FOOTNOTES:[4]His own beloved young wife, dying of a broken heart on the separation caused by his coming to America, "directed on her death-bed that a thorn-tree should be planted on her grave, as nearly as possible over her heart, significant of the sorrow that destroyed her life. Her request was complied with, and that thorn-tree is still living." (1857.)—The Cornwallis Correspondence, chap. i. p. 14.[5]The writer might have mentioned that J.P. McLean was hung up by the neck three times and shot at once, to make him disclose hidden valuables. W.T. Horne, Jesse Hawley, and Alexander McAuthor, were all hung up until nearly dead. John Waddill was shot down and killed in his own house. The country residences of C.T. Haigh, J.C. Haigh, Archibald Graham, and W.T. Horne, were all burned within a short distance of one another; this was all in one neighborhood. Dr. Hicks, of Duplin, was hung until nearly dead, and will probably never recover. So it was elsewhere.—Editor.
FOOTNOTES:
[4]His own beloved young wife, dying of a broken heart on the separation caused by his coming to America, "directed on her death-bed that a thorn-tree should be planted on her grave, as nearly as possible over her heart, significant of the sorrow that destroyed her life. Her request was complied with, and that thorn-tree is still living." (1857.)—The Cornwallis Correspondence, chap. i. p. 14.
[4]His own beloved young wife, dying of a broken heart on the separation caused by his coming to America, "directed on her death-bed that a thorn-tree should be planted on her grave, as nearly as possible over her heart, significant of the sorrow that destroyed her life. Her request was complied with, and that thorn-tree is still living." (1857.)—The Cornwallis Correspondence, chap. i. p. 14.
[5]The writer might have mentioned that J.P. McLean was hung up by the neck three times and shot at once, to make him disclose hidden valuables. W.T. Horne, Jesse Hawley, and Alexander McAuthor, were all hung up until nearly dead. John Waddill was shot down and killed in his own house. The country residences of C.T. Haigh, J.C. Haigh, Archibald Graham, and W.T. Horne, were all burned within a short distance of one another; this was all in one neighborhood. Dr. Hicks, of Duplin, was hung until nearly dead, and will probably never recover. So it was elsewhere.—Editor.
[5]The writer might have mentioned that J.P. McLean was hung up by the neck three times and shot at once, to make him disclose hidden valuables. W.T. Horne, Jesse Hawley, and Alexander McAuthor, were all hung up until nearly dead. John Waddill was shot down and killed in his own house. The country residences of C.T. Haigh, J.C. Haigh, Archibald Graham, and W.T. Horne, were all burned within a short distance of one another; this was all in one neighborhood. Dr. Hicks, of Duplin, was hung until nearly dead, and will probably never recover. So it was elsewhere.—Editor.
CHAPTER VI.
"SHAYS'S REBELLION"—KENT ON MASSACHUSETTS—CONDUCT OF A NORTHERN GOVERNMENT TO NORTHERN REBELS—THE "WHISKY INSURRECTION"—HOW WASHINGTON TREATED A REBELLION—SECESSION OF NEW-ENGLAND BIRTH—THE WAR OF 1812—BANCROFT ON 1676—THE BACONISTS—AN APPEAL.
"SHAYS'S REBELLION"—KENT ON MASSACHUSETTS—CONDUCT OF A NORTHERN GOVERNMENT TO NORTHERN REBELS—THE "WHISKY INSURRECTION"—HOW WASHINGTON TREATED A REBELLION—SECESSION OF NEW-ENGLAND BIRTH—THE WAR OF 1812—BANCROFT ON 1676—THE BACONISTS—AN APPEAL.
Bythe last of March General Sherman had entered Goldsboro, and effected his long meditated junction with General Schofield. He himself at once proceeded to Southern Virginia to hold a conference with General Grant, while the grand army lay quiet a few days to rest, recruit, and prepare for its further advance. Leaving them there, I venture to make a digression, suggested by the concluding lines of the preceding number of these sketches—a digression having for its object the consideration of the present policy of the Federal Government toward vanquished rebels, as compared with its policy in former cases of rebellion against its authority, even more inexcusable and unprovoked.
Chancellor Kent, adverting to the first rebellion against the government of this country, known in history as "Shays's Rebellion," pays the State of Massachusetts the following well-merited compliment on her conduct upon its suppression: "The clemency of Massachusetts in 1786, after an unprovoked and wanton rebellion, in not inflicting a single capital punishment, contributed, by the judicious manner in which its clemency was applied, to the more firm establishment of their government." (Com. on Am. Law. Vol. i. p. 283.) What were the circumstances of this first rebellion?
