Notes
Introduction
1. 10 Op. Attorney Gen. 382, 383 (Nov. 29, 1862).
2. States chartered and incorporated towns, businesses, educational institutions, and professional and religious associations, which then self-regulated members via rules and bylaws. Novak, “Citizenship,” 87–101, 105–8. Maltz, “Fourteenth Amendment,” 320–21. Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 871–72. Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243, 247, 250–51 (1833) (Bill of Rights did not apply to the states; states, not the federal government, are the guarantor of individual rights); see also 10 Op. Attorney Gen. 382, 385 (Nov. 29, 1862).
3. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, 8. Foner, Story of American Freedom, xvi–xviii, xx. Shklar, American Citizenship, 1–3, 14, 26, 52, 64, 67–72, 99. Novak, “Citizenship,” 84–87.
4. Citizenship links social, political, and legal history. Smith, Civic Ideals, 30–31. Novak, “Citizenship,” 84–87.
5. Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 873–74. Novak, “Citizenship,” 105–9. Richards, Conscience and the Constitution, 113–14. Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., 2615 (May 31, 1864).
6. For a synopsis of the debate about whether its drafters intended the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to reach both private and governmental discrimination, see Maltz, Civil Rights, the Constitution, and Congress, 70–78. See also Finkelman, “Prelude to the Fourteenth Amendment.” 417 n. 12; Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 920–21; Smith, Civic Ideals, 286.
7. 10 Op. Attorney Gen. 382, 389, 394–95, 401, 409 (Nov. 29, 1862). Lieber, Amendments of the Constitution, 15–16, 27–28, 36, 39. See also Benedict, The Constitutional Amendment, 2 (criticizing in 1866 that the Fourteenth Amendment “declares who are citizens, but does not declare, as it should do, that all citizens shall owe paramount allegiance to the United States, and to no other nation, Government or State, and shall be protected by the United States in the rights of citizenship”).
8. For how emancipation led to the question of what freedom meant as a practical matter, see Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom. Philadelphia American, quoted in Kaczorowski, “To Begin the Nation Anew,” 53. Spear, Citizen’s Duty in the Present Crisis…October 7th, 1866, 16. See also Jenkins, Our Democratic Republic, 26–28 (urging in 1868 uniform suffrage laws so as to form a homogenous national republic).
9. Moore, Constitutional Rights and Powers of the People, 3–65. Ackerman, We the People: Transformations.
10. Loring, Oration…December 20, 1866, 8. Frank, With Ballot and Bayonet, vii, 2, 9, 11, 23.
11. Richards, Conscience and the Constitution, 119, 123, 258.
12. Addresses of the Hon. W.D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 7. Vorenberg, Final Freedom, 82–84.
13. Frederick Douglass, “Govern with Magnanimity and Courage,” Philadelphia, September 6, 1866, in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4:139–46, 140 (“adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, by the old bell in Independence Hall”). Christian Recorder, July 1, 1865 (“the American people” had “sadly degenerated from their first principles,” and it was “time that these errors should be corrected.”).
14. Addresses by His Excellency Governor John A. Andrew…Wednesday, August 27, 1862, 4.
15. The contrast of both groups with the experience of German-born Americans during the war is instructive by its differences. According to historian Christian Keller, language barriers and Civil War experiences, including being made scapegoats for the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, hindered German inclusion, and made many German-born Americans become more withdrawn into their ethnic community after the Civil War, Carl Schurz and Francis Lieber notwithstanding. Keller, Chancellorsville and the Germans.
16. Sixth National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…September, 1867, 14. For examples of “whiteness studies,” see Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, and Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness.
17. For legislative histories of the Civil War amendments and other statutes, see work by William E. Nelson, Xi Wang, Earl M. Maltz, Michael Vorenberg, Herman Belz, Harold Hyman, and Michael Les Benedict. I am influenced by Michael Vorenberg’s statement that “the fluid interaction between politics, law, and society in the Civil War era” defined the history of the Thirteenth Amendment, in which “political tactics, legal thought, and popular ideology were always intertwined, and, at every moment, unanticipated events interceded and led to unexpected consequences.” Vorenberg, Final Freedom, 3, 4–7, 107–11, 130. Richards, Conscience and the Constitution, 14, 81, 98–99, 108–9, 113–14, 137, 144, 153. Maltz, Civil Rights, The Constitution, and Congress, 5, 7, 11, 29. Lloyd, “Revising the Republic,” 71.
18. Wendell Phillips, “Under the Flag,” in Phillips, Speeches, Lectures, and Letters, 396–414: 414. Francis Lieber denied that Americans in the 1860s held greater wisdom than the Founders, but he recognized the need for revision due to the Civil War and the country’s territorial, economic, and technological expansion. Lieber, Amendments of the Constitution, 4, 8–9, 12. John M. Stearns honored founding documents which articulated “the radical rights of man,” but he branded “toleration of slavery” as “a departure from principle” and argued for a corrective moment to bring Founding ideals into reality. Stearns, The Rights of Man…An Address…July the Fourth 1866, 11, 12, 13. See also Loring, Oration…December 20, 1866, 23. Vorenberg, Final Freedom, 4–7, 107–11. Lloyd, “Revising the Republic,” 71. Kaczorowski, “To Begin the Nation Anew,” 49. Richards, Conscience and the Constitution, 14, 98–99, 108–9, 113–14, 137, 144, 153.
19. Davis, Speech…September 24, 1863, 12, 13, 14, 19. Boutwell, Reconstruction…July 4, 1865, 5, 6, 8, 10. See also Kelley, Safeguards of Personal Liberty…June 22, 1865, 2, 9, 12–13. Dickson, Address…October 3, 1865, 5, 12 (“This solution introduces no new element, no new principle into our Government. It is but the complete application of the principles of our fathers, set forth in the declaration of independence.”); 20 (“Our fathers, yielding to the embarrassments of the day permitted negro slavery to remain, with the expectation, it is true, that it would soon pass away,” and it was thus the duty of the country to bring this “expectation” to fruition). Loring, Safe and Honorable…July 4, 1866, 5 (“Tell the signers of the Declaration of Independence, how the truths which they uttered were borne on to the glorious result, when emancipation was proclaimed, and the bondman went free; tell the founders of our Constitution, how that great instrument became, through fire and blood, the supreme law of the land, and the Union was preserved.”).
20. Snay, Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites.
21. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 2–3, 5, 7, 11.
22. Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 903–5. John H. Schaar called the conscious embrace by groups of unifying principles “covenanted patriotism,” and it intersects with Melinda Lawson’s finding that organizations such as the Union League promoted the idea that “loyalty, not race, defined a patriot.” Schaar, Legitimacy in the Modern State, 287–96. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 112. Nativism tinged the Union League in the 1870s, as the elites who led the organization considered urban reform as well as Reconstruction issues. Gordon, Orange Riots, 14, 204, 209.
23. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 11, 19–20, 26, 29–32, 88–90, 110–11, 115, 117–18, 120. See Francis Lieber, No Party Now; But All For Our Country; and Joseph Fransioli, Patriotism, A Christian Virtue: A Sermon Preached By The Rev. Joseph Fransioli, At St. Peter’s (Catholic) Church, Brooklyn, July 26th, 1863 for two calls in 1863 for national patriotism and putting national interest above that of party.
Chapter 1. The Crisis of Citizenship in the 1850s
1. Kettner, Citizenship, 323–24. Kettner, “Revolutionary Era,” 208–42.
2. Finkelman, “Prelude to the Fourteenth Amendment,” 480. Kennedy, Population…1860, xii.
3. Kettner, Citizenship, 300, 311–12.
4. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Kettner, Citizenship, 312. Levine, Politics of Representative Identity, 62.
5. Oregon’s 1859 state constitutional prohibition on black migration went unenforced, as did an 1851 Iowa law fining blacks who remained in the state after three days. Indiana enforced its 1851 prohibition against black migration, and the state’s black population remained almost identical from 1850 to 1860. Illinois enforced, much less strictly than did Indiana, its 1853 legislation mandating the expulsion and fining of black immigrants, and its black population grew in the 1850s by almost 2,200. Paul Finkelman claims racist legislation in the North began to abate after the 1830s, despite continuing prejudice in practice. Finkelman sees the Civil War as an accelerant for a process of enlarging rights for Northern blacks that began before the 1860s, in contrast to Leon Litwack’s view that “change did not seem imminent” for them. Finkelman, “Prelude to the Fourteenth Amendment,” 417–21, 425–27, 437–41. Litwack, Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860, 279. Maltz, “Fourteenth Amendment Concepts,” 306. Nieman, Promises to Keep, 28. Roberts v. The City of Boston, 59 Mass. 198 (1850).
6. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 9–12. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 20–22. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 17–19. Pinheiro, “Anti-Catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,” 72–73. O’Leary, To Die For, 17.
7. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 45, 51–52. Fanning, Nineteenth Century Chicago Irish, 2. Brown, Irish American Nationalism, 18. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 315. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 29, 36. Lawrence J. McCaffrey, “The Irish American Dimension,” 3. Kennedy, Population…1860, 91–92. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 25–29, 50–51.
8. Massachusetts removed 1,537 immigrant paupers in 1855 and 3,267 in 1858. Parker, “Legal Construction of Immigrants in Antebellum Massachusetts,” 607, 622–24, 629, 631. Ryan, Beyond the Ballot Box, 85. O’Connor, Boston Irish, 65. Levine, The Irish and Irish Politicians, 58–59. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 60, 61, 63, 74, 76, 86, 91, 93–94, 99, 115, 121. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 83, 84. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 319–20. Lord, Sexton, and Harrington, History of the Archdiocese of Boston, 2:453–54. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 34, 41, 43.
9. Byron, Irish America, 55–56, 63–65, 169, 174 (discussing Albany). Wang, “Federal Enforcement Laws,” 1035 n. 86. Holmes, Irish in Wisconsin, 27. Foreword by Lawrence J. McCaffrey in Fanning, Nineteenth Century Chicago Irish, viii. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 315. McCaffrey, “Irish American Dimension,” 7. Skerrett, “Catholic Dimension,” 22–60: 26.
10. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, ix, 29, 50–51, 104–7, 127–28, 145, 156.
11. Ibid., 135–41.
12. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 137–41. Mulkern, Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts, 211 n. 55. The margin of victory came from Massachusetts’s more urban counties of Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, and Norfolk. Banks, Address of His Excellency Nathaniel P. Banks to the Two Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 6, 1860, 11.
13. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 145–57. An email exchange with Professor Anbinder provided insight into the subject of this paragraph.
14. Rev. Daniel W. Cahill, August 13, [1861] (Pilot, September 21, 1861).
15. Pilot, September 23, 1839; July 20, 1861; February 15, 1862; August 16, 1862. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 133. Hernon, Celts, Catholics and Copperheads, 65. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 73. McCaffrey, “Irish American Dimension,” 5. Citizen, January 14, 1854 (Mitchel), in Truslow, “Peasants into Patriots,” 53.
16. Frederick Douglass’ Paper, January 12, 1855 (William J. Watkins to Frederick Douglass, Ellicottville, [New York?], January 3, 1855); January 19, 1855; August 17, 1855 (Julian); November 16, 1855. National Era, January 11, 1855.
17. Hall, “‘Faithful Account of the Race,’” 157–58, 161, 165–66. Remond quoted in Lloyd, “Revising the Republic,” 76, 78–79.
18. Nell, Services of Colored Americans, 6. Von Frank, Anthony Burns, 48. Hall, “‘Faithful Account of the Race,’” 157–58, 161, 165–66. Lloyd, “Revising the Republic,” 76, 78–79. Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Illinois, Held in the City of Alton, Nov. 13th, 14th and 15th, 1856 in Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865: 68–82, 68, 70, 75–77. For an example of a petition from blacks relying on the historical point raised by Nell, see the Memorial of Thirty Thousand Disfranchised Citizens of Philadelphia to the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives (1855).
19. Garrison, The Loyalty and Devotion of Colored Americans in the Revolution and War of 1812. Livermore, “An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, and as Soldiers,” in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 86–248. Hall, “‘Faithful Account of the Race,’” 157–58, 161, 165–66, 170–72.
20. Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity, 11–12, 49, 75–76, 90–91, 101, 111, 124–25, 136–39; The Nation, March 31, 1849; Irish American, June 29, 1850; April 14, 1850, quoted on 4, 132–33. Brown, Irish American Nationalism, 28–31. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 338.
21. Brown, Irish American Nationalism, 20–23, 28–31, 41. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 8, 277, 279, 311, 337 (Irish News (New York), April 17, 1858, and Phoenix (New York), October 28, 1859, quotes), 340–43. Gleeson, Irish in the South, 7, 60, 73. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 35. McCaffrey, “Irish American Dimension,” 11.
22. Levine, Politics of Representative Identity, 6, 8–11, 65–66, 183–85, 190, 197–98, 216. Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest, 238. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, xii. Moses, Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 11. Brown and Shaw, “Separate Nations,” 26, 27. Bell, “Negro Nationalism in the 1850s,” 100.
23. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 247–48.
24. Watkins, Our Rights As Men: An Address Delivered in Boston, before the Legislative Committee on the Militia, February 24, 1853, 4–6, 10–19. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 263.
25. Pinheiro, “Anti-Catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,” 70–72, 81, 85–86.
26. Pilot, May 5, 1860. Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 162 (calling Irish Americans “the Swiss Guards of the slave power.”). Von Frank, Anthony Burns, 72. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 2–4. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 89 (Liberator, September 19, 1854), 136. Dedham Gazette, July 1, 1854 in Mulkern, Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts, 65–66. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 13. Citizen, July 8, 1854, in Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity, 132–33. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 153–54, 157–58.
27. For an 1860 critique of Banks’s veto, see Bird, Review of Gov. Banks’ Veto. John C. Tucker, Pilot, February 19, 1858, quoted in Bean, “Puritan versus Celt: 1850–1860,” 88.
28. New York Times, November 17, 1860; January 9, 1861; March 16, 1861.
29. Ibid., March 16, 1861.
30. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, ix. New York Times, November 17, 1860; January 9, 1861; March 16, 1861. O’Gorman, Speech of the Defendant’s Counsel, Richard O’Gorman: State of New York vs. Col. M. Corcoran.
Chapter 2. The Question of Armed Service
1. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 186, 187 (Pilot, November 3, 1860, quote). Gibson, Attitudes of the New York Irish, 105.
2. First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood…November 1863, 10. Pilot, February 2, 1861; May 4, 1861; June 8, 1861 (quotes); August 2, 1862. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 23, 25.
3. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 70–71.
4. Irish-American, November 17, 1860; April 20, 1861. Pilot, November 2, 1861. “Marie,” “Wake! Sons of Erin!” in Pilot, August 9, 1862 (“no thought”). Friendly Sons of St. Patrick resolutions quoted in Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 73. Irish News, April 27, 1861, quoted in Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity, 134. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 36. Truslow, “Peasants into Patriots,” 69, 73. See also Pilot, June 14, 1862; Irish-American, April 27, 1861, and May 4, 1861; and Maguire, The Irish in America, 550.
5. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 192–93, 195. Michael A. Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., October 2, 1861 (Pilot, November 2, 1861).
6. Pilot, June 8, 1861; see also October 19, 1861; August 2, 1862. Peter Welsh to Margaret Welsh, c. February 1863; to Margaret Welsh, near Falmouth, Va., February 3, 1863; to Patrick Prendergast, near Falmouth, Va., June 1, 1863, in Kohl, Irish Green and Union Blue, 62–63, 65, 100–104. Thomas F. Meagher to B. S. Treanor, New York, September 5, 1861 (Pilot, September 14, 1861). Irish-American, January 11, 1862.
7. “A Constitutional Unionist,” Washington, June 26, 1861 (Pilot, July 13, 1861). “Spectator,” St. Paul, Minn., July 21, 1861 (Pilot, August 10, 1861). Spectator’s missive shared the page with unqualifiedly patriotic articles.
8. Pilot, August 24, 1861.
9. Gleeson, Irish in the South, 2, 141–43, 156, 158.
10. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, ix–x, 67, 207–8. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades; and Frank, With Ballot and Bayonet, regarding ideology and Civil War soldiers.
11. Athearn, Meagher, 1–89.
12. Ibid., 92–101. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 115.
13. New York Times, August 30, 1861.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid. For a similar Meagher speech, see ibid., October 7, 1861. In another speech, Meagher cited historical examples of how war invigorated national power and predicted that war would solidify the U.S. global position. Ibid., October 26, 1861.
16. Ibid., September 16, 1861.
17. Ibid., September 21, 24, 1861. Quotes from Boston Morning Journal, September 24, 1861, in Truslow, “Peasants into Patriots,” 75–76.
18. New York Times, July 26, 1862; see also July 30, 1862, for a similar Meagher speech emphasizing Ireland.
19. Thomas F. Meagher to William J. Onhan, Camp California, Va., March 7, 1862, in ibid., March 22, 1862.
20. Kohl, Irish Green and Union Blue, 3–4.
21. Peter Welsh to Margaret Welsh, c. February 1863, in ibid., 62–63.
22. Peter Welsh to Margaret Welsh, near Falmouth, Va., February 3, 1863, in ibid., 65.
23. Ibid., at 65–67.
24. Peter Welsh to Margaret Welsh, near Falmouth, Va., February 3, 1863; to Margaret Welsh, near Falmouth, Va., February 8, 1863, in ibid., 65–67, 69–70.
25. Peter Welsh to Patrick Prendergast, Falmouth, Va., June 1, 1863, in ibid., 100–104.
26. Ibid.
27. New York Times, August 19, 1862. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 53.
28. Green, Letters and Discussions, 3, 9. Pittsburgh Gazette, April 18, 1861, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 19–20. William A. Jones to Simon Cameron, Oberlin, Ohio, November 27, 1861, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 80–81. Marrs, Life and History, 16.
29. Liberator, May 10, 1861; May 17, 1861, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 20–22. Clark, Black Brigade of Cincinnati, 3–5. Seraile, “Struggle,” 215, 218–19. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 5–6. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1 vol. 6:176; ser. 3, vol. 1:107, 133, 609–10, 626 (hereafter cited as OR).
30. O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 51, 53, 67 (Morris in Liberator, April 26, 1861). Liberator, May 17, 1861 in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 20–22.
31. Congress passed a stronger Second Confiscation Act on July 17, 1862. Siddali, From Property to Person, 3, 75, 81, 92, 127.
32. Pine and Palm, May 25, 1861 (New York City); Anglo-African, October 19, 1861 (Troy); William H. Parham to Jacob C. White, October 12, 1861, all in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 30, 34, 35.
33. Green, Letters and Discussions, 3–4, 6, 10–11, 13–16, 31.
34. Ibid., 18–21, 24, 25, 31, 32–33, 34–35.
35. Cong. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess., 408 (January 21, 1862), 488 (January 24, 1862), 1321 (March 21, 1862), 2684 (June 12, 1862), 2802 (June 19, 1862).
