Optimism Prevails

Going to See the Elephant, part 3

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

“Going to see the ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

At the out­set of the Civ­il War the stat­ed objec­tive of the North was to main­tain the Union. The Con­fed­er­ate States iden­ti­fied “states rights” as their major objec­tive which would give them the right to func­tion inde­pen­dent­ly. Main­stream his­to­ri­ans have com­mon­ly agreed that: “Every­thing stemmed from the slav­ery issue,” as stat­ed by Pro­fes­sor James McPher­son, whose book Bat­tle Cry of Free­dom is wide­ly judged to be the author­i­ta­tive one-vol­ume his­to­ry of the Civ­il War.

It was not until Sep­tem­ber 22, 1862, fol­low­ing the bloody Bat­tle of Anti­etam that Lin­coln issued a pre­lim­i­nary Procla­ma­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion, which declared that all slaves in states or parts of states still fight­ing against the Unit­ed States on Jan­u­ary 1, 1863 would from that time on be for­ev­er eman­ci­pat­ed. On Jan­u­ary 1, 1863, Lin­coln issued his final Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion. How­ev­er, it did not free slaves in states then in the Union, the Bor­der States, nor cer­tain parts of Vir­ginia and Louisiana that were under Union con­trol. The Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion did have the effect of clear­ly iden­ti­fy­ing slav­ery as a vital issue of the war for both cit­i­zens of the Unit­ed States and for its allies.

THE NORTH STAR

JUNE 8, 1861

From Fortress Monroe

Great activ­i­ty is per­ceived at Fortress Mon­roe. Troops and ammu­ni­tion are con­stant­ly arriv­ing, the gar­ri­son now amount­ing to thir­teen thou­sand men, and large bod­ies were mov­ing into the inte­ri­or, it was thought, with the inten­tion of mak­ing for Nor­folk by a cir­cuitous route. Up to Thurs­day evening, slaves were still flock­ing to the fort. It was dis­cov­ered that thir­ty of the slaves belonged to one man in Rich­mond. He obtained per­mis­sion to vis­it the fort to con­fer with Gen­er­al But­ler on the sub­ject of get­ting his live prop­er­ty back. The Gen­er­al said they came there of their own accord, and could go back with him if they desired it. They were asked if they desired to return with their mas­ter. They quick­ly decid­ed that they pre­ferred to remain with the sol­diers in the fort…

A letter from the seat of War

The fol­low­ing let­ter was received by a cit­i­zen of this place (Danville) from his son, who vol­un­teered in one of the Mass­a­chu­setts reg­i­ments now sta­tioned at Alexan­dria, Va.

Alexan­dria, May 29, 1861

Dear Father:

By my date you will see that I have left Wash­ing­ton, if you have not already learned the same. We are now in the tent­ed field about one mile from the seces­sion city, Alexan­dria. Our depar­ture from the Trea­sury Depart­ment was some­what unex­pect­ed as well as sud­den. I had just been to see the corpse of the gal­lant Col. Ellsworth, who was so cru­el­ly mur­dered only a short dis­tance from where we now are. The funer­al pro­ces­sion had just start­ed from the President’s house, and was pass­ing down Pa. Avenue, oppo­site the trea­sury build­ing, when we received orders to pre­pare for imme­di­ate action. The boom­ing of can­non, togeth­er with artillery, and cav­al­ry com­pa­nies, gal­lop­ing to the sup­posed bat­tle ground, made out to be the most excit­ing sight I ever wit­nessed. The Richard­son Light Guard was on hand as soon as the best of them, though many of us were at the funer­al and the rest were just going to sup­per. We passed only about half way over the long bridge lead­ing to Vir­ginia, when we learned that it was a false alarm.—We then returned and packed up to move for good. Start­ed about 9 o’clock, halt­ed about 12 o’clock, half a mile near­er Alexan­dria than where we are now.

