A Glorious Union or America: the New Sparta
- Thread starter TheKnightIrish
- Start date
I was able to save and view this map from the link for the Battle of Ashland. (I've printed a few out to mark up with troop movements for my own records).
Its about April 30th 1863 in Kearny's Viginia Campaign. The other updates for Rosecrans and Grant/Hardee and Bragg are only up to about mid/late March.
Chapter Twenty Three The Hunter is Himself Trapped Part II
Chapter Twenty Three
The Hunter is Himself Trapped
Part II
The Hunter is Himself Trapped
Part II
From “The Life and Letters of John J. Peck” by John Watts de Peyster Jr.
Buffalo 1892
“The news of Kearny’s victory over Lee at Ashland has just arrived here in Suffolk. While it gives me much satisfaction there is little joy to be had here in this army. Deserters from the newly conscripted Rebel forces at Petersburg have confirmed our worst fears – General Hunter has been executed by the Rebel Government. There is much rumor too that some of our negro pioneers have been executed as runaways…
General Butler had taken this opportunity to relief himself because of his wounds (which are minor) to take this news to Washington. General Burnside now commands here…
I am not optimistic for the future of this army or indeed the direction our current difficulties will now take…”
From “The War Between the States” by Otis R. Mayhew
Sword & Musket 1992
“Kearny had planned only to pause after the Battle of Ashland to reorganise his forces before the “final” assault on Lee and Richmond, but he was summoned urgently to Washington by the President himself. It was unprecedented for a general commanding in the field to be summoned in this way, even more so given the impending attack on Richmond…
The full scale of the defeat at the Battle of Blackwater was made known to Kearny by Stanton and letters direct from General John Peck. Furthermore the ambush of Wyndham’s Brigade by Mosby and Imboden at Rockbridge Baths had also alarmed Sigel at his headquarters in New Market…
Kearny’s initial refusal to interrupt his preparations to return to Washington was followed by orders from Stanton and Halleck, and finally a personal note from Lincoln…”
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“Lincoln faced an angry and divided cabinet. Chase, and Hamlin (though not technically part of the cabinet), were both calling upon the President to authorise the execution of 36 rebel prisoners if the news from Butler proved true. Bates and Blair could not believe even Jeff Davis would be foolish enough to authorise the execution of a Union General…
Lincoln sent his personal note to Phil Kearny on the morning after receiving notification via the Prisoner Cartel system that David Hunter was dead and that the Confederate held no negro prisoners…
The manner of Hunter’s demise could no longer be in doubt after the South Carolina papers in Charleston and Savannah announced his “lawful and righteous execution” (Charleston Mercury)…
The Radical Press and Radical Republican elements in Congress went wild with anger…”
Union Martyr - Major General David Hunter
From “A Day That Will Live in Infamy - the Hunter Controversy” by Prof. J. K. Lang
LSU 2003
“In response to General Orders 60 and 111 Hunter had written two letters directly to his old army colleague, Jefferson Davis. Both these letters were suppressed by the Administration prior to his death. Both were leaked when news of his execution was announced. Although Secretary Chase is normally credited with their leak no categorical proof one way or another has been discovered…”
“To Jefferson Davis titular President of the so-called Confederate States
September 20, 1862
Sir:
While recently in command of the Department of the South, in accordance with the laws of war and the dictates of common sense, I organized and caused to be drilled, armed and equipped a regiment of enfranchised bondmen, known as the First South Carolina Volunteers.
For this action, as I have ascertained, the pretended Government, of which you are chief officer, has issued against me and all my officers who were engaged in organizing the regiment in question, a General Order of Outlawry, which announces that, if captured, we shall not even be allowed the usual miserable treatment extended to such captives as fall into your hands, but that we are to be regarded as felons, and to receive the death by hanging due to such, irrespective of the laws of war.
