Volume II Part 41 (2/2)
Much more might be added to show the evil purpose of these men, together with the correspondence of Holt and his a.s.sociates, but it would be out of place if it was put in these pages.
Another case of this kind occurred in the State of Ohio, in April, 1863, in the arrest, trial, and banishment of Clement L.
Vallandigham. On April 13th Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, commanding the Department, issued an order, declaring--
”That, hereafter, all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death.” (The different cla.s.ses of persons were then named in the order.) ”The habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy will no longer be tolerated in this department. Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested, with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this department.”
Mr. Vallandigham commented upon this order, on May 1st, at a public meeting of citizens. Three days afterward a body of soldiers was sent by railroad from Cincinnati to Dayton, who, with violence, broke into his residence at three o'clock in the morning, seized, and hurried him to the cars before a rescue could be made, and departed for Cincinnati, where he was confined in a military prison. He was brought to trial before a military commission on May 6th. The specification made against him in the charge was that ”he addressed a large meeting of citizens at Mount Vernon, and did utter sentiments in words, or in effect, as follows: declaring the present war 'a wicked, cruel, and unnecessary war'; a war not being waged for the preservation of the Union'; 'a war for the purpose of crus.h.i.+ng out liberty and creating a despotism'; 'a war for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites'; stating that, 'if the Administration had so wished, the war could have been honorably terminated months ago'; characterizing the military order 'as a base usurpation of arbitrary authority'; declaring 'that he was at all times and upon all occasions resolved to do what he could to defeat the attempts now made to build up a monarchy upon the ruins of our free government.'” He was adjudged as guilty, and sentenced to confinement in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, during the war. This sentence was changed by President Lincoln to banishment to the Confederate States. This military usurpation was spoken of by Governor Seymour, of New York, in a letter written at the time, in these words:
”The transaction involved a series of offenses against our most sacred rights. It interfered with the freedom of speech; it violated our rights to be secure in our homes against unreasonable searches and seizures; it p.r.o.nounced sentence without a trial, save one which was a mockery, which insulted as well as wronged. The perpetrators now seek to impose punishment, not for an offense against law, but for a disregard of an invalid order, put forth in utter violation of the principles of civil liberty. If this proceeding is approved by the Government and sanctioned by the people, it is not merely a step toward revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. If it is upheld, our liberties are overthrown. The safety of our persons, the security of our property, will hereafter depend upon the arbitrary wills of such military rulers as may be placed over us, while our const.i.tutional guarantees will be broken down. Even now the Governors and the courts of some of the great Western States have sunk into insignificance before the despotic powers claimed and exercised by military men who have been sent into their borders.”
A large number of such arrests were made in Ohio, newspapers were suspended, and editors imprisoned. Like scenes were very numerous in Indiana and Illinois. In Pennsylvania arrests were made, newspapers suspended, editors imprisoned, and offices destroyed. In New Hamps.h.i.+re, Vermont, and Wisconsin many similar scenes occurred. The provost-marshal system was used as a weapon of vindictiveness against influential citizens of opposite political views throughout all the Northern States. No one of such persons knew when he was safe. A complaint of his neighbors, supported by affidavit of ”disloyal”
words spoken or ”disloyal” acts approved, received prompt attention from all marshals. Everything was brought into subjection to the will of the Government of the United States and its military officers.
In view of all the facts here presented relative to the Northern States, let the reader answer where the sovereignty _de facto_ resided. Most clearly in the Government of the United States. That presided over the ballot-box, held the keys of the prisons, arrested all citizens at its pleasure, suspended or suppressed newspapers, and did whatever it pleased under the declaration that the public welfare required it. But, under the principles of American liberty, the sovereignty is inherent in the people as an unalienable right; and, for the preservation and protection of this and other rights, the State governments were inst.i.tuted. If, therefore, the people have lost this inherent sovereignty, it is evident that the State governments have failed to afford that protection for which they were inst.i.tuted. If they have thus failed, it has been in consequence of their subversion and loss of power to fulfill the object for which they were established. This subversion was achieved when the General Government, under the pretext of preserving the Union, made war on its creators the States, thus changing the nature of the Federal Union, which could rightfully be done only by the sovereign, the people of the States, in like manner as it was originally formed. If they should permit their sovereignty to be usurped and themselves to be subjugated, individuals might remain, States could not. Of their wreck a nation might be built, but there could not be a Union, for that implies ent.i.ties united, and of a State which has lost its sovereignty there may only be written, ”_It was_.”
[Footnote 86: Article IV, amendment.]
[Footnote 87: Article V, amendment.]
[Footnote 88: Article V, amendment.]
[Footnote 89: Article VI, amendment.]
[Footnote 90: Article I, section 9.]
[Footnote 91: The first act of Congress providing for an enrollment and draft was pa.s.sed on March 8, 1363, three and a half months later than this order.]
[Footnote 92: See chapter on exchange of prisoners.]
