July, 1863—Vicksburg and Gettysburg–the Price of Victory

Posted 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

Posted 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

Posted 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

Posted 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.

***

Saving history, one building at a time

Posted inDanville Green, Historical sites

Masonic Hall Renovation Goes Forward on Danville Green

By Sharon Lakey

The Masonic Hall graces the Green in Danville.
The Mason­ic Hall graces the Green in Danville.

It takes a com­mit­ment to keep a town’s his­to­ry alive, and Danville’s Masons of Wash­burn Lodge #92 appear to be in it for the long haul. The big, brick build­ing on the Green has been their home since 1894, but it has been a grace­ful pres­ence there since 1831.

At first glance, the build­ing looks like a church, so it makes sense when one learns that the Calvin­ist Bap­tists, who formed in 1792, built it for their con­gre­ga­tion at a cost of $3,100. One of the found­ing mem­bers in the Calvin­ist Bap­tist Church in Danville was Charles Sias, the first cap­tain of the first mil­i­tary com­pa­ny in town. In our Society’s his­tor­i­cal records, a note reads that in the church a “revival took place from 1833 to 1836” but also relates “the church dis­ap­pears from the min­utes of the Danville Asso­ci­a­tion in 1852.” The build­ing stood emp­ty until the Wash­burn Lodge pur­chased it as their new home in 1894.

The Masons, of course, have their own inter­est­ing his­to­ry that dove­tails with the build­ing. Just before the Bap­tists built their church on the Green, Danville became the hotbed of the Anti-Mason­ic move­ment, and the old North Star led the charge. Danville’s William Palmer, the first and only gov­er­nor in the nation to run on the Anti-Mason­ic tick­et, was elect­ed Gov­er­nor of Ver­mont in 1831, the same year the church was built.

It’s time for a Thaddeus Stevens postal stamp!

Posted inHistorical people, News from Choate-Sias house

Stamps–Telling great tales in the smallest of spaces

By Sharon Lakey

Don Gallagher, A Stamp for Stevens volunteer
Don Gal­lagher, A Stamp for Stevens volunteer

Don Gal­lagher is a man on a mis­sion; he thinks it is the right time to get Thad­deus Stevens on a first class for­ev­er stamp. But he needs a lot of help to fur­ther the cause. He came by the Choate-Sias one day last week and shared his enthu­si­asm for the project. “Now, since the movie Lin­coln has been released, a lot more peo­ple are inter­est­ed in Thad­deus and the role he played in the pas­sage of the civ­il rights amend­ments,” said Don.

Arlene Hubbard–Danville’s oldest woman

Posted inHistorical people, North Danville
Arlene Hubbard is Danville's reigning oldest woman at 101 years old.
Arlene Hub­bard is Danville’s reign­ing old­est woman at 101 years old.

By Dale Lynaugh

Arlene was born in Kir­by, VT on Sep­tem­ber 20, 1911 to Carl and Maude Ailes. She lived there until she was three years old and then she and her fam­i­ly moved to St. Johns­bury. Arlene lived in St. Johns­bury for five years, attend­ing Grades 1 and 2 at the Port­land Street School. In 1920, her fam­i­ly moved to North Danville. Arlene con­tin­ued with her edu­ca­tion in a three room school house in North Danville. She fin­ished grade school, Grade 3 through Grade 8, at the same school, as well as her Fresh­man and Sopho­more years of high school before going to Phillips Acad­e­my in Danville where she fin­ished her Junior and Senior year and grad­u­at­ed in 1929.