In 1786, the Legislature of that State laid taxes which were expected to produce near a million of dollars. The country had just emerged from the war of the Revolution in an exhausted and impoverished condition. Litigation abounded, and the people, galled by the pressure of their debts and of these taxes, manifested a spirit of revolt against their government. From loudly-expressed complaints they proceeded to meetings, and finally took up arms. They insisted that the courts should be closed; they clamored against the lawyers and their exorbitant fees, against salaried public officers; and they demanded the issue of paper money. The Governor of Massachusetts, John Bowdoin, convened the Legislature, and endeavored to allay the general and growing mutiny by concessions; but the excitement still increasing, the militia were ordered out, and Congress voted a supply of thirteen thousand men to aid the State Government. The leader of the insurrection was Daniel Shays, late a captain in the Continental army. At the head of one thousand men he prevented the session of the Supreme Court at Worcester, and his army soon increasing to two thousand, they marched to Springfield, to seize the national arsenal. Being promptly repulsed by the commandant there, they fled, leaving several killed and wounded. General Lincoln, at the head of four thousand militia, pursued them to Amherst, and thence to Pelham. On his approach they offered to disperse on condition of a general pardon; but General Lincoln had no authority to treat. They then retreated to Petersham. Lincoln pursued, and pushing on all night through intense cold and a driving snow-storm, he accomplished an unprecedented march of forty miles, and early next morning completely surprised the rebels in Petersham, taking one hundred and fifty prisoners, and dispersing the rest so effectually that they never rallied again. Many took refuge in New-Hampshire and the neighboring States, where they were afterward arrested on requisition of Massachusetts. This ill-sustained and wanton rebellion was easily quelled. Fourteen of the prisoners were convicted of treason, but not one was executed, and the terms of pardon imposed were so moderate that eight hundred took the benefit of them. Prudence dictated this moderation and clemency, for it was known that at least a third of the population sympathized with the rebels. It was a significant fact that at the ensuing election, Governor Bowdoin, who had distinguished himself by his zeal and energy, was defeated, and other public officers who had been especially active against the rebels lost their seats, and were replaced by more popular men. Daniel Shays lived to a good old age, and died still in the enjoyment of his revolutionary pension.[6]Such was the generous policy of a Northern government to Northern rebels in the first rebellion.
The second rebellion, commonly called the "Whisky Insurrection" of Western Pennsylvania, assumed more formidable proportions, and was instigated by even more sordid and inexcusable motives. In 1784, the distillers of that part of the State were resolved to deny the right of excise to the Federal Government. The excise law, though very unpopular, had been carried into execution in every part of the United States, and in most of the counties of Pennsylvania; but west of the Alleghany the people rose in arms against the Government officers, prevented them from exercising their functions, maltreated them, and compelled them to fly from the district, and finally called a meeting "to take into consideration the situation of the western country." They seized upon the mail, and opened the letters to discover what reports had been sent of their proceedings to Philadelphia, and by whom. They addressed a circular letter to the officers of the militia in the disaffected counties, calling on them to rendezvous at Braddock's Field on the first of August, with arms in good order, and four days' provisions, an "expedition," it was added, "in which they could have an opportunity of displaying their military talent, and of serving the country." This insurrection was headed by David Bradford, the prosecuting attorneyfor Washington county, and was secretly fomented by agents of the French Republic, who desired nothing better than to see the downfall of Washington's administration, and the reign of anarchy inaugurated on this continent. A large body of men, estimated at from five to ten thousand, met on the day appointed at Braddock's Field. Bradford took upon himself the military command. Albert Gallatin (lately a rejected United States Senator, on the ground that he had not been a resident of the State the length of time prescribed for foreigners) was appointed Secretary. "Cowards and traitors" were freely denounced, and those who advocated moderate measures were over-awed and silenced. The rioters then marched to Pittsburgh, which they would have burned but for the conciliatory conduct of the people of the town. They burned the houses of several obnoxious men, compelled them to leave the country, and then dispersed. It had been Bradford's design to get possession of Fort Pitt, and seize the arms and ammunition there; but not being supported in this by the militia officers, he had abandoned it. All the remaining excise officers in the district were now forced to leave. Many outrages were committed, houses burned, citizens insulted, and a reign of terror completely established.
The news of this formidable and wide-spread insurrection reaching Philadelphia, the President issued a proclamation reciting the acts of treason, commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning others against abetting them. This was the first of such proclamations ever issued in this country, and was no doubtthe model proposed, to himself, and followed by President Lincoln in 1861. But Washington, at the same time, appointed three commissioners—a member of his cabinet, a Pennsylvania United States Senator, and a judge of the Supreme Court in that State—to repair to the scene of action, confer with the insurgents, and make every practicable attempt toward a peaceful adjustment. The policy of calling out the militia was discussed in the Cabinet. Hamilton and Knox were in favor of it. Randolph opposed it, and so did Governor Mifflin, who was consulted, on the ground that a resort to force might influence and augment the excitement and unite the whole State in rebellion. Washington finally determined to take the responsibility on himself and act with vigor, since if such open and daring resistance to the laws were not met and checked at once, it might find many imitators in other parts of the country, then so agitated and unsettled. The commissioners having failed to come to any satisfactory terms with the rebels, the opinion rapidly gained ground that the interposition of an armed force was indispensable. A body of fifteen thousand militia was called out from the States of Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and the whole force put under the command of Governor (and General) Henry Lee, of Virginia,[7]the father ofourGeneral Robert E. Lee. The news that this army was on the march materially increased the numbers and influence of the moderate party in Western Pennsylvania. The Standing Committee of the insurgents met and recommended submission, which was ably and zealously advocated by Albert Gallatin and Breckenridge. Nothing decisive was agreed upon, and pending another convention, many of the ring-leaders fled from the State; David Bradford, who had been foremost among them, being the first to seek safety in flight to New-Orleans.