Mr. Davis, we have been acquainted intimately in the past. We have campaigned together, and our social relations have been such as to make each understand the other thoroughly. That you mean, if it ever be in your power, to execute the full rigor of your threat, I am well assured; and you will believe my assertion, that I thank you for having raised in connection with me and my acts this sharp and decisive issue. I shall proudly accept, if such be the chance of war, the martyrdom you menace; and herby give you notice that unless your General Order against me and my officers be formally revoked within thirty days from the date of the transmission of this letter, sent under a flag of truce, I shall take your action in the matter as final, and will reciprocate it by the hanging every Rebel officer who now is, or may hereafter be taken prisoner by the troops of the command to which I am about returning.
Believe me that I rejoice as the aspect now being given to the war by the course you have adopted. In my judgment, if the undoubted felony of treason had been treated from the outset as it deserves to be, as the sum of all felonies and crimes, this Rebellion would never have attained its present menacing proportions. The war you and your fellow-conspirators have been waging against the United States must be regarded either as a war of justifiable defence, carried on for the integrity of the boundaries of a sovereign Confederation of States against foreign aggression, or as the most wicked, enormous and deliberately planned conspiracy against human liberty and for the triumph of treason and slavery, of which the records of the world's history contain any note.
If our Government should adopt the first view of the case, you and your fellow Rebels may justly claim to be considered a most unjustly treated body of disinterested patriots, although, perhaps, a little mistake in your connivance with the thefts by which your agent, John R. Floyd, succeeded in arming the South and partially disarming, the North, as a preparative to the commencement of the struggle.
But if on the other hand, as is the theory of our government, the war you have levied against the United States, be a rebellion, the most causeless, crafty, cruel and bloody ever known, a conspiracy, having the rule-ruin policy for its basis, the plunder of the black race and the reopening of the African slave trade for its objective, the continued and further degradation of ninety per cent of the white population of the South in favor of a slave-driving ten per cent, aristocracy, and the exclusion of all foreign-born immigrants from participation in the generous and equal hospitality foreshadowed to them in the Declaration of Independence, which three of my direct ancestors signed: if this, as I believe, be a fair statement of the origin and motives of the Rebellion of which you are titular head, then it would have been better had our Government adhered to the constitutional view of Treason from the start, and hung every man taken in arms against the United States, from the first butchery in the streets of Baltimore, down to the last resultless battle fought in the vicinity of the Rappahannock.
If treason, in other words be any crime, it is the essence of all crimes; a vast machinery of guilt, multiplying assassinations into wholesale slaughters, and organizing plunder as the basis for supporting a system of national brigandage. Your action, and that of those with whom you are in league, has its best comment in the sympathy extended to your cause by the despots and aristocracies of Europe. You have succeeded in throwing back civilization for many years, and have made of the country that was the freest, happiest, proudest, richest, and most progressive but two short years ago, a vast temple of mourning, doubt, anxiety, and privation, our manufacture, of all but war material nearly paralyzed, the inventive spirit which was forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag, that carried respect everywhere now mocked by enemies who think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to become a mere tradition of the past.
For all these results, Mr. Davis, and for the three hundred thousand lives already sacrificed on both sides in the war, some pouring out their blood on the battle-field, and others, fever-stricken, wasting away to death in over-crowded hospitals, you and the fellow miscreants who have been your associates in this conspiracy are responsible. Of you and them it may with truth be said, that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could be collected in one pool, the whole Government of your Confederacy might swim in it!
I am aware that this in not the language in which the prevailing etiquette of our army is in the habit of considering your conspiracy. It has come to pass, though what instrumentalities you are best able to decide, that the greatest and worst crime ever attempted against the human family has been treated in certain quarters as though it were a mere error of judgment on the part of some gifted friends; a thing to be regretted, of course, as causing more or less disturbance to the relations of amity and esteem heretofore existing between those charged with the repression of such eccentricities and the eccentric actors; in fact, as a slight political miscalculation or peccadillo, rather than as an outrage involving the desolation of a continent, and demanding the promptest and severest retribution within the power of human law.
