UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
Just as often, though, the parties assumed more complicated relations.
For example, while the mere presence of the federal army in the region encouraged many slaves to bolt from masters, the slow, plodding movement of the Union forces gave many masters ample time to sell or transfer their slaves into the Confederate interior.
Meanwhile, significant numbers of slaves held deep reservations about the intentions of Yankee soldiers.
For example, soon after Cole’s comrades forded the creek (which they found thanks to the sympathetic freedman), some of the soldiers set fire to the home of a confederate militia colonel only to watch as his loyal slaves swiftly put out the conflagration.
In Tarboro, a judge reported to his wife that during the raid his slave, Jane, was “faithful, not only in staying” but in coaxing the Yankees into not pillaging her master’s hotel.
While passing through Greenville soldiers sprang twenty-five African American prisoners who had been nabbed in route to join a Union regiment in New Berne.
Yet it was reported that Union soldiers also attempted to hunt down a free black man named “Jackson” who had reportedly enlisted in the Rebel army.
Though they offered $500 for his head (after ferreting through bedroom bureaus, Cole’s comrades suddenly had deep pockets) they had to resign themselves to only destroying his clothes.12
Cole certainly helped “usher” some slaves into Union lines.
But in this particular raid, at least, he abandoned many of them to an uncertain fate.
As his comrades scrambled for their lives through enemy territory back to base in New Bern, Cole commanded the rear guard.
With “double charge” of grapeshot and canister he kept Confederates from taking retribution.
As the massive column trudged toward New Berne, marching at its tail end was a swelling group of fugitive slaves.
Assigned to the rear, Cole’s battalion protected hundreds of fugitives who rode mules and horses, or who piled into farm wagons that Union soldiers encouraged them to steal from their masters.
A nearby North Carolina paper reported that the raiders carried off some five hundred blacks — some willingly, others by force.13
As the enemy drew closer, though, Cole received orders from his superior to “pass the negro column.”
Cole followed orders and later admitted in his report that the cumbersome cavalcade of men, women and children were left at the mercy of embittered rebels.
The “usher” left them to defend themselves with nothing but recently stolen tools — spades, axes, and scythes — which they were bound to put to back-breaking use within Union lines.14
A soldier from a confederate infantry reported that firing canon at the fleeing slaves produced chaos.
In a confederate regimental historian’s words: This utterly demoralized the “contrabands” who, in their mad rush to keep pace with their erstwhile deliverers…who were now fleeing for their lives, failed to discover us.
The shock was so sudden and unexpected that the effect was indescribable.
The great cavalcade, composed of men, women, and children, perched on wagons, carts, buggies, carriages, and mounted on horses, mules, whipping, slashing and yelling like wild Indians, was suddenly halted by our fire upon the bridge…15
As various refugees attempted to halt their march, wagons apparently jackknifed amid a din of confused cries.
The march to freedom devolved into harrowing panic as spooked horses pulled wrecked buggies and carts into the woods.
A group of the lucky and swift somehow kept up with Cole’s soldiers, crossing bridges about to be set on fire as Potter’s soldiers tried to rid themselves of their attackers.
One southern paper reported that more than 160 contrabands were recaptured and brought back to Kinston for an unknown future.
Cole ordered two of his lieutenants to remain behind and burn crossed bridges.
As Cole reported to his superior, they waited for “at least an hour” for the stragglers.
But “all that were black” were “gobbled up by the rebel squadron in our rear, and unable to come up.”
The next morning a few who were able to elude the rebel captors crossed what was left of the wasted bridge, or braved the waters.
But even then, Cole reported, about “one-third or one-half the whole number of negroes and mules were lost at this place.”16
If it pained Cole and his fellow Union soldiers to abandon the column, they did not report it.
For them, it was part of war and in this particularly harrowing escape, a life-or-death strategy.
Cole’s comrades purposely scattered booty “throwing away every incumbrance” in the path of their attackers.
They upturned carriages and slit the throats of the horses they could no longer afford to drive to base.
12 Example of slaves putting out fire and Judge George Howard quoted in: Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 13-14, 19; Berlin, "The Destruction of Slavery", 59-61. A North Carolina weekly reported that the raiders “even robbed” two slaves who apparently could not be coaxed into running off with Union soldiers. See: “The Yankees in Tarboro” Aug 12, 1863—Weekly State Journal. Clearly exaggerating as many soldiers did, one soldier from a North Carolina regiment claimed that the raid “has made every true soldier, who was forced to take part in it, blush with shame.” But actually it made many of them rich, freed hundreds of slaves (which among other things brought back a fresh labor supply into Union lines), and played a part in a broader shift toward a hard war. See: Walter Clark, Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65 (Raleigh: E.M. Uzzell, printer, 1901), Volume III, p.176.
13 “The Yankee Raid in N.C.” in Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863.
14 “The Last of the Yankee Raid” and “The Late Raid” in Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863.
15 Kinchen Jahu Carpenter, War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I, Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment ... (Rutherford, NC: , 1955), 13.; Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Vol. III, pp. 174-5
16 For Cole’s official report, see: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Volume 27, part II, pages 970-71
TO BE CONTINUED ...
GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
As one southern correspondent recounted it, “The raiders were obliged to disgorge much plunder in this retreat to facilitate escape.”17
The jettisoned plunder and abandoned runaways were part of the same calculus: to lighten the march and distract the enemy by tossing back some of its stolen “property.”18
The Union soldiers had an interest in ushering back certain kinds of black bodies that could dig, lift logs, wash clothes, and increasingly by 1863, fill the ranks of the growing black army.
As a result, the freedmen’s families were further strained and broken.
One southern correspondent reported several days after Cole abandoned the refugees, that “40 other negroes mostly women and children have been captured near Greenville, that were left behind by the Abolitionists on their hasty retreat from the Rocky Mount [Tarboro] raid.”19
Another rebel soldier reported that his company “scoured” the nearby woods and gathered up several hundred Negroes.”
Among them the Rebels found “several infants and small children who had been abandoned to their fate.”20
One confederate soldier followed tight on the heels of the raiders for “some miles after crossing the creek and finally commenced to press them, when perhaps a wagon load of meat and negroes would be dropped.”
The rebel unit pursued Cole’s men “occasionally capturing women and children and vehicles of various kinds with carried supplies.”21
From theses terse descriptions and military reports a grim image emerges of the cavalcade for freedom.
Most of the refugees were probably frightened; many yearned for freedom and could almost taste it.
Others came only because soldiers forced them off their master’s property.
Many hoped to never see their masters again, especially because it would now bring a punishment for running off with horses and foodstuffs.
After getting “gobbled up” by rebel soldiers, though, hundreds returned to unknown fates.
And because healthy, black male bodies were in demand (by southern whites and the Union army), a large portion of these abandoned refugees appear to have been women and children.
When the rebels began firing on the refugees, some frantic mothers and fathers perhaps abandoned their children; others may have left them there hoping Union soldiers would rescue them.
The children found in the woods may have also been recently orphaned as some of the papers reported that both “Yankees and negroes” had been killed.22
Southerners needed male slaves badly; not just to work in the fields, but to protect vulnerable towns.
A local paper that reported the raid extensively also announced that a nearby rebel city had just begun requisitioning “able-bodied male slaves, between the ages of 18 and 45, to fortify this city against the possible raids of the enemy.”
Local militiamen canvassed the area to collect one bondsman from every household owning ten or more slaves.23
North Carolina papers listed set amounts that the confederate government would compensate owners for anything from shoes, cotton, food, to of course “laborers.”
Especially after raids like Tarboro and others, slaves would be needed to rebuild bridges and repair miles of wasted rail tracks.
For Union soldiers, to steal or liberate a slave was to rob potency from the confederate effort, while reducing Yankee soldiers’ own toil in the camps and along the front lines.
The male black body carried within it the potential to literally heave the war endeavor backward or forward through sweat and menial toil.
But it is clear that ex-slaves also played vital roles in the actual raids as well.
Perhaps as much as white soldiers, freedmen became ushers to those in bondage.
Some of the reports mentioned that fifty or so black soldiers accompanied the Union raiders.24
These soldiers had just been recruited from the surrounding region and formed into the all-black First North Carolina Volunteers.25
17 Carpenter, "War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I, Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment ...", 13Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863, several places; also see: “Movements of the Yankee Raiders” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
18 Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 1-27
19 Weekly State Journal, August 5, 1863.
20 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Vol. III, page 175
21 One paper from Wilmington, North Carolina published a scathing report of the raid, actually suggesting that Rebel forces by incompetence and greed, allowed the Union forces to just barely escape, thereby ensuring that loads of booty would be dumped in their paths. The paper reported that when civilians showed up to recover the jettisoned items, the rebel soldiers made them wait their turn: “No wonder that raids are successful, and therefore popular among the Yankees, if the history of their escape from Tarboro be a specimen of how things are managed in that section..” Wilmington Journal, August 27, 1863; Also see: ibid., Vol.IV, page 81
22 “From Our Kinston Correspondent” Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863.
23 “Let Justice Be Done” Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863; list of monetary compensation found in Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863.
24 “Another Raid on the Wil and Weldon Railroad” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
25 Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 4
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
As one southern correspondent recounted it, “The raiders were obliged to disgorge much plunder in this retreat to facilitate escape.”17
The jettisoned plunder and abandoned runaways were part of the same calculus: to lighten the march and distract the enemy by tossing back some of its stolen “property.”18
The Union soldiers had an interest in ushering back certain kinds of black bodies that could dig, lift logs, wash clothes, and increasingly by 1863, fill the ranks of the growing black army.