A resolution of submission was passed at the second convention, and a committee of two, one of whom, Findley, was a member of Congress, appointed to convey it to the President at Carlisle. The President received this committee courteously, but the march of the troops was not arrested. A third convention being held, and resolutions to pay all excise duties and recommending the surrender of all delinquents having passed, General Lee issued a proclamation granting an amnesty to all who had submitted, and calling on the people to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Orders were issued and executed to seize those offenders who had not submitted, and send them to Philadelphia. Of those who were tried before the Circuit Court, only two were found guilty of capital offenses, one of arson and the other of robbing the mail; and both were ultimately pardoned by the President. In less than four months from the burning of the first house, the insurrection was completely defeated, and entire order restored. A force of twenty-five hundred militia was retained in the disaffected district during the ensuing winter, under command of General Morgan. Provision was made to indemnify those whose property had been destroyed, and an appropriation of more than a million of dollars was made by Congress to defray the expenses incurred. Albert Gallatin, who was then a hardly naturalized foreigner, notwithstanding the part he had taken in the earlier stages of the rebellion, by his subsequent moderate counsels had regained the confidence of the Government, and being the choice of the people of that district, was elected to the next Congress, taking his seat without any opposition or word of rebuke. His subsequent brilliant career is now part of our national history. Findley, who was a member of Congress at the time of the outbreak, and was at one time prominent among the sympathizers, though he acted at no time with decision, did not forfeit his seat by his participation in the revolt. He appeared in his place in Congress the ensuing November. He afterward wrote an elaborate history of the insurrection and a vindication of himself and his friends. According to him the troops sent to quell the rebellion would have left more emphatic tokens of their desire for vengeance on the rebels, "if it had not been for the moderation of Washington and his resistless weight of character in the execution of his purposes."[8]
The prompt, energetic, and efficient measures of the Administration in arresting the progress of this revolt, and its magnanimity and moderation toward the offenders afterward, contributed very materially to strengthen the Government at a critical period of its existence, to give it dignity and influence, and to rally round it the best affections of the people. And its patience and forbearance had been somewhat tried by the State of Pennsylvania in those days. There had been many symptoms of instability in the "Keystone" of the newly-erected arch of civil liberty. There were two examples of mutiny among the Pennsylvania troops during the Revolution, and two popular insurrections in regard to the excise laws, and this one had opened with the exhibition of a temper ferocious and reckless. The estimate by the Administration of the danger of the rebellion in 1794 may be inferred from the fact that the number of troops called for to suppress it was greater, in proportion to the then population of the United States, than the call made by President Lincoln in 1861 to the present population. In 1790, the white population of the United States was 3,172,464. The troops called out in '94 were 15,000. In 1860, the white population was 26,690,206. Troops ordered out, 75,000. The proportion in 1794 was greater, according to these figures, in the ratio of 389 to 354, without allowing for increase from 1790 to '94. And the magnitude of the danger did indeed fully justify all the apprehensions and precautions of the guardians of the state. The young republic was but newly formed, the Government scarcely settled. Many prominent and able men in different parts of the country were turning admiring eyes toward France in her wild career,others toward some vision of a monarchical form. Emissaries from the distracted states of the Old World were prompt and zealous to foment discords and disturbances, and precedents were wanting every day to meet new issues that arose continually. The situation needed all the wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity of the illustrious man called by Providence to guide the first steps of a great nation.
Does any one hesitate to believe that if we had had a Washington for President in 1860 and 1861, the late war would never have taken place; that secession would never have been accomplished? How vigorous and yet how conciliatory would have been the measures. The seventy-five thousand would no doubt have been called for, but commissioners of peace to the "wayward sisters" would have preceded them. In our day it was the insurgents who sent commissioners. The best men of the South were a month in Washington City, vainly endeavoring for a hearing, vainly hoping for some oiler of conciliation or adjustment, and deluded by promises from the highest officials that were never meant to be fulfilled.
Does any one doubt what would have been Washington's conduct of the grand army through its unparalleled and immortal march of triumph? Even had he not been guided by Christian principles of honor and humanity, he would at least have emulated the example and shared the glory of the noble heathen of whom it was said:"Postremo signa, et tabulas, ceteraque ornamenta Græcorum oppidorum, quæ ceteri tollenda esse arbitrantur, ea sibi ille ne visenda quidem existimavit. Itaque omnes quidem nunc in his locis Cn. Pompeium sicut aliquem non ex hac urbe missum, sed de ælo delapsum, intuentur."[9]
And finally, can any one doubt what his policy would now be toward the people so lately in arms against their Government? Alas! to him alone, first in war and first in peace, can the whole of the splendid eulogy of the Roman orator to the great captain ofhisday be fittingly applied: "Humanitati jam tantâ est, ut difficile dictu sit, utrum hostes magis virtutem ejus pugnantis timuerint, an mansuetudinem victi delixerint."[10]
Just twenty years from the time of the second rebellion, the third, and by far the most evil-disposed, malignant, and far-reaching expression of hostility to the General Government was organized. The Hartford Convention indeed never proceeded so far as to make an appeal to arms, but the spirit that suggested it, and the temper displayed by its leaders, give it undoubtedly the best claim to have inaugurated the hateful doctrine of secession.