For myself, I have never been able to take this view of the matter. During a time of active service, I have seen the seeds of this conspiracy planted in the rank soil of slavery, and the growth watered by just such trickings of a courtesy alike false to justice, expediency and our eternal future. Had we at an earlier day commenced to call things by their right names, and to look at the hideous features of slavery with our ordinary common eyesight and common sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred thousand more men alive today on American soil, and our country would never for a moment have forfeited her proud position as the highest exemplar of the blessings--moral, intellectual and material--to be derived from a free form of Government.
Whether your intention of hanging me and those of my staff, and other officers who were engaged in organizing the First South Carolina Volunteers, in case we are taken prisoners in battle, will be likely to benefit your cause or not, is a matter mainly for your own consideration. For us, our profession makes the sacrifice of life a contingency ever present and always to be accepted; and although such a form of death as your order proposes, is not that to the contemplation of which soldiers have trained themselves, I feel well assured, both for myself and those included in my sentence, that we could die in no manner more damaging to your abominable Rebellion and the abominable institution which is its origin.
The South has already tried one hanging experiment, but not with a success, one would think, to its repetition, John Brown, who was well known to me in Kansas, and who will be known, in appreciative history through centuries which will only recall your name followed by curses, once entered Virginia with seventeen men and armes. The terror caused by the presence of this idea, and the dauntless courage which prompted the assertion of his faith against all odds, I need not now recall. The history is too familiar and too painful. "Old Ossawatomie" was caught and hung; his seventeen men were killed, captured or dispersed, and several of them shared his fate. Portions of his skin were tanned. I am told, and circulated as relics dear to the barbarity of the slaveholding heart. But more than a million of armed white men, Mr. Davis, are to-day marching South, in practical acknowledgment that they regard the hanging of three years ago as the murder of a martyr; and as they march to a battle which has the emancipation of all slaves as one of the most glorious results, his name is on their lips; to the music of his memory their marching feet keep time; and as they sling knapsacks, each one becomes aware that he is an armed apostle of the faith preached by him.
"Who has gone to be a soldier
In the army of the Lord!"
I am content, if such be the will of Providence, to ascend the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and I rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless the strife, the less blood must be shed in it eventually.
In conclusion, let me assure you, that I rejoice with my whole heart that your order in my case, and that of my officers, if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future; and that if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future and that we shall be able to treat rebellion as it deserves, and give to the felony of treason a felon's death.
Very obediently yours,
David Hunter
General David Hunter's Second Letter to Jefferson Davis
The United States flag must protect all its defenders, white, black, or yellow. Several negroes in the employ of the Government in the Western Department have been cruelly murdered by your authorities and others sold into slavery. Each outrage of this kind against the laws of war and humanity which may take place in this department shall be followed by the immediate execution of the rebel of highest rank in my possession. Man for man, these executions will certainly take place for every one sold into slavery, worse than death. On your authorities will rest the responsibility of having inaugurated this barbarous policy, and you will be held responsible in this world and in the world to come for all the blood thus shed.
In the month of August last you declared all those engaged in arming the negroes to fight for their country to be felons, and directed the immediate execution of all such as should be captured. I have given you long enough to reflect on your folly. I now give you notice that unless this order is immediately revoked I will at once cause the execution of every rebel officer and every rebel slaveholder in my possession. This sad state of things may be kindly ordered by an all-wise Providence to induce the good people of the North to act earnestly and to realize that they are at war. Thousands of lives may thus be saved.
The poor negro in fighting for liberty in its truest sense, and Mr. Jefferson has beautifully said, "In such a war there is no attribute of the Almighty which will induce him to fight on the side of the oppressor."