As a result, the freedmen’s families were further strained and broken.
One southern correspondent reported several days after Cole abandoned the refugees, that “40 other negroes mostly women and children have been captured near Greenville, that were left behind by the Abolitionists on their hasty retreat from the Rocky Mount [Tarboro] raid.”19
Another rebel soldier reported that his company “scoured” the nearby woods and gathered up several hundred Negroes.”
Among them the Rebels found “several infants and small children who had been abandoned to their fate.”20
One confederate soldier followed tight on the heels of the raiders for “some miles after crossing the creek and finally commenced to press them, when perhaps a wagon load of meat and negroes would be dropped.”
The rebel unit pursued Cole’s men “occasionally capturing women and children and vehicles of various kinds with carried supplies.”21
From theses terse descriptions and military reports a grim image emerges of the cavalcade for freedom.
Most of the refugees were probably frightened; many yearned for freedom and could almost taste it.
Others came only because soldiers forced them off their master’s property.
Many hoped to never see their masters again, especially because it would now bring a punishment for running off with horses and foodstuffs.
After getting “gobbled up” by rebel soldiers, though, hundreds returned to unknown fates.
And because healthy, black male bodies were in demand (by southern whites and the Union army), a large portion of these abandoned refugees appear to have been women and children.
When the rebels began firing on the refugees, some frantic mothers and fathers perhaps abandoned their children; others may have left them there hoping Union soldiers would rescue them.
The children found in the woods may have also been recently orphaned as some of the papers reported that both “Yankees and negroes” had been killed.22
Southerners needed male slaves badly; not just to work in the fields, but to protect vulnerable towns.
A local paper that reported the raid extensively also announced that a nearby rebel city had just begun requisitioning “able-bodied male slaves, between the ages of 18 and 45, to fortify this city against the possible raids of the enemy.”
Local militiamen canvassed the area to collect one bondsman from every household owning ten or more slaves.23
North Carolina papers listed set amounts that the confederate government would compensate owners for anything from shoes, cotton, food, to of course “laborers.”
Especially after raids like Tarboro and others, slaves would be needed to rebuild bridges and repair miles of wasted rail tracks.
For Union soldiers, to steal or liberate a slave was to rob potency from the confederate effort, while reducing Yankee soldiers’ own toil in the camps and along the front lines.
The male black body carried within it the potential to literally heave the war endeavor backward or forward through sweat and menial toil.
But it is clear that ex-slaves also played vital roles in the actual raids as well.
Perhaps as much as white soldiers, freedmen became ushers to those in bondage.
Some of the reports mentioned that fifty or so black soldiers accompanied the Union raiders.24
These soldiers had just been recruited from the surrounding region and formed into the all-black First North Carolina Volunteers.25
17 Carpenter, "War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I, Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment ...", 13Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863, several places; also see: “Movements of the Yankee Raiders” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
18 Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 1-27
19 Weekly State Journal, August 5, 1863.
20 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Vol. III, page 175
21 One paper from Wilmington, North Carolina published a scathing report of the raid, actually suggesting that Rebel forces by incompetence and greed, allowed the Union forces to just barely escape, thereby ensuring that loads of booty would be dumped in their paths. The paper reported that when civilians showed up to recover the jettisoned items, the rebel soldiers made them wait their turn: “No wonder that raids are successful, and therefore popular among the Yankees, if the history of their escape from Tarboro be a specimen of how things are managed in that section..” Wilmington Journal, August 27, 1863; Also see: ibid., Vol.IV, page 81
22 “From Our Kinston Correspondent” Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863.
23 “Let Justice Be Done” Weekly State Journal, July 29, 1863; list of monetary compensation found in Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863.
24 “Another Raid on the Wil and Weldon Railroad” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
25 Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 4
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
Noting that a “faithful” servant was “compelled” to drive off with his master’s wagon loaded to the brim with foodstuffs, one North Carolinian admitted that “The negroes they [the Union raiders] had with them were busy the whole time of their stay corrupting and seducing away slaves, many of whom left with them.”26
In some reports, black soldiers seemed to take the lead in sifting through personal possessions of southern elites.
Maybe black soldiers had a personal stake in turning up the intimate spaces of masters as well as knowledge of where to find hidden valuables.
That black soldiers played a significant role in “seducing” slaves to join the departing soldiers, suggests a lack of trust and authority that white Union soldiers shared with slaves in the area.
In the middle of the night and early morn, the small company of black troopers who “piloted” their white counterparts to prominent citizens’ homes in this reportedly “prosperous section,” persuaded reluctant slaves to run, and in doing so brokered the tumultuous clash of thievery and liberation.27
When the escaping raiders got pinned against a creek (the day before the local African American told them where to cross, in a similar predicament) General Potter reported that he eluded the approaching rebels “by taking a very intricate path through a plantation.”28
Potter does not mention it, but one wonders how he exploited the intricate paths of a plantation and found his way to a hidden “piney-woods road” leading back toward Newbern.
Perhaps one of his black cavalrymen, who had fled from this region, knew the haunted ground from corner to corner.
A northern correspondent reported that on the return, “At one time it seemed as if our men would be entirely cut off, but they were saved by colored guides, who conducted them by bridle paths to safety.”29
Cavalrymen more than other soldiers depended on topographical knowledge, especially familiarity with back trails and hidden roads, as they rarely exited on the roads previously taken.30
In the previous summer of ‘62, Cole’s Colonel, Simon Mix, stood before swarms of New Yorkers and assured them how vital blacks were to the Union effort in North Carolina.
Justifying the de facto use of blacks in military operations he declared, “I would take the negroes of the South and put muskets in their hands, for nowhere in the swamps of North Carolina can you find a path where a dog can go that the negro does not understand."
"There are gentlemen here who will bear me witness when I state this fact, that in all our expeditions in North Carolina we have depended upon the negroes for our guides; for without them we could not have moved with any safety. [Applause]”31
Black guides pointed white Union troops where to go, and Cole’s next commanding officer, Ben Butler, would even plant two black spies (a gardener and a cook) in the Confederate White House, where they reporting on gatherings, table conversations, and other dialogue overheard in Jefferson Davis’s parlor.32
26 “Account of the Late Raid on Rocky Mount and Tarboro” in Western Democrat, Aug 11, 1863.
27 Carpenter, "War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I, Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment ...", 12-3
28 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, pp. 965-6
29 “Operation in North Carolina” New York Times, August 5, 1863.
30 Edward G. Longacre, Mounted Raids of the Civil War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 12-4.
31 John Austin Stevens, Proceedings at the Mass Meeting of Loyal Citizens: On Union Square, New York, 15th Day of July, 1862, Under the Auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the Union Defence Committee of the Citizens of New York, the Common Council of the City of New York, and Other Committees of Loyal Citizens (New York: Published by order of the Committee of Arrangements, George F. Nesbitt & Co.), 1862), 89-90.
32 Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 143
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
Noting that a “faithful” servant was “compelled” to drive off with his master’s wagon loaded to the brim with foodstuffs, one North Carolinian admitted that “The negroes they [the Union raiders] had with them were busy the whole time of their stay corrupting and seducing away slaves, many of whom left with them.”26
In some reports, black soldiers seemed to take the lead in sifting through personal possessions of southern elites.
Maybe black soldiers had a personal stake in turning up the intimate spaces of masters as well as knowledge of where to find hidden valuables.
That black soldiers played a significant role in “seducing” slaves to join the departing soldiers, suggests a lack of trust and authority that white Union soldiers shared with slaves in the area.
In the middle of the night and early morn, the small company of black troopers who “piloted” their white counterparts to prominent citizens’ homes in this reportedly “prosperous section,” persuaded reluctant slaves to run, and in doing so brokered the tumultuous clash of thievery and liberation.27
When the escaping raiders got pinned against a creek (the day before the local African American told them where to cross, in a similar predicament) General Potter reported that he eluded the approaching rebels “by taking a very intricate path through a plantation.”28
Potter does not mention it, but one wonders how he exploited the intricate paths of a plantation and found his way to a hidden “piney-woods road” leading back toward Newbern.
Perhaps one of his black cavalrymen, who had fled from this region, knew the haunted ground from corner to corner.
A northern correspondent reported that on the return, “At one time it seemed as if our men would be entirely cut off, but they were saved by colored guides, who conducted them by bridle paths to safety.”29
Cavalrymen more than other soldiers depended on topographical knowledge, especially familiarity with back trails and hidden roads, as they rarely exited on the roads previously taken.30
In the previous summer of ‘62, Cole’s Colonel, Simon Mix, stood before swarms of New Yorkers and assured them how vital blacks were to the Union effort in North Carolina.
Justifying the de facto use of blacks in military operations he declared, “I would take the negroes of the South and put muskets in their hands, for nowhere in the swamps of North Carolina can you find a path where a dog can go that the negro does not understand."
"There are gentlemen here who will bear me witness when I state this fact, that in all our expeditions in North Carolina we have depended upon the negroes for our guides; for without them we could not have moved with any safety. [Applause]”31
Black guides pointed white Union troops where to go, and Cole’s next commanding officer, Ben Butler, would even plant two black spies (a gardener and a cook) in the Confederate White House, where they reporting on gatherings, table conversations, and other dialogue overheard in Jefferson Davis’s parlor.32
26 “Account of the Late Raid on Rocky Mount and Tarboro” in Western Democrat, Aug 11, 1863.