36. Siddali, From Property to Person, 167.
37. Cong. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess., 3198 (July 9, 1862).
38. Ibid., 3198–99, 3203–5 (July 9, 1862).
39. Ibid., 3227–37 (July 10, 1862); 3249–57 (July 11, 1862); 3320–22 (July 14, 1862); 3337–51 (July 15, 1862); 3397–98 (July 16, 1862); 3403 (July 17, 1862). The act as to aliens is at 12 Stat. 594, Sec. 21. The act as to blacks is at 12 Stat. 597.
40. Ibid., 37th Cong. 2nd Sess., 3382–83 (July 16, 1862).
41. Howard, “Civil War in Kentucky,” 246, 250. Smith, “Recruitment of Negro Soldiers in Kentucky,” 364–90. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 27–28. The Pilot quoted in Liberator, May 15, 1863; Boston Daily Advertiser, May 28, 1863 (“obedience,” “servility,” “music”), both quoted in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 27–28. Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 195–96 (“blowed of”). Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 29–30.
42. O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, 1–3, 5, 6, 14–15. New York Union League Club, Report of the Committee on Volunteering, 3–10. Addresses of the Hon. W.D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 1. Seraile, “Struggle,” 229.
43. Joseph E. Williams, New Bern, N.C., June 23, 1863 (Christian Recorder, July 4, 1863), in Redkey, Grand Army, 90–91. James H. Gooding, [undated] (Mercury, March 3, 1863); Readville, Ma., April 18, 1863 (Mercury, April 21, 1863), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 4, 13.
44. Addresses of the Hon. W. D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 5–7.
45. Levine, Politics of Representative Identity, 218–23.
46. Record of Action of the Convention Held at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., July 15th and 16th, 1863, for the Purpose of Facilitating the Introduction of Colored Troops into the Service of the United States, 1, 3, 5–6, 7, 8.
47. Ibid., 9–12. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 71. Kennedy, Population…in 1860, ix, xii.
48. Davis added that blacks would comprise a “guarantee” against further trouble in the South. Davis, Speech…September 24, 1863, 10–11, 23. See H. Ford Douglas, Colliersville, Tenn., January 8, 1863, in Redkey, Grand Army, 24–25, for an African American’s argument that arming blacks should end talk of colonization.
49. 12 Stat. 597 (Act of July 17, 1862). 13 Stat. 6 (Act of February 24, 1864). 13 Res. 571 (Resolution of March 3, 1865). Yacovone, Freedom’s Journey, xxx.
50. James H. Gooding, Readville, Mass., April 18, 1863 (Mercury, April 21, 1863) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 13. Milton M. Holland to the Messenger (Athens, Oh.), Norfolk, Va., January 19, 1864, in Levstik, “From Slavery to Freedom,” 12. O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, 16.
51. Schaar, Legitimacy in the Modern State, 287–96. John Higham identified nativism as a “certain kind of nationalism.” Higham, Strangers in the Land, 4–9.
Chapter 3. African Americans in Arms
1. Alexander T. Augusta, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1863 (Christian Recorder, May 30, 1863).
2. Ibid.
3. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, xi–xiii, xv. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 1–2. Vorenberg, Final Freedom, 141.
4. Brown, Negro in the American Rebellion, 280–81.
5. The work of Joseph T. Glatthaar, Donald Yacovone, Keith P. Wilson, and the editors of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, provides details on racism in the Union army.
6. Marrs, Life and History, 22. Cowden, Fifty-Ninth Regiment of United States Colored Infantry, 44–46. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 79.
7. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 61–62, 157–58, 215–26.
8. The 55th Massachusetts reveals the diversity present in some black regiments. Of the men who enlisted in that unit whose birthplace was recorded, 139 came from Pennsylvania, 222 from Ohio, 97 from Indiana, 68 from Kentucky, and 66 from Missouri, with Illinois providing 56 and New York, 23. Only 22 enlistees were born in Massachusetts. Two hundred forty seven enlistees had once been slaves, with 106 from Virginia, 30 from North Carolina, and 24 from Tennessee. One enlistee was born in Africa. Most of the volunteers—596 men—listed their job as farmer, while 76 identified themselves as laborers; 34 barbers, 50 waiters, 27 cooks, 27 teamsters, 20 sailors, 21 blacksmiths, 6 teachers, 3 engineers, a confectioner, clergyman, and a student filled the ranks. Four hundred seventy-seven of the men could read and 319 could read and write. The unit brigaded with the 35th USCI, composed of ex-slaves recruited in North Carolina. Smith, “History and Archaeology,” 21–70, 28, 30. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 110–12. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 42. Shaffer, After the Glory, 11, 16. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 12.
9. George E. Stephens, Readville, Ma., May 1, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, May 9, 1863), in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 235. James H. Gooding, Readville, Ma., May 18, 1863 (Mercury, May 20, 1863), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 21–22. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 24–30. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 5 (civilians visit the 55th Massachusetts in training camp and prepare a festival on July 4, 1863).
10. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 36–37.
11. Ibid., 36–37. Garth W. James recalled “the alternate huzza and reproach which attempted to deafen each other on our march down State street,” while Nathaniel P. Hallowell recounted that members of a “prominent club” hissed as the regiment marched past them. James, “Assault on Fort Wagner,” 13. Hallowell, “Negro as a Soldier in the War of the Rebellion,” 31.
12. Brown, Negro in the American Rebellion, 157–58.
13. Other flag presentations at Camp William Penn proved inspirational, e.g., the 25th USCI’s flag displayed a freedman broken from chains while grasping a musket and uniform. Paradis, 6th United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War, 22–23, 27–30. Wert, “Camp William Penn and the Black Soldier,” 345.
14. New York Union League Club, Report of the Committee on Volunteering, 10, 21–27, 44. New York Times, March 6, 1864; March 26, 1864; March 28, 1864. O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, 20–21. Seraile, “Struggle,” 231.
15. Thomas H. C. Hinton, New York City, March 5, 1864 (Christian Recorder, March 12, 1864). New York Union League Club, Report of the Committee on Volunteering, 39–40.
16. New York Times, March 6, 1864; March 26, 1864; March 28, 1864. Excerpts from the newspapers are from the cover of O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York. Excerpts from the New York Times on page i of the booklet noted that eight months earlier, whites “hunted down like wild beasts” blacks in New York City, yet black soldiers now marched “through our gayest avenues and our busiest thoroughfares to the pealing strains of martial music, and are everywhere saluted with waving handkerchiefs, with descending flowers, and with the acclamations and plaudits of countless beholders.” See also O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, 20–21. Seraile, “Struggle,” 231. Herald quoted in Quigley, Second Founding, 13.
17. William McCoslin, near Petersburg, Va., July 26, 1864 (Christian Recorder, August 27, 1864). Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 195–96.
18. New York Union League Club, Report of the Committee on Volunteering, 21–30 (see also ceremonies for the 20th USCI).
19. Frederickson, Inner Civil War, 30, 72–73, 154–55.
20. John C. Brock, Camp near Hanover, Va., June 5, 1864 (Christian Recorder, June 18, 1864); Brock, Camp near Petersburg, Va., October 30, 1864 (Christian Recorder, November 12, 1864), in Smith, “Brock,” 152, 161. George W. Hatton, Hampton, Va., May 1, 1864 (Christian Recorder, May 7, 1864). Marrs, Life and History, 22. See also James H. Gooding, Readville, Ma., April 3, 1863 (Mercury, April 6, 1863) (Gooding’s “heart pulsate[d] with pride” to look upon “stout and brawny [black] men, fully equipped with Uncle Sam’s accoutrements.”), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 9–10, 14–15.
21. Milton M. Holland to the Messenger (Athens, Oh.), Norfolk, Va., January 19, 1864; to the Messenger, Near Petersburg, Va., July 24, 1864, in Levstik, “From Slavery to Freedom,” 11, 15. Col. Thomas J. Morgan to Col. R. D. Mussey, Chattanooga, Tenn., October 8, 1864 (“boys”), in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 556. Califf, Seventh Regiment, 75. See also Henry Carpenter Hoyle, Brownsville, Tex., August 28, 1865 (Christian Recorder, September 25, 1865); “A Soldier of the 55th Mass.,” Jacksonville, Fla., March 18, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 9, 1864) (recalling the “unflinching and dauntless manner” of blacks in combat) in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 78.
22. H.C.P., Newbern, N.C., July 27, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 22, 1863) in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 36–37. George E. Stephens, Camp Meigs, Readville, Ma., May 1, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, May 9, 1863) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 236. Joseph E. Williams, New Bern, N.C., June 23, 1863 (Christian Recorder, July 4, 1863). Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 294 n. 1. O’Leary, To Die For, 74.
23. J.H.W.N.C., Deveaux Neck, S.C., January 24, 1865 (Christian Recorder, February 25, 1865) (“give it all”). See also George E. Stephens, November 28, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, December 12, 1863) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 289. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 201; Capt. Louis F. Green to Alexander Calhoun, February 14, 1864, on 70–71. Ann to husband, Paris, Mo., January 19, 1864 (slave implores her soldier-husband to send money so as to clothe their “almost naked” child, but also encourages him, “do not fret too much for me for it wont be long before I will be free and then all we make will be ours.”); Aaron Oates to Edwin M. Stanton, Hampton, Va., January 26, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 686–87, 692–93. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 182.
24. Spotswood Rice to My Children, St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1864; to Kittey Diggs, St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 689–90.
25. George W. Hatton, Wilson’s Landing, Va., May 10, 1864 (Christian Recorder, May 28, 1864), in Redkey, Grand Army, 95–96. Clopton’s whipping comprised specifications of certain charges when brigade commander Brig. Gen. Edward A. Wild faced a court-martial for other matters, but the court excluded the incident from its consideration. Reid, “General Edward A. Wild and Civil War Discrimination,” 19–20.
26. John C. Brock, Manassas Junction, Va., July 3, 1864 (Christian Recorder, July 30, 1864), in Smith, “Brock,” 153–54. Cowden, Fifty-Ninth Regiment of United States Colored Infantry, 51–52. J.H.W.N. Collins, Savannah, Ga., March 19, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865). Charles E. Briggs to mother, St. Andrew’s Parish opposite Charleston, S.C., May 28, 1865, in Briggs, Civil War Surgeon in a Colored Regiment, 153–54. Davidson “‘First United States Colored,” 20. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 214.
27. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 3, 12.
28. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 125. Capt. Edmund R. Fowler to Lt. Col. A. G. Bennett, Seabrook, S.C. August 3, 1863 (reporting his detachment of the 21st USCI performed an exhausting amount of labor in coaling ships, and other officers sometimes called the men “Black sons of bitches” and threatened to shoot them); Col. James C. Beecher to Brig. Gen. Edward A. Wild, Folly Island, S.C., September 13, 1863; Capt. R. T. Auchmuty to Col. E. D. Townsend, Washington, D.C., December 20, 1863; General Orders No. 77, Dept. of the South, September 17, 1863; General Orders No. 105, Dept. of the South, November 25, 1863, all in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 491–96. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 42.
29. R.W.W., Camp near White House, Folly Island, S.C., January 27, 1864 (Christian Recorder, February 13, 1864). D.I.I., Morris Island, S.C., July 18, 1864 (Christian Recorder, August 6, 1864).
30. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 45. Siddali, From Property to Person. 216, 221. OR, Ser. 3 vol. 5:632–33. 12 Stat. 599 (Act of July 17, 1862).
31. George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., August 7, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 22, 1863) (quotes); Morris Island, S.C., September 4, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, September 19, 1863); Morris Island, S.C., August 1, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 27, 1864), all in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 252–53, 259, 320–21. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., August 9, 1863 (Mercury, August 21, 1863) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 48–49. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 17 (“breach”).
32. E. N. Hallowell to John A. Andrew, Morris Island, S.C., November 23, 1863, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 387. “A Soldier of the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers,” Folly Island, S.C., January 12, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, January 30, 1864) in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 58 (“fabric”). See also James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., November 21, 1863 (Mercury, December 4, 1863) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 83; S.J.R., Folly Island, S.C., January 18, 1864 (Liberator, January 29, 1864) and “De Waltigo,” Palatka, Fla., April 4, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 30, 1864), in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 61–62, 83.
33. George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., August 7, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 22, 1863)(54th resolutions) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 254. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., November 21, 1863 (Mercury, December 4, 1863) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 83. “From a Soldier,” Folly Island, S.C., April 23, 1864 (Christian Recorder, May 21, 1864); James M. Trotter to Edward W. Kinsley, Palatka, Fla., March 13, 1864; Joseph H. Walker, Yellow Bluff, Fla., March 26, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 16, 1864), in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 71, 81. Milton M. Holland to the Athens, Ohio Messenger, Norfolk, Va., January 19, 1864, in Levstik, “From Slavery to Freedom,” 11–13.
34. “Wolverine,” [Folly Island, S.C.] (Christian Recorder, January 2, 1864). John H. B. Payne, Morris Island, S.C., May 24, 1864 (Christian Recorder, June 11, 1864). E.D.W., Jacksonville, Fla., March 13th, 1864 (Christian Recorder, April 2, 1864). See also “Massachusetts Soldier,” Morris Island, S.C., December 1863, in Redkey, Grand Army, 235; R.W.W., Folly Island, S.C., May 1, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, June 4, 1864) and “Bellafonte,” Folly Island, S.C., August 19, 1864 (Christian Recorder, September 3, 1864), both in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 102, 144.
35. James H. Gooding to Abraham Lincoln, Morris Island, S.C., September 28, 1863, in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 118–20.
36. Warren Hamilton to E. M. Stanton, Fort Jefferson, Tortugas, Fla., May 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 384. Warren Hamilton court-martial, 73rd USCI (LL 3106). Some family members also petitioned governmental authorities, see Rachel Ann Wicker to Mr. President Andrew, Piqua, Oh., September 12, 1864; Aaron Peterson to Edwin M. Stanton, Scio, N.Y., October 29, 1863 (Peterson questioned the paradox of blacks performing the same service as whites for lesser pay, and enclosed a letter from his son in the 2nd USCI, who did not even have the funds to pay for the letter’s stamp, wrote of his contentment with everything in the service but his pay, and vowed that he “never can bee, contented untill I get my rits.”), in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 374–75, 402–3.
37. John Murray Forbes et al., to John A. Andrew, November 11, 1863, in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 59–60. John A. Andrew to Frederick Johnson, Boston, August 24, 1863, in George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., September 4, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, September 19, 1863) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 258–59. During recruitment, the governors of Massachusetts and Ohio assured black leaders that African American enlistees would be treated the same as other volunteers. John A. Andrew to George T. Downing, Boston, March 23, 1863; David Tod to John M. Langston, Columbus, Oh., May 16, 1863, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 88–89, 92. John A. Andrew to James B. Congdon, Boston, December 20, 1863, in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 122–24.
38. Maj. Jonathan C. Chadwick, Port Hudson, La., October 3, 1863, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 383. OR, ser. 1, vol. 35 pt 2:68–69 (“mutiny”). B.W., Morris Island, S.C., July 8, 1864 (Christian Recorder, July 30, 1864). Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 73, 76–77.
39. Garland H. White, near Petersburg, Va., September 8, 1864 (Christian Recorder, September 17, 1864).
40. Brig. Gen. Alexander Schimmelfennig to Capt. W. L. M. Burger, Folly Island, S.C., June 2, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 397–98. “Bought and Sold,” Yorktown, Va., February 6, 1864 (Christian Recorder, February 20, 1864). B. W., Morris Island, S.C., July 8, 1864 (Christian Recorder, July 30, 1864) (Clemens). Davidson, “First United States Colored,” 11.
41. “De Waltigo,” Palatka, Fla., April 4, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 30, 1864) (“blush”); “Bay State,” Palatka, Fla., April 10, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 30, 1864); “Mon,” Folly Island, S.C., April 27, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, May 21, 1864) (even though “our friends and ourselves may perish for want of money, but never—no, by the Eternal! never will we take it.”); “Wolverine,” Folly Island, S.C., April 30, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, May 14, 1864), in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 83, 86–88, 98–99, 101. “Bellafonte,” Folly Island, S.C., August 19, 1864 (Christian Recorder, September 3, 1864) (“manfully”), in Redkey, Grand Army, 240.
42. U.S. House Journal, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., 39 (December 14, 1863); 82 (December 21, 1863); 121 (January 14, 1864); 214 (February 21, 1864); 341 (March 4, 1864). U.S. Senate Journal, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., 30 (December 16, 1863); 102 (January 20, 1864); 119 (February 1, 1864); 165 (February 18, 1864); 177 (February 23, 1864); 187 (February 25, 1864); 220 (March 8, 1864); 304 (April 7, 1864). New York Union League Club, Report of the Committee on Volunteering, 31, 45. Addresses of the Hon. W.D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 2–4.
43. Cong. Globe, 38th Cong. 1st Sess., 481–82 (February 5, 1864).
44. Ibid., 564–65 (February 10, 1864).
45. Ibid., 632–35 (February 13, 1864); 818–24 (February 25, 1862) (Wilkinson, 823).
46. Ibid., 1030 (March 10, 1864); 1805–6 (April 22, 1864). On May 3, 1864, the House passed its version of the Senate bill equalizing pay, S. 145, ibid., 2056–57 (May 3, 1864), by a vote of 135–0, prompting a joint committee to reconcile the Senate and House versions, see 2963 (June 15, 1864), 3040 (June 17, 1864), 3063 (June 18, 1864) and 3116 (June 21, 1864) (Lincoln signs June 20, 1864).
47. 13 Stat. 126 (Act of June 15, 1864). 13 Stat. 487 (Act of March 3, 1865). Discussions over distinction in bounties based on race were also carried out on a state level, see Cannon, Special Message of Governor Cannon, to the Legislature of Delaware, July 28, 1864.
48. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 33 (“disappointments”), 35, 37. “Fort Green,” Folly Island, S.C., August 21, 1864 (Christian Recorder, September 24, 1864).
49. George E. Stephens, Folly Island, S.C., May 26, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, June 18, 1864); Morris Island, S.C., August 1, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 27, 1864), in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 304–7, 319–21.
50. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 227 (“carnival”). C. M. Duren to Mother, Jacksonville, Fla., April 2, 1864 in Duren, “Letters of Lt. C. M. Duren,” 283. John C. Brock, Camp in front of Petersburg, Va., August 13, 1864 (Christian Recorder, August 20, 1864) in Smith, “Brock,” 157. James M. Trotter to Edward Kinsley, Folly Island, S.C., November 21, 1864, in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 155. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 37. For the October 10, 1864 service, see F. S., Folly Island, S.C., October 14, 1864 and G. P. Touson, Folly Island, S.C., October 14, 1864, both in Christian Recorder, November 12, 1864.
51. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 172–74. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 57.
