Campfire and battlefield : $b an illustrated history of the campaigns and conflicts of the great Civil WarRidpath, John Clark
History
Campfire and battlefield : $b an illustrated history of the campaigns and conflicts of the great Civil War
Ridpath, John Clark
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Pictorial works
Frémont's and Hunter's attempts at emancipation created a great
excitement, the Democratic journals declaring that the struggle was
being "turned into an abolition war," and many Union men in the border
States expressing the gravest apprehensions as to the consequences.
The commanders were by no means of one mind on the subject. Gen.
Thomas Williams, commanding in the Department of the Gulf, ordered
that all fugitive slaves should be expelled from his camps and sent
beyond the lines; and Col. Halbert E. Paine, of the Fourth Wisconsin
Regiment, who refused to obey the order, on the ground that it was a
"violation of law for the purpose of returning fugitives to rebels,"
was deprived of his command and placed under arrest. Col. Daniel R.
Anthony, of the Seventh Kansas Regiment, serving in Tennessee, ordered
that men coming in and demanding the privilege of searching for
fugitive slaves should be turned out of the camp, and that no officer
or soldier in his regiment should engage in the arrest and delivery of
fugitives to their masters; and for this Colonel Anthony received from
his superior officer the same treatment that had been accorded to
Colonel Paine. The division of sentiment ran through the entire army.
Soldiers that would rob a granary, or cut down trees, or reduce fences
to firewood, without the slightest compunction, still recognized {186}
the ancient taboo, and expressed the nicest scruples in regard to
property in slaves.
On the 14th of July the President recommended to Congress the passage
of a bill for the payment, in United States interest-bearing bonds, to
any State that should abolish slavery, of an amount equal to the value
of all slaves within its borders according to the census of 1860; and
at the same time he asked the Congressional representatives of the
border States to use their influence with their constituents to bring
about such action in those States. The answer was not very favorable;
but Maryland did abolish slavery before the close of the war, in
October, 1864. On the very day in which the popular vote of that State
decided to adopt a new constitution without slavery, October 12th,
died Roger B. Taney, a native of Maryland, Chief Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, who had been appointed by the first distinctly
pro-slavery President, and from that bench had handed down the
Dred-Scott decision, which was calculated to render forever impossible
any amelioration of the condition of the negro race.
On July 22, 1862, all the National commanders were ordered to employ
as many negroes as could be used advantageously for military and naval
purposes, paying them for their labor and keeping a record as to their
ownership, "as a basis on which compensation could be made in proper
cases."
[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.]
[Illustration: REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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