27 Carpenter, "War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I, Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment ...", 12-3
28 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, pp. 965-6
29 “Operation in North Carolina” New York Times, August 5, 1863.
30 Edward G. Longacre, Mounted Raids of the Civil War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 12-4.
31 John Austin Stevens, Proceedings at the Mass Meeting of Loyal Citizens: On Union Square, New York, 15th Day of July, 1862, Under the Auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the Union Defence Committee of the Citizens of New York, the Common Council of the City of New York, and Other Committees of Loyal Citizens (New York: Published by order of the Committee of Arrangements, George F. Nesbitt & Co.), 1862), 89-90.
32 Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 143
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
Though the actions of these black troopers is hardly acknowledged in the official Union reports, we know something about their role because indignant white southerners made sure to detail how the “abolitionist” raiders were turning the rebel world upside down, with race central to the inversion.
But when the lucrative and destructive Tarboro raid nearly ended (for the second time) in capture, the Yankee liberators were willing to dispose of their pilots.33
While official Union reports mention nothing of the sort, one North Carolina regiment recalled that the accompanying black soldiers remained with the column of refugees even after Cole and his men abandoned them.
When Confederates shot towards the column of frantic refugees, they intended to hit “negro troops who were in the rear of Potter’s column” — who were evidently trying in vain to rush the refugees over a bridge.
Why some of these soldiers remained behind is unclear.
After being fired on, “one negro captain” charged into the teeth of the attacker, standing in his buggy, firing into three nearby rebels.
He was “shot dead” and “many others” were “either killed or wounded in attempting to escape through the woods nearby.”34
It is uncertain if Cole abandoned some of these black soldiers on the wrong side of a destroyed bridge, or if they decided to remain and protect the refugees.
The chaotic march revealed the various internal strains inherent in many liberating expeditions.
In this massive column one could certainly find privateers with stuffed pockets, anti-slavery men who believed they had helped unravel rebeldom, ex-slaves with scores to settle, confused soldiers who wondered if they were thieves or warriors, and black refugees, including devastated fathers (and a few mothers), who made it out of Egypt, filled with a poignant blend of ecstasy and shame for having abandoned their own to Pharaoh’s army.
Behind the jarring images of burning bridges, corkscrewed rail track, flourmills reduced to rubble, charred trains, there was a softer, material aspect to the raid, though just as insidious.
One of the telling signs of the expedition was that among the jettisoned booty and slit-throated horses, confederates found “all sorts of ladies’ wearing apparel” strewn behind the departing army.
Southern reports claimed that black soldiers had helped take these clothes from “the helpless, unprotected women at the plantations….”35
Of course, white soldiers pilfered women’s clothes as well.
Along with lifting jewels and liquor, many of Cole’s comrades ran off with dresses and children’s attire with partly benevolent intentions.
As they knew from experience, women refugees and their children would sorely need raiment.36
From the first months of the war this became evident as thousands of refugees flowed into Union lines in Virginia and North Carolina.
As Harper’s Weekly reported in the first weeks of 1862, while women only made up around a third of the fifteen hundred contrabands at Fort Monroe, the government only partly supplied “the men whom it employs with coat, trowsers, shoes and hat; but furnishes none for women and children, and no underclothing for any.”37
The army supplied much of the clothing for male refugees by handing down the threadbare and discarded uniforms of white soldiers.
One report of conditions in the refugee camps pointed out that “clothing is their most pressing need, especially for women and children, who cannot wear the cast-off garments of soldiers.”38
In the early months of the war Union officials — prodded by General Butler — allowed “able-bodied” refugees to cross into Union lines in exchange for labor.
The term “able-bodied” served as code for men who were not crippled or timeworn.
And it rarely denoted women.
Butler and other Union generals agreed to pay these laborers, subtracting money to pay for their clothes.
In October 1861 Major General Wool from the headquarters of the Department of Virginia ordered that all male servants be paid at least $8 per month and women servants half as much.
From these earnings clothing money would be subtracted and the remaining balance would go to a fund to feed and clothe refugee dependents — “for the support of the women and children and those that are unable to work.” 39
In July 1862 Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which in effect ratified General Butler’s exchange of raiment and sustenance for labor of the “able-bodied.”40
And as long as “ablebodied” meant those who could heave and drag large loads, women and children took on the stigma of dead weight, dependent and undeserving.41
As one historian explains: “While former enslaved women certainly worked in Union camps as washerwomen, cooks, and domestics, there was no policy that provided for their employment; their labor was often impromptu service, neither regulated nor systematized.
Women instead were to gain rations and shelter, and to receive medical care through the support of their husbands’ or fathers’ employment.”42
33 By the end of the raid, as the Union forces edged closer to safe territory. much of the valuable knowledge and work that black troopers initially offered became less critical.
34 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Vol. 3, page 175 In the official report only one of the Majors, Floyd Clarkson, mentions the black troops as playing a part in the expedition. At Tyson’s Creek, where General Potter claims he found an “intricate path” on a plantation, Clarkson ordered 30 black cavalrymen off of their horses to skirmish in the woods. Potter’s men would leave many of their refugees behind a few days later; it is not clear if these dismounted black soldiers were a part of the abandoned United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, pp. 973
35 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Volume III, p. 175
36 This interpretation borrows from Jim Downs’ fine article about women refugees during the war: Jim Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War" In Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, eds. Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 78-103.
37 "The Lounger: For the Contraband," Harper's Weekly 1916, Jan.11, 1862.
38 Report quoted in: Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War", 80
39 The next month Wool issued a similar order, but created categories between men, boys, “sickly,” and the “infirm”---each dictating different levels of pay. He also permitted workers from each category to keep one or two dollars for themselves. Finally he implemented an incentive program (also scaled to the bodies of workers) where a laborer could earn $.50 to one dollar for “unusual” amounts of labor. Special Order 72 and General Order 34 in United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 2, Vol. I, pp. 774-5
40 Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War", 79-80
41 The official records of the war are replete with officers discussing the gathering, protecting, relocating, and exploiting of “able-bodied” refugees which almost always meant strong male contraband. As General Howell Cobb reported after Wilson’s Raid in Alabama and Georgia, “I also directed the column to be cleared of all contraband Negroes, and such of the able-bodied ones as were able to enlist to be organized into regiments…”; After the fall of Vicksburg just weeks before Potter’s Raid , General U.S. Grant ordered “All the able-bodied negro men in the city will be immediately collected and organized into working parties, under suitable officers”’ One dismayed Confederate complained to the C.S.A. military, “that slaves should be impressed for service in the army as wagoners, pioneers, sappers and miners, &c. Our able-bodied negro men are now being conscripted into the army of the enemy.” See, respectively: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362; ibid., Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362; ibid., Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362
42 Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and Their Children during and After the Civil War", 80
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
Though the actions of these black troopers is hardly acknowledged in the official Union reports, we know something about their role because indignant white southerners made sure to detail how the “abolitionist” raiders were turning the rebel world upside down, with race central to the inversion.
But when the lucrative and destructive Tarboro raid nearly ended (for the second time) in capture, the Yankee liberators were willing to dispose of their pilots.33
While official Union reports mention nothing of the sort, one North Carolina regiment recalled that the accompanying black soldiers remained with the column of refugees even after Cole and his men abandoned them.
When Confederates shot towards the column of frantic refugees, they intended to hit “negro troops who were in the rear of Potter’s column” — who were evidently trying in vain to rush the refugees over a bridge.
Why some of these soldiers remained behind is unclear.
After being fired on, “one negro captain” charged into the teeth of the attacker, standing in his buggy, firing into three nearby rebels.
He was “shot dead” and “many others” were “either killed or wounded in attempting to escape through the woods nearby.”34
It is uncertain if Cole abandoned some of these black soldiers on the wrong side of a destroyed bridge, or if they decided to remain and protect the refugees.
The chaotic march revealed the various internal strains inherent in many liberating expeditions.
In this massive column one could certainly find privateers with stuffed pockets, anti-slavery men who believed they had helped unravel rebeldom, ex-slaves with scores to settle, confused soldiers who wondered if they were thieves or warriors, and black refugees, including devastated fathers (and a few mothers), who made it out of Egypt, filled with a poignant blend of ecstasy and shame for having abandoned their own to Pharaoh’s army.
Behind the jarring images of burning bridges, corkscrewed rail track, flourmills reduced to rubble, charred trains, there was a softer, material aspect to the raid, though just as insidious.
One of the telling signs of the expedition was that among the jettisoned booty and slit-throated horses, confederates found “all sorts of ladies’ wearing apparel” strewn behind the departing army.
Southern reports claimed that black soldiers had helped take these clothes from “the helpless, unprotected women at the plantations….”35
Of course, white soldiers pilfered women’s clothes as well.
Along with lifting jewels and liquor, many of Cole’s comrades ran off with dresses and children’s attire with partly benevolent intentions.
As they knew from experience, women refugees and their children would sorely need raiment.36
From the first months of the war this became evident as thousands of refugees flowed into Union lines in Virginia and North Carolina.
As Harper’s Weekly reported in the first weeks of 1862, while women only made up around a third of the fifteen hundred contrabands at Fort Monroe, the government only partly supplied “the men whom it employs with coat, trowsers, shoes and hat; but furnishes none for women and children, and no underclothing for any.”37
The army supplied much of the clothing for male refugees by handing down the threadbare and discarded uniforms of white soldiers.
