March 1863–Amidst Unspeakable Cruelty, the North Star Struggles with Desperation, Racism and Hope

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

March 7,1863 North Star, Our Negro Troops

Our New Orleans cor­re­spon­dent con­firms the rumors which have been cur­rent as to dif­fi­cul­ties between the white and black reg­i­ments at Ship Island and Baton Rouge in the Depart­ment of the Gulf. We see no rea­son why this state of things should be allowed to spring up. White and black troops should not be brigad­ed togeth­er or sta­tioned togeth­er. The Procla­ma­tion spec­i­fied the use to which black troops should be pri­mar­i­ly put, when raised, as “gar­rison­ing forts and posi­tions,” and there are forts enough in our hands in the Gulf Depart­ment to fur­nish duty for ten times the num­ber of black troops we have there…

When the sick­ly weath­er comes on in the Gulf and on the riv­er, our white sol­diers will be glad enough to have this work tak­en off their hands by the accli­mat­ed negroes; and there will be no quar­relling for prece­dence in the duty.…

We need not doubt that Col. Higginson’s black bat­tal­ion exhib­it­ed all the “fiery ener­gy” which can be claimed for them: but the greater part of the men of the South will require a great deal of dis­ci­pline and train­ing before their fiery ener­gy can be relied on in the field of battle.

The his­tor­i­cal antecedents of the negro in this coun­try are of any­thing but the fiery or ener­getic style. Some may bring forth trait and char­ac­ter that have been dor­mant for gen­er­a­tions, but it will require time to bring them forth. Gar­ri­son duty, with occa­sion­al skir­mish­es, will fur­nish an excel­lent means of train­ing to begin with.

At all events, there must on no account be occa­sion fur­nished for col­li­sions between our white and black sol­diers in that Depart­ment, where, of all oth­ers, the lat­ter are most like­ly to be of per­ma­nent and almost indis­pen­si­ble service.

****

March 14, 1863 North Star, Victory Wanted

Every indi­ca­tion now leads to the belief that the Gov­ern­ment intends to quell this rebel­lion, if pos­si­ble, by the strong arm of mil­i­tary force. To secure this end… a gen­er­al bill has just been passed by Con­gress. There is no more rais­ing of troops by vol­un­tary enlistment…

The army now in the field, and the men here­after to be raised…are to be com­posed of our free white pop­u­la­tion. Negro sol­diers are appar­ent­ly at a dis­count as both Hous­es of Con­gress have failed in pass­ing a bill to employ them as sol­diers although it is claimed that the act of the last Con­gress gives the Pres­i­dent author­i­ty to use them.

The Eman­ci­pa­tion pol­i­cy has as yet proved of no account in aid­ing the ail­ing Fed­er­al cause, and the pre­dic­tions of its ardent friends, that if this pol­i­cy is inau­gu­rat­ed, our streets would swarm with vol­un­teers, and that the negroes on the South­ern plan­ta­tions, hear­ing the notes of lib­er­ty, would ral­ly to our stan­dard seem far, very far from being realized.…

Dur­ing the past twelve months, our mil­i­tary oper­a­tions have been unde­ci­sive, if not actu­al­ly dis­as­trous. There have been bick­er­ings and jeal­ousies among the offi­cers, removals of them, res­ig­na­tions and changes in their com­mands. In short the war has seemed to make no suc­cess­ful progress

…. Under these cir­cum­stances; what we most want is suc­cess in pros­e­cut­ing the con­test. If the war must con­tin­ue, the Coun­try demands that it be speed­i­ly crowned with sin­gle, deci­sive, over­whelm­ing success…But let the war drag along as it has done as in the past with­out any prospec­tive or actu­al suc­cess — let the same want of una­nim­i­ty among the lead­ing mil­i­tary men be man­i­fest­ed — let the same look of mil­i­tary vig­or and skill be displayed.….

Our peo­ple will become dis­cour­aged, the Admin­is­tra­tion be great­ly embar­rassed, with a pop­u­lar polit­i­cal reac­tion against it, that will sweep every­thing before it…the peo­ple… will not sub­mit to the long con­tin­ued pros­e­cu­tion of a war that is bar­ren of vic­to­ries.… There is an earnest long­ing among all loy­al men that this [pre­serv­ing the Union] result may be accom­plished by a speedy and com­plete suc­cess of our arms.

The nation wants mil­i­tary suc­cess; the Gov­ern­ment, the peo­ple want it; and even the rebels need it, to teach them that the con­test must be speed­i­ly closed. Shall we have such a peace and such a vic­to­ry? May time soon vouch­safe it.

