The Largest Refugee Crises Ever Created on the American Continent

January 9, 2014Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Black fugitives forging the Rappahannock river.
Black fugi­tives forg­ing the Rap­pa­han­nock river.

Civ­il War his­to­ry often gives short shrift to the fact that the con­flict pre­cip­i­tat­ed the largest refugee cri­sis ever seen on the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent. Before we read Danville’s North Star reports for Jan­u­ary of 1864, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand how the Union was han­dling the freed­men prob­lem that was cre­at­ed by Lincoln’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion on Sep 22, 1862.

The Procla­ma­tion declared that if a rebel state did not return to the Union by Jan­u­ary 1, all slaves would become free. How­ev­er, slaves did not wait until the begin­ning of the year; they began stream­ing toward Union lines and the refugee cri­sis was on. One reporter wrote, “There were men, women and chil­dren in every state of dis­ease or decrepi­tude often near­ly naked with flesh torn by the ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ences of their escape.” But if ex-slaves thought they had a bet­ter life, they were often mis­tak­en. “Often the slaves met prej­u­dices against their col­or more bit­ter than they had left behind.”

September 1863–New Depths of Inhumanity Attained, Southern Noose Tightens and Wiggles

December 23, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

The atrocities of war--This drawing of the Sack of Lawrence Kansas was just one of the many.
The atroc­i­ties of war–This draw­ing of the sack of Lawrence, Kansas, was just one of many.

Sep­tem­ber brought news about how the Union dealt with its desert­ers. Two men on oppo­site sides, whose twist­ed souls were fired ear­li­er in the caul­dron that was the Kansas-Mis­souri Bor­der War, led their “troops” on a mis­sion of mur­der­ing, ran­sack­ing and plun­der­ing non-com­bat­ants. The bat­tle for East­ern Ten­nessee — North­ern Geor­gia con­tin­ued to heave to and fro.

September 5, 1863 Danville North Star

Mil­i­tary Expectations

Head­quar­ters Army of the Potomac Aug 29 – The exe­cu­tion of sub­sti­tute desert­ers sen­tenced to death in Gen­er­al Orders No. 84 took place today. More than ordi­nary inter­est was exhib­it­ed on the exe­cu­tion of mil­i­tary law, and it is esti­mat­ed that not less than 25,000 per­sons were present…The ground was select­ed, and every arrange­ment so com­plete that no acci­dents occurred to mar the solem­ni­ty of the proceedings….

The crim­i­nals were sit­ting upon their respec­tive coffins with yawn­ing graves in their rear…. At the order to fire, 86 mus­kets were dis­charged, and instant death was announced by the Sur­geons in atten­dance as a result. The bod­ies were then placed in their respec­tive graves, and the cler­gy per­formed the last reli­gious rites over the deceased.

Arnold Langmaid — July 5, 1919 — 93 and Counting

August 1, 2013Posted inHistorical people, North Danville, NSM articles

By Dwayne Langmaid

Arnold and Shirley Langmaid at the award ceremony for oldest man in Danville.
Arnold and Shirley Lang­maid at the award cer­e­mo­ny for old­est man in Danville.

First of my remem­ber­ing much of Arnie, and of course Shirl, they were liv­ing in half of the lit­tle house across from the old North Danville store. Rather tight quar­ters by today’s stan­dards, but cer­tain­ly a step-up from the tin-can tiny trail­er that had been home. Before that, I’m told Arnie went to the St. Johns­bury Trade School, worked at C. H. Goss, mar­ried Shirl in ’42, and then did three years with the Army in Europe until the end of the Big One.

After get­ting out, Arnie and Shirl bought the tin-can and lived in Spring­field where Arnie was a machin­ist in one of the big shops. A cou­ple years lat­er, we–Hom, Boo, Joe and Snug–started com­ing along. This prompt­ed the move to Arthur Sanborn’s lit­tle house. Arnie mechan­iced out back in the garage that still stands there and helped his dad, Burl, in the woods. Wrench­ing and log­ging didn’t seem to be mak­ing ends meet, so he went to work for Fair­banks Scales, rapid­ly going through the foundry–drilling to plan­ning to milling and lathe work.

In 1950, Arnie and Shirl bought the farm where Snug and Smit­ty (Don and Dianne) are now. The place was pret­ty rough. They, with the help of our grand­par­ents, aunts and uncles, hoed and dug, ripped and tore until in the sum­mer of ’51, we moved in. The old house was plen­ty big enough, but we didn’t dal­ly run­ning down to the cook stove on nip­py mornings.

July, 1863—Vicksburg and Gettysburg–the Price of Victory

July 19, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, Historical sites, NSM articles

by Mark Moore, His­to­ri­an and Archivist, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

1863. The third year of the war. The music exalt­ing medal-bedecked glo­ry and the blood­less romance of a quick 90-day war had fad­ed long ago. In its place was end­less, mind­less slogging–the clean­ing of weapons, large and small, march­ing with no dis­cernible purpose—the killing and dying with an equal­ly point­less objective.

General George G. Meade, aka "the old snapping turtle."
Gen­er­al George G. Meade, aka the “Old Snap­ping Turtle.”

This proved to be the rule in the war in the west. The blood­let­ting at Fred­er­icks­burg and Anti­etam, to name two, proved ear­ly on that there would be no quick, dra­mat­ic, glit­ter­ing north­ern vic­to­ries. Chan­cel­lorsville had shown the supe­ri­or­i­ty of some south­ern com­mand­ing gen­er­als so Lin­coln would have to engage on a con­tin­u­ous revolv­ing door of com­mand for the Army of the Potomac replac­ing the use­less Major Gen­er­al Joe Hook­er with fish-eyed Penn­syl­van­ian George Meade, known to his troops as Old Snap­ping Tur­tle. Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­al Robert E. Lee, on oth­er hand, lost his sec­ond-in-com­mand, his bold­est tac­ti­cian and archi­tect of the vic­to­ry at Chan­cel­lorsville, “Stonewall” Jack­son, to the gun­fire of his own troops in the evening twilight.

June 1863–Democratic Party Leader Brought Before Military Court

June 11, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

A cartoon printed in England in 1864, showing Lincoln as the Federal Phoenix rising from the flames of American Democracy.
A car­toon print­ed in Eng­land in 1864, show­ing Lin­coln as the Fed­er­al Phoenix ris­ing from the flames of Amer­i­can Democracy.

Ten­sions between nation­al secu­ri­ty and civ­il lib­er­ties are not an unfa­mil­iar top­ic to mod­ern day read­ers. So what led to a for­mer US Con­gress­man from Ohio and poten­tial can­di­date for gov­er­nor to be roust­ed out of his house at 2:30 AM on May 5, 1863 and arrest­ed by the fed­er­al troops?

Although Clement Val­landigham had lost his reelec­tion bid for the House the pri­or year, he was still a lead­ing light for the “Cop­per­heads,” the anti-war wing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. He had run afoul of Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s mid-April “Gen­er­al Order Num­ber 38,” which stat­ed that the “habit of declar­ing sym­pa­thies for the ene­my would not be tol­er­at­ed in the Mil­i­tary Dis­trict of Ohio.” Offend­ers would be sub­ject to execution.