One report of conditions in the refugee camps pointed out that “clothing is their most pressing need, especially for women and children, who cannot wear the cast-off garments of soldiers.”38
In the early months of the war Union officials — prodded by General Butler — allowed “able-bodied” refugees to cross into Union lines in exchange for labor.
The term “able-bodied” served as code for men who were not crippled or timeworn.
And it rarely denoted women.
Butler and other Union generals agreed to pay these laborers, subtracting money to pay for their clothes.
In October 1861 Major General Wool from the headquarters of the Department of Virginia ordered that all male servants be paid at least $8 per month and women servants half as much.
From these earnings clothing money would be subtracted and the remaining balance would go to a fund to feed and clothe refugee dependents — “for the support of the women and children and those that are unable to work.” 39
In July 1862 Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which in effect ratified General Butler’s exchange of raiment and sustenance for labor of the “able-bodied.”40
And as long as “ablebodied” meant those who could heave and drag large loads, women and children took on the stigma of dead weight, dependent and undeserving.41
As one historian explains: “While former enslaved women certainly worked in Union camps as washerwomen, cooks, and domestics, there was no policy that provided for their employment; their labor was often impromptu service, neither regulated nor systematized.
Women instead were to gain rations and shelter, and to receive medical care through the support of their husbands’ or fathers’ employment.”42
33 By the end of the raid, as the Union forces edged closer to safe territory. much of the valuable knowledge and work that black troopers initially offered became less critical.
34 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Vol. 3, page 175 In the official report only one of the Majors, Floyd Clarkson, mentions the black troops as playing a part in the expedition. At Tyson’s Creek, where General Potter claims he found an “intricate path” on a plantation, Clarkson ordered 30 black cavalrymen off of their horses to skirmish in the woods. Potter’s men would leave many of their refugees behind a few days later; it is not clear if these dismounted black soldiers were a part of the abandoned United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, pp. 973
35 Clark, "Histories of the several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65", Volume III, p. 175
36 This interpretation borrows from Jim Downs’ fine article about women refugees during the war: Jim Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War" In Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, eds. Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 78-103.
37 "The Lounger: For the Contraband," Harper's Weekly 1916, Jan.11, 1862.
38 Report quoted in: Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War", 80
39 The next month Wool issued a similar order, but created categories between men, boys, “sickly,” and the “infirm”---each dictating different levels of pay. He also permitted workers from each category to keep one or two dollars for themselves. Finally he implemented an incentive program (also scaled to the bodies of workers) where a laborer could earn $.50 to one dollar for “unusual” amounts of labor. Special Order 72 and General Order 34 in United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 2, Vol. I, pp. 774-5
40 Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and their Children during and After the Civil War", 79-80
41 The official records of the war are replete with officers discussing the gathering, protecting, relocating, and exploiting of “able-bodied” refugees which almost always meant strong male contraband. As General Howell Cobb reported after Wilson’s Raid in Alabama and Georgia, “I also directed the column to be cleared of all contraband Negroes, and such of the able-bodied ones as were able to enlist to be organized into regiments…”; After the fall of Vicksburg just weeks before Potter’s Raid , General U.S. Grant ordered “All the able-bodied negro men in the city will be immediately collected and organized into working parties, under suitable officers”’ One dismayed Confederate complained to the C.S.A. military, “that slaves should be impressed for service in the army as wagoners, pioneers, sappers and miners, &c. Our able-bodied negro men are now being conscripted into the army of the enemy.” See, respectively: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362; ibid., Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362; ibid., Series 1, Vol. 49, part I, p. 362
42 Downs, "The Other Side of Freedom: Destitution, Disease, and Dependency among Freedwomen and Their Children during and After the Civil War", 80
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
As one sympathetic officer wrote his superior in fall of 1861, “Contraband negroes” were coming into the Union camps in South Carolina “in great numbers.
In two days 150 have come in, mostly able-bodied men, and it will soon be necessary to furnish them with coarse clothing.”43
If the “able-bodied” men got first priority for (coarse) clothing, they were merely first among the last.
In late 1862, in a response to a major general’s inquiry about sending supplies to captured cities in Virginia, Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of War, P.H. Watson warned the general not to send excessive goods which might fall into the hands of Rebels.
“Care should be taken,” Watson explained, “to scale [the shipments] down so as to limit the supplies imported to the actual necessities of the inhabitants.”
When supplying places with large African American populations like Norfolk, Portsmouth, or Suffolk, Watson suggested that an estimate of the respective populations be obtained by “counting four children or Negroes as the equivalent of one adult citizen.”
The general could then use “clothing tables” to obtain the proper quantities of articles “required by the inhabitants.”44
By the end of the war, little had changed.
After the fall of Richmond, Cole’s own commanding officer, General Ord, wrote the Secretary of War to suggest “making use of the captured old tents, canvas, &c., what little there is, to make clothing for the Negroes, their women to make it up."
"There is quite a lot of old tents, wagon covers, &., condemned.”
Yet Ord was not concerned so much with clothing women as he was with eliminating dependents under his command.
He suggested in another communication that if he couldn’t cut off the rations of black soldiers’ children and wives, he could “gather [them] into buildings and open a grand general washing establishment for the city, where clothing of any one will be washed gratis."
"A little hard work and confinement will soon induce them to find employment….”45
Only the bodies of the independent merited clothing, while the able-bodied deserved to have their shirts scrubbed by parasitic children and mothers.
Cole’s comrades pilfered women’s closets and bureaus for other compelling reasons.
To steal or destroy a confederate woman’s garments was a way to bring the hardening war into the lap of rebellion.
All over the Confederacy, and particularly in blockaded regions, women brought spinning wheels down from the garrets, carded wool and cotton, and mended old shirts and trousers.
Many wives could not afford black mourning attire because the war that turned them into widows also pushed them into penury.46
Days after the raid, another paper in North Carolina lamented the plight of women who were left alone to support themselves by sewing uniforms for rebel soldiers.
“The winter is approaching, and [the women left at home] must starve or freeze, unless they are allowed more for their work.”47
Yankee soldiers blamed confederate women for causing and supporting the rebellion.
If good republican mothers made a more virtuous society in the North, then white southern women spawned the traitorous generation now at arms.48
To prevent them from clothing themselves and their children was a direct attack on their roles as mothers and caretakers.
43 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series, Vol. 1, p. 777
44 ibid., Series 1, Vol. 18, p. 453
45 General E.O.C. Ord to Secretary Stanton in: ibid., Series 1, Vol.46, part III, p. 1116; Berlin and Rowland, "Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era", 121-22
46 Mary Elizabeth Massey, Bonnet Brigades, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1966), 202-5.
47 “Who Loses and Who Gains by the War, and How to Equalize its Burdens,” in Wilmington Journal, August 27, 1863
48 Mitchell, "The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home", 89-113
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
As one sympathetic officer wrote his superior in fall of 1861, “Contraband negroes” were coming into the Union camps in South Carolina “in great numbers.
In two days 150 have come in, mostly able-bodied men, and it will soon be necessary to furnish them with coarse clothing.”43
If the “able-bodied” men got first priority for (coarse) clothing, they were merely first among the last.
In late 1862, in a response to a major general’s inquiry about sending supplies to captured cities in Virginia, Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of War, P.H. Watson warned the general not to send excessive goods which might fall into the hands of Rebels.
“Care should be taken,” Watson explained, “to scale [the shipments] down so as to limit the supplies imported to the actual necessities of the inhabitants.”
When supplying places with large African American populations like Norfolk, Portsmouth, or Suffolk, Watson suggested that an estimate of the respective populations be obtained by “counting four children or Negroes as the equivalent of one adult citizen.”
The general could then use “clothing tables” to obtain the proper quantities of articles “required by the inhabitants.”44
By the end of the war, little had changed.
After the fall of Richmond, Cole’s own commanding officer, General Ord, wrote the Secretary of War to suggest “making use of the captured old tents, canvas, &c., what little there is, to make clothing for the Negroes, their women to make it up."
"There is quite a lot of old tents, wagon covers, &., condemned.”
Yet Ord was not concerned so much with clothing women as he was with eliminating dependents under his command.
He suggested in another communication that if he couldn’t cut off the rations of black soldiers’ children and wives, he could “gather [them] into buildings and open a grand general washing establishment for the city, where clothing of any one will be washed gratis."
"A little hard work and confinement will soon induce them to find employment….”45
Only the bodies of the independent merited clothing, while the able-bodied deserved to have their shirts scrubbed by parasitic children and mothers.
Cole’s comrades pilfered women’s closets and bureaus for other compelling reasons.
To steal or destroy a confederate woman’s garments was a way to bring the hardening war into the lap of rebellion.
All over the Confederacy, and particularly in blockaded regions, women brought spinning wheels down from the garrets, carded wool and cotton, and mended old shirts and trousers.
Many wives could not afford black mourning attire because the war that turned them into widows also pushed them into penury.46
Days after the raid, another paper in North Carolina lamented the plight of women who were left alone to support themselves by sewing uniforms for rebel soldiers.
“The winter is approaching, and [the women left at home] must starve or freeze, unless they are allowed more for their work.”47
Yankee soldiers blamed confederate women for causing and supporting the rebellion.
If good republican mothers made a more virtuous society in the North, then white southern women spawned the traitorous generation now at arms.48
To prevent them from clothing themselves and their children was a direct attack on their roles as mothers and caretakers.