I had a very good night’s sleep; slept as well as though I was at home in my own bed, though we had the broad heav­ens for a canopy, and the tall damp grass in place of a couch of down. When I awoke in the morn­ing, “Old Sol” was smil­ing as bright­ly upon us as he would if we had not just destroyed sev­en acres of good grass belong­ing (?) of the rebels. After par­tak­ing of some bread and cof­fee we marched back about half a mile where we pitched our tents on a fine ele­va­tion over­look­ing the beau­ti­ful Potomac. It was one of the finest look­ing coun­tries I ever saw. Six miles up the riv­er, can be seen Wash­ing­ton, where I have passed a num­ber of pleas­ant weeks, as well as a few days that were not quite so pleas­ant. One mile south of us is Alexan­dria, where only a few days ago you have seen the flag of the rebels fly­ing, where now only the flag we have come so far to defend is to be seen. With how much more plea­sure we gaze on that noble flag, the Stars and Stripes, than on the most despi­ca­ble rag of Jeff Davis’—May we soon have our ban­ners float­ing on all places where now the flag of seces­sion may be seen.

We have been engaged in dig­ging wells and build­ing places for our works, also a bow­er for our guard to sleep on when not on duty. The weath­er is so hot that we are glad to be in the shade as much as possible.

There is real­ly some­thing about, camp life that is pleas­ant and agree­able. You take a stroll through the camp in the evening, in some you will hear some very good singing, in oth­ers there will be some kind of music or game, which adds much to the plea­sures of an evening. In the morn­ing we have games at hall, and go bathing, & etc….

It is quite amus­ing to see what false sto­ries the papers have in their columns regard­ing all the move­ments of troops. I am well and in good spir­its, am ready at any time to meet our ene­my when duty calls…

Remem­ber me to all of my friends in Danville.

From your absent son.

War and General News Items

Object of the War—It is not the object of the North, in this war with the South, to free the slaves, but to whip their mas­ters. If eman­ci­pa­tion shall come as the con­se­quence of the war which the south has pro­voked, the North will not be respon­si­ble for it. The States that have seced­ed from the Union must take the con­se­quences of their acts, what­ev­er they may be.

THE NORTH STAR

June 15, 1861

DEATH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS

We briefly announced last week the melan­choly tid­ings of the decease of Hon. Stephen A Dou­glas. The dis­tin­guished states­man died at Chica­go on Mon­day forenoon, June 3rd.His dis­ease is said to have been typhoid fever…

He was born at Bran­don, Rut­land Coun­try, Ver­mont, on April 23d, 1813—and he was, there­fore, at his death, a lit­tle over forty-eight years of age.

THE NORTH STAR

JUNE 22, 1861

THE MORGAN GUARDS

The above named com­pa­ny of vol­un­teers, recruit­ed in Lam­oille Coun­ty by Samuel Mor­gan, passed through Danville, last week Thurs­day, on their way to the encamp­ment of the Third Reg­i­ment, at St. Johnsbury—They were under the com­mand of Cap­tain Blan­chard, and num­ber between eight and nine­ty robust look­ing men.

The com­pa­ny marched into the vil­lage escort­ed by the Walden Band, and by a num­ber of our cit­i­zens, about 2 o’ clock P.M. The vil­lage peo­ple had pro­vid­ed for them a sub­stan­tial and plen­ti­ful repast, of which the whole com­pa­ny par­took, with keen appetite. Our streets were filled with patri­ot­ic ladies and gentlemen…

The Battle of Great Bethel

Particulars, Incidents, &c.

We gave last week a report of the action between the Fed­er­al, and rebel troops at Great Bethel, in which our troops were repulsed, with sev­er­al killed and wound­ed. Lat­er accounts ful­ly con­firm these reports, tho’ they reduce the num­ber killed…The march was made in the night, and owing to some mis­take, our men fired into each oth­er, killing two or three, before the mis­take was corrected.

The North Star

June 29, 1861

Army appointments—Military Men should be Appointed

Dur­ing the last few days, much has been said by indi­vid­u­als and by the pub­lic jour­nals rel­a­tive to the prac­tice of appoint­ing mere civil­ians to high mil­i­tary sta­tions. The prac­tice is gen­er­al­ly con­demned, and espe­cial­ly are loud com­plaints made, sine the unfor­tu­nate bat­tle at Great Bethel…