52. C. W. Foster to Colonel [unnamed], December 13, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 304.
53. J. B. McPherson et al. to Abraham Lincoln, Camp Stanton near Bryantown, Md. [Feb. 1864], in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 356–57. “Fort Green,” Folly Island, S.C., August 21, 1864 (Christian Recorder, September 24, 1864). Lt. C. M. Duren of the 54th Massachusetts supported commissioning blacks, but disfavored mixing black and white officers in the same unit. C. M. Duren to Father, Baldwin Station, Fla., February 18, 1864; to Mother, Jacksonville, Fla., February 29, 1864; to Father, Jacksonville, Fla., March 29, 1864, in Duren, “Letters of Lt. C. M. Duren,” 268, 272, 282.
54. Addresses of the Hon. W.D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 7. Liberator, August 5, 1864, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 237–38. Proceedings of the State Equal Rights’ Convention of the Colored People of Pennsylvania…February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1865, 37. See also Christian Recorder, January 9, 1864 (whites “must give place and preferment to men of character, worth and influence, among colored people, just as you do among our Dutch or Irish, or American citizens, when requiring their aid.”).
55. John A. Andrew to Charles Sumner, Boston, February 7, 1863 (Andrew seeks to commission black chaplains, surgeons, and some second lieutenants in his state’s black units); William U. Saunders to Edwin M. Stanton, Camp “Stannton” [Md.], February 3, 1864; Louis H. Douglass et al. to Edwin M. Stanton, January 1865?, [Washington, D.C.?] (“hundreds”); in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 337, 339–41.
56. H.S.H., Jacksonville, Fla., April 3, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 22, 1865). James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., January 17, 1864 (Mercury, January 28, 1864) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 104.
57. McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 238–39. J.H.W.N. Collins, Savannah, Ga., March 19, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865) (“bound”). Miller, “Garland H. White,” 201.
58. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 611–12, 614 (Capt. J. W. Greene to Lt. W. D. Putnam, Napoleanville, La., April 7, 1865).
59. Taggart, Free Military School for Applicants for Command of Colored Troops, 13. Hollandsworth, Pretense of Glory, 211. Blassingame, “Educational Institution,” 152–59, 155–56. Wert, “Camp William Penn and the Black Soldier,” 335, 344.
60. George E. Stephens, Philadelphia, November 14, 1859 (Weekly Anglo-African, November 26, 1859) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 120. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 611–12, 627 (Henry M. Turner to Adjutant General U.S. Army, Roanoke Island N.C., June 29, 1865, quote). Redkey, “Black Chaplains,” 331–50, 347.
61. Civilians from Boston joined officers and educated soldiers as teachers at a school at the training camp of the 55th Massachusetts in Readville, Massachusetts. The regiment continued its school while in the field, and large numbers of former slaves attended evening classes. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 7. “Sergeant” [55th Massachusetts], Folly Island, S.C., July 26, 1864 (Liberator, October 4, 1864) in Redkey, Grand Army, 69. John C. Brock, Camp near Petersburg, Va., July 16, 1864 (Christian Recorder, August 6, 1864); Camp near Richmond, Va., March 9, 1865 (Christian Recorder, March 18, 1865), in Smith, “Brock,” 156, 162. General Order No. 37, Head Quarters 11th Regt. USCA, New Orleans, La., October 17, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 618. Cowden, Fifty-Ninth Regiment of United States Colored Infantry, 60–62 (after the 59th USCI made winter quarters near Memphis in 1863, the men built a schoolhouse where the unit’s chaplain and his wife taught soldiers and local black civilians).
62. Thomas M. Chester, Bermuda Hundred, Va., January 20, 1865, in Blackett, Chester, 228. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 612. Blassingame, “Educational Institution,” 156–57.
63. The educational initiative came second to the exigencies of war: several times a Pennsylvania regiment erected a schoolhouse only to be ordered to relocate before it could be used in earnest. General Orders No. 9, Head Quarters 10th USCI, Port Hudson, La., March 15, 1864 (all noncommissioned officers and 25 privates selected by each company commander could attend mandatory schooling); E. S. Wheeler to Brig. Gen. Ullmann, Port Hudson, La., April 8, 1864 (chaplain reporting he had “never witnessed greater eagerness for study,” and that already five hundred men in the brigade had learned to read and many, to write); Chaplain J. M. Mickly to Adjt. Genl. U.S.A., [near Richmond, Va.], January 31, 1865 (Pennsylvania regiment); C. W. Buckley to Lt. Austin R. Mills, Vicksburg, Miss., February 1, 1865; Col. T. H. Barrett to the Officers & Men of the 62nd USCI, Ringgold Barracks, Tex., January 4, 1866, all in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 616, 618–19, 621, 623, 783. James Shaw, Jr. to Augustus Woodbury, Camp Stanton [Md.], January 17, 1864, quoted in Califf, Seventh Regiment, 18–19; 87–88. See also Sherman, Negro as a Soldier, 16–17 (7th USCI); Miller, “Garland H. White,” 214 (300 of the 28th USCI could read and write, and 474 could spell and read, by September 1865). Berlin, Black Military Experience, 613. Blassingame, “Educational Institution,” 155–56 (identifying schools in the 33rd, 35th, 55th, 67th, 73rd, 76th, 78th, 83rd, 88th, 89th, and 128th USCI regiments).
64. William P. Woodlin, Petersburg, Va., April 28, 1865 (Christian Recorder, July 22, 1865). Steiner, Disease in the Sixty-Fifth United States Colored Infantry, xviii, 16. B. J. Butler, Orangeburg, S.C., July 29, 1865 (Weekly Anglo-African, August 12, 1865) (“ourselves”) in Redkey, Grand Army, 185. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., October 3, 1863 (Mercury, October 15, 1863) in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 66–67. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 286 n. 13. Blassingame, “Educational Institution,” 156.
65. Sherman, Negro as a Soldier, 18. Blassingame, “Educational Institution,” 155, 157.
66. Christian Recorder, July 23, 1864.
67. Joseph H. Barquet, Morris Island, S.C. [October 1864] (Weekly Anglo-African, November 5, 1864) in Redkey, Grand Army, 215–16. George S. Massey, Richmond, Va., March 27, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 8, 1865).
68. George E. Stephens, near Budd’s Ferry, Doncaster, Md., November 11, 1861 (Weekly Anglo-African, November 23, 1861); Near Budd’s Ferry, Md., January 10, 1862 (Weekly Anglo-African, January 18, 1862); Near Budd’s Ferry, Md., February 13, 1862 (Weekly Anglo-African, February 22, 1862) all in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 139, 163–64, 182. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 166 n. 6. Siddali, From Property to Person, 67.
69. [Livermore], General Washington and General Jackson on Negro Soldiers, 3. See also Opinions of the Early Presidents, and of the Fathers of the Republic, upon Slavery, and Upon Negroes as Men and Soldiers.
70. Dunkelman, “Through White Eyes,” 97–102, 105, 106; Andrew D. Blood to Brother Wesley, January 3, 1865, on 101. See Horowitz, “Ben Butler and the Negro,” for one politician-officer’s conversion from opposing the arming of blacks to becoming an ardent advocate of the policy. See Colyer, Report of the Services Rendered by the Freed People to the United States Army, in North Carolina, in the Spring of 1862, for an assessment of loyalty to the Union among blacks and p. 61 for the engraving, “Services of the Freed People on the Battlefield.” See also Charlotte L. Forten, St Helena’s Island, Beaufort, S.C., November 20, 1862 (Liberator, December 12, 1862) (black “hearts are full of gratitude to the Government and to the ‘Yankees,’” and, “in return for the least kindness that is done them, they insist on giving you something—potatoes, eggs, peanuts, or something else from their little store.”), in Silber and Sievens, Yankee Correspondence, 93–94.
71. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 30. Howard, “Civil War in Kentucky,” 246–47. M. P. Larry to sister, February 16, 1863, in Silber and Sievens, Yankee Correspondence, 98.
72. “Picket,” Folly Island, S.C., June 30, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, July 30, 1864) in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 113. Newton, Out of the Briars, 35. Morgan, Reminiscences, 21 (recalling that an acquaintance in an Ohio regiment treated him coldly after he joined the USCT and stated that he “did not recognize these nigger officers.” The insulting officer was dismissed from service.).
73. George E. Stephens seethed about Montgomery’s diatribe. George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., October 3, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, October 24, 1863), in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 277–82. George E. Stephens to Luis F. Emilio, June 8, 1886, cited in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 286 n. 12. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 197.
74. OR, ser. 1, vol. 39 pt. 1:557. Thomas W. Higginson Journal, April 19, 1863, in Looby, War Journal, 133.
75. Lorenzo Thomas to Henry Wilson, Washington, D.C., May 30, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 530–31.
76. R.W.W., Palatka, Fla., March 14, 1864 (Christian Recorder, April 2, 1864). Thomas M. Chester, before Richmond, October 23, 1864, in Blackett, Chester, 168–69. George E. Stephens, [August] 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, September 3, 1864) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 322. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 217. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 200.
77. George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., September 4, 1863 (Weekly Anglo-African, September 19, 1863) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 258. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., August 30, 1863 (Mercury, September 15, 1863); Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., November 28, 1863 (Mercury, December 15, 1863), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 54, 85–86. OR, ser. 1, vol. 28 pt. 2: 33. Thomas M. Chester, before Richmond, Va., February 23, 1865, in Blackett, Chester, 268–70.
78. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., January 2, 1864 (Mercury, January 14, 1864), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 97–101. George E. Stephens, Morris Island, S.C., January 5, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, January 23, 1864) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 291–92.
79. Davidson, “First United States Colored,” 8. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 90.
80. “Wolverine,” [Folly Island, S.C.] (Christian Recorder, January 2, 1864).
81. Daniel W. Sawtelle to Sister, Beaufort, Port Royal Isle, S.C. April 2, 1863, in Buckingham, All’s for the Best, 225–26. James H. Gooding, Morris Island, S.C., July 20, 1863 (Mercury, August 1, 1863); Morris Island, S.C., August 3, 1863 (Mercury, August 16, 1863), in Adams, Altar of Freedom, 38, 46. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 67. Morgan, Service with Colored Troops, 30. Summers, “Negro Soldiers in the Army of the Cumberland,” 425. See also Brig. Gen. Rufus Sexton to Edwin M. Stanton, Beaufort, S.C., April 4, 1863; Capt. Elias D. Strunk to Brig. Gen. Daniel Ullman, Baton Rouge, La., May 29, 1863), both in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 527–29. See also Henry M. Turner, City Point, Va., June 18, 1864 (Christian Recorder, June 25, 1864), in Redkey, Grand Army, 97–98. For examples of biracial expeditions, see Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 53–55, and Califf, Seventh Regiment, 25.
82. Thomas B. Wester, Bermuda Hundred, Va., December, 1864 (Christian Recorder, January 7, 1865). John C. Brock, Camp near Petersburg, Va., October 30, 1864 (Christian Recorder, November 12, 1864) in Smith, “Brock,” 160. C. W. Buckley to Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas, before Blakely, Al., April 1, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 564–65. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 83 (“loud”). McMurray, Recollections, 22–23.
83. General Order No. 50, Headquarters 14th USCI, Chattanooga, Tenn., November 23, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 559. Davidson, “First United States Colored,” 11. Diary entry of Joseph J. Scroggs, September 29, 1864, in Synnestvedt, “The Earth Shook and Quivered,” 37. General Orders of Maj. Gen. D. B. Birney, Headquarters Tenth Army Corps, Fuzzel’s Mills, Va., August 19, 1864, in Califf, Seventh Regiment, 37 (congratulating the Corps).
84. William H. Hunter, Petersburg, Va., July 9, 1864 (Christian Recorder, July 16, 1864), in Redkey, Grand Army, 101–2.
85. New York Times, June 18, 1864 (complimenting black troops in action in Mississippi). Thomas M. Chester, ten miles from Richmond, August 18, 1864 (“eradicate”); before Richmond, October 23, 1864; before Richmond, October 31, 1864; before Richmond, February 23, 1865; in Blackett, Chester, 102–3, 108, 168, 180, 268–70. Blackett, Chester, xi.
86. Thomas M. Chester, north of the James River, Va., September 7, 1864; Deep Bottom, Va., September 9, 1864; Deep Bottom, Va., September 11, 1864; Chapin’s Bluff, Va., October 5, 1864 (regarding September 29, 1864); 5 1/2 miles from Richmond, October 17, 1864 (regarding September 29, 1864); before Richmond, October 31, 1864 (casualty list); Richmond, May 13, 1865 (compliment), in Blackett, Chester, 123, 124–25, 136, 139–40, 149–53, 182–84, 341.
87. R.W.W., Folly Island, S.C., January 27, 1864 (Christian Recorder, February 4, 1864).
88. Maj. Gen. David Hunter to Jefferson Davis, Hilton Head, S.C., April 23, 1863, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 573–74. New York Times, June 11, 1863. See a similar discussion on a local level in correspondence between Maj. T. R. Livingston, C.S.A., and Col. J. M. Williams, U.S.A., in the spring of 1863 on the Kansas-Missouri border, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 574–78. Rufus S. Jones, Jacksonville, Fla., March 20, 1864 (Christian Recorder, April 16, 1864) in Redkey, Grand Army, 42 (surgeon at the battle of Olustee, Florida, on February 20, 1864, places priority on collecting wounded black troops for fear of Confederate reprisal on them). For more on Confederate atrocities against black soldiers, see Burkhardt, Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath.
89. McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 278–79. Lincoln to Michael Hahn, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1864, in Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 7: 243. L’Union, June 21, 28, 1864, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 281–82.
90. Garnet, A Memorial Discourse by Rev. Henry Highland Garnet…February 12, 1865, 73, 75, 77, 79–80, 85–87. Quigley, Second Founding, 15.
Chapter 4. Equal Rights and the Experience of Military Justice for African American Soldiers
1. Wallace Baker court-martial, 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The defendant’s first name and unit is given at the first citation; other citation information is in the Works Cited. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 103, 139.
2. “Bay State,” Palatka, Fla., April 10, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, April 30, 1864), in Trudeau, Voices of the 55th, 86–88.
3. Sampson Goliah court-martial, 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (NN 2479). “War Letters of C. P. Bowditch,” 469, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 200–201. OR, ser. 1 vol. 35 pt. 2:68–69. See Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 73, 76–77, 274–75, for similar trouble in the 54th Massachusetts.
4. Goliah court-martial. Baker court-martial. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 329.
5. A court-martial found Henry M. Way guilty of mutinous conduct for not helping quell Baker’s mutiny and for telling a lieutenant, “I would have done the same thing as Baker did,” and, “I tell you Lieut. if you or any other officer should strike me, or attempt to, I would strike you back and do the best I could to defend myself[.]” The War Department remitted the unexpired portion of Way’s confinement sentence on September 26, 1865, and ordered his muster out of the service. Henry M. Way court-martial, 55th Massachusetts. Baker court-martial. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 102. A defendant or his counsel was to write questions by hand to the judge advocate and offer legal objections the same way. It is unclear how strictly this procedure was enforced, though it appears that in this case, Baker questioned witnesses directly but through the judge advocate. Walton then asked additional questions pursuant to his charge to assist an unrepresented defendant. This is evidenced by the use of different pronouns—“I” and “he”—during defense questioning. Benet, Treatise on Military Law, 65
6. Baker court-martial. George E. Stephens, Folly Island, S.C., June 18, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, July 9, 1864) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 317–18. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 29.
7. John F. Shorter et al. to the President, Folly Island, S.C., July 16, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 401–2.
8. Most of the 53 general courts-martial proceedings that tried 9th Massachusetts soldiers involved charges against privates for desertion, absence without leave, or conduct prejudicial, e.g., being noisy despite orders, drunkenness, refusing to carry something, or striking an officer. I do not say 53 soldiers tried because some proceedings involved repeat offenders. A number of courts-martial indicate tensions between Col. Cass and his officers. Tension between Cass’s successor, Patrick R. Guiney, and some of his officers, based on Guiney’s status as a lawyer and his Republican affiliation, played out in several courts-martial as well. According to a search done though the Civil War Justice database for various Irish American regiments, the 9th Massachusetts had soldiers tried in 53 general courts-martial proceedings, the 28th Massachusetts had 59, the 63rd New York had 68, the 88th New York had 44, the 116th Pennsylvania had 46, the 155th New York had 58, and the 164th New York had 22. The average number of general courts-martial proceedings trying soldiers in the 1st through 25th USCI is 29.04, with a high of 69 in the 20th USCI and zero in the 24th USCI. Patrick R. Guiney to Col. James McQuade, Camp near Falmouth, Va., April 5, 1863, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 175; for tensions among officers in the 9th Massachusetts, see xxvii–xxx, 193 n. 48; see also Guiney to wife, Camp, May 16, 1863, on 192–93.
9. Brisbin addressed an 1867 convention of Kentucky blacks that made him an honorary member. Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Men, Held at Lexington, Kentucky, in the A.M.E. Church, November 26th, 27th, and 28th, 1867 in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 309–17: 310, 314. John Lewis court-martial, 13th USCHA. Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, 2:11.
10. Military justice existed outside the judiciary created by Article 3. U.S. Const., Art. 1, § 8; Fifth Amendment. Dynes v. Hoover, 61 U.S. 65, 78–79, 82 (1858). Stansfield, “A History of the Judge Advocate General’s Department United States Army,” 219–22. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 433. The navy had separate regulations.
11. 12 Stat. 597, Sec. 7 (Act of July 17, 1862). 12 Stat. 731, Sec. 30 (Act of March 3, 1863) authorized military commissions to try soldiers in time of war or rebellion and mandated “the punishments for such offenses shall never be less than those inflicted by the laws of the State, Territory, or district in which they may have been committed.” President Johnson declared the rebellion over on April 2, 1866. S. 511, 37th Cong. 3d Sess. Revised United States Army Regulations of 1861, 125–26, 491, 495–96, 497, 498–99. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 12, 15, 21–23, 26, 28, 33, 37, 49, 129, 173–78, 222–23, 232. Halleck, “Military Tribunals and Their Jurisdiction,” 966. OR, ser. 3 vol. 5: 1007–1012. Benet, Treatise on Military Law, 17. Fitzharris, “Field Officer Courts,” 58, 71.
12. Thomas W. Higginson Journal, September 5, 1863, December 28, 1863, in Looby, War Journal, 165, 182.
13. McMurray, Recollections, 18–20.
14. For example, in May 1864, Secretary of War Stanton authorized that more than a hundred unwounded “cowardly deserters” found in Washington, D.C., could be “tried by a drum-head court, and if guilty, executed without delay,” though he allowed Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant discretion as to how to handle the matter. OR, vol. 36, pt. 2: 652–53. The official record of soldiers executed during the Civil War lists drumhead courts-martial of but one white and six black soldiers that resulted in execution, though this number is certainly too low. Four black soldiers executed by drumhead trial were Alfred Catlett, Alexander Colwell, Washington Jackson, and Charles Turner from the 1st USCHA. They left their regiment while on the march to Asheville, North Carolina, and raped a young white woman after nearly killing her elderly aunt and uncle when they tried to prevent the sexual assault. OR, ser. 1 vol. 49 part 2: 669. Lawson Kemp of the 55th USCI and Henry Jay of the 57th USCI were the other blacks tried by drumhead trial, both charged with rape. The lone white soldier listed, Henry Miller of the 3rd New Hampshire Infantry, was shot for desertion. List of U.S. Soldiers Executed by United States Military Authorities during the Late War, 2–11.