43 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series, Vol. 1, p. 777
44 ibid., Series 1, Vol. 18, p. 453
45 General E.O.C. Ord to Secretary Stanton in: ibid., Series 1, Vol.46, part III, p. 1116; Berlin and Rowland, "Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era", 121-22
46 Mary Elizabeth Massey, Bonnet Brigades, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1966), 202-5.
47 “Who Loses and Who Gains by the War, and How to Equalize its Burdens,” in Wilmington Journal, August 27, 1863
48 Mitchell, "The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home", 89-113
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
So while raids in the Piedmont region produced reports of white soldiers carrying off dresses, or ransacking a store and making “the negroes clothe themselves with the best of clothing….”; in many other reports soldiers ripped or burned the garments in front of mothers and wives.49
Perhaps tellingly, one story of how clothes were taken instead of destroyed (presumably for dependents in refugee camps), was also one of the reports where a witness noted that black soldiers participated in or led the ransacking.
In one detailed report readers learned how raiders broke into a home and “took” bed-clothing, personal garments, “including children’s clothing,” and “even…the tooth-brushes.”
Then, after adding that the raiders also robbed nearly $20,000, the narrator claimed that “Two negroes were with the Yankees, their pilots we presume, and while at Mr. Pope’s they were the leaders in ransacking and turning things up side down."
"Nothing seemed to escape them.”50
If what the witness meant by “nothing seemed to escape them” was that together, the black and white soldiers left with anything from jewels in their pockets, to fistfuls of meat, to children’s toothbrushes, he may have been (correctly) sensing the wide range of motives that inspired this intimate destruction.
In the same report that suggested black soldiers stole children’s clothing, followed an illuminating story.
Some soldiers in Cole’s regiment captured a confederate official, Henry A. Dowd, in charge of the clothing bureau for the State Commissary Department.
He was apparently in his buggy with his wife trying to flee the region.
When the soldiers found a colonel’s uniform and sword in one of his bags they brought him to “see their Major.”
The author does not tell us the name of the major, but because there were only three majors operating the Tarboro Raid, it had to be either George Cole, or one of his two counterparts.
The soldiers took Dowd’s sword, not knowing that it had “actually [been] captured from the Yankees” in a previous battle.
When the raiders demanded to see the contents of one of the chests, Dowd opened it up and showed them -- “a pile of small children’s clothing lay uppermost on the tray.”
Dowd held up some of the articles in his hand and directly asked the Major “what he thought of them.”
The major responded that the contents looked “all right,” and as Dowd feigned to dig deeper into the chest, the major communicated that he had seen enough.
What “the Major” and his soldiers didn’t know was that Dowd had strategically hidden below the baby garments “a pile of many thousands of dollars” entrusted to him, probably, for his labors as head of the clothing bureau.
Dowd certainly had insight into the minds of his attackers thanks to his experience in the state commissary and his management of the clothing crisis in the Confederacy.
He stashed his fortune beneath “unmentionables” and bet that a Union soldier would either be struck with some guilt as he fumbled through an infant’s clothing, or, more likely, lose interest and redirect his efforts to digging beneath things that he associated with personal gain.51
Dowd was lucky that “the Major” was not a black man with a half-naked family hovelled in a camp.
And he was fortunate that this Yankee officer either had young children at home, or more likely treasure on the brain.
When the fleeing Union soldiers tossed aside a trail of blouses, chemises, dresses, and aprons, they revealed their knowledge of exactly who they were leaving behind — and the kinds of bodies that merited freedom.
The dumping of female clothing was as calculated as the jettisoned loads of meat or worn down weapons.
These were things that Union soldiers could part with, and just as importantly, items that confederates would be tempted to stop and retrieve.
Confederate men had their own gender crises — psychological needs to maintain their idea of manhood and thus wives and mothers to clothe, feed and protect.52
In many of the accounts, Cole’s soldiers forced themselves into homes only to find the wife or servants waiting to witness and hopefully limit the destruction.
Upon hearing news of the raid, one confederate “immediately” thought that Potter’s men would surely make Tarboro their “first point of attack, or rather destruction, for there was nothing to attack but women and children.”53
49 For white soldiers making blacks put on fine clothes, see: “Yankee Raid” in Western Democrat, July 14, 1863; When raiders ransacked the home of “Gov. Clark” they reportedly stole many personal items and “her own children’s clothes, and every variety of articles.” See: “The Yankees in Tarboro” Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863; In a similar raid a few weeks later other soldiers dashed mirrors and slashed paintings, then “tore up the ladies’ and children’s clothing.” See: “Further Particulars of the Recent Yankee Raid in the Direction of Weldon,” in Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863.
50 “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
51 “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
52 For the ways in which the breakdown of the Confederate war effort was a function of confederate men not making good on their time-honored obligations to the opposite sex, see: Drew Gilpin Faust, "Altars of Sacrifice: Confederate Women and the Narratives of War," Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (1990), 1200-1228.
53 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, p.976
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
So while raids in the Piedmont region produced reports of white soldiers carrying off dresses, or ransacking a store and making “the negroes clothe themselves with the best of clothing….”; in many other reports soldiers ripped or burned the garments in front of mothers and wives.49
Perhaps tellingly, one story of how clothes were taken instead of destroyed (presumably for dependents in refugee camps), was also one of the reports where a witness noted that black soldiers participated in or led the ransacking.
In one detailed report readers learned how raiders broke into a home and “took” bed-clothing, personal garments, “including children’s clothing,” and “even…the tooth-brushes.”
Then, after adding that the raiders also robbed nearly $20,000, the narrator claimed that “Two negroes were with the Yankees, their pilots we presume, and while at Mr. Pope’s they were the leaders in ransacking and turning things up side down."
"Nothing seemed to escape them.”50
If what the witness meant by “nothing seemed to escape them” was that together, the black and white soldiers left with anything from jewels in their pockets, to fistfuls of meat, to children’s toothbrushes, he may have been (correctly) sensing the wide range of motives that inspired this intimate destruction.
In the same report that suggested black soldiers stole children’s clothing, followed an illuminating story.
Some soldiers in Cole’s regiment captured a confederate official, Henry A. Dowd, in charge of the clothing bureau for the State Commissary Department.
He was apparently in his buggy with his wife trying to flee the region.
When the soldiers found a colonel’s uniform and sword in one of his bags they brought him to “see their Major.”
The author does not tell us the name of the major, but because there were only three majors operating the Tarboro Raid, it had to be either George Cole, or one of his two counterparts.
The soldiers took Dowd’s sword, not knowing that it had “actually [been] captured from the Yankees” in a previous battle.
When the raiders demanded to see the contents of one of the chests, Dowd opened it up and showed them -- “a pile of small children’s clothing lay uppermost on the tray.”
Dowd held up some of the articles in his hand and directly asked the Major “what he thought of them.”
The major responded that the contents looked “all right,” and as Dowd feigned to dig deeper into the chest, the major communicated that he had seen enough.
What “the Major” and his soldiers didn’t know was that Dowd had strategically hidden below the baby garments “a pile of many thousands of dollars” entrusted to him, probably, for his labors as head of the clothing bureau.
Dowd certainly had insight into the minds of his attackers thanks to his experience in the state commissary and his management of the clothing crisis in the Confederacy.
He stashed his fortune beneath “unmentionables” and bet that a Union soldier would either be struck with some guilt as he fumbled through an infant’s clothing, or, more likely, lose interest and redirect his efforts to digging beneath things that he associated with personal gain.51
Dowd was lucky that “the Major” was not a black man with a half-naked family hovelled in a camp.
And he was fortunate that this Yankee officer either had young children at home, or more likely treasure on the brain.
When the fleeing Union soldiers tossed aside a trail of blouses, chemises, dresses, and aprons, they revealed their knowledge of exactly who they were leaving behind — and the kinds of bodies that merited freedom.
The dumping of female clothing was as calculated as the jettisoned loads of meat or worn down weapons.
These were things that Union soldiers could part with, and just as importantly, items that confederates would be tempted to stop and retrieve.
Confederate men had their own gender crises — psychological needs to maintain their idea of manhood and thus wives and mothers to clothe, feed and protect.52
In many of the accounts, Cole’s soldiers forced themselves into homes only to find the wife or servants waiting to witness and hopefully limit the destruction.
Upon hearing news of the raid, one confederate “immediately” thought that Potter’s men would surely make Tarboro their “first point of attack, or rather destruction, for there was nothing to attack but women and children.”53
49 For white soldiers making blacks put on fine clothes, see: “Yankee Raid” in Western Democrat, July 14, 1863; When raiders ransacked the home of “Gov. Clark” they reportedly stole many personal items and “her own children’s clothes, and every variety of articles.” See: “The Yankees in Tarboro” Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863; In a similar raid a few weeks later other soldiers dashed mirrors and slashed paintings, then “tore up the ladies’ and children’s clothing.” See: “Further Particulars of the Recent Yankee Raid in the Direction of Weldon,” in Weekly State Journal, Aug 12, 1863.
50 “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
51 “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
52 For the ways in which the breakdown of the Confederate war effort was a function of confederate men not making good on their time-honored obligations to the opposite sex, see: Drew Gilpin Faust, "Altars of Sacrifice: Confederate Women and the Narratives of War," Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (1990), 1200-1228.
53 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, p.976
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, concluded ...
