Going to See the Elephant

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

April marks the begin­ning of the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al obser­vance of the out­set of the Civ­il War with the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Har­bor, April 12, 1861. For the next four years the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will reprint excerpts of arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War.

“Going To See The Ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

Under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks, Ver­mont respond­ed quick­ly to the call for men to join the Union forces. Dur­ing the Civ­il War, Ver­mont con­tributed more per capi­ta from its trea­sury and from its pop­u­la­tion of young men to the con­flict than any oth­er state in the Union. Danville’s finan­cial com­mit­ment of approx­i­mate­ly $36,000. to the war effort , as well as the num­ber of its enlist­ments was extraordinary.

In 1861, Danville had a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,500 con­sist­ing of about 350 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Out of this pool of men, from 1861 to 1865 Danville fur­nished 245 enlist­ments con­sist­ing of 194 dif­fer­ent men. The bal­ance was account­ed for by re-enlist­ments. By the end of the war, Danville had lost a total of 35 men. Twelve of those who lost their lives were killed in bat­tle and the rest died from expo­sure, star­va­tion, or sickness.

Notable among Danville cit­i­zens who enlist­ed and whose ser­vice and lead­er­ship skills were exem­plary were Colonel Addi­son Pre­ston who com­mand­ed the 1st Reg­i­ment, Ver­mont Vol­un­teer Cav­al­ry and Cap­tain Charles D. Brain­erd. Accord­ing to G.G. Bene­dict in Ver­mont in the Civ­il War, Pre­ston was “one of the best dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ans that ever com­mand­ed the reg­i­ment. He took good care of his men and was pop­u­lar with them. As a man he was frank, hearty, genial, quick of thought and action. As a fight­er he was brave to a fault, impetu­ous, eager to strike, ready to go him­self wher­ev­er he sent his men, and unwill­ing to leave any place of dan­ger as long as there was any­thing to be done.” A sol­dier under Preston’s com­mand described him as “one of the most brave and dash­ing cav­al­ry offi­cers in the army”. Brain­erd enlist­ed as a pri­vate in the infantry of the 15th Reg­i­ment of Ver­mont Vol­un­teers. He and oth­er Ver­mont Vol­un­teers faced some of the dark­est days of the Civ­il war at Bat­tles of the Wilder­ness, Spot­syl­va­nia, Cold Har­bor and the siege of Peters­burg. After the final assault on Peters­burg, Brain­erd was pro­mot­ed to brevet captain.

Born in Danville, VT and edu­cat­ed at Peacham Acad­e­my, Thad­deus Stevens went on to rep­re­sent Penn­syl­va­nia in Con­gress, where as a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives he became leader of the Rad­i­cal Repub­li­cans. Along with Sen­a­tor Charles Sum­n­er, of Mass­a­chu­setts, he led Con­gress in the Recon­struc­tion of the South fol­low­ing the Civ­il war and led the effort to pass the 13th Amend­ment to the Constitution.

The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety looks for­ward to shar­ing Civ­il War arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 with you.

The fol­low­ing is an excerpt of Nathaniel Eaton’s edi­to­r­i­al in response to the fir­ing on Fort Sumter by Con­fed­er­ate forces April 12, 1861 appeared in the North Star of April 20 1861.

The Crisis—–The Duty of the Hour

The event which all have feared—a cri­sis which every one ought sin­cere­ly to deprecate—has come. Civ­il war is inau­gu­rat­ed. The action of extreme, ambi­tious and design­ing men of the dis­union school, has brought upon us the dire result.—To such an extent is this spir­it of civ­il strife aroused—so utter­ly regard­less of loy­al­ty and patri­o­tism are those who have tak­en the lead in it, that they have com­menced a san­guinary con­flict at Charleston, in hos­til­i­ty to the reg­u­lar­ly con­sti­tut­ed author­i­ties of the land, if not with a set­tled pur­pose, to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment itself by force of arms. In such an emer­gency, with­out regard to mere par­ty feel­ings, it would seem the part of wis­dom, of duty of patri­o­tism, for every one to sec­ond and sus­tain all nec­es­sary efforts on the part of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment to main­tain its right­ful con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty in the attempts to exe­cute the laws, and sus­tain the union of our Fathers.

Vermont

It will be seen that Gov­er­nor Fair­banks has called an extra ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture to meet at Mont­pe­lier next Tues­day, to secure prompt action of our State in the present emer­gency. The mili­tia of Ver­mont at present is in a dis­or­ga­nized con­di­tion. It requires leg­isla­tive action to revive, sys­tem­atize and thor­ough­ly orga­nize it.

The Vol­un­teer Mili­tia is in bet­ter con­di­tion, and some (of) its com­pa­nies are already respond­ing to the expect­ed call.

A Proclamation

A Call for 75,000 Men

EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS

Wash­ing­ton, April 15

By the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States—A Proclamation

…I, Abra­ham Lin­coln, Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, in virtue of the pow­er in me vest­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws, have thought fit to call-forth , and here­by do call forth the mili­tia of the sev­er­al States of the Union to the aggre­gate num­ber of sev­en­ty-fife thou­sand, in order to sup­press said com­bi­na­tions and to case the laws to be duly executed.

Union Meeting in Danville

A large meet­ing of the cit­i­zens of Danville was held at the Brick Church in this vil­lage, on Sat­ur­day, April 20, to con­sid­er the all absorb­ing sub­ject of our Nation­al Crisis.

The meet­ing was called to order by Hon. B. N. Davis…

A com­mit­tee on resu­lu­tions was appoint­ed by the Chair…

Resolved, That this meet­ing hail with delight the unfold­ing of our glo­ri­ous old Flag—the Flag of our Forefathers—the flag of our union—The Flag of Liberty—and in its defence “we pledge to each oth­er our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor.”

The “star-span­gled ban­ner” was float­ing from many places in the village—an old fash­ioned band of drums and fifes dis­coursed mar­tial music of the gen­uine and stir­ring kind—and a large del­e­ga­tion of ladies filled the gallery, and waved the stars and stripes, while the mul­ti­tude cheered the speak­ers below.—This was a marked fea­ture of inter­est in the day’s pro­ceed­ings, and a degree of enthu­si­asm pre­vailed, which has not before been wit­nessed in these parts since Rev­o­lu­tion­ary times.