15. OR ser. 1, vol. 26, pt. 1:262–73; vol. 34, pt. 1:171; vol. 41 pt. 2:743.
16. To curb arbitrary punishment by the naval equivalent of regimental courts-martial, the Navy Articles of War adopted in July 1862 imposed specific punishments for particular crimes. No such system regulated regimental courts-martial. Ship commanders were free to punish ship rules within their discretion. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens, 145, 148, 164–65. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 437–38. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 119. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 3, 12.
17. The most common offense in the 65th USCI was desertion, though only seven deserters were apprehended. Seventy-four of the 1,707 enlistees in the 65th USCI deserted, not including 93 recruits who deserted before they physically joined the regiment; 30 were members of the unit as originally mustered and 44 were later substitutes or transfers. Steiner, Disease in the Sixty-Fifth United States Colored Infantry, 16, 39. Dennett, History of the Ninth U.S.C., 32–146. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 120. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, xii.
18. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 434–35. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 117–18. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 75. Ramold overstates that the army “frequently” failed to follow proper procedures. While finding that the navy went to “great lengths to preserve individual rights,” Ramold cites many of the same procedural safeguards that army general courts-martial provided to defendants. Ramold’s analysis supports my argument that the federal government tried to impose an equal justice system regarding blacks in the armed services. A sharp contrast between the disciplining of black soldiers and sailors comes in the navy’s lack of executions. Lincoln commuted the few condemnations issued. For a partial explanation of why army officers could be more arbitrary than their naval counterparts, see note 16. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens, 5, 149, 151–52, 165. For a more critical view of race relations in the navy, see Bennett, Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Contrast the treatment of black Civil War soldiers facing general courts-martial with a military commission that tried nearly 400 Dakota men for murder, rape, and robbery following a brief war in Minnesota in 1862, convicting all but 70 and sentencing 303 to death. Forty of the Dakotas were executed, almost the same number of blacks executed by sentence of a general court-martial during the Civil War. Chomsky, “The United States-Dakota War Trials,” 13–96.
19. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens, 81–83. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 434–35, 437–38, 441, 475. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 21–22, 24, 185. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 90, 108–15. Yacovone, “The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, the Pay Crisis,” 38–39, 41–43.
20. In Higginson’s regiment, one soldier who drew a bayonet on an officer, and another soldier who struck one, each received only one month’s hard labor and loss of a month’s pay for their violations. Stone did recommend tying by the thumbs as it subdued the offender but did not afflict serious injury. Endorsement by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, March 6, 1866, on Peter Birts, et al. to General Lorenzo Thomas, December 4, 1865 (recognizing black sensitivity to insult and urging clemency for several men who disobeyed orders because they were “jealous of every act of their white superiors, which might be…interpreted as a slur upon their race”); Simon Prisby to Edwin M. Stanton, near Brownsville, Tex., July 20, 1865 (officers in his regiment frequently prescribed tying or struck the men); Prince Albert to Andrew Johnson, Fort Livingston, La., January 28, 1866 (punished by having to stand on a barrel for refusing to fish for oysters for an officer); General Orders No. 36, Hd. Qrs. 1st Division, USCT, August 28, 1864; General Orders No. 36, Hd Qrs. 62nd USCI, November 9, 1864; General Orders No. 3, Hd. Qrs. 100th USCI, January 30, 1865, all in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 424–25, 428–29, 440, 452, 454, 457–58. Baker court-martial. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 434–35, 437–38, 441, 475. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 21–22, 24, 185. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 90, 108–15. Thomas W. Higginson Journal, December 31, 1862, February 20, 1863, c. February 23–27, 1863 in Looby, War Journal, 79, 106.
21. Samuel Green court-martial 109th USCI. For other examples of black resentment, see Sgt. J. Hall, Sgt. Anderson Tolliver et al., court-martial, 2nd USCA (Light) and Sgt. William Walker court-martial, 3rd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry; for an example of additional charges, see Henry M. Way court-martial, and Doctor Moore and Sgt. William Kease courts-martial, 116th USCI. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 33, 35. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 333.
22. Lt. Charles Duren recounted stunning one black subordinate who tried to strike him as he attempted to arrest two fighting men by hitting him with the butt end of his revolver. Duren added, “If that had not been effectual I should have shot the man on the spot—for I always said if a man ever offered to strike me in this Reg’t—I should shoot him.” C. M. Duren to Father, Jacksonville, Fla., March 23, 1864, in Duren, “Letters of Lt. C. M. Duren,” 280–81; for compliments see C. M. Duren to Father, Baldwin Station, Florida, February 18, 1864; to Mother, Jacksonville, Fla., February 29, 1864; to Father, Jacksonville, Fla., March 29, 1864, on 268, 272, 282. George E. Stephens, near Jacksonville, Fla., March 6, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, March 26, 1864) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 298–99. Thomas W. Higginson Journal, July 7, 1863, in Looby, War Journal, 158–59. Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, 329. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 5. Thomas M. Chester, Deep Bottom, Va., September 1, 1864, in Blackett, Chester, 115.
23. United States Army Regulations of 1861, 496–97. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 29, 31, 37, 127, 135, 205. For a panel excusing a member after a challenge see Adam Smalz court-martial, 66th New York Infantry.
24. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 391. Simms court-martial; Baker court-martial; Goliah court-martial; Moore court-martial; Kease court- martial; Samuel Mapp court-martial, 10th USCI; Aaron Collins court-martial, 6th USCC; John Mitchell court-martial, 53rd USCI. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens, 138. Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, 161.
25. Cummins heard her “master” Matthew Current ask black soldiers who approached his house what they wanted, and heard gunfire as she ran in to get her “old Mistress.” Cummins identified the accused and a witness outside the court as the two soldiers she saw flee afterward. Collins court-martial. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 436
26. William Henderson court-martial, 66th USCI.
27. One of the black witnesses assured on cross-examination that he could recognize Henderson because of five freckles on his face. Henderson court-martial. It is unlikely Henderson’s counsel, William Getchel, was an attorney; he served only as a noncommissioned officer in his prior regiment. Howard, History of the 124th Regiment Illinois Infantry, 506.
28. For examples of confessions, see Simon Grant court-martial, 21st USCI; William H. Harrison court-martial, 69th USCI. Sixteen members of the 49th USCI stacked arms near Vicksburg on June 13, 1864, after their captain opened some of their storage boxes to find spoiled meat and filthy clothing; he burned everything and told his men that he would punish the owners of any more such boxes. Giles Simms court-martial, 49th USCI. Price Warefield et al. to Hon. E. M. Stanton, Military Prison Alton, Ill., February 20, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 459–60. The judge advocate should have brought Humphreys’s exculpatory information to the court’s attention. For other examples of a court-martial considering mitigating factors, see the Sampson Goliah court-martial and the Sgt. J. Hall, Sgt. Anderson Tolliver, et al., court-martial.
29. Thomas Four court-martial, 52nd USCI. William Jackson court-martial, 14th USCI.
30. One of his comrades recollected that Green went into his regiment as a sergeant because he had a “good voice and a better education than most of the soldiers.” Green mustered out as a private. For Green’s postwar life, see note 20 in the Epilogue. Green court-martial. Samuel Green pension file, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Nine men received sentences related to this mutiny. One, Sheldon Penock, cast aspersion on the testimony of other blacks as his only defense and offered that one man testified against him so as to obtain his sergeant’s stripes, after receiving five dollars to identify participants in the incident. Penock’s former master wrote on behalf of his “old servant,” citing a “strong affection, between master, and slave,” and explained that Penock endeavored to free the prisoners for fear they would be killed by enemy fire. Judge Advocate General Holt noted that there was no evidence of exposure to such fire but urged clemency by explaining that “the impulse of humanity which led this soldier to the violation of the military law, may be received as a palliation of the offense.” Less than seven months after promulgation of his sentence, the War Department ordered Penock’s discharge. See also the case of Private Sandy Fenqua in this same file, in which one officer testified that Fenqua declared, “The damned white sons of bitches think they can do as they please with us,” and that “they have lied to us long enough.” Sheldon Penock and Sandy Fenqua courts-martial, 109th USCI. B. W. Penick to Andrew Johnson, Greensburg, Ky., April 16, 1866; endorsement of Holt, June 3, 1866, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 471–73.
31. George Douglas court-martial, 38th USCI.
32. The National Archives cannot find John Shaw’s court-martial file, but some relevant papers are in his military service file. Although the death sentence on Benjamin McCloud, 37th USCI, was ultimately carried out, see his mutiny case for another example of procedural review. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 318–23, 370–71. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 77. Endorsement of Joseph Holt, May 10, 1864, in Emanuel Davis court-martial, 48th USCI (“pleasure”). 12 Stat. 731, Sec. 21 (Act of March 3, 1863).
33. Irving Charles court-martial, 9th United States Cavalry; see also Charles Wood court-martial, 9th United States Cavalry; Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 243 (judge advocate’s office advises mitigation of death and prison sentences in several cases where black mutineers had been “provoked” by “cruel” or unnecessarily violent actions of their officer).
34. African American soldier/correspondent George E. Stephens felt that prejudice permeated the army’s administration of justice toward black troops; see cites in this chapter. On the other hand, black correspondent Thomas M. Chester rarely mentioned capital punishment or courts-martial, perhaps to avoid bringing attention to disciplinary problems among black troops. Blackett, Chester. See also Garland H. White, April 20, 1865, City Point, Va., in Christian Recorder (May 6, 1865). New York Times, November 26, 1865; December 25, 1865. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 441–42.
35. See remarks in this chapter by Massachusetts governor Andrew and senator Wilson concerning William Walker’s execution.
36. United States Army Regulations of 1861, 486. Benet, Treatise on Military Law, 205–6.
37. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 115.
38. The number of black soldiers who faced mutiny charges is derived from a search run through The Index Project. List of U.S. Soldiers Executed by United States Military Authorities during the Late War, 2–11. David Washington court-martial, 3rd USCC. Washington sought clemency because he did not “know nothing at all abought law.” David Washi[ng]ton to Abraham Lincoln, November 26, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 455. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom, 51–52. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 115–17.
39. Pvt. John Higgins of the 5th USCHA similarly declared, “God damn any nigger that will stand by and see another tied up for nothing…. We have been run over by our officers long enough; if we don’t take our own part, nobody else will take it for us. The niggers are all a set of damned cowards, or they would not be imposed upon so.” General Court Martial Orders No. 12, Headquarters Dept. of Mississippi, November 11, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 474–76. For other courts-martial proceedings involving protest about or rescue of a tied up soldier, see the Samuel Green and Sheldon Penock courts-martial; George Douglas court-martial; David Washington court-martial; Irving Charles and Charles Wood court-martials; the Fort Jackson mutiny; and, the mutiny of the 3rd USCI at Jacksonville, Florida, all discussed in this chapter, as well as a mutiny in the 11th USCHA. For other demands for the release of an arrested comrade, see the Henry Hamilton court-martial, 2nd USCI, and those of William Kease and Doctor Moore. Goliah court-martial.
40. The court found Browning guilty of mutiny and sentenced him to hard labor without pay for the rest of his enlistment and dishonorable discharge. Browning lived in Boston in 1868. Goliah court-martial. Nelson Browning court-martial, 55th Massachusetts. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 114.
41. See also the introduction to this chapter regarding a petition sent to Lincoln in July 1864 by seventy-four soldiers of the regiment. Goliah court-martial. Col. Alfred S. Hartwell to John A. Andrew, May 10, 1864, quoted in Yacovone, “The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, the Pay Crisis,” 47. Col. Alfred S. Hartwell to Edwin M. Stanton, Folly Island, S.C., June 13, 1864; Lt. Col. Charles B. Fox to Col. A. S. Hartwell, [Folly Island, S.C.], June 14, 1864; Circular of Col. A. S. Hartwell, Folly Island, S.C., June 14, 1864, all in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 398–401. Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 33.
42. Goliah court-martial.
43. Sgt. J. Hall, Sgt. Anderson Tolliver, et al. court-martial, 2nd USCA (Light).
44. Ibid.
45. For example, defense counsel objected that Marion’s presence in the court during the proceedings influenced the testimony of witnesses under his command. The court overruled the objection. Ibid.
46. Sterling Bradley and Charles Davis courts-martial, 9th Louisiana Infantry of African Descent.
47. Ibid. See also the Brisbin-Coyl debate discussed earlier.
48. Ibid. Troops asserted their role as the protector of other blacks in another mutiny at Fort Jackson, Louisiana, on December 9, 1863. Lt. Col. Augustus W. Benedict earned the enmity of his 4th Louisiana Native Guard (76th USCI) by striking troops, and he once tied a man spread eagle for two days to stakes driven in the ground, with molasses smeared on his feet and hands. Additionally, several of the regiment’s officers committed inappropriate acts toward black civilian laundresses. When Benedict whipped two musicians aged in their late teens or early twenties, half the regiment gathered on the parade ground, firing their guns and vowing to kill Benedict. Only with extreme effort did the fort commander, Col. Charles W. Drew, and his other officers quell the riot, after he ordered Benedict to his quarters. Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks assured his superiors that the government could continue to have confidence in black troops, and that Benedict’s whipping of the two drummers caused the mutiny. Moreover, Banks refused to accept Benedict’s resignation and instead ordered a commission to investigate his conduct. Benedict did not face any tough questioning by the commission, probably because the disgusted members found him so reprehensible. Because the permanent disgrace attached to dismissal was generally considered adequate punishment for officers, even where they committed crimes that would have earned the death penalty if perpetrated by enlisted men, Benedict was dismissed from the service. A court-martial also tried thirteen enlisted men. The panel acquitted four and sentenced two to death, six to imprisonment at hard labor for terms of between one and twenty years, and one, convicted of insubordinate conduct, to hard labor for a month. Banks commuted the death sentences to imprisonment and rejected the one month’s sentence for conflicting evidence. OR ser. 1 vol. 26 pt. 1:456, 458, 460–62, 467, 468, 473–79. Berlin, Black Military Experience, 438–40. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 91–92.
49. Charges of mutinous conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline stemmed from allegations that Walker participated in a mutiny on August 23, 1863; threatened to shoot Lt. George W. Wood; refused to obey Capt. Edgar Abeel’s order to go into his tent under arrest; on October 31, 1863, threatened to shoot Sgt. Sussex Brown when ordered to fall into drill; and, prevented acting drum major William Smith from arresting drummer Rauty Pope on November 19, 1863. Walker also led his company in releasing Private Jacob Swith from arrest for being absent from camp. A charge of breach of arrest alleged that Walker left his tent on November 20, 1863, to play cards. Sgt. William Walker court-martial, 3rd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Westwood, “Consequence,” 222.
50. Walker court-martial. OR, ser. 1, vol. 44:667. Westwood, “Consequence,” 224, 226.
51. Col. A. G. Bennett et al. to Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas, Hilton Head, S.C., November 21, 1863; Col. A. G. Bennett to Capt. William L. M. Burger, Hilton Head, S.C., November 30, 1863, endorsement by Maj. Gen. Q. A. Gillmore by A. A. Gen. Edward W. Smith, Folly Island, S.C., December 2, 1863; Col. William B. Barton to Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton, Hilton Head, S.C., December 5, 1863, endorsement by Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton through A. A. Gen. Capt. E. W. Hooper, Beaufort, S.C., Dec. 11, 1863, all in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 388–91. John A. Andrew to Abraham Lincoln, Boston, May 13, 1864, at <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/P?mal:1:./temp/~ammem_Ls4j:>.
52. Col. M. S. Littlefield to Col. P. P. Brown, Jr., Hilton Head, S.C., June 3, 1864, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 394–95. Westwood, “Consequence,” 231.
53. Walker court-martial.
54. Walker vigorously addressed in his defense statement all the allegations against him. Ibid.
55. Military courts could take cognizance of accusations against an individual without regard to their connection as to time, place, or subject. Walker court-martial. Winthrop, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, 81.
56. Walker court-martial. George E. Stephens, near Jacksonville, Fla., March 6, 1864 (Weekly Anglo-African, March 26, 1864) in Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 298–99; see also 303 n. 23. Thomas W. Higginson to the Editor of the New York Tribune, August 12, 1864, in Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 226. Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., 1805 (April 22, 1864). Hallowell, An Address by N. P. Hallowell,’61. Delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, 8–9.
57. Trial testimony went poorly for Hamilton, and his statement pled his ignorance and begged the mercy of the court, which sentenced him to be shot. After sentencing, the judge advocate and two members of the panel, both from Hamilton’s regiment, petitioned for clemency on his behalf, citing his ignorance, arguing that his act was not commensurate with the sentence, and claiming that two members of the panel wished to reconsider their vote. The department commander ordered Hamilton to be shot as a deterrent. Henry Hamilton court-martial. For another mutiny in which a soldier suggested that perceived grievances justified a threat against an officer, see that of Samuel Mapp. Kease court-martial. Moore court-martial.
58. Bennett, “Jacksonville Mutiny,” 40–41. R.H.B. to the editor, Christian Recorder, August 6, 1864.
59. Brower claimed Green was about to shoot him. Joseph Grien (Green), Richard Lee, Joseph Nathaniel, James Thomas, Calvin Dowrey, and James Allen courts-martial, all from the 3rd USCI and all individual proceedings. Bennett, “Jacksonville Mutiny,” 42–44.
60. Bennett, “Jacksonville Mutiny,” 45, 47.
61. The proceedings for David Craig cannot be located. Grien, Nathaniel, Thomas, Dowrey, Allen, Richard Lee, Thomas Howard, Jacob Plowden, John Miller, Theodore Waters, and Alexander Lee courts-martial, all from the 3rd USCI and all individual proceedings. Bennett, “Jacksonville Mutiny,” 42, 43, 48, 49.
62. Roger Johnson court-martial, 6th USCHA. The army did not turn a blind eye toward whites who murdered blacks. See Frederick Letz court martial, teamster (Lincoln approved sentence of hanging for a white teamster who, on September 22, 1862, shot an elderly black Pennsylvanian teamster after an argument the day before; testimony of a free black man helped prosecution); George W. Johnson court-martial, 4th Delaware Volunteer Infantry (Lincoln approves death sentence for a soldier convicted of stabbing a black civilian on April 22, 1863, at Gloucester Point, Virginia; thirty-nine men and women from Wilmington, Delaware, including Johnson’s parents and sister, petitioned Lincoln for clemency on the grounds that Johnson was drunk).
63. Thomas Four court-martial. See also Collins court-martial (tension between black soldiers and local white civilians resulted in violence).
64. Richard Simmons, another member of the party who turned state’s evidence, also testified. Four court-martial.
65. When asked during trial if he recognized any of the defendants, J. R. Cook pointed at Johnson and said, “That one I know, but I did not see him here that night.” Neither Cook nor Johnson spoke in specifics during the trial about their relationship. Ibid.