You say you are fighting for liberty. Yes, you are fighting for liberty -- liberty to keep 4,000,000 of your fellow-beings in ignorance and degradation; liberty to separate parents and children, husband and wife, brother and sister; liberty to steal the products of their labor, exacted with many a cruel lash and bitter tear; liberty to seduce their wives and daughters, and to sell your own children into bondage; liberty to kill these children with impunity, when the murder cannot be proven by one of pure white blood. This is the kind of liberty - the liberty to do wrong - which Satan, chief of the fallen angels, was contending for when he was cast into hell.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,
D. HUNTER
Major-General, Commanding" [The emphasis in bold is mine and not the author's]."
From “Kearny the Magnificent” by Roger Galton
NorthWestern
“Having left Joseph Hooker in command of the Army of the Potomac, with strict orders not to bring on a general engagement unless attacked, Kearny arrived in Washington with General John F. Reynolds…
“Well General Kearny, you will have seen General Hunter’s letters in the newspapers no doubt. What do you make of our mess?”
“Mr President, with these words General Hunter has raised every voice in the North against slavery and every hand against the rebels…”
“Well General Kearny if I am to act on his words, on the will of Congress, and indeed upon what seems now to be the will of the people I shall need your help and advice…”
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Both of the Hunter letters are real and were suppressed by the Administration. (I have changed only one word in total!).
Shit, seriously?
Whoa.
PM me with a Link to the website if you have them, i mean, wow!
EDIT: Never mind, i found them.
So...
If America is the new Sparta... Then who are the new Helots?
Maybe TheKnightIrish means that America will be as strong as Sparta (minus the slavery, of course) was back in the ancient days.
I think that the title is meant to be interpreted as: "How will the war end, with a Glorious Union (i.e. the North winning) , or with a New Sparta? (i.e. the CSA gaining independence with the blacks taking on the role of the Helots)So...
If America is the new Sparta... Then who are the new Helots?
The Sparta reference will become more meaningful after the war and through the next couple of presidential elections...
The CSA will truly see the Union enraged, and, in the vernacular of the day, it will be"war to the knife and the knife to the hilt." This sort of action, which can't be denied or covered will most definitely hurt the CSA in England and France - I can see the British enforcing their neutrality laws with more vigor and making the smuggling of arms from the UK to the CSA difficult, and probably make the construction, and arming of such vessels as the Alabama impossible (as the UK government turned a blind eye to the construction of such vessels until much later in the war).
With the arms flow (and other key industrial products) being reduced from the continental side, the blockade will pinch even worse and the lack of Confederate industrial capability will make life even more difficult for the CSA.
With the arms flow (and other key industrial products) being reduced from the continental side, the blockade will pinch even worse and the lack of Confederate industrial capability will make life even more difficult for the CSA.
Chapter Twenty Three The Hunter is Himself Trapped Part III
Chapter Twenty Three
The Hunter is Himself Trapped
Part III
The Hunter is Himself Trapped
Part III
From “Kearny and the Radicals” by Hugh W. McGrath
New England Press 1992
“The critical question that Lincoln and Kearny discussed was the Administration’s response to General Hunter’s murder, and indeed the murder of the 35 pioneers. At the time it was widely believed that General Kearny had overcome the President’s reluctance to make any executions…
General Kearny believed that the executions of Union officers and enlisted men could not go unanswered. In order to prevent further deaths, and indeed to maintain the confidence of the officers and men in the Union army, he would act on his own Special Order 54 if the Administration did not. A general officer of the rebel service would be executed in return for the execution of General Hunter. Furthermore 35 rebel prisoners would likewise be executed for the deaths of the 35 enlisted pioneers…
