Nov 1862–America’s Little Napoleon Meets His Waterloo

March 22, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles, Uncategorized

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

November 15, 1862 North Star–Removal of Gen. McClellan

General George B McClellan, America's little Napoleon
Gen­er­al George B McClel­lan, Amer­i­ca’s lit­tle Napoleon

The lat­est mil­i­tary change is the removal of Gen. McClel­lan from the army of the Potomac, and the appoint­ment of Gen. Burn­side in his stead. The order was deliv­ered last week Fri­day night; and it took the army by sur­prise. He was relieved of his com­mand and ordered to report him­self at Tren­ton N.J., where his fam­i­ly now is. His last offi­cial act was the issu­ing of an address to his sol­diers inform­ing them in a few words that the com­mand had devolved on Gen. Burn­side and took affec­tion­ate leave of them. He imme­di­ate­ly depart­ed for Trenton.

This change will per­haps take many of our read­ers by sur­prise. It is claimed to have been a mil­i­tary neces­si­ty, which means we sup­pose that the best good of the army and its future suc­cess, required the change. If this is true, and the only motive for removal, no one should com­plain, for it is no worse for Gen. McClel­lan to be super­seded for these impor­tant rea­sons, than for many oth­er mil­i­tary offi­cers, who have shared the same fate.

Every­thing should yield to mil­i­tary suc­cess and fit­ness for the place, so far as army appoint­ments are con­cerned, not with­stand­ing many of these offices have been and still are, con­ferred as a mat­ter of favoritism, rather than mer­it. Gen McClel­lan, we have believed, to be an able Gen­er­al — a man of ster­ling per­son­al pro­bity, and unwa­ver­ing loy­al­ty. And while he has, as we believe tried to do his work con­sci­en­tious­ly and sure­ly, in meet­ing the ene­my in front, almost from first to last, he has had ene­mies in his rear, who have tried to thwart his plans and secure his down­fall. There have been polit­i­cal, if not per­son­al, plots and coun­ter­plots against him and although Pres­i­dent Lin­coln has not been engaged in them, but has always defend­ed and sus­tained McClel­lan, yet his oppo­nents have at last tri­umphed in his removal, and they are now glo­ri­fy­ing the change.

General Burnside replaced McClellan
Gen­er­al Burn­side replaced McClellan

We sin­cere­ly trust, that as a mil­i­tary mea­sure, the removal may prove high­ly ben­e­fi­cial to the Fed­er­al cause and that the gal­lant Gen­er­al Burn­side will secure speedy and bril­liant suc­cess, and that the noble McClel­lan, whether he entire­ly retires from mil­i­tary life or accepts some oth­er com­mand, will live long enough to over­come those polit­i­cal and envi­ous con­spir­a­tors who have been instru­men­tal in his removal.

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“Plots and coun­ter­plots” weren’t the half of it. As evi­denced by the Civ­il War itself, the Repub­lic was frag­ile, only some 85 years removed from the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion. Today the notion that our mil­i­tary exists to serve civ­il author­i­ty is a bedrock assump­tion; one hun­dred and fifty years ago with the nation com­ing apart at the seams, the bound­aries between civil­ian gov­ern­ment and the mil­i­tary weren’t so clear.

Oct 1862–After Antietam, Lincoln Changes the Game

March 22, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

A vic­to­ry on the field of bat­tle gave Pres­i­dent Lin­coln oppor­tu­ni­ty to issue a doc­u­ment that would change the nature of the Civ­il War.

The Union victory at Antietam came at a high price.
The Union vic­to­ry at Anti­etam came at a high price.

Com­ing a few days after a nar­row Union vic­to­ry at the Bat­tle of Anti­etam, Lin­coln issued the Pre­lim­i­nary Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion on Sep­tem­ber 22, 1862. It declared “that all per­sons held as slaves” with­in rebel states as of Jan­u­ary 1, 1863 “are, and hence­for­ward shall be free.”

Pri­or to this point, the war had been about quelling the seces­sion of the South­ern states and pre­serv­ing the Union. Now this doc­u­ment, one of the great­est in human his­to­ry, casts the war in a new light. The Civ­il War became a moral con­flict about human freedom.

A bold gam­ble, the Procla­ma­tion also strength­ened the North mil­i­tar­i­ly and polit­i­cal­ly with the announce­ment of the accep­tance of black men into the Union Army and Navy. By the end of the war almost 200,000 black sol­diers and sailors served in the armed forces.

Lincoln and his cabinet at the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lin­coln and his cab­i­net at the first read­ing of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Proclamation.

As can be seen by the North Star’s edi­to­r­i­al, the issuance of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion was by no means a clear call.

Sep 1862–Lincoln’s Cockamamie Idea; Rebels at the Doorstep; the Constitution Takes a Beating

March 22, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles, Uncategorized

By Gary Far­row, Danville VT His­tor­i­cal Society

slaveThe times were very bleak indeed for the North: the Pres­i­dent was flop­ping around on the race ques­tion; a shock­ing­ly swift mil­i­tary rever­sal had just occurred in the east; and the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment was fight­ing with the judi­cia­ry here in Ver­mont. Mean­while, the Ninth Ver­mont suf­fered a rever­sal of fortune.

North Star–September 6, 1862

The President’s Colonization Scheme

Sen­a­tor S. C. Pomeroy of Kansas by request of the Pres­i­dent con­sent­ed to orga­nize emi­gra­tion par­ties of free col­ored per­sons for set­tle­ment in South Amer­i­ca and has been com­mis­sioned accord­ing­ly. This gentleman’s suc­cess in orga­niz­ing “Emi­grant Aid Expe­di­tions” from Mass­a­chu­setts for the pur­pose of get­ting con­trol of Kansas for the Free Soil­ers is looked upon as an encour­age­ment for the present scheme. The Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to send the emi­grants in good steamships and pro­vide them with all the nec­es­sary imple­ments of labor and also sus­te­nance until they gath­er a harvest.