The war of 1812 with England was, in general, excessively unpopular in the New-England States. Their commerce was burned; their fisheries were broken up, and their merchants and ship-owners, whoconstituted the wealthiest and most influential class among them, were heavy losers. The Administration had always been unpopular with them, and now its policy of embargo, non-importation, non-intercourse, and finally of war, were sufficient to rouse them into active opposition. This was manifested in various ways; in the annual addresses of their governors; in reports of legislative committees; in laws to embarrass the action of the Federal Executive, as, for instance, forbidding it the use of any of their jails for the confinement of prisoners of war, and ordering all their jailers to liberate all British prisoners committed to their keeping; in refusing to contribute their quota of men for the support of the war, and even to allow them to march beyond the limits of their own State. The spirit of disaffection was diligently cherished by the leaders, and went on increasing in bitterness and extent till a convention was proposed and agreed upon. On the 15th of December, 1814, there assembled in the city of Hartford twelve delegates from Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island, three county delegates from New-Hampshire, and one from Vermont. They sat with closed doors till the 5th of January, 1815, when they adjourned, having issued a report setting forth their grievances and aims. The following extract from a report of the proceedings of the Legislature will exhibit the spirit that prevailed through the State:
"We believe that this war, so fertile in calamities, and so threatening in its consequences, has been waged with the worst possible views, and carried on in theworst possible manner, forming a union of wickedness and weakness which defies, for a parallel, the annals of the world. We believe also that its worst effects are yet to come; that loan upon loan, tax upon tax, and exaction upon exaction, must be imposed, until the comforts of the present and the hopes of the rising generation are destroyed.An impoverished people will be an enslaved people." Of the right of the State to prevent the exercise of unconstitutional power by the General Government, they had no doubt. "A power to regulate commerce is abused when employed to destroy it, and a voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance as much as a direct and palpable usurpation. The sovereignty reserved to the States was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign, and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, or to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthorized enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and to wrest from the oppressor its victim. This is the spirit of our Union."
The manifesto of the Convention did not, could not, use stronger language. After proposing seven amendments to the Constitution, and giving reasons for their adoption, they disclaimed all hostility to that Constitution, and professed only to aim to unite all thefriends of the country of all parties, and obtain their aid in effecting a change of Federal rulers. Should this be hopeless, they hinted at the "necessity of more mighty efforts," which were plainly set forth in their resolutions, and everywhere understood to refer to a secession of the five New-England States, their consolidation into an independent government of their own, or alliance with England.[11]
The time chosen for such a display of enmity to the Union was most opportune for the purposes of the traitors. A war with a foreign foe, and that foe the most powerful nation on earth, was in progress; the Administration was greatly embarrassed; the country was rent with fierce party factions. What would be the issue no human wisdom could foresee; but that the ruin of the country was not then effected, can not be attributed to the patriotism of the New-England States. Three commissioners, appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, to whom Connecticut added two others, proceeded to Washington to lay their resolutions and applications before the Government. But, most happily, news of the treaty of Ghent and consequent peace arriving at the same time with these envoys, their mission became the theme of unsparing taunt and ridicule in the papers, and they returned home without disburdening themselves of their object. Thus the third rebellion was snuffed out by events; but its sparks were blown far and wide by viewless winds, and effected a lodgment where, though smothered for a generation or two, they yet burned in secret, and at length burst out in the great conflagration of 1860, which lit the whole horizon and dyed the very heavens with its crimson. The principles of the Hartford Convention were the seeds of nullification and secession.
The eminent historian from Massachusetts records in glowing pages the stifling of the earliest throbs of civil and religious liberty on this continent in 1676. The earliest martyr in the Bacon Rebellion against monarchical tyranny was William Drummond, the first Governor of North-Carolina. His name is written on the beautiful sheet of water that lies within the tangled brakes of the great swamp on the borders of the land he loved and served so well. In that rebellion the women (as at this day) shared the popular enthusiasm. "The child that is unborn," said Sarah Drummond, "shall rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country." She would not suffer a throb of fear in her bosom, and in the greatest perils to which her husband was exposed, she confidently exclaimed, "We shall do well enough," and continually encouraged the people and inspired the soldiers with her own enthusiasm. When Edmund Cheesman was arraigned for trial, his wife declared that but for her he never would have joined the rebellion, and on her knees begged that she might bear the punishment. Yet these devoted people saw the cause for which they had risked and lost every thing in the dust, overthrown, and trampled upon with vindictive fury by the triumphant royalists. In the judicial trialsthat followed, a rigor and merciless severity were exhibited, worthy of the gloomy judge whose "bloody assize," ten years later, on the western circuit of England, has left an indelible blot on her history. Twenty-two were hanged; three others died of cruelty in prison; three more fled before trial; two escaped after conviction. Nor is it certain when Sir William Berkeley's thirst for blood would have been appeased if the newly convened assembly had not voted an address that the Governor "should spill no more blood." On Berkeley's return to England he was received with coldness, and his cruelty openly disavowed by the government. "That old fool," said the kind-hearted Charles II., "has taken more lives in that naked country than I for the murder of my father."[12]
"More blood was shed," adds the historian, "than, on the action of our present political system, would be shed for political offenses in a thousand years." Alas! for the sunny South, the scorched and consumed South, alas for her! that the prediction of the great American historian is not history!
Considering this rebellion in the perspective afforded by nearly two hundred years, it is easy for us to understand how the severity with which it was punished by the fanatic old royal Governor only drove the entering-wedge of separation between the mother country and her colonies in America deeper. The principles of Bacon and his party had obtained a great hold on the popular mind; and though for years alltendency to a popular government appeared to be crusted out and forever silenced, yet they were there, in the hearts of men, silently growing, nurtured by a deep sense of injustice and wrong, and biding their time. Just a century from the suppression of the "Baconists," the Declaration of Independence was adopted; Sarah Drummond's words were verified, and Bacon and Drummond and Cheesman and Hansford were amply avenged.
It is to such pages of history as these that I would turn the attention of our Northern friends now. Here they may see how the Father of his country dealt with his wayward children. How a prompt and dignified and successful assertion of the rights of the Federal Government were followed by leniency and generous and prudent forbearance such as a great government can afford to show, and by which it best exhibits its strength and its claims to the love and veneration of its people. Here they may see how a brutal gratification of vengeance, a lust of blood, like the tiger's spring, overleaps its mark. The hardest lesson to be learned is moderation in the hour of triumph; the greatest victory to be achieved is the victory over self.