Much debate and conjecture has arisen over the make up of the 35 rebel prisoners. They were all officers, and of the 35, 33 were unmarried men. Many have seen the hand of Lincoln in the supposed random selection of these men, in an attempt to minimise the deaths to those without wives and children. However the critical decision was Kearny’s in that all those to be shot were officers. As Kearny later wrote “I cannot blame the brave southern men for fighting in the name of their states, their homes and their families. I can and do blame the late rebellion on the officers and elected officials who have led their section and indeed the whole country into this storm of treason and bloodshed”. Kearny’s attitude to the leadership of the south, rather than its whole population, was to influence Lincoln and indeed the policy of the Administration…”
From “A Day That Will Live in Infamy - the Hunter Controversy” by Prof. J. K. Lang
LSU 2003
“The selection of the officers to be executed was by no means random. To the extent a misguided President sought to limit the sentence to unmarried officers, Secretary Stanton sought to ensure the sentence fell upon those most responsible. Of the officers chosen their origin was as follows:
• South Carolina: 10
• Georgia: 7
• Virginia: 4
• Alabama: 4
• Mississippi: 4
• Tennessee: 2
• North Carolina: 2
• Texas: 1
• Louisiana: 1
Just as the fire-eaters of South Carolina were responsible for secession so to were they held responsible for the bloody turn to murder in their section’s methods…”
From “The War Between the States” by Otis R. Mayhew
Sword & Musket 1992
“Until the death of General Hunter, many jokes had been told about General Robert Toombs of Georgia and General Nathanial Banks of Massachusetts. Though many subsequently captured high ranking prisoners had been exchanged since, these two remained in enemy hands. It was widely noted that Jefferson Davis’ regime was as happy to be without Toombs as Generals Halleck and Kearny were to remain without Banks.
The humor ended when Secretary Stanton confirmed the selection of Robert Augustus Toombs, former Secretary of State for the so called Confederate Government and currently holding the rank of Brigadier General in that service, to be executed in compliance with Special Order 54…”
Brigadier General Robert A. Toombs
From “The Martyr - The Biography of David Hunter” by Ambrose E. Edward Sr.
New England Press 1927
“Though much credit was accorded Phil Kearny for the action of the administration in enforcing Special Order 54, we now know that through the vacillating Lincoln, Kearny was responsible for the cowardly attempt to allow the treasonous administration of Jefferson Davis to save the men in its vile service…”
From “The War Between the States” by Otis R. Mayhew
Sword & Musket 1992
“Via the prisoner cartel truce an ultimatum was passed from Lincoln to Davis. It was Lincoln's last role of the dice. Unless the officer or officers responsible for the executions were handed over to the lawfully mandated authorities of the United States with 10 days, and General Orders 60 and 111 were revoked in a like period, General Robert A. Toombs and 35 officers in the service of the so called Confederate States, would be put to death…”
From “The Unyielding Office – the Presidency of Jefferson Davis” by James L. Caney
Buffalo
“Davis was in an invidious position. He could in good conscience disavow the executions. They had not been carried out in accordance with the terms of General Orders 60 and 111. Furthermore it would have given him great personal satisfaction to hand over Robert Barnwell Rhett to the Federals for execution. The man, according to Davis, “thought himself the soul and conscience of our cause and thus believes himself above any law or office, most particularly my own…”.
Politically such an act would be impossible. Rhett was now the darling of the fire-eaters and many previously less radical elements from the Deep South. Even now a bill demanding Colonel Rhett’s elevation to Brigadier General was now on the floor on the Confederate Congress. With Richmond threatened by the Army of the Potomac for a second time, many in Davis’ cabinet feared they might soon be relying on the hospitality of the Deep South…
Davis’ response was clear, “David Hunter, by the laws of the Confederate States of America a criminal, was put to death in accordance with those laws specifically for, but not limited to, the capitol crime of inciting servile insurrection. No other citizens of this nation or of the United States of America were executed on that day as you have claimed…This government will continue to deal with its citizens and its servile population according to its own laws and will not tolerate inference in its institutions from a foreign power…The execution of 36 officers of this country’s service would be crime against the recognised practices of war, and this government will have no option but to retaliate in kind…”
From “The Martyr - The Biography of David Hunter” by Ambrose E. Edward Sr.
