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Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–The School Years

By Patty Conly April 3, 2013Historical events, Historical people, Historical sites, NSM articles

By Paul Chouinard

An artist's rendition of the old school. The site of the building is marked in Peacham at the top of the hill near the cemetery. — An artist’s rendition of the old school. The site of the building is marked in Peacham at the top of the hill near the cemetery.

Common schools were organized in Danville in 1790 with the creation of five school districts, which included Danville Center. They attended school in Danville before moving to Peacham. Around the year of 1807, Sarah moved her family to Peacham, so her boys could have the benefit of attending Caledonia County Academy, later known as Caledonia County Grammar School and most recently, Peacham Academy.

Sally Morrill moved her family to Peacham and stayed at what is now known as the Graham place. It is located below the village and the walk up the hill, especially in winter, would have been arduous for Thaddeus and his older brother. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD

According to Ernest Bogart, author of Peacham’s history The Story of a Vermont Hill Town, the primary requirement for admission was: “No person shall be admitted to study reading, spelling or grammar or any higher branch who shall not already have acquired as much knowledge of the English language as to read in any common English book as correctly as to be able to study English grammar to advantage.” Thaddeus’ mother had prepared him well to meet this challenge by the time he was admitted at age 15.

The Academy was open to all students from Caledonia County. A monthly tuition fee of 12 1/2 cents per month was charged in 1808. The Stevens family lived in what was known as the Graham place, now owned by Raymond Welch, about one and one-half miles from Peacham Corner. For the privilege of living there with her family, it is believed that Sally provided housekeeping services for the owners of the home. In 1808 Sarah received the support of her father, Abner, when he returned from Stanstead, Quebec to live with her family following the death of her mother. Thaddeus walked to school, which given his physical disability, was no small accomplishment. The distance to the Academy was about one and one-half miles uphill. The walk was long and arduous in the winter since the roads were rolled rather than plowed. During a thaw one would sink into the deeply packed snow.

Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–Early Life in Danville

By Patty Conly April 3, 2013Danville Green, Historical events, Historical people, Historical sites, NSM articles, South Danville

By Paul Chouinard

Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens in Spielberg's Lincoln — Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens in Spielberg’s Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens has recently been featured in Steven Spielberg’s, Lincoln, released nationwide on November 16, 2012, and was nominated for twelve Oscar nominations. In Spielberg’s film, based on American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens is portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones. It is the first time since his death in 1868 that he has been portrayed in an objective, historically accurate manner.

For years Stevens’ reputation has suffered as a result of his portrayal of the thinly disguised character, Austin Stoneman, a fanatical villain in D.W. Griffith’s landmark silent film Birth of a Nation. During the 1940s, Stevens was portrayed as a villain in Tennessee Johnson, a biographical film about President Andrew Johnson. As the antagonist in both films, Stevens is portrayed as an unreasonable, hostile, adversarial individual who would let nothing stand in his way to meet his goal of punishing the South and insuring the rights of the freedmen through his vision of Reconstruction.

Spielberg’s Lincoln focuses on divisions within Lincoln’s cabinet and the acrimonious debate within Congress, during the last year of the war, over the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freeing the slaves. The fear that the legality of the Emancipation Proclamation might be challenged by the southern states, once they were readmitted to the Union, made the passage of the 13th Amendment essential. While the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves, the 13th Amendment made slavery illegal forever.

Public invitation from Danville Masons Sunday, April 7

By Patty Conly April 3, 2013Danville Green, Historical sites

Danville’s Masonic Hall receives historic preservation grant Washburn Masonic Lodge#92, located on beautiful Danville Green for the past 119 years, is pleased to announce a historical Preservation Grant made possible…

Man on a Ladder

By Patty Conly April 3, 2013Historical people, NSM articles

Gordon W. Bess–Danville’s oldest man at 92 and climbing

By Sharon Lakey

For photo album, gathered and shared by Linda Bess, Gordon and Gerry’s daughter, click here: Gordon Bess

Danville - Gordon scrapping paint — Gordon learned painting and wallpapering from his father and for many years was seen working on his very tall house on Brainerd Street in Danville.

Gordon Bess is an organized man. He credits this to his twenty-year military career. He was born and raised in Meriden, Connecticut, known as the Silver City. His younger brother, Ronald, was also a military man, joining the Marine Corps and serving during the Korean War. Ronald is still living in Meriden. Gordon’s younger sister, Lois, died in January 2004 at the age of 81.