Where now are the Bowdoins, the Hancocks, the Dexters, the Ames, the Websters of Massachusetts? Has she no statesman now capable of rising to the magnanimity which characterized her early history? Has thrice revolting and thrice pardoned Pennsylvania no representative man who can rise to the height of the great argument, and vindicate the cause of acountry pillaged and plundered and peeled to an extent of which the history of civilized humanity affords us no parallel? Is there no one now to stand up and advocate for Southerners the same measure of forbearance and generosity that was shown by a Southern President to Northern rebels?
"O thou that spoilest and wast not spoiled, that dealt treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee!" haste to the work of reconciliation and to build up the waste places! Even now on our thresholds are heard the sounds of the departing feet of those who in despair for their country, hopeless of peace or of justice, are leaving our broad, free, noble land for the semi-civilized haciendas of Mexico or of far-off tropical Brazil. Even now are their journals scattered freely among us—invitations, beckonings, sneers at the North, flattery of the South, fair promises, golden lures, every inducement held out to a high-hearted and fainting people to cast their lot in with them. Haste to arrest them by some display of returning fraternity and consideration, ere for them we raise the saddest lament yet born of the war: "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country!"
FOOTNOTES:[6]For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History of the United States, vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the United States, first series, vol. iii. chap. 45.[7]My readers will remember the reference in the second chapter to the capture by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff on Haw River, while engaged in satisfying the claims of a countryman for forage. No member of General Sherman's command is known to have suffered a surprise under similar circumstances. Certainly not in this region!Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the selection of General Lee as commander of the forces.[8]Tucker's History, vol, i. chap. 7. Hildreth's History, second series, vol. i. chap. 7.[9]"Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of Grecian cities, which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he indeed thought that they ought not even to have been looked at by him. Therefore now all the inhabitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey as one not sent from this city, but descended from heaven."[10]"Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has become hard to say whether his enemies feared his valor more when they were fighting, or loved his humanity more when they were conquered."[11]Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii. chap. 29.[12]Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14.
FOOTNOTES:
[6]For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History of the United States, vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the United States, first series, vol. iii. chap. 45.
[6]For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History of the United States, vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the United States, first series, vol. iii. chap. 45.
[7]My readers will remember the reference in the second chapter to the capture by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff on Haw River, while engaged in satisfying the claims of a countryman for forage. No member of General Sherman's command is known to have suffered a surprise under similar circumstances. Certainly not in this region!Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the selection of General Lee as commander of the forces.
[7]My readers will remember the reference in the second chapter to the capture by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff on Haw River, while engaged in satisfying the claims of a countryman for forage. No member of General Sherman's command is known to have suffered a surprise under similar circumstances. Certainly not in this region!
Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the selection of General Lee as commander of the forces.
[8]Tucker's History, vol, i. chap. 7. Hildreth's History, second series, vol. i. chap. 7.
[8]Tucker's History, vol, i. chap. 7. Hildreth's History, second series, vol. i. chap. 7.
[9]"Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of Grecian cities, which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he indeed thought that they ought not even to have been looked at by him. Therefore now all the inhabitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey as one not sent from this city, but descended from heaven."
[9]"Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of Grecian cities, which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he indeed thought that they ought not even to have been looked at by him. Therefore now all the inhabitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey as one not sent from this city, but descended from heaven."
[10]"Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has become hard to say whether his enemies feared his valor more when they were fighting, or loved his humanity more when they were conquered."
[10]"Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has become hard to say whether his enemies feared his valor more when they were fighting, or loved his humanity more when they were conquered."
[11]Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii. chap. 29.
[11]Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii. chap. 29.
[12]Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14.
[12]Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14.
CHAPTER VII.
SCHOFIELD'S ARMY—SHERMAN'S—THEIR OUTRAGES—UNION SENTIMENT—A DISAPPOINTMENT—NINETY-TWO YEARS AGO—GOVERNOR GRAHAM—HIS ANCESTRY—HIS CAREER—GOVERNOR MANLY.
SCHOFIELD'S ARMY—SHERMAN'S—THEIR OUTRAGES—UNION SENTIMENT—A DISAPPOINTMENT—NINETY-TWO YEARS AGO—GOVERNOR GRAHAM—HIS ANCESTRY—HIS CAREER—GOVERNOR MANLY.