Even raids on industrial targets seemed to immediately weigh on the confederate household.
Besides torching thousands of barrels of flour the Tarboro raiders destroyed a cotton factory which produced the yarn “people of Eastern North Carolina and the south side of Virginian” used to make “clothing for home consumption.”54
While Tarboro burned, Cole’s fellow major reported that in the nearby town of Rocky Mount, besides laying machine-shops and bridges to waste, his men decimated a cotton mill that employed “150 white girls.”55
When Union soldiers made southerners feel the war, they did so through disruption of the quotidian: pilfering a threadbare blouse; burning flour; stealing and then abandoning a female slave who could no longer be trusted since she departed, temporarily, with her mistress’ clothes.
Six months later, when Cole walked through the camp of his freshly recruited Colored Cavalry, he expressed only pride in how they would surely bring battlefield glory and how all recognized their “usher.”
Most northerners back home had little reason to question Cole’s claim to military bravery and humanitarianism.
After the raid, the local Syracuse paper reported that a train of contrabands “picked up by our cavalry” along with a few white soldiers “fell into the enemy’s hands” after “taking the wrong road.”56
As Cole and his comrades knew, however, local African Americans never took the wrong road.
The Syracuse paper did not mention the inebriated Union soldiers found senseless on the roadside or Union soldiers burning bridges between them and their refugees — or how alcohol and violence served as stimulants for a grueling five- day operation where many of the soldiers slept only a handful of hours.
And though it is impossible to know where it came from, or the explanation offered by George Cole to his spouse, some time during the war Mary Barto Cole received $15,000 from her otherwise unmoneyed “man of force.”
Not every southerner was wise enough to pack her fortunes below a baby’s unmentionables.57
54 “Operations of the National Cavalry in North Carolina” in New York Times, July 25, 1863.
55 ibid., Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, p.968
56 “Capture of Contrabands” in Syracuse Journal, July 27, 1863. In other New York papers there is no mention of how the contraband were lost to the Confederates. But in one account it is mentioned that gold and some $40,000 in North Carolina scrip was taken from southerners. See: “Operation in North Carolina” in New York Times, Aug. 5, 1863
57 “The Murderer Makes a New Statement of His Case” in Syracuse Journal, June 18, 1867.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, concluded ...
Even raids on industrial targets seemed to immediately weigh on the confederate household.
Besides torching thousands of barrels of flour the Tarboro raiders destroyed a cotton factory which produced the yarn “people of Eastern North Carolina and the south side of Virginian” used to make “clothing for home consumption.”54
While Tarboro burned, Cole’s fellow major reported that in the nearby town of Rocky Mount, besides laying machine-shops and bridges to waste, his men decimated a cotton mill that employed “150 white girls.”55
When Union soldiers made southerners feel the war, they did so through disruption of the quotidian: pilfering a threadbare blouse; burning flour; stealing and then abandoning a female slave who could no longer be trusted since she departed, temporarily, with her mistress’ clothes.
Six months later, when Cole walked through the camp of his freshly recruited Colored Cavalry, he expressed only pride in how they would surely bring battlefield glory and how all recognized their “usher.”
Most northerners back home had little reason to question Cole’s claim to military bravery and humanitarianism.
After the raid, the local Syracuse paper reported that a train of contrabands “picked up by our cavalry” along with a few white soldiers “fell into the enemy’s hands” after “taking the wrong road.”56
As Cole and his comrades knew, however, local African Americans never took the wrong road.
The Syracuse paper did not mention the inebriated Union soldiers found senseless on the roadside or Union soldiers burning bridges between them and their refugees — or how alcohol and violence served as stimulants for a grueling five- day operation where many of the soldiers slept only a handful of hours.
And though it is impossible to know where it came from, or the explanation offered by George Cole to his spouse, some time during the war Mary Barto Cole received $15,000 from her otherwise unmoneyed “man of force.”
Not every southerner was wise enough to pack her fortunes below a baby’s unmentionables.57
54 “Operations of the National Cavalry in North Carolina” in New York Times, July 25, 1863.
55 ibid., Series 1, Vol. 27, part II, p.968
56 “Capture of Contrabands” in Syracuse Journal, July 27, 1863. In other New York papers there is no mention of how the contraband were lost to the Confederates. But in one account it is mentioned that gold and some $40,000 in North Carolina scrip was taken from southerners. See: “Operation in North Carolina” in New York Times, Aug. 5, 1863
57 “The Murderer Makes a New Statement of His Case” in Syracuse Journal, June 18, 1867.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST
Even if Cole took pride in his problematic ushering of blacks into freedom, or making southern civilians feel the war, the impersonal structures of the military — the ways in which soldiers’ identities were informed by and subsumed into the unstable groupings of companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and finally armies — dictated much of Cole’s story.
He began his service in the 12th New York Infantry but before the end of his first term, appealed to the Chief of Cavalry to be transferred with some of his men to the 3rd New York Cavalry.
“[We] volunteered our services in May 1861,” Cole reasoned, “& cavalry not being at that time accepted, have since acted as infantry, under the assurance from the State military authorities that we should be mounted & used in our proper place….”
Captain Cole confessed that his company felt “very much demoralized & we believe we can be of much more service in the [3rd NY Cavalry].”1
In other words, Cole’s men wanted more action — “much more service”—and to witness it from the saddle.
No doubt, Cole and his soldiers wanted to leave the infantry because of the nineteenth-century’s alluring symbolism of the mounted soldier, lifted upon a stallion above the plebian dirt.2
Cavalry soldiers did tend to see “more service,” but as troopers soon found out, it was not the kind that commanded real estate in the newspapers.
Mounted soldiers infrequently participated in pitched battles, but instead were called to make quick assaults on limited targets, destroy property, and, in general, tease the enemy with minor skirmishes.3
Cole’s transfer to the cavalry, then, secured for himself an aristocratic, gallant image, while in fact placing him outside many of the grand battles that would generate a torrent of headlines, fiction and memoirs.
Whatever prestige riding a horse through war brought Cole, the transfer placed him at the crossroads of military impotence and army politics.
Notwithstanding its aristocratic connotations, for the first half of the war the cavalry branch proved an embarrassment to the Union, as it was outgeneraled by southern men who felt more comfortable in the harness than shopkeepers from the North, knew the lay of their own land, and had better horses.4
At the same time, Cole’s transfer brought him into the Department of North Carolina which would continually fail to significantly enlarge any of the Union footholds since initial victories along the lower North Carolina coast under General Burnside in early 1862.
Most of the soldiers in the department ground their days out on garrison duty with occasional skirmishes against confederate guerrillas, or raids upon towns.
At the end of 1863, six months after the Tarboro Raid, the pro-Democrat New York Herald summed up the exploits well enough: “what has been accomplished in this command…in a military view, is not of much importance.”5
Into the Army of the James6
In the fall of 1863 the War Department consolidated Cole’s corps with other underused or poorly performing commands.
He found himself within a military structure that would leave its imprimatur on him as a soldier and man.
This time, though, he would reach rock bottom as his regiment was absorbed into the “Army of the James” — a hodgepodge cobbled together from various timidly commanded or ineffective parts from Lincoln’s sputtering war machine.7
Though fighting adjacent in the same theater, the Army of the James was destined to play second fiddle to the darling of the newspapers, the Army of the Potomac.
Throughout its existence the lesser-known and smaller army lingered in the shadows of Generals Meade and Grant’s massive forces that opposed Robert E. Lee while protecting the nation’s Capitol.
The Army of the James shared Virginia’s war “theater” in a literal sense, providing props and supporting characters on the national stage.
An army of understudies, it got second grabs at allocations of troopers, horses, and supplies.8
1 Letter to Brig Gen. Stoneman, Chief of Cavalry, Aug 26, 1861 in Cole’s Compiled Service Record (CSR), 12th New York Volunteers, NARA.
2 Historian of the Union Cavalry, Stephen Starr, writes of northern men’s conceptions of the cavalry, before the war: “Glamor was the word for the cavalry when the Civil War broke out. The middle years of the nineteenth century were a time of overripe romanticism. Otherwise sober men, a generation or two removed from an utterly unromantic frontier, saw the cavalry through the eyes of Sir Walter Scott and themselves in the role of the mailed knight wielding a saber…the true weapon for man-to-man combat, unlike the impersonal, unwieldy, plebeian, musket of the lowly infantryman.” Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, Vol. 1 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), xi.
3 Longacre, "Mounted Raids of the Civil War", 11-18
4 Starr, "The Union Cavalry in the Civil War", xii; Longacre, "Mounted Raids of the Civil War", 16-17
5 New York Herald quoted in: Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 6
6 What follows draws heavily from the scholarly work of Edward Longacre, military historian extraordinaire. Longacre has dug deeper than anyone else into the social and cultural makeup of the Army of the James. Longacre is a military historian, yet his work points to the enormous possibilities of marrying military history (guns, regiments, official orders, etc.) with cultural history — gender, political ideology, home front studies, etc.