66. Ibid. Waldrep, Roots of Disorder, 93–94.
Chapter 5. Irish Americans in Arms
1. Pilot, March 28, 1863. Macnamara, Ninth Regiment, 460, 470. In an October 1863 speech in Boston, Thomas F. Meagher linked emigration with free choice, as did many middle-class Irish Americans in public pronouncements: “Most of the foreign-born citizens who have come to these shores have come because in the old world they were the sincere and devoted friends of Republican Government.” This “free choice” model contrasts with the “emigration as exile” model, which more fully acknowledged the harsh realities that forced much of the Irish immigration, e.g., the Famine, as well as the homesickness that ensued. The “adopted country” language is distinguishable from these two models insofar as it does not address why Irish migrated in the first place, it concerns how Irish American leaders presented their actions once in America. New York Times, October 29, 1863.
2. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, on the ideological nature of Civil War soldiers.
3. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 176 (“rites of passage” phrase). Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 64.
4. While noting that Irish American writer Charles Halpine poked fun at the bombastic speeches of some ethnic leaders at flag presentation ceremonies, historian William Burton also underestimates the power these ceremonies held for recipients and audiences. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 147, 176–77, 187–89. McDermott, 69th Regiment Pennsylvania, 28, 83. Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 55–65, 330–36.
5. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 22–2. Pilot, June 29, 1861.
6. Pilot, June 29, 1861. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 22–24. See also Pilot, May 25, 1861 (ceremonies in Salem, Massachusetts, before the departure of its company of the 9th Massachusetts); Ryan, Campaigning with the Irish Brigade, 29, 38 n.2 (28th Massachusetts send-off on January 10 and 11, 1862).
7. Pilot, June 29, 1861 (“rubbish”); July 6, 1861.
8. Pilot, July 27, 1861. Thomas Cass to Charles R. Train, March 2, 1862 (Pilot, March 22, 1862) (When Bostonians sent the 9th Massachusetts another state banner in March 1862, Cass declared that “we can justly claim in common with all our brothers in arms from Massachusetts, that the honor of our State and Flag can be justly confided to our keeping, and that we can be justly allowed the proud privilege of defending its honor, as well as the glorious emblem of our common country—the Stars and Stripes.”).
9. Pilot, June 29, 1861. Michael A. Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., November 12, 1861 (Pilot, November 30, 1861)(“atoms”; the “‘green flag’ was the centre of general observation” during a review); Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., November 28, 1861 (Pilot, December 14, 1861) (“a smile of grateful acknowledgement” came over the face of “honest father Abraham” when he saw the emerald banner during another review). OR, ser. 1, vol. 11 pt. 1:720.
10. O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 76, 78–79.
11. Pilot, October 19, 1861.
12. Pilot, October 26, 1861; November 2, 1861; December 14, 1861; see also August 2, 1862 for an article reprinted from the Chicago Post.
13. Pilot published Finnerty’s letter in the same edition in which it urged Irish Americans to “assert themselves” in the November 1861 state elections. Michael A. Finnerty, Camp near Fall’s Church, Va., October 15, 1861 (Pilot, October 26, 1861). John W. Mahan, Minor’s Hill, Va., February 26, 1862 (Pilot, March 8, 1862). See also Michael A. Finnerty, June 2, 1862 (Pilot, June 14, 1862) (Finnerty fumed when he felt a reporter for the New York Herald ignored the role his regiment played at the battle of Hanover Court House due to its Irish American composition, and he expected “even handed justice” based on Irish American service).
14. Unsigned letter to [Patrick] Donahoe from an officer of the 9th Massachusetts, Warrenton, Va., November 9, 1862 (Pilot, November 22, 1862). Patrick R. Guiney to John A. Andrew, camp near Sharpsburgh [sic], October 22, 1862, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 143–44. John A. Andrew to Patrick R. Guiney, Boston, October 31, 1862 in Pilot, November 22, 1862. Baum, Civil War Party System, 48.
15. Michael A. Finnerty, On Board Steamer Ben DeFord, June 29, 1861 (Pilot, July 13, 1861). Crotty, Four Years, 30–32, 60.
16. Michael A. Finnerty, Washington D.C., July 6, 1861 (Pilot, July 20, 1861). Crotty, Four Years, 18–19. McDermott, 69th Regiment Pennsylvania, 7 (service near Washington, D.C.).
17. Michael A. Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., February 25, 1862 (Pilot, March 15, 1862). See Halpine, Baked Meats, 256–57, for a poem declaring that Irish Americans and the native-born came together during Gettysburg.
18. Michael A. Finnerty, Washington, D.C., July 6, 1861 (Pilot, July 20, 1861) (members of the 9th Massachusetts visit the 69th NYSM); Finnerty, Arlington, Va., July 25, 1861 (Pilot, August 10, 1861); Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., October 2, 1861 (Pilot, November 2, 1861) (Irish American officers of the 33rd Pennsylvania visit the 9th’s camp). “Erin,” Minor’s Hill, Va., February 14, 1862 (Irish-American, February 22, 1862). See also Pilot, August 10, 1861 (Irish Americans in San Francisco send a flag to the 69th New York).
19. Harper’s Weekly, June 1, 1861. See also Michael A. Finnerty, Washington D.C., July 6, 1861 (Pilot, July 20, 1861) (officers of the 31st New York invited counterparts from the 9th Massachusetts to supper).
20. Michael A. Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., January 2, 1862 (Pilot, January 11, 1862). Patrick R. Guiney to Jennie Guiney, Minor’s Hill, Va., December 27, 1861, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 59–60.
21. Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 485. Corby, Memoirs, 265–68.
22. McDermott, 69th Regiment Pennsylvania, 5. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 147. Edward Kelly, Alexandria, Va., November 20, 1861 (Pilot, November 30, 1861). Miller, “Trouble with Brahmins,” 40. Bennett, O’Rorke, 9–11, 69. Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 436.
23. Pilot, April 25, 1863; P. McD., Beaufort, S. C., April 2, 1863 (Pilot, April 25, 1863). Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 176. Daniel W. Sawtelle to Sister, Bermuda Hundred, Va., Sept. 18, 1864, in Buckingham, All’s for the Best, 302 (8th Maine in Jacksonville; see also page 46).
24. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 134. Patrick R. Guiney to wife, May 7, 1863, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 187–88.
25. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 60, 284–85. Samito, Irish Ninth, 105. Charles William Folsom Diary, March 17, 1863; March 17, 1864, cited in Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 210. John Ryan of the 28th Massachusetts recalled duty on James Island, South Carolina, alongside native-born, German, and Scotch troops. Ryan, Campaigning with the Irish Brigade, 44. J. P Sullivan, Forest, Wis., February 13, 1883, in Beaudot and Herdegen, Irishman in the Iron Brigade, 92–93. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 208. New York Times, June 17, 1863. Mulholland, 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania, 35, 267.
26. Michael A. Finnerty, Minor’s Hill, Va., November 20, 1861 (Pilot, December 7, 1861) (9th Massachusetts sends over $7,000 home). Corby, Memoirs, 147 (the 63rd, 88th, and 94th New York regiments contribute $1,240.50 to a fund to assist the poor in Ireland). New York Times, October 22, 1861. O’Connor, Fitzpatrick’s Boston, 83. O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 162–63, 204. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 61, 86. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 56, 58–59.
27. Henry W. Lord to William H. Seward, Manchester, England, July 26, 1862, in OR, ser. 3 vol. 2:358–59. Cullop, “Union Recruiting in Ireland,” 101–3. Circular No. 19, Department of State, August 8, 1862, in OR, ser. 3 vol. 2:358–59. Newman, American Naturalization Processes and Procedures 1790–1985, 15. See Peterson and Hudson, “Foreign Recruitment for Union Forces,” 178–84, regarding Confederate attempts to combat immigration to the United States; see pages 187–89 regarding British debates in Parliament about federal recruiting in Ireland, which ultimately led to no official protest to the U.S. government.
28. Hanchett, Halpine, 2–4, 25–26, 33, 78, 98 (Horace Greeley to Abraham Lincoln, January 18, 1864), 131–32, 134–35. Timothy Walch, “Charles Graham Halpine,” in Glazier, Irish in America, 374.
29. Halpine, Miles O’Reilly, viii. Hanchett, Halpine, 85–86, 94.
30. Halpine, Miles O’Reilly, ix–x.
31. Halpine, Baked Meats, 59–60, 206–7. Gannon, “The Won Cause,” 179. Hanchett, Halpine, 113–14.
32. Halpine, Miles O’Reilly, 159–60. Hanchett, Halpine, 91. Irish Brigade historian David P. Conyngham described after the war, “On they marched, dark Puritans from the New England States; stalwart Yankees, of bone and muscle; men from the West and Northwest; exiles of Erin, from Munster’s sunny plains, from Connaught’s heights, and Leinster’s vales; peasants from the Rhine: all march along through the glorious woods, through forest paths, as if of one race and nation.” Conyngham neglected to mention blacks. Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 106.
33. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 10–11, 112–15.
34. New York Times, August 19, 1862. See Chicago’s similar reception of James A. Mulligan after his release from Confederate captivity. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 113–15, 136.
35. New York Times, August 19, 1862.
36. Ibid. August 22, 23, 1862.
37. Ibid.
38. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 116. Corcoran, Captivity, 21–22, 35.
39. Corcoran, Captivity, 22, 27–28, 30, 40, 44.
40. Ibid., 100. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 119.
41. Samito, Irish Ninth, xi–xiv, 113–15. Attorney Guiney’s election to the Roxbury town council in 1859, merchant Thomas Cass’s position on the Boston school committee by 1860, and the election of Thomas W. Cahill, partner in a masonry firm, in 1859, 1860, and 1861 as New Haven alderman, all contrast sharply with the nativist impulse in Massachusetts and Connecticut at the time. On the other hand, both Cass and Cahill captained Irish American militia companies disbanded by Know Nothing governors prior to the Civil War. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 13. Murray, History of the Ninth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, 322.
42. Guiney to wife, Arlington Heights near Washington, D.C., July 31, 1861; to Governor John A. Andrew, camp near Sharpsburgh, Md., October 22, 1862, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 29–30, 143–44. Pilot, September 13, 1862.
43. Guiney to wife, Camp Wightman, June 4, 1861; to wife, Washington, D.C., July 2, 1861; to wife, Arlington Heights near Washington, D.C., July 31, 1861, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 5–6, 11, 28–29.
44. Guiney to wife, Arlington Heights, Va., August 20, 1861; to wife, Arlington Heights, Va., September 1, 1861, in ibid. 47.
45. Guiney to wife, Camp, 9th Mass., January 6, 1863; to wife, Head Quarters 2nd Brigade, February 11, 1863; Guiney to Mrs. Shaw, Roxbury, Ma., June 2, 1864, in ibid. 162, 163, 246.
46. Pilot, April 26, 1862. Guiney to wife, near Bottom’s Bridge, Va., May 22, 1862; to wife, Head Quarters 2nd Brigade, February 26, 1863, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 103, 167. Patrick R. Guiney to Editor of the Boston Journal, September 27, 1864 in Patrick R. Guiney’s scrapbook, Patrick R. Guiney papers, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Ma. (hereafter cited as Guiney scrapbook), 3. Guiney scrapbook, 10, 13.
47. Some historians, such as William L. Burton and Marion Archer Truslow, argue that the Civil War accelerated Americanization of Irish Americans. Susannah Ural Bruce on the other hand contends that Civil War service did not aid Irish American assimilation to the United States and that the level of prejudice against Irish Americans remained largely unchanged as a result of the war. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, x–xi, 51, 56, 67, 121–22, 135, 138, 152–54. Truslow, “Peasants into Patriots,” v–vi, 13. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 4, 189. Pilot, July 29, 1865.
48. Faust, “Christian Soldiers,” 64, 82–83. Watson, “Religion and Combat Motivation in the Confederate Armies,” 30, 35–36, 41–44.
49. George Tipping to Wife, Staten Island, N.Y., October 14, 1862; to Wife, Staten Island, N.Y., October 18, 1862; to Wife, Newport News, Va., November 22, 1862; to Catharine, Suffolk, Va., February 1, 1863; to Catharine, Camp near Suffolk, Va., February 12, 1863; February 15, 1863; to Catharine, Second Division Hospital In the field, June 27, 1864. When Daniel Crotty’s 3rd Michigan passed near St. Mary’s College during the Gettysburg campaign, he joined other Catholics of his regiment to attend Mass. Crotty, Four Years, 88–89. See Pilot, May 25, 1861, and August 24, 1861, for early reports of devotion in the 9th Massachusetts.
50. By May 1863, the 35th Indiana marched as a unit directly to chapel to hear Mass every morning before breakfast and reassembled every evening for a prayer service. On Sundays, members of other regiments attended the High Mass Cooney celebrated for the unit. Peter Paul Cooney to Brother, Indianapolis, Ind., October 14, 1861; to Brother, Louisville, Ky., October 2, 1862; to Brother, Murfreesboro, Tn., January 12, 1863; to Brother, Murfreesboro, Tn., May 13, 1863; June 17, 1863, in McElroy, “War Letters of Father Peter Paul Cooney,” 52, 68, 152, 157, 158. McDermott, 69th Regiment Pennsylvania, 9. Corby, Memoirs, 181, 184–86, 218–19, 320–21.
51. Peter Paul Cooney to Brother, Indianapolis, Ind., October 14, 1861; to Brother, Murfreesboro, Tn., June 17, 1863; to Very Rev. Dear Father [Sorin], McMinnville, Tn., July 17, 1863 (“power”); to Brother, Blue Springs, Tn., April 26, 1864, in McElroy, “War Letters of Father Peter Paul Cooney,” 53, 158, 165–65, 223. Also see a letter from a Protestant soldier in the Army of the Potomac who expressed that “Catholics…are the best friend the soldier has got,” adding that the “Sisters of Charity are doing a noble work here, and although every regiment has its chaplain, he won’t speak to a private. The priest is the only man that is among the men.” Boston Courier, July 18, 1862 (Pilot, July 26, 1862).
52. Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 372–80. Mulholland, 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania, 77–83. Ryan, Campaigning with the Irish Brigade, 89–91. Corby, Memoirs, 139–40.
53. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 20–23, 28–31, 38–41; Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 200.
54. Historians have largely ignored how Fenianism affected citizenship. William D’Arcy’s The Fenian Movement in the United States: 1858–1886 remains the most detailed narrative of the Fenian movement’s activities, while Brian Jenkins’s Fenians and Anglo-American Relations During Reconstruction provides a thorough diplomatic history. Neither book appreciates the paradoxical level to which Fenianism reveals a high extent of Americanization among the Irish Americans, nor sufficiently links the organization’s impact on the redefinition of American citizenship during the 1860s. Despite the fact that she could have cited some of Fenianism’s rhetoric in support of her overall thesis, Susannah Ural Bruce largely ignores the Fenian movement in The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 38–41.
55. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 181, 241, 243.
56. By May 1865, Halpine claimed fifteen army and navy circles contained 14,620 members, although he also overestimated a total Brotherhood membership of 80,000 Fenians. Second National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…January, 1865, 6, 22. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 429. First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood…November 1863, 15 (T. R. Bourke to John O’Mahony, near Warrenton, Va. [“duties”]), 16. Halpine, Baked Meats, 223, 225–27, 228–29. D’Arcy Fenian Movement, 30–31, 40–43, 61, 79, 100 n.5, 101 n. 6, 107 n. 25, 131 n. 92.
57. First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood…November 1863, 3, 6, 11, 43–45. Second National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…January, 1865, 3, 27, 32. Halpine, Baked Meats, 225–26.
58. First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood…November 1863, 3, 6, 11, 41, 46–47. Jenkins, Fenians, 28, 29. During the Civil War, the Irish-born O’Mahoney served as colonel of the 99th NYSM, a unit that mustered into service from August 2—November 9, 1864, and lost one man to disease. Bishops in the United States and Ireland condemned the Fenian Brotherhood, and the church officially condemned it by early 1870. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 33–35, 39, 49, 330–31. Beale, Diary of Edward Bates, 504. Seamus Metress, “John O’Mahoney,” in Glazier, Irish in America, 740–41.
59. First National Convention of the Fenian Brotherhood…November 1863, 6, 10, 17, 36–38.
60. Ibid. 31–35.
61. Ibid. 31–32.
62. Second National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…January, 1865, 5–8, 13, 23.
63. Ibid. 46–48. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 346.
64. Second National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…January, 1865, 49–51. Snay, Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, 127.
65. Irish-born Roberts left for New York City in 1849 at the age of nineteen. There, Roberts became a businessman and was a millionaire by 1869. Roberts served in Congress as a Democrat from 1871–1874. Seamus Metress, “John O’Mahoney”; Daniel J. Kuntz, “William Randall Roberts,” in Glazier, Irish in America, 740–41, 809–10. Jenkins, Fenians, 31–32, 83.
66. Halpine, Baked Meats, vii, 209–13, 215. Hanchett, Halpine, 153.
67. Halpine, Baked Meats, 215–18, 234, 238–39, 249.
68. In another article, Halpine had James T. Brady, an Irish-born prowar Democrat, toast Fenian success with the caveat that a war with Britain would enroll “every able-bodied true Irishman, both here and in Canada, under the banner of the Union!” Ibid. 23, 54, 78–79, 85, 236–37. Hanchett, Halpine, 85.
69. Stephens’ Fenian Songster, 8, 18–20, 24, 25–26, 35, 47, 51–54.
70. Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, S.J. to Charles P. Daly, Maison Saint Joseph, Quimper [France], January 30, 1864 (Daly Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library).
71. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 4, 189 (quote).
72. Pilot, July 26, 1862 (funeral of 9th Massachusetts’s Col. Cass); August 9, 1862 (funeral of 9th Massachusetts’s Lt. John H. Rafferty). Blake McKelvey, who studied Rochester, contended that O’Rorke’s death “made a union out of Rochester.” Bennett, O’Rorke, 134, 136–37, 140.
73. For Irish American criticism of Copperheads and the Draft Riots, see Peter Welsh to Margaret Welsh, Pleasant Valley Maryland, July 18, 1863; Bloomfield, Va., July 22, 1863; In camp near Kelly’s Ford, Va., August 2, 1863, in Kohl, Irish Green and Union Blue, 110, 113–15; Patrick R. Guiney to Jennie Guiney, Berlin, Md., July 16, 1863, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 203; Thomas F. Meagher’s speech to the Irish Brigade in New York Times, January 17, 1864; Macnamara, Irish Ninth in Bivouac and Battle, 217–18.
74. McClintock, “Civil War Pensions,” 460–61. O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 185.
75. Bruce cites reports in the Waterloo Advocate, August 1; September 12, 1862, and Dubuque Herald, August 10, 29, 1862, in Iowa, the Milwaukee Daily News, November 25, 1862, in Wisconsin, and the Quincy Herald, August 4, 1862, in Illinois, of Irish Americans trying to avoid state-level drafts to show that Irish American draft dodging generated a nativist backlash. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 143, 275–76 nn. 34, 35.