Thetown of Goldsboro was occupied by General Schofield's army on the twenty-first of March. No resistance was offered by the Confederates, who had withdrawn in the direction of Smithfield, with the exception of one regiment of cavalry, which had a slight skirmish with Schofield's advance near the town. General Schofield's conduct toward the citizens of the town was conciliatory. No plundering was allowed by him; efficient guards were stationed, and beyond the loss of fences and out-houses torn down for firing, etc., depredations on poultry-yards, etc., and a few smoke-houses, there was but little damage done. But in the surrounding country the outrages were innumerable, and in many places the desolation complete. On the twenty-third of March General Sherman's grand army made its appearance, heralded by the columns of smoke which rose from burning farm-houses on the south side of the Neuse. For thirty-six hours they poured in, in one continuous stream. Every availablespot in the town, and for miles around it, was covered with the two armies, estimated at one hundred and twenty-five thousand men. General Sherman's reputation had preceded him, and the horror and dismay with which his approach was anticipated in the country were fully warranted. The town itself was in a measure defended, so to speak, by General Schofield's preöccupation; but in the vicinity and for twenty miles round, the country was most thoroughly plundered and stripped of food, forage, and private property of every description. One of the first of General Sherman's own acts, after his arrival, was of peculiar hardship. One of the oldest and most venerable citizens of the place, with a family of sixteen or eighteen children and grandchildren, most of them females, was ordered, on a notice of a few hours, to vacate his house, for the convenience of the General himself, which of course was done. The gentleman was nearly eighty years of age, and in very feeble health. The out-houses, fences, grounds, etc., were destroyed, and the property greatly damaged during its occupation by the General. Not a farm-house in the country but was visited and wantonly robbed. Many were burned, and very many, together with out-houses, were pulled down and hauled into camps for use. Generally not a live animal, not a morsel of food of any description was left, and in many instances not a bed or sheet or change of clothing for man, woman, or child. It was most heart-rending to see daily crowds of country people, from three-score and ten years of age, down to the unconscious infant carried in itsmother's arms, coming into the town to beg food and shelter, to ask alms from those who had despoiled them. Many of these families lived for days on parched corn, on peas boiled in water without salt, on scraps picked up about the camps. The number of carriages, buggies, and wagons brought in is almost incredible. They kept for their own use what they wished, and burned or broke up the rest. General Logan and staff took possession of seven rooms in the house of John C. Slocumb, Esq., the gentleman of whose statements I avail myself. Every assurance of protection was given to the family by the quartermaster; but many indignities were offered to the inmates, while the house was as effectually stripped as any other of silver plate, watches, wearing apparel, and money. Trunks and bureaus were broken open and the contents abstracted. Not a plank or rail or post or paling was left anywhere upon the grounds, while fruit-trees, vines, and shrubbery were wantonly destroyed. These officers remained nearly three weeks, occupying the family beds, and when they left the bed-clothes also departed.
It is very evident that General Sherman entered North-Carolina with the confident expectation of receiving a welcome from its Union-loving citizens. In Major Nichols's story of the Great March, he remarks, on crossing the line which divides South from North-Carolina: "The conduct of the soldiers is perceptibly changed. I have seen no evidence of plundering, the men keep their ranks closely; and more remarkable yet, not a single column of the fire or smoke which a fewdays ago marked the positions of the heads of columns, can be seen upon the horizon. Our men seem to understand that they are entering a State which has suffered for its Union sentiment, and whose inhabitants would gladly embrace the old flag again if they can have the opportunity, which we mean to give them," (page 222.) But the town-meeting and war resolutions of the people of Fayetteville, the fight in her streets, and Governor Vance's proclamation, soon undeceived them, and their amiable dispositions were speedily corrected and abandoned.
On first entering our State, Major Nichols, looking sharply about him, and fortunately disposed to do justice, under the impression that he was among friends, declares: "It is not in our imagination alone that we can at once see a difference between South and North-Carolina. The soil is not superior to that near Cheraw, but the farmers are a vastly different class of men. I had always supposed that South-Carolina was agriculturally superior to its sister State. The loud pretensions of the chivalry had led me to believe that the scorn of these gentlemen was induced by the inferiority of the people of the old North State, and that they were little better than 'dirt-eaters;' but the strong Union sentiment which has always found utterance here should have taught me better. The real difference between the two regions lies in the fact that here the plantation owners work with their own hands, and do not think they degrade themselves thereby. For the first time since we bade farewell to salt water, I have to-day seen an attempt to manure land. Thearmy has passed through thirteen miles or more of splendidly-managed plantations; the corn and cotton-fields are nicely plowed and furrowed; the fences are in capital order; the barns are well built; the dwelling-houses are cleanly, and there is that air of thrift which shows that the owner takes a personal interest in the management of affairs," (page 222.)
It happens curiously enough that North-Carolina, ninety-two years ago, made much the same impression on a stranger then traveling peacefully through her eastern border; and his record is worth comparing with the foregoing, as showing that her State individuality was as strongly and clearly defined then as now, and that the situation of our people in 1773 closely resembled in some particulars that of their descendants in 1865.
"The soils and climates of the Carolinas differ, but not so much as their inhabitants. The number of negroes and slaves is much less in North than in South-Carolina. Their staple commodity is not so valuable, not being in so great demand as the rice, indigo, etc., of the South. Hence labor becomes more necessary, and he who has an interest of his own to serve is a laborer in the field. Husbandmen and agriculture increase in number and improvement. Industry is up in the woods at tar, pitch, and turpentine; in the fields plowing, planting, clearing, or fencing the land. Herds and flocks become more numerous. You see husbandmen, yeomen, and white laborers scattered through the country instead of herds of negroes and slaves. Healthful countenances and numerous families become more common as you advance. Property is much more equally diffused through one province than in the other, and this may account for some if not all the differences of character in the inhabitants. The people of the Carolinas certainly vary much as to their general sentiments, opinions, and judgments; and there is very little intercourse between them.The present State of North-Carolina is really curious; there are but five provincial laws in force through the colony, and no courts at all in being. No one can recover a debt, except before a single magistrate, where the sums are within his jurisdiction, and offenders escape with impunity. The people are in great consternation about the matter; what will be the consequence is problematical." (Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr., page 123.) The situation of North-Carolina during the last eight months of 1865 furnishes an exact parallel to the above concluding paragraph, and the whole may be taken as a fair illustration of the oft-repeated sentiment that history but repeats itself.
