest of all mad fanatics, a Black Republican editor, can believe so absurd a story as that.” While these northern papers also claimed that “mob law and a reign of terror are unknown” in places like New York City, the Observer pointed out that the reality was different. “Witness the Southern men leaving that city by hundreds, and going round far out of their way to avoid the suspicion of being Southern men and thus to escape insult and violence,” as the Observer argued. This type of “abominable story-telling [from northern] papers” was dangerous and, as the Observer explained, “[had] brought the country to its present awful condition.”

One hundred fifty years ago today the Chicago (IL) Tribune published excerpts from two Kentucky newspapers that condemned former US Senator John Bell for announcing his support for the Confederacy. Bell was the Constitutional Union Party’s candidate for President in 1860 and he had opposed secession  after Abraham Lincoln’s victory. Yet in April 1861 after the attack on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops  Bell changed his mind. In a speech in Nashville Bell had been “clear and loud to every Tennessean – to arms! to arms!” Not only did the speech prove that Bell was “a rank secessionist, but a traitor and a coward” as the Tribune explained. In addition, the Tribune included excerpts of two editorials from papers based in Lexington, Kentucky. The Journal had supported Bell in the 1860 election and now noted that “we cannot but recall the striking advice given by some prudent sage – ‘Never praise a man till he is dead.’” The Democrat, which argued that Bell “never had brains enough to stand up in a storm,” also condemned Bell and concluded that:

“And thus John Bell has sunk without a ripple to mark the place where he went down. – As the Judge always says when he sentences a murderer, “May the Almighty have mercy on your soul.”

You can read more about Bell and the secession crisis in the Upper South in Daniel W. Crofts’ Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989). You can listen to this article by clicking on the play button below:

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