[Footnote 93: Baltimore ”Gazette,” September 25, 1866.]
CHAPTER XLV.
Inactivity of the Army of Northern Virginia.--Expeditions of Custer, Kilpatrick, and Dahlgren for the Destruction of Railroads, the Burning of Richmond, and Killing the Officers of the Government.-- Repelled by Government Clerks.--Papers on Dahlgren's Body.--Repulse of Butler's Raid from Bermuda Hundred.--Advance of Sheridan repulsed at Richmond.--Stuart resists Sheridan.--Stuart's Death.--Remarks on Grant's Plan of Campaign.--Movement of General Butler.--Drury's Bluff.--Battle there.--Campaign of Grant in Virginia.
Both the Army of Northern Virginia and the army under General Meade remained in a state of comparative inaction during the months of January and February, 1864.
On February 26, 1864, while General Lee's headquarters were at Orange Court-House, two corps of the army of the enemy left their camp for Madison Court-House. The object was, by a formidable feint, to engage the attention of General Lee, and conceal from him their plans for a surprise and, if possible, capture of the city of Richmond. This was to be a concerted movement, in which General Butler, in command of the forces on the Peninsula, was to move up and make a demonstration upon Richmond on the east, while Generals Custer and Kilpatrick and Colonel Dahlgren were to attack it and enter on the west and north.
Two days later another army corps left for Madison Court-House, and other forces subsequently followed. At the same time General Custer, with two ten-inch Parrott guns and fifteen hundred picked men, marched for Charlottesville by the James City road. His purpose was to destroy the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, running by Charlottesville to Gordonsville, where the junction was made of the railroad running north from Lynchburg, with the Central running to Richmond. The capture of the army stores there, the destruction of the tracks running south, west, and east, and cutting the telegraph, would have severed the communication between Lee's army and Richmond by that route. This movement, with the destruction of railroads by General Kilpatrick, and of the Central Railroad and the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l by Colonel Dahlgren, would have isolated that army from its base of supplies.
[Ill.u.s.tration: General Wade Hampton]
Three hours later, on the same day on which General Custer started, General Kilpatrick with five thousand picked cavalry and a light battery of six guns, left Stevensburg, near Culpeper Court-House, for the lower fords of the Rapidan. His object was to make a dash upon Richmond for the purpose of releasing the United States prisoners, and doing whatever injury might be possible. He moved rapidly, destroying railroads and depots, and plundering the country, but found no obstacle except in being closely hara.s.sed in his rear by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson with his sixty Marylanders, who, with extraordinary daring, activity, and skill, followed him until he reached the line of the defenses of Richmond. There, while attacked in the rear by Colonel Johnson and his pickets driven in, he was at the same time opposed in front by Colonel W. H. Stevens, who, with a detachment of engineer troops, manned a few sections of light artillery. After an engagement of thirty minutes, Kilpatrick's entire force began to retreat in the direction of the Meadow Bridge on the Central Railroad. At night his camp-fires were discovered by General Wade Hampton, who dismounted one hundred men to act as infantry, and, supported by the cavalry, opened his two-gun battery upon the enemy at short range. He then attacked the camp of Davies's and of a part of two other brigades. The camp was taken, and the whole force of Kilpatrick fled at a gallop, leaving one hundred and five prisoners and more than one hundred horses.
Colonel Dahlgren started with General Kilpatrick, but at Spottsylvania Court-House was dispatched with five hundred men to Frederickhall, a depot of the Central Railroad, where some eighty pieces of our reserve artillery had been parked. His orders were to destroy the artillery, the railroads, and telegraph-lines. Finding the artillery too well guarded, he proceeded to destroy the line of railroad as far as Hanover Junction. Thence he moved toward the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l, which he reached twenty-two miles west of Richmond. Thence his command moved toward the city, pillaging and destroying dwelling-houses, out-buildings, mills, ca.n.a.l-boats, grain, and cattle, and cutting one lock on the ca.n.a.l. The first resistance met was by a battalion of General G. W. C. Lee's force, consisting of about two hundred and twenty of the armory-men, under command of their major, Ford. This small body was driven back until it joined a battalion of the Treasury Department clerks, who, in the absence of their major, Henly, were led by Captain McIlhenney. The officers and men were all clerks of the Treasury Department, and, like those of other departments and many citizens of Richmond, who were either too old or too young to be in the army, were enrolled and organized to defend the capital in the absence of troops. Captain McIlhenney, as soon as he saw the enemy, promptly arranged to attack. This was done with such impetuosity that Dahlgren and his men wore routed, leaving some eighteen killed, twenty to thirty wounded, and as many more prisoners. About a hundred horses, with equipments, a number of small-arms, and one three-inch Napoleon gun were captured. Our loss was one captain and two lieutenants killed, three lieutenants and seven privates wounded--one of the latter mortally. This feat of the Clerks' Battalion commanded the grateful admiration of the people, and the large concourse that attended the funeral of the fallen expressed the public lamentation.
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