76. Pilot, June 8, 1861; August 9, 1862 (“fundamental”); August 16, 1862 (rest of the quotes); December 13, 1862 (calling slavery a “great vice”). Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 137–38.
77. Pilot, December 13, 1862; January 17, 1863.
78. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 136–37 (Pilot, January 10, 1863, quoted on 136). Pilot, August 9, 1862; January 24, 1863; April 4, 1863; April 11, 1863; May 30, 1863; June 25, 1864.
79. Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, S.J. to Charles P. Daly, Maison Saint Joseph, Quimper [France], January 30, 1864 (Daly Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library).
80. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 188, 228. Quigley, Second Founding, 11.
81. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 68, 77, 79–84. Smith, Gerrit Smith On M’Clellan’s Nomination and Acceptance, 14. The Loyal Publication Society’s The Two Ways of Treason: Or, The Open Traitor Of The South Face To Face With His Skulking Abettor At The North (1863) equated Peace Democrats with traitors, and Sherman vs. Hood—“A Low Tart, Inclined To Be Very Sweet”—Something For Douglas Democrats To Remember—An Appeal To History—Where Governor Seymour Got His “Lessons”—On the Chicago Surrender (1864), compared New York’s Democratic governor Horatio Seymour with Benedict Arnold on page 3.
82. Guiney scrapbook, 13–14. Draft of one of Guiney’s speeches in support of Ulysses S. Grant, located in the Patrick R. Guiney papers, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Ma.
83. Pilot, August 9, 1862; January 24, 1863; April 4, 1863; April 11, 1863; June 25, 1864; November 5, 1864. See also New York Times, October 9, 1862 (speech by Richard O’Gorman). Irish-American, November 12, 1864; see also Irish-American, September 17, 1864 (McClellan as the Union’s only hope, in contrast with the “prospect of unceasing, aimless bloodshed, the disruption of our national ties, overwhelming debt, insolvency and anarchy” represented by a Lincoln victory). Pilot, September 3, 1864, in Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 227. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln. Siddali, From Property to Person, 181–82. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 91–94.
84. Halpine, Miles O’Reilly, 87–95. The Great Mass Meeting of Loyal Citizens at Cooper Institute, Friday Evening, March 6, 1863, 3, 9. Siddali, From Property to Person, 2. Pilot, November 12, 1864, quoted in O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 216.
85. William Jones to Maggie Jones, Ft. Pulaski, Ga., January 10, 1863; Thomas Jones to Maggie Jones, Ft. Pulaski, Ga., February 18, 1863, in Trimble, Brothers ‘til Death, ix, 42–33. George Tipping to Catharine, Suffolk, Va., June 6, 1863.
86. Frank, With Ballot and Bayonet, 67–70 (confronting the “harsh reality” of slavery hardened feelings against it among Northern troops). Michael A. Finnerty, Washington D.C., July 6, 1861 (Pilot, July 20, 1861). Guiney to wife, July 14, 1861; September 1, 1861; May 22, 1862, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 15–17, 46–48, 103. Pilot, April 26, 1862; September 13, 1862. Macnamara, Ninth Regiment, 78–79. See also draft of one of Guiney’s speeches in support of Ulysses S. Grant, located in the Guiney Papers, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Ma.
87. Macnamara, Irish Ninth in Bivouac and Battle, 58, 59, 133, 152, 219–21.
88. Halpine, Miles O’Reilly, 55–57. Halpine, Baked Meats, 205 (poem “won over the Irish” to support the measure).
89. Meagher’s October 1863 letter reveals that he embraced the Republican Party and did not merely promote it for personal gain as William L. Burton argued. The Irish-American lamented, “Between him and the people who loved and trusted him once he has opened a gulf he never can bridge over,” and another edition declared, “Our indignation at his unprovoked attack upon our people has long since subsided into contempt.” Thomas F. Meagher to Patrick R. Guiney, New York, October 7, 1863, in Samito, Irish Ninth, 225–27. Thomas F. Meagher to the Union Committee of Ohio, New York, September 23, 1863 (Irish-American, October 3, 1863). Irish-American, October 3, 1863; October 13, 1864; October 15, 1864; November 12, 1864. Athearn, Meagher, 139. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 125, 210.
90. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 214–15.
91. John Higham contrasted the Irish Brigade’s December 1863 charge at Fredericksburg with the last recorded meeting of the Grand Executive Committee of the Order of United Americans. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 12–13. Thomas N. Brown also thought that American prejudice against Irish Americans eased but did not vanish after the Civil War. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 44–45. Susannah Ural Bruce on the other hand contends that the level of prejudice against Irish Americans remained unchanged as a result of the war. Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 189.
Chapter 6. African Americans and the Call for Rights
1. Runkle, Address Delivered by Bvt. Col. Ben. P. Runkle, 7–8.
2. Ibid., 10–14, 16–17, 19–21.
3. Christian Recorder, February 11, 1865, in McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 311.
4. J.H.W.N. Collins, Savannah, Geo., March 19, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865). “Arnold,” Wilmington, N.C., March 29, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865). McMurray, Recollections, 12 (proud black men and women line the streets to watch the 6th USCI march through Williamsburg, Virginia, at least half a dozen times).
5. Garland H. White, Richmond, Va., April 12, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 22, 1865) (describing the reaction of blacks during a visit by Lincoln to Richmond after its fall, as well as his own unexpected reunion with his mother following their twenty-year separation). Miller, “Garland H. White,” 203. Thomas M. Chester, Richmond, April 9, 1865, in Blackett, Chester, 299 (Chester congratulates ex-slaves convened at the African Church in Richmond). Alexander Whyte, Jr., Memorandum of Extracts from Speech by Major Delaney, African, at the Brick Church, St. Helena Island, S.C. Sunday July 23rd 1865; Col. Charles H. Howard to Rufus Saxton, Beaufort, S.C., July 28, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 739–41.
6. William A. Warfield, Camp Nelson, Ky., July 7, 1865 (Weekly Anglo-African, July 22, 1865), in Redkey, Grand Army, 187–88.
7. H. S. Harmon, Gainesville, Fla. (Christian Recorder, October 21, 1865).
8. George M. Turner to Cousin, Hilton Head, S.C., December 15, 1861; to Father, Hilton Head, S.C., June 19, 1862; to Cousin Ursula, Beaufort, S.C., July 28, 1863; and, to Aunt Susan, Jacksonville, Fla., May 2, 1864, in Silber and Sievens, Yankee Correspondence, 84–87. Brockway, Speech of Capt. Charles B. Brockway…August 30, 1865, 4, 9, 13.
9. Zalimas, “Disturbance,” 354–69. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 87–89.
10. Zalimas, “Disturbance,” 374–77. Yacovone, Voice of Thunder, 87–89.
11. Lt. Col. A. J. Willard to Capt. George W. Hooker, Georgetown, S.C., November 19, 1865; H. M. Turner to Edwin M. Stanton, Columbus, Ga., February 14, 1866, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 754, 756–57. Williams, “Christmas Insurrection Scare of 1865,” 40, 42–43, 48.
12. F. G. Wilkins, et al. to Governor Charles J. Jenkins, Columbus, Ga., February 13, 1866; H. M. Turner to Edwin M. Stanton, Columbus, Ga., February 14, 1866; Capt. Frederick Mosebach to Capt. W. W. Deane, Columbus, Ga., March 8, 1866, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 756–57, 759–61.
13. William B. Johnson, Jacksonville, Fl., June 22, 1865 (Christian Recorder, July 8, 1865). N. B. Sterrett, Kinston, N.C., July 2, 1865 (Christian Recorder, July 8, 1865). Sgt. E. S. Robison to Maj. Gen. Q. A. Gillmore, Columbia, S.C., August 7, 1865, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 742. No report can be found from the investigation Gillmore ordered.
14. Brown, Negro in the American Rebellion, 379–80. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 234. Shaffer, After the Glory, 29. As of September 1865, blacks comprised 83,079 (36.7 percent) of 226,611 U.S. soldiers. Williams, “Insurrection Scare,” 41. Not all units enjoyed pride-inspiring military experiences. The 65th USCI, recruited in Missouri and serving from March 1864 until January 1867, saw no combat but suffered 742 deaths due to disease among 1,707 total enlisted men. The 65th USCI performed hard labor, had no chaplain, and frequently received bad inspection reports for unsanitary camp conditions and lax discipline; its muster out and discharge seem to have involved little fanfare. Yet 103 members of the regiment found military life satisfactory enough that they obtained discharge in September and October 1866 so as to be able to enlist in the 9th U.S. Cavalry regiment. Steiner, Disease in the Sixty-Fifth United States Colored Infantry, xiv, xv, xvii, xviii, 10–13, 16, 127.
15. Col. T. H. Barrett, Ringgold Barracks, Tex., January 4, 1866, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 782–85. James S. Brisbin advised his 6th USCC, recruited out of Kentucky, to “save your money, buy property, and educate your children,” strive to “become orderly, sober and industrious citizens,” and remember that the “flag that now floats over us is as much yours, as it is mine.” Lt. Col. C. T. Trowbridge of South Carolina’s 33rd USCI advised his command to seek “paths of honesty, virtue, sobriety and industry,” and to know that the “church, the school house and the right forever to be free, are now secured to you,” along with a national guarantee of “full protection and justice.” Trowbridge praised his “comrades” who “in the face of floods of prejudice, that well nigh deluged every avenue to manhood and true liberty…came forth to do battle for your country and your kindred,” and who, united with whites, conquered the rebellion, freed the slaves, and altered “the fundamental law of the land.” General Orders No. 1, Head Quarters, 33rd USCI, February 9, 1866; Order No. 43, Head Qrs. 6th USCC, April 16, 1866, in Berlin, Black Military Experience, 786–88.
16. “Hannibal,” Western Theological Seminary, October 27, 1865 (Christian Recorder, November 4, 1865).
17. I. N. Triplett, Davenport, Ia., October 31, 1865 (Muscatine (Iowa) Journal, November 6, 1865) in Redkey, Grand Army, 293–96. W. A. Freeman (Christian Recorder, May 27, 1865). N. B. Sterrett, Caroline City, N.C., August 19, 1865 (Christian Recorder, August 26, 1865). See also William Gibson, City Point, Va., May 18, 1865 (Christian Recorder, May 27, 1865) (exasperation because Indiana hesitated to repeal its black laws). See Garland H. White, Corpus Christi, Tex., September 19, 1865 (Christian Recorder, October 21, 1865), for a more passive view.
18. A. H. Newton, Hartford, Ct., November 25, 1865 (Weekly Anglo-African, December 16, 1865) in Redkey, Grand Army, 286–87. Davidson, “First United States Colored,” 21 (men of the 1st USCI reunite with families on the present site of Howard University). Fox, Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 84 (55th Massachusetts returns to Boston).
19. The night before, police arrested two black soldiers guarding an arch that whites threatened to tear down. The mayor released them the following morning. The planning committee later charged that the police were “prowling around in colored localities to trump up charges or imagine offences” to humiliate the black community. Ceremonies at the Reception of Welcome to the Colored Soldiers of Pennsylvania, in the City of Harrisburg, Nov. 14th, 1865, by the Garnet League, 3–6, 7, 12, 21–22.
20. Ibid., 8–11.
21. 14 Stat. 332 (Act of July 28, 1866).
22. Cullen, “‘I’s a Man Now,’” 85, 86, 89 (Long quote), 91 (South Carolina soldier quote). Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 248. Shaffer, After the Glory, 32, 59.
23. Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, xix. Proceedings and Address of the Colored Citizens of N.J. Convened at Trenton, August 21st and 22d, 1849, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 3–6. Connecticut State Convention, of Colored Men…September 12th and 13th, 1849, in ibid., 25–26, 29. State Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Illinois…Nov. 13th, 14th and 15th, 1856, in ibid., 68, 70, 75–77. Blacks convened nine prewar state conventions each in New York and Ohio, three in California, two in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Indiana, and one each in Michigan, New Jersey, and Maryland, as well as a New England regional convention held in Boston in August 1859.
24. State Council of Colored People of Massachusetts, Convention, January 2, 1854, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 89. Convention of the Colored Citizens of Massachusetts, August 1, 1858, in ibid., 97–100. New England Colored Citizens’ Convention August 1, 1859, in ibid., 208, 211–14, 218, 219, 222–23. Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest, 27, 37, 114, 133, 176–77, 186, 205. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 201, 223. Cheek and Cheek, Langston, 425. Baltimore Sun, July 28, July 29, 1852, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 42–48.
25. Preamble and Constitution of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League, Acting Under the Jurisdiction of the National Equal Rights League of the United States of America, in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 166–67, 169, 170, 171. California State Convention of the Colored Citizens…on the 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th of October, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 197 (use of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”).
26. Illinois State Convention of Colored Men…October 16th, 17th, and 18th [1866], in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 259.
27. Convention of the Colored People of Pennsylvania…February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1865, 22. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 27, 38. Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League…August 9th and 10th, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 150. First Annual Meeting of the National Equal Rights League…October 19, 20, and 21, 1865, 35, 47. Illinois State Convention…October 16th, 17th, and 18th [1866], 251. National Convention of the Colored Men of America, Held in Washington, D.C., on January, 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1869, in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 356–57.
28. For examples, see National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 6–12, 32; Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League…August 9th and 10th, 1865, 135–36; Preamble and Constitution of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League, Acting under the Jurisdiction of the National Equal Rights’ League of the United States of America and Constitution for Subordinate Leagues (1866), in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 161–64 (proposed constitution for auxiliary leagues of the Pennsylvania chapter); State Convention of the Coloured Men of the State of New Jersey…July 13th and 14th, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 7–14; First Annual Meeting of the National Equal Rights League, 7–12, 22, 36; “Convention of Colored Citizens in Boston,” Boston Daily Advertiser, quoted in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, December 9, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 203; Proceedings of the Iowa State Colored Convention…February 12th and 13th, 1868, in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 330.
29. Frederick Douglass, “The Douglass Institute: An Address Delivered in Baltimore, Maryland, on 29 September 1865,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4:86–96, 93–95. Levine, Politics of Representative Identity, 8–11, 65–66, 183–85, 190, 197–98, 216. Moses, Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 11. Brown and Shaw, “Separate Nations,” 26, 27. Bell, “Negro Nationalism in the 1850s,” 100. Davis, “Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League,” 612–13. Marable, W.E.B. DuBois, 38. William Nesbit, Joseph C. Bustill, William D. Forten, on behalf of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League, To the Honorable The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress Assembled ([1866?]), 1. George A. Rue to Editor, March 31, 1865 (Christian Recorder, April 8, 1865). See First Annual Meeting of the National Equal Rights League, 52, for a resolution discouraging anyone from trying to “revive in this land, the dead carcass of Liberian Emigration.”
30. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 3–9. Vorenberg, Final Freedom, 152–59.
31. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 12–15.
32. Ibid., 16–19, 36–39 (National Equal Rights League’s constitution). Cheek and Cheek, Langston, 426–27.
33. The marginalization of blacks advocating colonization is apparent in Garnet’s case. Garnet could not even win election as a delegate to the National Convention he had called, and he attended as a representative of his African Civilization Society. Later nominated to serve as president of the National Equal Rights League, in the end, he was not even selected as one of its twenty-four other officers, although he did address the convention. While some speakers at the convention reiterated a belief in a separate black nation, most eschewed colonization; while that issue still simmered, the power of those advocating emigration had declined. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 19, 20–24, 26–28, 29–30. Cheek and Cheek, Langston, 427.
34. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 33–34, 41–42, 56.
35. Ibid., 44–51, 53, 55–56, 59.
36. Ibid., 44–46, 53, 56–61.
37. First Annual Meeting of the National Equal Rights League…October 19, 20, and 21, 1865, 4, 5–6, 8–9, 33. National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 36.
38. First Annual Meeting of the National Equal Rights League…October 19, 20, and 21, 1865, 29, 38.
39. Ibid., 38–39.
40. Ibid., 38–40.
41. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., 127–28 (January 5, 1866). National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 38. Colored Men’s Convention of the State of Michigan…Sept. 12th and 13th,’65, 12, 17, 18, 21–23. State Convention of the Coloured Men of the State of New Jersey…July 13th and 14th, 1865, 7, 12–14.
42. Convention of the Colored People of Pennsylvania…February 8, 9, and 10, 1865, 4–7, 10, 14–15, 22, 27, 34, 40.
43. Ibid., 19–21, 26–27, 31–32. Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League…August 9th and 10th, 1865, 133. The state league revisited some intraracial concerns considered at the earlier statewide meeting. Some black barbers refused to serve black patrons because they feared doing so negatively impacted their business with white customers. Delegate John Price offered a resolution that state league or auxiliary members who refused “to accommodate and treat colored men under all circumstances, in his place of business, as he treats white men, is guilty of the grossest dereliction of duty.” Price noted that blacks could not ask “white men to extend equal rights to black men, while we refuse to do so.” Other delegates believed that individuals should be able to regulate their businesses as they saw fit. Price and other attendees countered that sacrifices needed to be made and that blacks had to show Pennsylvania that they were willing to “accord each other the same rights we ask of them.” The resolution carried. Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League…August 9th and 10th, 1865, 147–48.
44. Constitution of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League, 160. Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest, 205. Davis, “Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League,” 614–16. 622. Nesbit, et al. To the Honorable The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 1. Constitution of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights’ League, 160–65.
45. See Laws in Relation to Freedmen, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Executive Document No. 6 (1867) for a compendium of postwar Black Codes.
46. Equal Suffrage. Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, Va., to the People of the United States. Also an Account of the Agitation Among the Colored People of Virginia for Equal Rights. With an Appendix Concerning the Rights of Colored Witnesses Before the State Courts, June 5, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 83–88.
47. Convention of the Colored People of Va., Held in the City of Alexandria Aug. 2, 3, 4, 5, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 258–60, 262–64.
48. Ibid., 264–65, 268, 271.
49. State Convention of the Colored Men of Tennessee, Nashville, August 7, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 114–19. An Address of the Colored People of Missouri to the Friends of Equal Rights, October 12, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 279–81.
50. Colored People’s Convention of the State of South Carolina…November, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 287–88, 289–90, 292, 298–302.
51. Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Arkansas…Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2, 1865, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 191, 192. Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers, 92.
52. State Convention of the Colored People of Georgia, August, January 10, 1866, in Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, 233–35.
53. O’Leary, To Die For, 113.
54. Illinois State Convention of Colored Men…October 16th, 17th, and 18th [1866], 251, 270–74. California State Convention…October, 1865, 174, 175, 178–79, 195–96, 198–99. New Orleans Tribune, September 23, 1866, quoted in Snay, Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, 14. (“We said several times that having devoted our energies to the cause of general liberty, our wishes were for the independence of all nationalities, and the liberal progress of all nations. We, therefore, desire the success of the Fenians in the great work of regenerating old Ireland, and extending to that country the benefit of a Republican or popular government, according to the form of true democratic institutions.”)