7 Some historians place the origins of the Army of the James (not the official name, yet widely used) as late as the spring of 1864, though its formation began in 1863. For our purposes the Army of the James is term used to describe the evolving military structures in southeast Virginia and coastline North Carolina from 1863 until 1865. One of its earlier parts was the VII Corps which, Edward Longacre writes, until the spring of 1864 “saw mostly garrison duty, firing few shots in anger except when repulsing guerilla raids or meeting challenges from Confederate coastal vessels.” Another Corps (IV) had seen more action but only during McClellan’s aborted run for Richmond, after which it was assigned to garrison duty in the peninsula. See: ibid.1-7
8 In another article about soldiers who served in southeast Virginia, where Cole would soon serve in the Army of the James, Edward Longacre writes “unlike comrades in Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, Middle Tennessee, and other larger theatres of operations, they saw their contributions go largely unnoticed by the civilian public: they might have been fighting in Siberia for all the national attention they received.” See: Edward G. Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 89, no. 4 (1981), 448.; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 13, 115
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST
Even if Cole took pride in his problematic ushering of blacks into freedom, or making southern civilians feel the war, the impersonal structures of the military — the ways in which soldiers’ identities were informed by and subsumed into the unstable groupings of companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and finally armies — dictated much of Cole’s story.
He began his service in the 12th New York Infantry but before the end of his first term, appealed to the Chief of Cavalry to be transferred with some of his men to the 3rd New York Cavalry.
“[We] volunteered our services in May 1861,” Cole reasoned, “& cavalry not being at that time accepted, have since acted as infantry, under the assurance from the State military authorities that we should be mounted & used in our proper place….”
Captain Cole confessed that his company felt “very much demoralized & we believe we can be of much more service in the [3rd NY Cavalry].”1
In other words, Cole’s men wanted more action — “much more service”—and to witness it from the saddle.
No doubt, Cole and his soldiers wanted to leave the infantry because of the nineteenth-century’s alluring symbolism of the mounted soldier, lifted upon a stallion above the plebian dirt.2
Cavalry soldiers did tend to see “more service,” but as troopers soon found out, it was not the kind that commanded real estate in the newspapers.
Mounted soldiers infrequently participated in pitched battles, but instead were called to make quick assaults on limited targets, destroy property, and, in general, tease the enemy with minor skirmishes.3
Cole’s transfer to the cavalry, then, secured for himself an aristocratic, gallant image, while in fact placing him outside many of the grand battles that would generate a torrent of headlines, fiction and memoirs.
Whatever prestige riding a horse through war brought Cole, the transfer placed him at the crossroads of military impotence and army politics.
Notwithstanding its aristocratic connotations, for the first half of the war the cavalry branch proved an embarrassment to the Union, as it was outgeneraled by southern men who felt more comfortable in the harness than shopkeepers from the North, knew the lay of their own land, and had better horses.4
At the same time, Cole’s transfer brought him into the Department of North Carolina which would continually fail to significantly enlarge any of the Union footholds since initial victories along the lower North Carolina coast under General Burnside in early 1862.
Most of the soldiers in the department ground their days out on garrison duty with occasional skirmishes against confederate guerrillas, or raids upon towns.
At the end of 1863, six months after the Tarboro Raid, the pro-Democrat New York Herald summed up the exploits well enough: “what has been accomplished in this command…in a military view, is not of much importance.”5
Into the Army of the James6
In the fall of 1863 the War Department consolidated Cole’s corps with other underused or poorly performing commands.
He found himself within a military structure that would leave its imprimatur on him as a soldier and man.
This time, though, he would reach rock bottom as his regiment was absorbed into the “Army of the James” — a hodgepodge cobbled together from various timidly commanded or ineffective parts from Lincoln’s sputtering war machine.7
Though fighting adjacent in the same theater, the Army of the James was destined to play second fiddle to the darling of the newspapers, the Army of the Potomac.
Throughout its existence the lesser-known and smaller army lingered in the shadows of Generals Meade and Grant’s massive forces that opposed Robert E. Lee while protecting the nation’s Capitol.
The Army of the James shared Virginia’s war “theater” in a literal sense, providing props and supporting characters on the national stage.
An army of understudies, it got second grabs at allocations of troopers, horses, and supplies.8
1 Letter to Brig Gen. Stoneman, Chief of Cavalry, Aug 26, 1861 in Cole’s Compiled Service Record (CSR), 12th New York Volunteers, NARA.
2 Historian of the Union Cavalry, Stephen Starr, writes of northern men’s conceptions of the cavalry, before the war: “Glamor was the word for the cavalry when the Civil War broke out. The middle years of the nineteenth century were a time of overripe romanticism. Otherwise sober men, a generation or two removed from an utterly unromantic frontier, saw the cavalry through the eyes of Sir Walter Scott and themselves in the role of the mailed knight wielding a saber…the true weapon for man-to-man combat, unlike the impersonal, unwieldy, plebeian, musket of the lowly infantryman.” Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, Vol. 1 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), xi.
3 Longacre, "Mounted Raids of the Civil War", 11-18
4 Starr, "The Union Cavalry in the Civil War", xii; Longacre, "Mounted Raids of the Civil War", 16-17
5 New York Herald quoted in: Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 6
6 What follows draws heavily from the scholarly work of Edward Longacre, military historian extraordinaire. Longacre has dug deeper than anyone else into the social and cultural makeup of the Army of the James. Longacre is a military historian, yet his work points to the enormous possibilities of marrying military history (guns, regiments, official orders, etc.) with cultural history — gender, political ideology, home front studies, etc.
7 Some historians place the origins of the Army of the James (not the official name, yet widely used) as late as the spring of 1864, though its formation began in 1863. For our purposes the Army of the James is term used to describe the evolving military structures in southeast Virginia and coastline North Carolina from 1863 until 1865. One of its earlier parts was the VII Corps which, Edward Longacre writes, until the spring of 1864 “saw mostly garrison duty, firing few shots in anger except when repulsing guerilla raids or meeting challenges from Confederate coastal vessels.” Another Corps (IV) had seen more action but only during McClellan’s aborted run for Richmond, after which it was assigned to garrison duty in the peninsula. See: ibid.1-7
8 In another article about soldiers who served in southeast Virginia, where Cole would soon serve in the Army of the James, Edward Longacre writes “unlike comrades in Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, Middle Tennessee, and other larger theatres of operations, they saw their contributions go largely unnoticed by the civilian public: they might have been fighting in Siberia for all the national attention they received.” See: Edward G. Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 89, no. 4 (1981), 448.; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 13, 115
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
The foremost expert on the Army of the James, Edward Longacre, writes that the army “lost virtually every campaign, battle, and engagement it fought, earning it a reputation for futility matched by no other Civil War command and perhaps by no other fighting force in American history.”9
Its marginal reputation did not cement a brotherhood of the vanquished so much as compound the vexed relations already within its command.
From the highest brass to his boy officers Cole served with a striking cast of troubled, anxious, incompetent and scheming soldiers.
For instance, his first commander in the 3rd New York Cavalry, Colonel Simon H. Mix, had lost the respect of his own soldiers because of patent incompetence.
His men spread rumors that his crumbling marriage fed suicidal tendencies and he was believed to have finally thrown himself into enemy fire to end it all.10
Captain Rowland M. Hall, also from the 3rd NY Cavalry, would later complain that his regiment had been taken over by unqualified men and copperheads.
The Harvard student didn’t care much for Cole’s fellow cavalrymen either: “Would to Heaven that our Government had good Officers."
"These cavalry Officers here are a wretched set of fellows & must be whipped in[to] fighting with gentlemen from the South or elsewhere.”
About the officers like Cole who recently left the 3rd New York for commissions in the black army, Hall vented, “I should think the unfortunate black troops would become demoralized."
"Their officers are generally of a wretched class.”11
And of course, many soldiers and officers deplored being led by Butler.
Several officers tried to have Butler removed for illegal or unethical behavior.12
General “Baldy” Smith, one of Butler’s highest ranking officers, finally pressed Grant for an accounting of Butler’s commission as a major general: “I want simply to call our attention to the fact that no man since the Revolution has had a tithe of the responsibility which now rests on your shoulders, and to ask you how you can place a man [Butler] in command of two army corps who is as helpless as a child on the field of battle and as visionary as an opium-eater in council?”13
All armies, North and South, suffered from blundering along with chronic biting and stabbing of backs.
But the Army of the James brought the vitriol and incompetence to extraordinary levels.
The friction, however, seemed to arise from similarities --- the “narcissism of small differences” — more than diversity.
Compared to its counterparts, the Army of the James was a homogeneous group, a true legion of Yankees.
A higher percentage of its units hailed from northeastern states than any other Union army.
While other armies had units from New York or Massachusetts, none could boast of such overwhelming numbers of men drawn heavily from New England and New York villages and towns.
Not surprisingly, Cole served within an army predominantly made up of free labor men with deep Republican loyalties — many of whom were either connected to or a generation removed from the plow.14
If they had moved into storefronts or into the trained professions, many — like Cole — did it in smaller cities and towns, not New York City or Boston.
Politically, the Army of the James was Lincoln’s armed citadel.
For those who believed in Lincoln and his war, soldiering not only protected Lincoln’s government and “race of life,” but promised opportunities to rise like Lincoln from obscurity to national notice.
9 While Longacre is a terrifically prolific and thorough historian, he may be the only “expert” and serious scholar of the ill-starred Army of the James. The Army still gets lost in the deluge of histories written about more “important” organizations. Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", xi
10 When it was reported back to camp that Mix was mortally wounded on the battlefield and taken prisoner one of his captains “laughed long and loud in derision.” Mix’s “mulatto servant” revealed to the regimental chaplain that Mix acted as if he wanted to be shot. Edward Wall, "The First Assault on Petersburg," New Jersey Historical Society III, no. 4 (1918), 201-02.; Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 13; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 21-2, 115
11 Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864", 452, 455
12 Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 126-27
13 General William F. Smith to General Grant, July 2, 1864. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 40, part II, p. 595
14 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863- 1865", 45
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
The foremost expert on the Army of the James, Edward Longacre, writes that the army “lost virtually every campaign, battle, and engagement it fought, earning it a reputation for futility matched by no other Civil War command and perhaps by no other fighting force in American history.”9
Its marginal reputation did not cement a brotherhood of the vanquished so much as compound the vexed relations already within its command.