****

March 21, 1863 North Star, How They Treat Men at the South For Differences in Political Opinion

The Tele­graph brings the fol­low­ing account of rebel atroc­i­ties at the South, inflict­ed by the seces­sion­ists upon those who dare to dif­fer from them in polit­i­cal opin­ion. It is tak­en from a report of Brigadier Gen­er­al Dodge, writ­ing from head­quar­ters of Corinth, Miss., to Capt. R. M. Sawyer, A.A.G., Mem­phis: “I will state mere­ly,” he says, “what I know to be true.”

Abe Cana­ki and Mr Mitchell were hung two weeks ago for being Union men. They lived in the Hack­le­ton set­tle­ment, Mar­i­on Coun­ty. Mr. Ham­p­work and his daugh­ter of the same coun­ty were shot; The lat­ter was instant­ly killed; the for­mer is still alive but prob­a­bly will die.

Peter Lewis and a broth­er of his neigh­bors, were hunt­ed down by one hun­dred blood­hounds and captured.

The hous­es of Messrs. Palmer, Wells­by, Williams, Wright­mans and some thir­ty oth­ers were burned over their heads. The women and chil­dren were turned out of doors, and the com­mu­ni­ty was noti­fied that if they allowed them to go into oth­er hous­es or fed them, or har­bored them in any way, they would be treat­ed the same way.

Mr Peter­son, liv­ing at the head of Bull Moun­tain, was shot. “I am now feed­ing one hun­dred of those fam­i­lies, who with their women and chil­dren and some grey haired men and even crip­pled on crutch­es, were dis­cov­ered and found their way here through the woods and by-ways with­out food. All this was done for the sim­ple rea­son that they were Union men, or that they had rel­a­tives in our army. The state­ments of these peo­ple are almost beyond belief, did we not have the evi­dence before us.

I am informed by them that there are hun­dreds of loy­al men and women in the woods of Alaba­ma wait­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to escape.”

****

March 21, 1863 North Star, What the Proclamation Has Done

We nev­er have believed in the poten­cy of the President’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion, to the same extent that many have. It has seemed to be too sweep­ing an edict — one that is imprac­ti­ca­ble to exe­cute, and if exe­cut­ed to the full, would leave the freed negroes in a deplorable con­di­tion. Its ten­den­cy has also been to divide the North, and yet there seems to be no desir­able result flow­ing from it. While all should be will­ing to give the exper­i­ment a fair tri­al, yet its effi­cien­cy some of the Repub­li­can jour­nals have doubts. The Spring­field Repub­li­can, one of the ablest Admin­is­tra­tion jour­nals in Mass­a­chu­setts, has an arti­cle on the sub­ject, in which, among oth­er things it says, “Well, it is more than…two months since the procla­ma­tion was for­mal­ly made, and the negroes still remain qui­et­ly on the South­ern plan­ta­tions: and rebel armies have not dis­persed to hunt fly­ing negroes, but are larg­er and stronger than ever before; the mar­ket price of negroes is at its high­est; the negroes with­in our lines show no pas­sion­ate eager­ness to fight and even Gen Hunter [strong advo­cate of using black troops] has been oblig­ed to resort to forcible con­scrip­tion to fill up his negro reg­i­ment, and that, too, where the exper­i­ment of mak­ing negro sol­diers has been longest in operation.

Nei­ther are the promis­es of the won­der­ful effect of the procla­ma­tion upon the peo­ple have of the North real­ized; Gov. Andrew’s [abo­li­tion­ist Gov­er­nor of MA] recruits do not throng the roads of Mass­a­chu­setts and vol­un­teer­ing has been at a standstill.

As to the effect of the procla­ma­tion at the North, noth­ing be said, the enthu­si­asm it has evoked, has been on the wrong side;…Those who so vehe­ment­ly and per­sis­tent­ly urged its adop­tion, have had their way in the mat­ter, and it is hoped that they are con­tent, if any­thing can sat­is­fy the Rad­i­cals. For our­selves we speak, in declar­ing that we must be will­ing that the mea­sure should have a thor­ough tri­al and hope that good will result from it. But if it does not — if it utter fails in secur­ing the end for which it was osten­si­bly inau­gu­rat­ed — the crush­ing of the rebel­lion and the restora­tion of the Union — what a fear­ful respon­si­bil­i­ty will rest upon the Rad­i­cal politi­cians, who, seem­ing­ly for par­ti­san pur­pos­es, secured its announcement.

****

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion is one of the most impor­tant mile­stones in the quest for human free­dom. At the time pain and con­fu­sion ruled the land; insight and com­pas­sion were in short supply.