Major Nichols's impression of the old North State would scarcely have been so favorably expressed had he known what reception her people were to give the grand army. One week later, he writes: "Thus far we have been painfully disappointed in looking for the Union sentiment in North-Carolina, about which so much has been said. Our experience is decidedly in favor of its sister State. The city of Fayetteville was offensively rebellious;" and further on, "The rebels have shown more pluck at Averasboro and at Bentonsville than we have encountered since leaving Atlanta."
While the Federal armies lay at Goldsboro, trains were running day and night from Beaufort and from Wilmington, conveying stores for the supply and complete refit of Sherman's army. The Confederate army, lying between Goldsboro and Raleigh, having no supplies or reënforcements to receive, waited grimly and despairingly the order to fall back upon Raleigh, which came as soon as General Sherman, having effected his interview with General Grant, had returned to Goldsboro, with his future plan of action matured, and once more, on the tenth of April, set the grand army in motion. The scenes in Raleigh during the first week of April were significant enough. The removal of government stores, and of the effects of the banks; the systematic concealment of private property of every description; the hurried movements of troops to and fro; the doubt, dismay, and gloom painted on every man's face, told but too well the story of anticipated defeat and humiliation. If there were any who secretly exulted in the advance of the Federal army, they were not known. The nearest approach to any such feeling in any respectable man's breast was probably the not unnatural sense of satisfaction with which men who had long seen their opinions derided and execrated now felt that their hour of vindication was arriving, the hour which every thoughtful man in the State had long since foreseen. The united North was too strong for the South, and the weaker cause—whether right or wrong—was doomed. I repeat, not a thoughtful or clear-headed man in North-Carolina but had foreseen this result asmost probable, while at the same time not a thoughtful man or respectable citizen within our borders but had considered it his duty as well as his interest to stand by his State and do all in his power to assist her in the awful struggle. Till the Northern people, as a body, can understand how it was that such conflicting emotions held sway among us, and can see how an honorable people could resist and deplore secession, and yet fight to the last gasp in support of the Confederacy, and in obedience to the laws of the State, it is idle to hope for a fair judgment from them. This, however, contradictory as it may seem to superficial observers, was the position of North-Carolina all through the war, from its wild inception to its sullen close, and as such was defended and illustrated by her best and ablest statesmen. Foremost and most earnest in her efforts to maintain peace and preserve the Union—for she was the only State which sent delegates to both the Northern and Southern peace conventions—she was yet foremost also in the fight and freest in her expenditure of blood and treasure to sustain the common cause, which she had so reluctantly embraced; and now the time was fast approaching when she was again to vindicate her claims to supreme good sense and discretion, by being among the first to admit the hopelessness and sin of further effort, and the first to offer and accept the olive-branch.
Frequently during the winter of 1864-65, had the eyes of our people been turned toward our Senator in the Confederate Congress, anxious for some public expression of opinion as to the situation from him,waiting to see what course he would indicate as most proper and honorable. For of those who stood foremost as representative North-Carolinians, of those who possessed the largest share of personal popularity and influence in the State, it is not too much to say that Ex-GovernorGrahamwas by far the most conspicuous and preëminent—the man of whom it may be said more truly than of any other, that as he spoke so North-Carolina felt, and as he acted, so North-Carolina willed. And now, in the approaching crisis, there was no man by whose single deliberate judgment the whole State would have so unanimously agreed to be guided.
It may be well to pause here and glance at Governor Graham's antecedents and associations, the better to understand his claims to such prominence and such influence.
In a country such as ours, where hereditary distinctions do not exist, it is peculiarly pleasant to observe such a transmission of principles, and virtues, and talents, as is exhibited in the Graham family. The father of Governor Graham was General Joseph Graham, of Revolutionary fame, than whom there did not exist a more active and able partisan leader in North-Carolina. In the affair at Charlotte in 1780, referred to in a preceding number, when one hundred and fifty militia, under Colonel Davie, gave the whole British army under Cornwallis such a warm reception, most efficient aid was rendered by Major Joseph Graham, who commanded a small company of volunteers on that occasion. He was covered with wounds, and his recovery was considered by his friends as little short ofmiraculous. But he was afterward distinguished in many heroic exploits, and commanded in no less than fifteen different engagements.
His youngest son, William Alexander, was born in 1804, in Lincoln county, graduated at the State University in 1824, chose the profession of the law, and entered upon public life as member of the General Assembly in 1833, three years before the death of his venerable father. The talents, patriotism, and energy which had distinguished the Revolutionary patriot, were transmitted in full measure to his son, and North-Carolina evinced her appreciation of his abilities by retaining him in public office whenever he would consent to serve, from the time of his first entrance. And Governor Graham has never failed, has never been unequal to the occasion, or to the expectations formed of him, however high. His very appearance gives assurance of the energy, calm temper, high ability, and nerve which have always characterized him. As a lawyer and advocate, his reputation is eminent and his success brilliant; but it is as a statesman that his career is particularly to be noted now. He was United States Senator in 1840, elected Governor of the State in 1844, and reëlected in 1846. His immediate predecessor in this office was the Hon J.M. Morehead, previously referred to as a member of the Peace Convention at Washington; and his successor was the Hon. Charles Manly—all Whigs—and Governor Manly, the last of that school of politics elected to that office, previous to the civil war. Governor Graham was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1850,by President Fillmore, which he resigned in 1852 on receiving the nomination for Vice-President on the ticket with General Scott. He was repeatedly member of the General Assembly, and in all positions has merited and enjoyed the fullest and most unhesitating confidence of the people he represented, worthy of them and worthy of his parentage.