April, 1863–The North Star Takes a Shot at Thurlow Weed and Laments the Firing of Gen. George McClellan

By Patty Conly April 2, 2013Historical events, Historical people

By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society

Desperation over the war effort continued to be one of main themes in the North Star’s reporting and opinion columns. The paper’s commentary also brings its political stripes into clearer focus.

April 4, 1863 North Star, Government Expenses

The Newburyport Herald says our national expenses since this war commenced have been greater than from the origin of the Government down to 1861, a period of seventy-two years. Our whole nation expenses to the time of the rebellion, including the war with England, the Mexican war, and our many Indian wars, were $1,353,785,000: and were the war to cease now no one imagines that our debt would be less than $2,009,000,000 created in less than two years…

Every day since the war began our expenses have increased. Millions are voted by Congress for emancipation purposes, Pacific Railroads, and anything, and everything, and where the limit might be reached, or what will be the end, Heaven only knows.

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

By Patty Conly April 2, 2013Historical events

By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society

March 7,1863 North Star, Our Negro Troops

A recruiting poster for soldiers of African descent

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.

February 1863–Was the Danville North Star a Copperhead?

By Patty Conly April 2, 2013Historical events

By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society

The North Star was not abolitionist. During the War, political positions arose along a continuum. On one end of the spectrum were Radical Abolitionists, who saw slavery as a moral imperative that must triumph at all costs; on the other were the Peace Democrats or Copperheads, who wanted peace with the Confederates at any price. In between were the War Democrats, who rejected the Copperheads faction that controlled the Democratic Party. These War Democrats joined with the Republicans to support the war effort against the South. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in all rebel states, had just taken effect in January. Now in February, the North Star became more explicit about where it stood.

February 21,1863 North Star, What is Radicalism?

Wendell Phillips defined Radicalism in a late speech at Plymouth Church, when he said: -“Now, I would accept anything on an antislavery basis. I would accept separation. I would accept compromise. I would accept peace, and pay the whole Confederate debt at par on an antislavery basis. On that basis, I have touched the hard path of National existence. I have reached the granite strata, and may begin to build agrarian peace. And until I reach that no chicanery of parties, no ingenuity of compromise, no manner of separation can make any difference. We are in for the war.”

January 1863–Congress Looks Into Fredericksburg Amid Low Public Confidence

By Patty Conly April 2, 2013Historical events

By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society

The completed pontoon bridge necessary for troop movement into Fredericksburg .

The events of late fall — early winter had brought the North to a low point. Although the army experienced some success in the West, the war in the Virginia theatre had seen one Northern debacle after another.

iwadebe001p1 — Ohio’s Ben Wade, chair of the Congressional Committee looking into Fredericksburg.

The Congress’ Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was established in 1861 and chaired by Ohio’s Ben Wade, was now looking into the loss at Fredericksburg. Over time the committee had become identified with the Radical Republicans, who were at odds with the administration over the lack of an aggressive war effort.

January 3, 1863 North Star, The Fredericksburg Disaster

The evidence in the report of the committee for investigating the disaster of Fredericksburg fixes definitely the responsibility for the consequences of not crossing the Rappahannock at once. It besides makes revelations that are painful and cannot fail to sink deep into the public mind.

Dec 1862–A Resurrected Peninsula Campaign Suffers a Bloody Death

By Patty Conly March 22, 2013Historical events, Historical people, NSM articles, Uncategorized

By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society

With the armies expected to shut down for the winter, December was anticipated to be a quiet month, but Lincoln had other ideas.

December 20, 1862 North Star–The War

The Battle of Fredericksburg

Our war news this week is of the most exciting character — of a nature calculated to painfully interest the public. Great events have transpired at Fredericksburg. Again have the Union forces met the enemy, have fought severe and bloody engagements, and again has that enemy been found too strongly posted to be overcome… The preliminary shelling and occupation of Fredericksburg by our troops appeared to be a success. So was the crossing of the Rappahannock in the face and eyes of a deadly foe — that was one of the most daring military exploits on record.

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The Federals were slaughtered. One of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War was fought by General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of North Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, now commanded Major General Ambrose E. Burnside. It was waged over five mild days in mid-December. The Union troops initially took Fredericksburg with only token resistance from the Grays. The city had been evacuated prior to the commencement of serious bombardment. The rebels waited and fortified their positions in the Marye’s Heights behind the town.

Nov 1862–America’s Little Napoleon Meets His Waterloo

By Patty Conly March 22, 2013Historical 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.

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.