New England Press 1927
“The rebel power, by its own admission, did not even consider the negros as citizens of any country. They were simply disposable parts of a servile people. Jefferson Davis was once again condemned by his own wicked hand…”
From “A Day That Will Live in Infamy - the Hunter Controversy” by Prof. J. K. Lang
LSU 2003
“On 18th May 1863 36 men were shot by order of the President. President Lincoln would not allow anyone else to take responsibility, though both General Kearny and Secretary Stanton are on record as offering to sign the Order on their own authority…
In a moving last minute plea, the Pennsylvania soldier responsible for the capture of General Toombs, wrote to both the President and General Kearny pleading for clemency for the southerner…
When asked for his final words, General Toombs took the opportunity to rail, not against his executioners, but against Jefferson Davis. “Mr. Davis, your actions at the head of our revolutionary government have been the suicide, the murder of our cause, and have lost us every friend in the North. By your actions you have wantonly struck a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions formerly quiet are now swarming out and will sting us to death. It was unnecessary; you have put us in the wrong; it is fatal”…
The Executions
From “Yankee Dawdle - the Memoirs of a Private of Pennsylvania” by Anonymous
“I resolved to die before I would take another prisoner. War is pure murder…”
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Kinda reminds me about the Japanese WWII quote about attacking the US is similar to waking a sleeping giant. Nice parallel.
Its a slightly mangled quote actually from Toombs about the attack on Fort Sumter.
Chapter Twenty Four Sabres & Shovels Part I
Chapter Twenty Four
Sabres & Shovels
Part I
Sabres & Shovels
Part I
From “Kearny the Magnificent” by Roger Galton
NorthWestern
“The military aspects of the Lincoln-Kearny conference, in early May are easy to summarise. The President had no intention of allowing General Burnside to remain in command of the Army of the James. Nor indeed did Stanton have any intention of allowing General Butler to resume after the debacle of Blackwater and his unauthorised return to Washington…
Lincoln had indicated his intention to reorganize the leadership of the Army of the James, which is why Kearny had brought along General John F. Reynolds. Lincoln was happy to confirm the transfer of the commander of I Corps to command of the Army of the James. General Burnside would be reassigned to the Department of the Ohio. In return Reynolds would receive Horatio G. Wright to command one of his corps. Kearny strongly recommended General Peck to General Reynolds..”
Generals Wright, Robinson, Warren, Hays and Howe
From “The War Between the States” by Otis R. Mayhew
Sword & Musket 1992
“For the advance on Richmond a substantial reorganisation of several corps was necessary. General Winfield Hancock would take command of I Corps. His third division would be commanded by General John C. Robinson. Its former commander, George Meade, was to replace Couch at the head IV Corps. Kearny had offered the command of IV Corps to Isaac Rodman, but General Rodman refused to leave his old division behind unless expressly ordered. Kearny decided to let Rodman remain at his post for the moment.
Of Richardson’s divisional commanders, only Gibbon remained. General Gouverneur K. Warren would take command of the I Division (formerly Hancock’s) and General Alexander Hays III Division (formerly French’s). Finally General Albion P. Howe was confirmed as Slocum's replacement in command of VI Corps' I Division…”
From “Fighting Joe Hooker” by Herbert Walter
Buffalo 1999
"The Army of the Potomac was stationed near Ashland under Hooker. Sedgwick had now brought up V Corps to Hanover Court House, while Reno remained at Wickham's Station. For the first time the bulk of the cavalry had been gathered in one place under Wynn Davidson. The divisions of Buford, Pleasanton, and Davis were all to hand...
Hooker may have been ordered not to bring on an engagement in Kearny's absence, but he thought this interruption in the army's advance "damn irregular". Lee would have further time to entrench around Richmond. Hooker intended to find out what Lee was up to and if possible impede Lee's plans. That job was to fall to Wynn Davidson..."
Union cavalry patrols scout towards Richmond
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