His connection in politics having been ever with the Whig party, he was thereby removed in the furthest possible degree from any countenance to the doctrines of Nullification and Secession. Hence he had concurred with Webster's great speech in reply to Hayne in 1830, with the proclamation of Jackson in 1832, with Clay in 1850, and with the entire policy of President Fillmore's eminently national administration. In February, 1860, he visited Washington City to consult with such friends as Crittenden of Kentucky, Hives of Virginia, and Granger of New-York, on the dangers then environing and threatening the country, the result of which was a convention nominating Bell and Everett for the Presidential ticket, with the motto, "The Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws." He canvassed the State on his return home, for these candidates and principles, warning the people, however, that there was a likelihood of Mr. Lincoln's election; and that in such a case it was evidently the purpose of the Secessionists who supported Breckinridge, to break up the Government and involve the country in civil war. Party, however, was at that time stronger than patriotism, and Breckinridge carried the State. On Mr.Lincoln's election, Governor Graham made public addresses, exhorting the people to submit and yield due obedience to his office. When the Legislature that winter ordered an election to take the sense of the people on the call of a convention, and at the same time to elect delegates, Governor Graham opposed the call, and it was signally defeated in the State. He was proposed as a Commissioner to the Peace Convention at Washington, but was rejected by the secessionist majority because of his decided and openly expressed Union sentiments.
After the attack on Fort Sumter, and the secession of Virginia and of Tennessee, leaving North-Carolina perfectly isolated among the seceded States, and with civil war already begun, Governor Graham decided to adopt the cause of the Southern States, but with pain and reluctance, not upon any pretense of right, but as a measure of revolution, and of national interest and safety. He was a member of the convention which in May, 1861, carried the State out of the Union, and from the date of the secession ordinance he endeavored in good faith and honor to sustain the cause of the Confederate States, but without any surrender on the part of the people of the rights and liberties of freemen. In the Convention of 1862, he delivered an elaborate speech in opposition to test oaths, sedition laws, the suspension of the privilege ofhabeas corpus, and all abridgments of the constitutional rights of the citizen, either by State conventions, or by Legislatures, or by Congress, which may be safely pronounced the clearest and ablest vindication of the cardinal principles of civil liberty presented in the annals of the Confederacy.
The expression of such views, such an evident determination that the country should be free, not only in the end, but in the means, coupled with great moderation of opinion as to the final result of the struggle, and a total absence of all fire-eating proclivities, drew down upon him the free criticism of the secession press and party, many of whom did not hesitate to brand him as a traitor to the cause, notwithstanding the assurances he gave of five sons in the army, some one of whom was in every important battle on the Atlantic slope, except Bull Run and Chancellorsville; two being present when the flag of Lee went down on his last battle-field at Appomattox, while a third then lay languishing with a severe and recent wound at Petersburg. Governor Graham's sons derived no advantage from their father's distinguished position in North-Carolina. They received no favors or patronage from the Government, but were engaged in arduous and perilous service all through, in such subordinate offices as were conferred by the election of their comrades, or in the ordinary course of promotion.
No families in the State gave more freely of their best blood and treasure in the support of the war than the Graham family and its connections. Governor Graham's younger sister, Mrs. Morrison, wife of the Rev. Dr. Morrison, of Lincoln county, the first President of Davidson College, had three sons in the service, and four sons-in-law, namely, Major Avery, General Barringer, General D.H. Hill, andO præclarumet venerabile nomen,Stonewall Jackson! Perhaps no two families entered upon the rebellion more reluctantly, nor in their whole course were more entirely in unison with the views and feelings of the great body of our citizens.
Major Avery, the youngest of Dr. Morrison's sons-in-law, was one of five brothers, sons of Colonel Isaac T. Avery, of Burke; grandsons of Colonel Waightstill Avery, who commanded a regiment during the revolutionary war, and was a member of the Mecklenburg Convention, and a colleague there of Major Robert Davidson, Mrs. Morrison's maternal grandfather. Three of these five brothers fell in battle. The youngest, Colonel Isaac T. Avery, named for his father, fell at Gettysburgh. He survived his wounds a few minutes, long enough to beckon to his lieutenant-colonel for a pencil and a scrap of paper, on which with his dying fingers he assured his father that he died doing his whole duty. His father, approaching his eightieth year, received the note, stained with his son's life-blood, and died a few weeks afterward. The oldest of the brothers, Waightstill, named for his grandfather, and the pride of the family, was a son-in-law of Governor Morehead, and his colleague in the first Confederate Congress. He fell in Kirk's raid near Morganton. Governor Morehead,[13]who was, with the exception of the distinguished President of the University, Governor Swain, the oldest of the surviving ex-governors of the State, had two sons and twosons-in-law in the army; the two latter were killed. Governor Graham's immediate successor as governor—Charles Manly, of Raleigh—had three sons in the army, all of whom saw hard service; and three sons-in-law, two of whom were killed. There were not wanting those in the dark hours of the contest who spoke of it as "the rich man's war, and the poor man's fight." These examples show that it was the war of all. The rich and the poor met together, and mingled their blood in a common current, and lie together among the unrecorded dead. The history of many families may be traced whose sacrifices were similar to the above instances. And it is now the imperative duty of those fitted for the work, to gather up these records for posterity, and for the future historian and annalist of the country. Many striking coïncidences and connections in family history, many most affecting instances of unselfish devotion and of irreparable loss, are yet to be preserved by hands eager
"To light the flame of a soldier's fameOn the turf of a soldier's grave."