55. Christian Recorder, July 1, 1865. See also National Convention of Colored Men…1864, 59–60; J.H.B.P. [John H. B. Payne], Morris Island, S.C., May 24, 1864 (Christian Recorder, June 11, 1864). (A member of the 55th Massachusetts supports his claim to equal rights during the unequal pay crisis by denouncing foreigners and “ignorant Irish.”)
56. Langston, A Speech on “Equality Before the Law,” Delivered by J. Mercer Langston, in the Hall of Representatives, in the Capitol of Missouri, on the Evening of the 9th Day of January, 1866, 27. John Mercer Langston, “Daniel O’Connell,” given in Washington, D.C., December 28, 1874 in Langston, Freedom and Citizenship: Selected Lectures and Addresses of Hon. John Mercer Langston, LL.D., U.S. Minister Resident at Haiti, 69–98: 72, 90. Southern States Convention of Colored Men…October 18, Ending October 25, 1871, 93. Giles, “Narrative Reversals,” 780. Betts, “Negro and the New England Conscience,” 251.
57. Christian Recorder, June 16, 1866; January 12, 1867; May 25, 1867 (reprinting a “soul-touching passage” in which a “NOBLE FENIAN” expressed his willingness to die “in defense of the rights of men to a free government, and of the rights of an oppressed people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor”); October 26, 1867.
58. R.B.H., “Fenianism,” Christian Recorder, February 1, 1868. Christian Recorder, April 25, 1868. For another hostile reference, see Christian Recorder, March 23, 1867 (quoting the bishop of Kerry’s condemnation of Fenians that “eternity is not long enough, nor hell hot enough to punish such miscreants”).
59. Giles, “Narrative Reversals,” 793–94, 796, 800, 802; Douglass quoted on 797, 798. Douglass quoted in McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 280 (“something of an Irishman”). Douglass in Foner, Life and Writings, 2:249 (“The Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Negro People”); 3:134–35; 5:365 (“Colored Americans, and Aliens T. F. Meagher”).
60. Frederick Douglass, “What the Black Man Wants: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 26 January 1865,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4: 59–69: 65–66. See also Douglass, “Black Freedom is the Prerequisite of Victory: An Address Delivered in New York, New York, on 13 January 1865,” in ibid., 51–59: 59 (depicting drunk Irishman at the polls). Douglass quoted Daniel O’Connell’s remark that “the history of Ireland might be traced like a wounded man through a crowd by his tracks of blood” and declared that the statement applied to blacks as well. Douglass, “We Are Here and Want the Ballot-Box: An Address Delivered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 4 September 1866,” in ibid., 123–33, 130.
61. Frederick Douglass, “Our Composite Nationality: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 7 December 1869,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4: 240–59: 250, 252, 256, 257, 259. Christian Recorder, January 30, 1869.
62. Frederick Douglass, “Santo Domingo: An Address Delivered in St. Louis, Missouri, on 13 January 1873,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4:342–55: 344–45.
63. Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4: 69–70. Shankman, “Afro-American Editors on Irish Independence,” 284, 285, 287, 290, 293. Betts, “Negro and the New England Conscience,” 246–47, 251–52.
64. See also Sumner’s presentation, on January 11, 1866, of a petition of a convention of black Baptist churches calling for equal rights and suffrage. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., 107–8 (December 21, 1865), 127–28 (January 5, 1866), 184 (January 11, 1866). See also 43d Cong., 1st Sess., H.R. Misc. Doc. No. 44, Memorial of National Convention of Colored Persons, Praying to be protected in their civil rights, issued from the December 1873 National Civil Rights Convention and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Xi Wang agrees that black arguments “undoubtedly influenced Republican lawmakers.” Xi Wang, “Black Suffrage,” 2171.
65. 14 Stat. 27.
66. Rodrigue, “Freedmen’s Bureau and Wage Labor in the Louisiana Sugar Region,” 193–218.
67. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 474, 476 (January 29, 1866).
68. Ibid., 477, 479 (January 29, 1866) (Saulsbury); 528 (January 31, 1866) (Davis).
69. Ibid., 504 (January 30, 1866) (Howard); 562 (January 31, 1866) (Davis); 570 (February 1, 1866) (Morrill); 599 (February 2, 1866) (Trumbull).
70. Ibid., 603 (Wilson), 606–7 (February 2, 1866), 1367 (March 13, 1866).
71. Richardson, Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789–1897, 6:405–13.
72. Frederick Douglass, “Our Work is Not Done,” December 4, 1863, in Foner, Life and Writings 3:383–84.
73. Thomas R. Hawkins et al., October 28, 1866, in Christian Recorder (November 3, 1866), in Foner and Walker, Black National and State Conventions, 1865–1900, 289–90. Christian Recorder, January 12, 1867, in ibid., 293–95: 293–94. Christian Recorder, October 28, 1866; January 5, 1867.
74. Dickson and Lincoln were related by marriage. Dickson, Address…October 3, 1865, 12, 14, 18 (“We need his labor in the South and we need the protection of his ballot against the ballot of his former traitorous master”), 19 (quote in text). Loring, Safe and Honorable…July 4, 1866, 19, 21–22. From the pulpit, Rev. Samuel T. Spear contrasted white Southern treason with black loyalty: “As now reconstructed, infamous traitors are in power at the South…and Union men…are persecuted, and in many instances…murdered for their loyalty.” Thus, the Presbyterian preacher thundered, he would rather “fight again,” if necessary, “to make treason odious and loyalty honorable.” As to blacks, Spear continued, “They fought for us and they fought with us; they were our friends when we wanted friends and were very glad to welcome their services; and now to remit them to the tender mercies of our former enemies and their former oppressors, with no legal care for their interests, with no guaranteed equality before the law, with the liability to be virtually reenslaved by State laws regulating labor, would be an act of treachery and ingratitude well worthy of the curse of Heaven.” Spear, Citizen’s Duty in the Present Crisis, 10, 11. See also 11th USCHA veteran John Cajay’s contrast of “true and loyal” blacks deprived of their rights with Southern white traitors ascendant under President Johnson. John Cajay to the Editor, Hollidaysburg, Pa., Christian Recorder, March 3, 1866.
75. Boutwell, Reconstruction…July 4, 1865, 30–31, 34, 42. See also Dickson, Address…October 3, 1865, 16. (“Again, it is objected, that the Southern negro is ignorant and unfit to vote. He seems to have been intelligent enough to be loyal, which was more than his master was. But I do not deny the ignorance; their condition of slavery forbids that it could be otherwise. Yet they share this ignorance in common with the poor whites; and I would be willing to apply to both these classes an educational test. Still I would not recommend this. Freedom is the school in which freemen are to be taught, and the ballot-box is a wonderful educator.”)
76. Kelley, Safeguards of Personal Liberty…June 22, 1865, 13–14, 16. Union Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt similarly warned that failure to eliminate all vestiges of slavery equaled a failure to destroy treason. Holt, Treason and its Treatment…14th of April, 1865, 6–8.
77. U.S. Const., Art. 1, Sec. 3. Lieber, Amendments of the Constitution, 31, 38. Wang, “Black Suffrage,” 2169–75, 2184.
78. 14 Stat. 428 (March 2, 1867), 15 Stat. 2 (March 23, 1867); 15 Stat. 14 (July 19, 1867). Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers, xiii–xxxi, 13, 171, 216, 236.
79. Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers, xiii, 222. Shaffer, After the Glory, 73–74.
80. Wang, “Black Suffrage,” 2186, 2213–15. Pennsylvania blacks in February 1865, for example, expressed “sorrow” at “the attitude assumed by our long tried friend, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, on the subject of the colored man’s franchise.” Convention of the Colored People of Pennsylvania…February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1865, 32. For examples of Republicans embracing the point articulated by Douglass on December 4, 1863, and other black conventions, see Boutwell, Reconstruction…July 4, 1865, 30–31, 34, 42; Dickson, Address…October 3, 1865, 16, 18–19; Loring, Safe and Honorable…July 4, 1866, 21–22; and Spear, The Citizen’s Duty in the Present Crisis, 10, 11.
81. National Convention…1869, 345–56.
82. Ibid., 381–84.
83. Ibid., 384–85.
84. Voters in Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Colorado Territory in 1865 rejected state constitutional amendments for black suffrage, though the vote in the three states was close, with 45 percent of the voters in Connecticut and Minnesota and 46 percent of the voters in Wisconsin supporting the proposal. Black suffrage went down in defeat in Kansas and Minnesota in 1867, and Michigan rejected a suffrage amendment to its state constitution in 1868. Wang, “Black Suffrage,” 2186, 2213–15. Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 878–79. Kaczorowski, “To Begin the Nation Anew,” 53.
85. O’Leary, To Die For, 113. Wang, “Federal Enforcement Laws,” 1014–21, 1029. Frederick Douglass, “At Last, At Last, the Black Man Has a Future: An Address Delivered in Albany, New York, on 22 April, 1870,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4:265–72: 266–67, 270–71.
86. Blight, Race and Reunion, 113, 119. Harcourt, “Whipping of Richard Moore,” 261, 266–67, 271, 274, 276.
87. Southern States Convention of Colored…October 18, Ending October 25, 1871, 3, 39, 47, 97–100, 102–3. State Convention of The Colored Citizens of Tennessee…Feb. 22d, 23d, 24th and 25th 1871, 14–15.
88. 16 Stat. 140 (Act of May 31, 1870); 16 Stat. 254 (Act of July 14, 1870); 16 Stat. 443 (Act of Feb. 28, 1871); 17 Stat 13 (Act of April 20, 1871); and, 17 Stat. 347 (Act of June 10, 1872). Wang, “Federal Enforcement Laws,” 1031–33, 1056.
89. Kaczorowski, “Revolutionary Constitutionalism,” 920–21. Kaczorowski, Politics of Judicial Interpretation.
90. 18 Stat. part 3, 335. Cong. Record, 43rd Cong. 2nd Sess., 4782 (June 9, 1874).
91. James H. Hall, Morris Island, S.C., August 3, 1864 (Christian Recorder, August 27, 1864).
92. Addresses of the Hon. W.D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass…July 6, 1863, 7. Broadside, “We fight for our rights, liberty, justice and union,” [Louisiana?: n.p., 1866], in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois. I am grateful to the library for sending me a photocopy of this broadside, which also depicts America’s agrarian tradition as well as a locomotive and ships to indicate its commercial power.
Chapter 7. The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship in America
1. Pilot, June 25, 1864.
2. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 179–80. Truslow, “Peasants into Patriots” 143. New York Tribune, July 6, 1865. McDermott, 69th Regiment Pennsylvania, 51.
3. Pilot, July 15, 1865, in Bruce, Harp and the Eagle, 59. Pilot, March 21, 1866 in Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity, 152. Guiney scrapbook, 14.
4. Hanchett, Hapine, 158–59. Mulholland, 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania, xv. Samito, Irish Ninth, 252–53, 256. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 123. Byron, Irish America, 67.
5. Gordon, Orange Riots, 15–16. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 127 (Philadelphia’s less grand 1872 parade).
6. Pilot, April 15, 1865. New York Times, September 30, 1868.
7. Kettner, Citizenship, 17–18, 50. Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 2: 366, 368, 369–70. Kettner, “Subjects or Citizens,” 958 n. 41.
8. Kettner, Citizenship, 74–77, 78, 80, 83, 106–7, 194, 202, 206, 208, 213. Kettner, “Revolutionary Era,” 225–26, 228, 238–41. Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 2: 370 n. 4. Kettner, “Subjects or Citizens,” 945–46. Regarding colonial diversity, see Butler, Becoming America, chapter 1.
9. British courts resolved in 1824, and the Supreme Court agreed in 1830, that the Treaty of 1783, which acknowledged American independence, released British subjects who lived in the United States at that time from their allegiance to the crown. Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor’s Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99 (U.S. 1830); Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 242 (U.S. 1830). Kettner, Citizenship, 74–77, 78, 80, 83, 106–7, 194, 202, 206, 208, 213. Kettner, “Revolutionary Era,” 225–26, 228, 238–41. Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 2:370 n. 4. Kettner, “Subjects or Citizens,” 945–46.
10. Pennsylvania’s 1776 Constitution held that “all men have a natural inherent right to emigrate from one state to another that will receive them” so as to “promote their own happiness,” and Vermont’s 1777 Constitution incorporated this language. Virginia’s Law of May 1779 applied this principle on a national level and Kentucky later passed similar legislation. Hening, Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All of the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619, 10:129. Kettner, Citizenship, 268, 268 n. 67.
11. The 1790 Naturalization Act, which did not preempt state naturalization acts, mandated that naturalization must occur in federal or state courts of record that had a seal and a clerk, and it liberally allowed to become a citizen any free white of good character who resided for two years in the United States and one year in the state in which he sought naturalization, and swore to support the Constitution. In 1795, Congress increased the residency period from two to five years and mandated that applicants must declare intent to naturalize three years prior to taking the oath, renounce any title of nobility, and foreswear their previous allegiance. The Naturalization Act of June 18, 1798, increased the residency requirement to fourteen years in the United States and a five-year period after declaring intent to become a citizen, and it prohibited naturalization for aliens born in a country at war with the United States. The 1802 legislation largely restored the timeframe implemented in 1795, though it maintained the 1798 act’s prohibition against naturalization for aliens born in countries at war with the United States. Legislation in 1804, 1813, 1816, 1824, and 1828 adjusted certain procedures and timelines. From 1790 to 1922, wives whose husbands naturalized also became naturalized without the need for any further action. Newman, American Naturalization, 5–7, 14. Kettner, Citizenship, 232, 236–47.
12. For a summary of how the judiciary produced a muddled body of law concerning expatriation rights, see Kettner, Citizenship, 271–83. For a contemporary criticism of how this issue remained unsettled, see Tucker, Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia, 1:70–71. In Ainslie v. Martin, 9 Mass. 454 (1813), Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court affirmed that allegiance attached at birth and remained unimpaired by naturalization. Virginia, however, held in Murray v. McCarty, 16 Va. 393 (1811), that, while the government could regulate the manner and proof of its exercise, expatriation stood as an unassailable right. In 1839, Kentucky’s court of appeals concurred with the Murray court: “Expatriation may be considered a practical and fundamental doctrine of America. American history, American institutions, and American legislation, all recognize it. It has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength.” Alsberry v. Hawkins, 39 Ky. 177, 178 (1839). Morrow, “Expatriation,” 552–55. Thomas Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, August 16, 1793, at <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj070203))>.
13. Morrow, “Naturalized Americans Abroad,” 648–55. Hickey, War of 1812, 17.
14. Morrow, “Naturalized Americans Abroad,” 655–56. Henry Wheaton to Johann P. Knocke, Berlin, July 24, 1840, in U.S. Dept. of State, Opinions of the Principal Officers of the Executive Departments, and Other Papers Relating to Expatriation, Naturalization and Change of Allegiance, 125. Hereafter cited as Opinions…Expatriation.
15. Daniel Webster to J. B. Nines, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1852; Edward Everett to Daniel D. Barnard, January 14, 1853, in Opinions…Expatriation, 126, 132–33. Morrow, “Naturalized Americans Abroad,” 658–60.
16. William L. Marcy to John George Chevalier de Hulsemann, September 26, 1853, in Opinions…Expatriation, 22–23, 130–31. William L. Marcy to John M. Daniel, November 10, 1855, in Moore, Digest of International Law, 3: 569. 8 Op. Attorney Gen. 139 (October 31, 1856): 139–69. Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black affirmed Cushing’s opinion at 9 Op. Attorney Gen. 63 (August 17, 1857).
17. Lewis Cass to Rudolph Schledien, April 9, 1859, in Opinions…Expatriation, 130. Lewis Cass to Felix LeClerc, May 17, 1859, in Beale, Diary of Edward Bates, 24. Bates diary, June 8; June 20, 1859; October 29, 1863; see also July 30, 1859, and a letter dated March 17, 1860, for Bates’s belief that naturalization absolved one of all allegiance or duties to one’s native land, all in Beale, Diary of Edward Bates, 23, 25, 39, 113, 313.
18. Cass based this letter on Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black’s analysis days earlier that identified the “natural right” of expatriation as “incontestable” and held that a naturalized citizen who returned to his native land could be arrested for a crime, such as actual desertion or for debt, but he could not be punished for nonperformance that grew from an allegiance since renounced. Cass to Joseph A. Wright, July 8, 1859, in Opinions…Expatriation, 127. 9 Op. Attorney Gen. 356 (July 4, 1859): 357–60, 362.
19. Appendix To the Cong. Globe, 36th Cong. 2nd Sess., 4 (December 3, 1860). Lord Palmerston to M. Droney, October 16, 1859, in Opinions…Expatriation, 189.
20. Seward to Norman B. Judd, March 1863, in Opinions…Expatriation, 128. Morrow, “Naturalized Americans Abroad,” 662–63.
21. Occasional attempts to appoint Fenians as American consuls also exacerbated Anglo-American tension. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 67–69, 86, 226–27. Bruce to Seward, December 26, 1865, quoted in Jenkins, Fenians, 33, see also 110–11. McDonough and Jones, War So Terrible, 246. New York Times, January 10, 1866.
22. William B. West to Seward, Dublin, September 16, 1865; West to Seward, Dublin, September 20, 1865; West to Seward, Dublin, September 30, 1865; West to Seward, Dublin, October 7, 1865; Michael O’Boyle to William West [undated]; West to Seward, Dublin, October 14, 1865; E. G. Eastman to Seward, Queenstown, October 18, 1865; Joseph H. Lawlor to Seward, Dublin, November 13, 1865, all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 7, 8, 11–15. Benjamin Moran diary, September 20, 1865, quoted in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 119 n. 37.
23. West to Seward, Dublin, February 17, 1866; Evening Mail and Packet, February 17, 1866; West to Charles F. Adams, Dublin, February 18, 1866; West to Adams, Dublin, February 19, 1866; West to Seward, Dublin, February 24, 1866; West to Adams, Dublin, March 6, 1866; West to Michael McLoughlin, Dublin, April 19, 1866; West to Sir T. A. Larcom, Dublin, April 20, 1866, all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 37–41, 140, 143, 168, 216, 219. Jenkins, Fenians, 86–87, 96.
24. Adams to Seward, [February 22, 1866?], in Morrow, “Treaty of 1870,” 663. Adams, What Makes Slavery a Question of National Concern? 31–41. Adams likely recognized that the situation in 1866 echoed Britain’s response after reports arose that veterans from the Mexican War were en route to assist a revolt of the Young Irelanders in August 1848. Jenkins, Fenians, 14–19, 75–77, 80.
25. New York Times, March 5, 1866. Jenkins, Fenians, 75–77, 80. Adams to West, September 20, 1865; Adams to Seward, December 28, 1865 (“subjected”), in Jenkins, Fenians, 76, 80. Adams to Seward, March 8, 1866, cited in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 130.
