It was a bloody two-day affair. The Battle of Shiloh resulted in close to 24,000 deaths, worse than the entire Revolutionary War.
By Gary Farrow, Danville Vermont Historical Society
The Vermont Brigade joins McClellan’s sleepy Peninsular Campaign, while sound and fury rages in the West.
North Star April 12, 1862
Important News
The news from the Potomac Army is of much interest…and the future movements will be watched with anxiety, as the whole Vermont Brigade is in the column which marched from Fortress Monroe to Yorktown. The latter piece is besieged and our troops are now engaged in that operation.
The three attending Hemlocks added a period element of respect to the unveiling. Photos by Ken Linsley
The Old Commoner finally makes a visible presence in the Vermont State House
After many months of work, Thaddeus Stevens has been honored in his home state of Vermont by having his likeness hung in the State House. In a lovely ceremony in the historical Cedar Creek room, his portrait was unveiled and celebrated on March 28, 2012.
An example of a petition for emancipation from Washington D.C. Lincoln floated the idea of compensating slave owners in return for freedom granted in March. The act was in effect as of April 1862. In this case, a slave named Sophia was petitioned for release.
By Gary Farrow, member of the Danville Historical Society
Grant’s victories at Fort Henry and Donelson darkens festivities in the southern capital. The War Department sees peace dawn over Tennessee. Lincoln floats the idea of compensated emancipation. The First Vermont Calvary was itch’n to fight. And despite his success in the field, Grant lands in hot water.
North Star 1 March
General News Items
Jefferson Davis was officially inaugerated in Richmond as President of the Southern Confederacy.
Jeff Davis, President of the bogus Southern Confederacy, was inaugurated at Richmond, last Saturday. Col Wood (one of the recently returned federal prisoners) was present and says there was no enthusiasm whatever. Not a cheer to be raised.
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According to the eyewitness, the ceremony went flat while a leading southern paper sounded an even darker note.
The North Star reported that things were looking up for the North. The Union Navy secured another victory and a bearded, soft-spoken small man from the West appeared on the scene to accomplish what eluded the Union generals who came before. In addition there is a story of “boys being boys” in Brattleboro and Captain R. W. Laird making a trip back home to Danville.
North Star February 1. 1862
Sword Presentation
Capt. R. W. Laird of Company H., 4th Regiment Vermont Volunteers, was presented with a splendid sword, at Camp Griffin, VA on Jan 20th, as a slight token of high esteem in which he is held by the men of his command, for his energy and untiring zeal in their behalf.
Captain Laird returned to his home in West Danville, last week Thursday. We understand that he has returned with recruiting orders, and will enlist recruits for the Vermont Brigade.
By Sharon Lakey, Director On October 30, 2011, the Thaddeus Stevens portrait was unveiled at a ceremony held in the Danville Congregational Church. There were hitches in the day’s plan—Ross…
Hollis Prior and David Houston shepherded the project through seven years of work.
On a rainy October day, 2011, Dave Houston and Hollis Prior, committee heads for the Greenbank’s Hollow Historical Park, met a busload of Danville second graders at the covered bridge. The children lined both sides under cover of the bridge, eating bagged lunches, and listening to the constant rush of water rolling down Joe’s Brook. Afterwards, they trekked up the hill after David and Hollis to the old school site where the new kiosk stands.
One of the children exclaimed, “My daddy gave the wood for this.” The impressive structure was newly up by the efforts of the Danville road crew, the area groomed and landscaped, surrounded by the foundation stones of the old school. No information was on the kiosk yet, but the whole idea of group of children standing in the middle of the schoolhouse site was historic in itself. After some conversation and questions about its history, the group again fell in behind David and Hollis and moved down to the bridge. There they stood on the spot, imagining the huge five-story woolen mill that used to stand next to the little bridge.
Prognostications for the New Year, Money Finds Its Way Back Home, and the Panorama of War Comes to Danville
By Gary Farrow, member of the Danville Historical Society
Unionist Captain Lyon, who was in charge of guarding a US artillery station in the slave state of Missouri.
The troops settled in for the first full month of winter. Restricted movement meant that major battles in many parts of the country would have to wait for spring, so the news turned to the more mundane aspects of the war. And, as technological changes (such as the telegraph) sped news to Danville, the town would see and experience a new, richer and more vivid medium that told the story of their age.
Grandiose prognostications shortchange people and their stories. This was never truer than in the border states of Missouri and West Virginia, which were, in their own unique way, microcosms of the larger conflict.
By Gary Farrow, Member of the Danville Historical Society
Journalists, probably from the New York Herald, are on-site, reporting on the war through use of the telegraph.
Prior to the Civil War, revolutionary technology remade the newspaper business so that information could be delivered from faraway places faster and cheaper than ever before. The October ‘61 editions of the North Star brought home opinion from a Boston Journal correspondent, the sentiments of a Danville soldier at the Virginia front, and news of military activities on the Gulf Coast,
North Star October 5, 1861
The General who wouldn’t fight. A drawing of General McClellan and his staff. The General is standing on the left with his hand in his jacket.
Why McClellan Holds On
The Washington Correspondent of the Boston Journal writes… It has been two months since the advance of the Federal troops from Bull Run to Washington.…the people are anxious to have something done by the large army to blot out the disagreeable part of that affair…
…It was supposed that everything would be in readiness by the first of September and that by the present time we should have made a triumphant march towards the very heart of secession, but instead here we are throwing up entrenchments with rebels flaunting their hateful burning in our face with the great dome of the capital in full view of their work at Munson’s. It is provoking to the blood…
…But the beauty of his [McClellan’s] hanging on… He has, by remaining quiet completely frustrated the plans of the rebels. They intend to attack us, but found we are getting very strong… They have conquered all in vain… When he sees that the proper time has come to let go, I am confident that he will do it in a manner that will win admiration.
The historical marker on Danville Green has been Vermont’s only public acknowledgement of Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens was born in Danville and educated in Peacham.
By Paul Chouinard, President of the Danville Historical Society
On Sunday October 30, The Danville Historical Society and the Danville Chamber of Commerce will honor Thaddeus Stevens in a ceremony for the unveiling of an etching of his portrait that is being presented to the Vermont Statehouse. The ceremony will be held at the Danville Congregational Church and begin at 2:00 PM to be followed by a reception in the Church dining room.
January 10, 2010, Vermont Civil War Historian, Howard Coffin, addressed the Danville Historical Society at its Annual Meeting, focusing on Danville’s involvement in the Civil War. Following delivery of his address, Mr. Coffin suggested that he felt it would be a most appropriate sesquicentennial project for the Danville Historical Society to coordinate an effort to raise funds for commissioning a portrait of Thaddeus Stevens to be presented to the Statehouse for inclusion in its collection of portraits of prominent Vermonters.
It is ironic that in the 219 years since the birth of Thaddeus Stevens that the only memorial in Vermont to his legacy as one of America’s great civil rights advocates is a State Department of Historic Sites marker on Danville Green indicating Danville as the place of his birth. There has never been any public portrait or piece of sculpture honoring the enormous contributions he made on the national level to affect the emancipation of the slaves and to grant them civil rights.
