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.

Lincoln movie brings public awareness to Thaddeus Stevens’ important role

May 16, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people

By Pat­ty Con­ly, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

For a video of the event, pro­duced by King­dom Access, click here.

screening at Fuller Hall, St. Johnsbury, VT, on May 4, 2013.
A full house at  Fuller Hall, St. Johns­bury, VT, on May 4, 2013, for the screen­ing on Lin­coln and dis­cus­sion on Thad­deus Stevens’ role in the film and Con­sti­tu­tion­al history.
Two students from the Thaddeus Stevens School introduced the evening's program with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, host of the event.
Two stu­dents from the Thad­deus Stevens School intro­duced the evening’s pro­gram with U.S. Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders, host of the event.

Despite a spec­tac­u­lar spring day in the North­east King­dom and a vast array of events in com­pe­ti­tion, a large crowd was on hand at St. Johns­bury Academy’s Fuller Hall Sat­ur­day evening May 4, for a screen­ing of the recent film Lin­coln.  This free pub­lic event was host­ed by U.S. Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders, who began the evening by intro­duc­ing three stu­dents from the Thad­deus Stevens School in Lyn­donville. The stu­dents spoke elo­quent­ly, giv­ing a brief sum­ma­ry of the life and times of Lin­coln, Thad­deus Stevens and the peri­od dur­ing the Civ­il War.

Senator Sanders
Sen­a­tor Sanders

Sen­a­tor Sanders told the audi­ence how he became intrigued with the life and career of Thad­deus Stevens, par­tic­u­lar­ly after his first view­ing of the movie. It became appar­ent to him that Stevens was a much more mon­u­men­tal fig­ure in the polit­i­cal issues of the peri­od dur­ing the Civ­il War, of which he was pre­vi­ous­ly unaware.  He found it amaz­ing that a con­stituent who was born, raised and edu­cat­ed in two very small towns in the North­east King­dom of Ver­mont, as well as being from a poor fam­i­ly, could rise to become one of the most influ­en­tial and instru­men­tal con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the abo­li­tion­ist move­ment. Stevens was pas­sion­ate about his cause and deeply ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing the pas­sage of the 13th amend­ment to the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion to abol­ish slavery.

May 1863–North Star takes a shot at its hometown boy

May 4, 2013Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, Historical sites

The Efforts of Union Generals in the Eastern Theatre Comes to Naught and the North Star Takes a Shot at Its Hometown Boy

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

May 9, 1863 North Star–Radicalism

Noth­ing is more com­mon now, when every­thing depends on a unit­ed North, than for the Rad­i­cals to ful­mi­nate their extreme abo­li­tion notions – ignor­ing both the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Union. Their lead­ers in Con­gress have bold­ly pro­claimed this sen­ti­ment. “Who,” shout­ed the Abo­li­tion­ist Bing­ham, Ohio mem­ber of Con­gress, at the last ses­sion, “in the name of God wants the Cot­ton States, or any oth­er State this side of perdi­tion, to remain in the Union, if slav­ery is to con­tin­ue.” Thad­deus Stevens has uttered, if pos­si­ble, still more extreme sen­ti­ments. It tells the whole sto­ry. They do not want and do not mean to have the Old Union. It is a direct assault upon the loy­al­ty of the Bor­der States, which have fur­nished thou­sands of troops for the Fed­er­al army – of States which have ever claimed the right to reg­u­late their own inter­nal negro pol­i­cy. But the Rad­i­cals make no dis­tinc­tion between those slave states which remain true to the Old Flag, and those which have fought against it so long. Were the seced­ed states to lay down their arms to-day, and pro­pose a full return to loy­al­ty and the Union, these men would say “No” to their sub­mis­sion. And what is more, this class of rad­i­cals has always want­ed, in some way or some­how, to dri­ve off the slave states.

***