Sen­a­tor Pomeroy’s address pro­pos­es to take with him on the first day of Octo­ber next, 100 col­ored men, as pio­neers in the move­ment with their fam­i­lies to Chirigui in New Grana­da [Nicaragua], if the place on exam­i­na­tion is found sat­is­fac­to­ry and promis­ing. He desires all per­sons of the African race, of sound health, who desire to go, to send him at Wash­ing­ton their names, sex, age, num­bers and post office address… He wants mechan­ics and labor­ers, earnest and sober men, for the inter­ests of a gen­er­a­tion, if may be, are involved in the suc­cess of this exper­i­ment, and with the appro­ba­tion of the Amer­i­can peo­ple and under the bless­ing of God it can­not fail.

July, 1962–Naive Speculation Over Vicksburg; Vermonters Get Roughed Up

August 2, 2012Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles
Noth­ing would be easy about the tak­ing of Vicksburg

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

The city of Vicks­burg which lay on the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er was per­haps the Union’s most impor­tant strate­gic tar­get of the war. Lat­er a Fed­er­al offi­cial would say that it was “worth more than forty Get­tys­burgs’”. Mean­while back East, Ver­mon­ters were engaged in a doomed enter­prise called the Penin­su­lar Campaign.

North Star

July 12, 1862

Capture of Vicksburg

Cairo July 4

…On Thurs­day, Com. Porter’s fleet com­menced to shell the upper bat­ter­ies below the town. This con­tin­ued all day with­out any result. The shelling was renewed on Fri­day, and in the after­noon a fire was direct­ed on the town over which the shells were seen plain­ly to burst. This con­tin­ued until 4 o’clock, when the fir­ing ceased.

Danville’s Captain Addison Preston Reports on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign

August 2, 2012Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, Historical people, NSM articles
Kurz and Allen illus­tra­tion of the cav­al­ry at the Bat­tle of Cedar Creek. Pho­to from the Library of Congress.

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Col. Addi­son Pre­ston was not only a good sol­dier; he was also a good writer and shared his expe­ri­ences with North Star readers.

In the spring of 1862, the Ver­mont Cav­al­ry was part of an over­all Union effort to pre­vent a Con­fed­er­ate move­ment against Wash­ing­ton. The Fed­er­als had set up head­quar­ters in the Shenan­doah Val­ley town of Stras­burg to con­trol the Man­as­sas Gap Rail­road (South­ern) and the Val­ley Pike. How­ev­er the North­ern­ers were forced to evac­u­ate the town by Gen­er­al Stonewall Jackson’s rapid flank­ing movement.

In a let­ter to the edi­tor, Cap­tain Addi­son Pre­ston of Danville offered a stir­ring account of the action seen by Com­pa­ny D of the Cav­al­ry. This unit was per­son­al­ly recruit­ed and com­mand­ed by Pre­ston. Born in Burke, the fam­i­ly soon moved to Danville. At the age of 21, Pre­ston entered Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and became an accom­plished schol­ar; how­ev­er, after a year and a half he had to with­draw because of illness.

Danville’s First Killed in Action, Rebels Vanish, and Vermont Soldier Gives Birth

August 2, 2012Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, NSM articles
The May 17 1862 edi­tion of Harper’s Week­ly fea­tured a dra­mat­ic Winslow Homer illus­tra­tion of Rebel Sol­diers. The image is cap­tioned, “Rebels Out­side Their Works at York­town Recon­noi­ter­ing with Dark Lanterns — Sketched by Mr. Winslow Homer”. The image is an impres­sive illus­tra­tion of well equipped and dis­ci­plined con­fed­er­ate troops on a recon­nais­sance mission.

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Danville’s first direct war casu­al­ty comes home. The Fed­er­als gain the upper hand at New Orleans, and the rebels in York­town dis­ap­pear. Mean­while there is a lit­tle mir­a­cle on Ship Island.

North Star May 10, 1862

Death of a Danville Cavalry Soldier

We regret to announce the death of cor­po­ral John C. Chase, who belonged to Co. D. 1st Cav­al­ry, a res­i­dent of this town, and who enlist­ed last fall and served under Capt. A. W. Pre­ston. He received a mor­tal wound on the 27th …under the fol­low­ing cir­cum­stances. On that day, an expe­di­tion was sent up in pur­suit of Ashby’s Cav­al­ry, in the Val­ley of the Shenan­doah … Orders were giv­en to pur­sue Ashby’s Cav­al­ry, who occu­pied a small vil­lage about 12 miles from Harrisburg.

Co. D. of our Cav­al­ry led by Lieut. Cum­mings was then ordered to charge through the vil­lage which order they exe­cut­ed in fine style, dri­ving the ene­my com­plete­ly across the riv­er. It was while mak­ing this charge that Cor­po­ral Chase was wound­ed — not by the reg­u­lar army foe, but by a pis­tol fired by some one from the win­dow of a house — the ball enter­ing into his hip and press­ing into his abdomen. Chase did not notice the wound at the time but road for­ward and ran down one of the rebel cav­al­ry, tak­ing him and his horse prisoner.

He soon how­ev­er became faint and called upon his broth­er sol­diers for help, who came up assist­ed him off his horse, and he was tak­en to camp where his wound was dressed, and after­wards was con­veyed to the hos­pi­tal in an ambu­lance. He lived but 24 hours retain­ing his fac­ul­ties to the last…