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
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.
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.
November 15, 1862 North Star–Removal of Gen. McClellan
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
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.
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.
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.
As can be seen by the North Star’s editorial, the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation was by no means a clear call.
By Gary Farrow, Danville VT Historical Society
The 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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