From the highest brass to his boy officers Cole served with a striking cast of troubled, anxious, incompetent and scheming soldiers.
For instance, his first commander in the 3rd New York Cavalry, Colonel Simon H. Mix, had lost the respect of his own soldiers because of patent incompetence.
His men spread rumors that his crumbling marriage fed suicidal tendencies and he was believed to have finally thrown himself into enemy fire to end it all.10
Captain Rowland M. Hall, also from the 3rd NY Cavalry, would later complain that his regiment had been taken over by unqualified men and copperheads.
The Harvard student didn’t care much for Cole’s fellow cavalrymen either: “Would to Heaven that our Government had good Officers."
"These cavalry Officers here are a wretched set of fellows & must be whipped in[to] fighting with gentlemen from the South or elsewhere.”
About the officers like Cole who recently left the 3rd New York for commissions in the black army, Hall vented, “I should think the unfortunate black troops would become demoralized."
"Their officers are generally of a wretched class.”11
And of course, many soldiers and officers deplored being led by Butler.
Several officers tried to have Butler removed for illegal or unethical behavior.12
General “Baldy” Smith, one of Butler’s highest ranking officers, finally pressed Grant for an accounting of Butler’s commission as a major general: “I want simply to call our attention to the fact that no man since the Revolution has had a tithe of the responsibility which now rests on your shoulders, and to ask you how you can place a man [Butler] in command of two army corps who is as helpless as a child on the field of battle and as visionary as an opium-eater in council?”13
All armies, North and South, suffered from blundering along with chronic biting and stabbing of backs.
But the Army of the James brought the vitriol and incompetence to extraordinary levels.
The friction, however, seemed to arise from similarities --- the “narcissism of small differences” — more than diversity.
Compared to its counterparts, the Army of the James was a homogeneous group, a true legion of Yankees.
A higher percentage of its units hailed from northeastern states than any other Union army.
While other armies had units from New York or Massachusetts, none could boast of such overwhelming numbers of men drawn heavily from New England and New York villages and towns.
Not surprisingly, Cole served within an army predominantly made up of free labor men with deep Republican loyalties — many of whom were either connected to or a generation removed from the plow.14
If they had moved into storefronts or into the trained professions, many — like Cole — did it in smaller cities and towns, not New York City or Boston.
Politically, the Army of the James was Lincoln’s armed citadel.
For those who believed in Lincoln and his war, soldiering not only protected Lincoln’s government and “race of life,” but promised opportunities to rise like Lincoln from obscurity to national notice.
9 While Longacre is a terrifically prolific and thorough historian, he may be the only “expert” and serious scholar of the ill-starred Army of the James. The Army still gets lost in the deluge of histories written about more “important” organizations. Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", xi
10 When it was reported back to camp that Mix was mortally wounded on the battlefield and taken prisoner one of his captains “laughed long and loud in derision.” Mix’s “mulatto servant” revealed to the regimental chaplain that Mix acted as if he wanted to be shot. Edward Wall, "The First Assault on Petersburg," New Jersey Historical Society III, no. 4 (1918), 201-02.; Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 13; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 21-2, 115
11 Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864", 452, 455
12 Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 126-27
13 General William F. Smith to General Grant, July 2, 1864. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 40, part II, p. 595
14 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863- 1865", 45
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Though the majority of soldiers in all of Lincoln’s armies would back their president for another presidential term, when Lincoln fretted over his reelection in 1864 he correctly entertained no worries about the Army of the James where some of its regiments voted better than nine to one for the rail-splitter turned president.15
In short, if Cole’s fellow soldiers bought into Lincoln’s touting of merit over privilege, they were in the right army.
The Army of the James, a throng of Yankee amateurs, embodied Lincoln’s depiction of the war as a “People’s contest” — a death struggle by civilians, not professional soldiers and mercenaries, to “clear the paths of laudable pursuit.”
While many Americans had come to embrace the ideal of self-made manhood, Lincoln’s supporters particularly relished the vision of a society wide-open for talent.
And just as the Army of the James bled Republican, it was also the bastion for army amateurs — politicians and businessmen turned officers.
Few of its officers — 30 percent — had prior military experience or training from West Point.
By contrast, in 1864 nearly 80 percent of the officers in the Army of the Potomac had military experience or West Point training.16
What this meant for Cole and his comrades was that they served in a civilian army that dragged unusual amounts of home politics into the war.
Cole’s comrades could boast of fighting in a corner of the war relatively untarnished by West Point careerism; but they could not deny the ubiquitous presence of political generals and officers — or the paralyzing tensions between outnumbered West Pointers and volunteer officers.
In what Longacre calls “the most highly politicized army in American history,” Cole found fellow travelers lusting for rank, longing for fame, and embittered by (as well as implicated by) the encroachment of home front politics into their own camps.
15 In general, Lincoln was reelected by the same folks who elected him the first time — native-born farmers, skilled workers of some success, and urban professional men. Because these types of men made up the Army of the James, it is not surprising that Lincoln had this army well in pocket for the 1864 election. Each state had its own policy concerning the suffrage of soldiers. Some, like New York, made it impossible to tell how soldiers voted as a group. What we can tell is that soldiers heavily supported Lincoln over the ex-general McClellan. While there were reports of voting irregularities (Republican soldiers voting twenty five times, Democratic agents registering dead soldiers and forging votes for McClellan) many other units reported an unremarkable election day. Oscar O. Winther, "The Soldier Vote in the Election of 1864," New York History 25, no. 4 (1944), 440-58.; United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 42, part III, pp. 562-69; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 544-45.; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 100-01; John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, 1st ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997), 339-43. The fact that Captain Rowland M. Hall complained to his father that Copperheads were taking over his regiment in 1864 shows how Republican soldiers, at least earlier, felt they had control of their units and how the appointment of Democrat officers threatened to disturb their grip on regimental power. See: Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864", 452
16 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", xi-xii; Lincoln, Abraham. Fehrenbacher, Don Edward and Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana (Library of Congress), "Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865", 259
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Though the majority of soldiers in all of Lincoln’s armies would back their president for another presidential term, when Lincoln fretted over his reelection in 1864 he correctly entertained no worries about the Army of the James where some of its regiments voted better than nine to one for the rail-splitter turned president.15
In short, if Cole’s fellow soldiers bought into Lincoln’s touting of merit over privilege, they were in the right army.
The Army of the James, a throng of Yankee amateurs, embodied Lincoln’s depiction of the war as a “People’s contest” — a death struggle by civilians, not professional soldiers and mercenaries, to “clear the paths of laudable pursuit.”
While many Americans had come to embrace the ideal of self-made manhood, Lincoln’s supporters particularly relished the vision of a society wide-open for talent.
And just as the Army of the James bled Republican, it was also the bastion for army amateurs — politicians and businessmen turned officers.
Few of its officers — 30 percent — had prior military experience or training from West Point.
By contrast, in 1864 nearly 80 percent of the officers in the Army of the Potomac had military experience or West Point training.16
What this meant for Cole and his comrades was that they served in a civilian army that dragged unusual amounts of home politics into the war.
Cole’s comrades could boast of fighting in a corner of the war relatively untarnished by West Point careerism; but they could not deny the ubiquitous presence of political generals and officers — or the paralyzing tensions between outnumbered West Pointers and volunteer officers.
In what Longacre calls “the most highly politicized army in American history,” Cole found fellow travelers lusting for rank, longing for fame, and embittered by (as well as implicated by) the encroachment of home front politics into their own camps.
15 In general, Lincoln was reelected by the same folks who elected him the first time — native-born farmers, skilled workers of some success, and urban professional men. Because these types of men made up the Army of the James, it is not surprising that Lincoln had this army well in pocket for the 1864 election. Each state had its own policy concerning the suffrage of soldiers. Some, like New York, made it impossible to tell how soldiers voted as a group. What we can tell is that soldiers heavily supported Lincoln over the ex-general McClellan. While there were reports of voting irregularities (Republican soldiers voting twenty five times, Democratic agents registering dead soldiers and forging votes for McClellan) many other units reported an unremarkable election day. Oscar O. Winther, "The Soldier Vote in the Election of 1864," New York History 25, no. 4 (1944), 440-58.; United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 42, part III, pp. 562-69; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 544-45.; Longacre, "The Army of the James, 1863-1865: A Military, Political, and Social History." (Vol. 1-4)", 100-01; John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, 1st ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997), 339-43. The fact that Captain Rowland M. Hall complained to his father that Copperheads were taking over his regiment in 1864 shows how Republican soldiers, at least earlier, felt they had control of their units and how the appointment of Democrat officers threatened to disturb their grip on regimental power. See: Longacre, ""would to God that War was Rendered Impossible": Letters of Captain Rowland M. Hall, April-July, 1864", 452
16 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", xi-xii; Lincoln, Abraham. Fehrenbacher, Don Edward and Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana (Library of Congress), "Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865", 259
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