26. Sir Thomas A. Larcom to William B. West, Dublin Castle, February 28, 1866; Larcom to West, March 10, 1866; Larcom to West, Dublin Castle, April 24, 1866; West to Seward, Dublin, March 10, 1866; West to Seward, Dublin, March 24, 1866, all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 45, 46, 49, 49, 50, 225. Lord Clarendon to Sir Frederick Bruce, March 10, 1866, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 123, 130. Ò Broin, Fenian Fever, 63–64. Law Officers to Clarendon, March 9, 1866, in Jenkins, Fenians, 93–94; see also 90–91.
27. Jenkins, Fenians, 49, 50, 57, 98–99, 130.
28. Seward to Adams, March 22, 1866, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 131–32. Jenkins, Fenians, 103.
29. Jenkins, Fenians, 102–4. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 132.
30. Jenkins, Fenians, 41–42. Brian Jenkins recognizes the Fenian movement played a “vital role” in fostering the Anglo-American resolution to the allegiance issue, although the negotiated peace ran contrary to Fenian hopes for war between both countries. Jenkins, Fenians, 280. Adams to Seward, [February 22, 1866?], quoted in Morrow, “Treaty of 1870,” 663.
31. George Archdeacon to Andrew Johnson, Philadelphia, [c. September 29, 1866]; in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 9–11.
32. New York Times, March 5, 1866. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 124 n. 68, 112, 112–13 n. 42. Pilot, March 10, 1866, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 127.
33. New York Times, March 10, 1866.
34. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 163–65, 167, 356. Jenkins, Fenians, 124–26, 128–29, 149–50.
35. U.S House Journal, 39 Cong., 1st Sess., 790 (June 4, 1866), 816–19 (June 11, 1866), 860 (June 18, 1866). Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2946 (June 4, 1866), 3085–86 (June 11, 1866), 3241 (June 18, 1866). Jenkins, Fenians, 158, 159.
36. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., 2545 (May 10, 1866), 3040 (June 8, 1866), 3148 (June 13, 1866). 14 Stat. 27 (Act of April 9, 1866). Michael Les Benedict’s A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869, William E. Nelson’s The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine, and Earl M. Maltz’s Civil Rights, The Constitution, and Congress, 1863–1869 do not mention this moment in the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment.
37. Jenkins, Fenians, 159–60, 178, 188–89. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 187.
38. Fortune Wright court-martial, 96th USCI.
39. Jenkins, Fenians, 160 (New York Tribune, August 25, 1866), 188–89. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 20–21.
40. Speeches of Hon. Schuyler Colfax and General J. O’Neill, 1–3. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 178 n. 106. Christian G. Samito, “John O’Neill,” in Glazier, Irish in America, 746. Clark, Irish in Philadelphia, 121. Holmes, Irish in Wisconsin, 45. Henry Wilson quoted in Boston Daily Journal, August 27, 1866, quoted in Baum, Civil War Party System, 111.
41. Roberts, Message of President William R. Roberts to the Senators and Representatives of the Fenian Brotherhood in Congress Assembled, 15–17. By the time of this 1867 Senate-wing convention, the Brotherhood’s internal focus turned to negotiations for reunification with O’Mahoney’s wing and trying to regain the movement’s momentum as a whole. The convention thus urged local chapters to purchase no more green flags except if needed by military companies, and to forego “the large sums usually expended” on social celebrations, so that money could instead be “applied for revolutionary purposes.” Roberts also reassured delegates that his wing practiced sound fiscal policy. Sixth National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…September, 1867, 4, 12, 14–15, 22–25.
42. Sixth National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood…September, 1867, 4, 29.
43. Snay, Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, 44–46.
44. R.B.H., “Fenianism,” Christian Recorder, February 1, 1868. Christian Recorder, November 21, 1868.
45. Baum, Civil War Party System, 112. Snay, Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, 44–45.
46. Dublin-born Thomas Antisell immigrated to New York in 1848 and worked as a government geologist before joining the Patent Office. The Department of Agriculture employed him after the war. [Antisell], Address, 3–4, 7–8. <www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/cl137.htm>. Baum, Civil War Party System, 112.
47. [Antisell], Address, 3–6.
48. Ibid., 4, 7–8.
49. U.S. House Journal, 39th Cong., 1st sess., 1140 (July 26, 1866). New York Times, July 4, 1866. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 182–84, 185. Jenkins, Fenians, 181–83.
50. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 183–84, 185. C. C. Woodman to Nathaniel P. Banks, July 2, 1866; William R. Roberts to Nathaniel P. Banks, December 20, 1866, both in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 184, 217. Jenkins, Fenians, 181–84.
51. In Massachusetts in 1868, Irish Americans voted for Democratic presidential candidate Seymour two to one, while native-born voters supported Grant at a rate of six to one. Baum, “The ‘Irish Vote,’” 133. Jenkins, Fenians, 205–14. Baum, Civil War Party System, 112. Sanford E. Church to Samuel J. Tilden, November 10, 1866, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 211. John T. Hoffman to Tilden, November 7, 1866, in Jenkins, Fenians, 208. John T. Hoffman to John Sheedy and Jeremiah Donovan, New York, March 12, 1867, in Hoffman, The Cause of Ireland and Adopted Citizens: The Record of John T. Hoffman, His Views on Fenianism Letter of March 12, 1867, His Message to the Common Council Relative to the Rights of Adopted Citizens Dated Nov. 30, 1867, 3–4. Hoffman, The Great Speech of Hon. John T. Hoffman at Buffalo, September 8th, 1868, 2.
52. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 39.
Chapter 8. The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship Abroad
1. William J. Nagle to D. M. Nagle, County Cork Jail, June 14, 1867; Seward to Adams, Washington, D.C. August 7, 1867, both in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 56–57, 60. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 245, 247, 266.
2. Adams to Seward, London, September 21, 1867; London Times, September 20, 1867; Manchester Examiner and Times, [undated], all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 76–83; for a transcript of the trial of the “Manchester Martyrs,” see 100–183. Devoy, Recollections of an Irish Rebel, 239–43. Ò Broin, Fenian Fever, 193–94, 196. Walker, Fenian Movement, 154–55. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 361. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 269–71. New York Times, November 25, 26, 1867.
3. Savage, Fenian Heroes and Martyrs, 452–53.
4. Adams to Seward, London, December 7, 1866; Adams to Seward, London, February 6, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 24, 28. As noted by Brian Jenkins, the “liberation of emigrated Irishmen from the legal tentacles of British suzerainty” proved to be one of the few measures of success generated by the Brotherhood. Jenkins, Fenians, 211, 214–17, 220–21, 224.
5. U.S. House Journal, 40th Cong., 1st sess., 37 (March 11, 1867). New York Times, March 14, 15, 1867. New York Herald, March 14, 1867, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 235–36.
6. Bruce to Stanley, in Ò Broin, Fenian Fever, 177–78.
7. London Times, November 5, 1867; Adams to Seward, London, December 24, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 150–51, 294. London Times, November 4, 1867, in Jenkins, Fenians, 245; see also 242, 243.
8. William J. Nagle to D. M. Nagle, Mount Joy Prison, Dublin, September 30, 1867; William J. Nagle to Congress, Dublin, Ireland, November 25, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 331–32, 350–51. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 272–73. Jenkins, Fenians, 244, 247, 268.
9. John Warren to the Irishmen in the United States, Dublin, Ireland, August 1867; John Warren to Andrew Johnson, Dublin, Ireland, August 3, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 69–72.
10. “Chief Baron Pigott’s refusal of a mixed jury in Warren’s case,” in Opinions…Expatriation, 213–15. 12 Op. Attorney Gen. 319, 321 (November 26, 1867). For the transcript of Warren’s trial, see House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 217–92.
11. House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 289–90.
12. 12 Op. Attorney Gen. 319, 322 (November 26, 1867). Seward to Stanbery, Washington, November 18, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 186–87. Appendix to the Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 7 (December 3, 1867). D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 274–75. Adams to Seward, November 5, 1867; London Times, November 5, 1867, both in Jenkins, Fenians, 250–51.
13. John Warren to Congress, Kilmainham Jail, November 28, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 196–97.
14. Miles J. O’Reilly (not Halpine’s fictional character) to Seward, Detroit, June 16, 1867; Marcus L. Ward to Andrew Johnson, Trenton, N.J., July 12, 1867; New York Sun, July 16, 1867; Henry Liebenau to William H. Seward, New York, July 23, 1867; James J. Rogers to Seward, July 31, 1867; John Warren to Andrew Johnson, Kilmainham Prison, Dublin, Ireland, August 2, 1867; William J. McClure to Col. J. R. O’Beirne, New York, August 10, 1867; Seward to Adams, Washington, D.C., September 14, 1867; P. M. Devitt to Johnson, Cincinnati, Oh., September 23, 1867, all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 60–63, 74, 317–19, 325–26; see also 321–22.
15. John Savage to Seward, New York, November 11, 1867; Savage to Seward, New York, November 26, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 334, 342. Savage to Banks, November 27, 1867; William H. Grace to Banks, December 11, 1867, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 272, 281. London Times, November 4, 1867, in Jenkins, Fenians, 245. Johnson appointed Savage to a consular vacancy at Leeds in late 1868 in an attempt to cultivate relations with Irish Americans. Britain protested and the Senate, not inclined to approve any of Johnson’s nominees for any position anyway, rejected the Fenian. Jenkins, Fenians, 242, 243, 286–88.
16. U.S. Const., Fourteenth Amend.
17. Irish-American, November 9, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 339–40.
18. Patrick R. Guiney to Benjamin Butler, November 25, 1867, Boston, Ma., in Butler Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
19. Endorsement, Benjamin Butler to Patrick R. Guiney, December 3, 1867, in ibid.
20. Resolutions introduced by General Denis F. Burke…on the evening of Saturday, 23d day of November, 1867 in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 359. New York Times, November 24, 1867. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 5–6 (December 2, 1867).
21. Resolutions Introduced and Adopted at a Mass Meeting of the Citizens of New York, Held at the Cooper Institute, in the City of New York, on Tuesday, the 26th day of November, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 360. John T. Hoffman to the Common Council of the City of New York, New York, November 30, 1867, in Hoffman, Cause of Ireland and Adopted Citizens, 5–7.
22. Josiah G. Abbott, Thomas Russell, William Schuler, C. Levi Woodbury, A. B. Underwood, G. Washington Warren, N. B. Shurtless, William L. Burt, and Peter Harvey served as the other vice presidents of the meeting. P. A. Collins to Andrew Johnson, Boston, December 7, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 343–44.
23. Guiney scrapbook, 15.
24. George S. Boutwell to Seward, Washington, D.C., January 7, 1868; Edward O’Neill to Seward, Milwaukee, January 7, 1868; W. F. Lyons to Seward, New York, January 8, 1868, all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 355–57.
25. L. Myron Slade to Seward, Bridgeport, Ct., January 20, 1868; James Lyon to Seward, Auburn, N.Y., February 13, 1868, both in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 361–62. Resolves from Franklin county, N.Y., received by Seward January 23, 1868, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 111.
26. Joint Resolutions of the Wisconsin Legislature, approved January 22, 1868, in House. Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 362–63; Joint Resolutions of the Wisconsin Legislature, Approved February 22, 1868, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 2, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 112–13. Resolutions of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, House Mis. Doc. No. 76, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. Resolutions of the Legislature of Minnesota Relative to Protection to American Citizens in Foreign Countries, Sen. Mis. Doc. No. 28, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. Resolutions of the Legislature of California Asking Congress to Demand of Foreign Governments Full and Ample Protection to our Foreign-born Citizens while Temporarily Residing under Those Governments, House Mis. Doc. No. 149, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. Resolutions of the Legislature of Ohio in Relation to American citizens, House Mis. Doc. No. 112, 40th Cong. 2d Sess.
27. Resolutions of the Legislature of Maine, Relative to Naturalized Citizens of the United States, House Mis. Doc. No. 59, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. Resolution of the Legislature of Maryland, Relative to the Rights of Naturalized Citizens of the United States, House Mis. Doc. No. 75, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. Resolutions of the Legislature of Kansas, in Relation to the Rights of American Citizens in Foreign Countries, Sen. Mis. Doc. No. 25, 40th Cong. 2d Sess.
28. Seward to Adams, Washington, D.C., January 13, 1868, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 298–99. See petitions from (all citations are to the 40th Cong., 2nd Sess.): a meeting at Vincennes, Indiana (U.S. House Journal, December 17, 1867, 108); the city council of and a meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio (U.S. House Journal, December 18, 1867, 116); the city council of St. Louis, Missouri (U.S. House Journal, December 19, 1867, 121); the selectmen and four hundred others in Marlborough, Massachusetts; a meeting at Toledo, Ohio; and the citizens of Kearney City, Nebraska, and Goodhue County, Minnesota (Cong. Globe, January 8, 1868, 372); the 17th congressional district of Pennsylvania (U.S. House Journal, January 9, 1868, 162); a meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts; two hundred citizens of the 16th congressional district; 162 citizens of the 17th congressional district of New York; citizens in Illinois; and 278 citizens of Wooster, Ohio (Cong. Globe, January 10, 1868, 433, 452); citizens of Parkersburg, West Virginia (Cong. Globe, January 11, 1868, 453); a meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; all the voters except one in Beacon Falls, Connecticut; the 2nd congressional district of Iowa; the 10th congressional district of New York; a meeting at Hamilton, Ohio; citizens in Iowa and Ohio; the St. Patrick’s Society of Brooklyn, New York; a meeting at Kansas City, Missouri; and several petitions from New York (Cong. Globe, January 14, 1868, 490; U.S. House Journal, January 14, 1868, 183); a meeting at North Andover, Massachusetts; a meeting in Alleghany, New York, on January 2, 1868; citizens in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Franklin City, New York; a meeting in Elmira, New York; and three hundred citizens of the 27th congressional district of New York (Cong. Globe, January 20, 1868, 624, 638, 719); citizens of Minnesota; a meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota; and a meeting in Hampden County, Massachusetts (Cong. Globe, January 21, 1868, 649); 2,500 citizens of Lowell, Massachusetts (Cong. Globe, January 23, 1868, 699); 150 residents of Stamford, Connecticut; the city council of Rock Island, Illinois; the supervisors of Polk County, Iowa; the 3rd congressional district of Illinois; and citizens of Vermont (Cong. Globe, January 29, 1868, 815); the Rochester, New York, common council (Cong. Globe, January 31, 1868, 880); the Maine and Wisconsin legislatures (Cong. Globe, February 3, 1868, 920–21); citizens of Pennsylvania (Cong. Globe, February 3, 1868, 921); a meeting of naturalized citizens at Nashua, New Hampshire; citizens in St. Louis, Missouri; and GAR Post 159 in the Dept. of Ohio (Cong. Globe, February 4, 1868, 950, 967); twenty petitions from citizens in Maryland, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kansas, Maine, Idaho Territory, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, as well as the Kansas legislature (U.S. House Journal, February 5, 1868, 300; Cong. Globe, February 5, 1868, 980); residents of Omaha, Nebraska (Cong. Globe, February 6, 1868, 998); 454 residents of Cattaraugus County, New York (U.S. House Journal, February 10, 1868, 322); a meeting of the Friendly Sons of Ireland in Jersey City, New Jersey (Cong. Globe, February 13, 1868, 1141–42); residents of St. Lawrence County, New York and Brush’s Mills, New York (U.S. House Journal, February 18, 1868, 319–20; Cong. Globe, February 18, 1868, 1068); three hundred citizens of the 27th congressional district of New York (U.S. House Journal, February 19, 1868, 364); citizens of Nevada and the Minnesota legislature (U.S. House Journal, March 2, 1868, 434); the Wisconsin legislature (U.S. House Journal, March 9, 1868, 489); citizens of Montana Territory (U.S. House Journal, March 17, 1868, 535); the Ohio legislature (Cong. Globe, March 28, 1868, 2176); and citizens of Hennepin County, Minnesota; Fitchburg, Massachusetts; Troy, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Syracuse, New York; Toledo, Ohio; the District of Columbia; Utica, New York; the California and Kansas legislatures; and the Knights of St. Patrick of New York; (U.S. Senate Journal, June 23, 1868, 534–35).
29. Seward to Charles F. Adams, Washington, D.C., March 28, 1867, in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 34–35. Maltz, Civil Rights, The Constitution, and Congress, 135–36. Foner, Reconstruction, 315.
30. Impeachment provides the mechanism for removal of federal civil officers found to have engaged in “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Irish-born Robinson settled in New York City in 1836. He graduated from Yale College in 1841, became a newspaper correspondent, and gained admission to the New York bar in 1854. Lincoln appointed him an assessor of internal revenue in New York in 1862, and he served as a Democratic congressman from 1867 to 1869 and 1881 to 1885. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 1st Sess. 778 (November 21, 1867); 786–91 (November 25, 1867)
31. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 1st Sess., 791 (November 25, 1867).
32. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 4–5 (December 2, 1867)
33. Robinson proposed that the United States purchase Ireland, annex it, and let it be represented in Congress. Ibid., 6.
34. Ibid., 309 (December 20, 1867).
35. U.S. House Journal, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 162–63 (January 9, 1868). Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 636 (January 20, 1868); 650 (January 21, 1868).
36. U.S. House Journal, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 258 (January 27, 1868); Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 783 (January 27, 1868); 865 (January 30, 1868).
37. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 865–67 (January 30, 1868); 866 (Donnelly: “Only true remedy for this injustice which is practiced upon our citizens is…to declare that such an act shall be ‘just ground for war.’”); 867 (Woodward: “It would be wise if the friends of this bill would incorporate in it a declaration that the American citizen may expatriate himself. If he chooses to go to Great Britain, or to Germany, or to France, or to any other foreign country, let him go.”).
38. Ibid. (January 30, 1868); 986–87 (February 5, 1868).
39. Ibid., 1012–17 (February 6, 1868). Quigley, Second Founding, 48–50.
40. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 1294 (February 20, 1868). H.R. No. 768, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess.
41. London Times, December 11, 1867; January 8, 1868, January 10, 1868; Dublin Freeman, January 16, 1868; all in House Ex. Doc. 157, pt. 1, 40th Cong. 2d Sess., 94–95, 97–100, 206–11, 297–98. Adams Diary, December 11, 1867, quoted in Jenkins, 258–59.
42. Stanley also noted that Parliament’s desire to adjourn left it unlikely to take up discussion on the issue even were the commission’s report available. Lord Stanley to Thornton, February 15, 1868; Lord Stanley to Thornton, March 14, 1868; Lord Stanley to Thornton March 21, 1868; Lord Stanley to Thornton, March 31, 1868; Thornton to Lord Stanley, Washington, D.C., March 30, 1868; Thornton to Lord Stanley, Washington, D.C., April 13, 1868; Lord Stanley to Thornton, June 16, 1868, in Great Britain Foreign Office, Correspondence…the “Alabama” and British Claims, Naturalization, and San Juan Water Boundary, 1–6. Morrow, “Treaty of 1870,” 671. D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 291–92, 294–95. Seward to Adams, March 7, 1868, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 288–89.
43. Seward to Thornton, May 28, 1868; Seward to Moran, June 22, 1868, in Jenkins, Fenians, 271, 274; see also 267–68, 272–73. Morrow, “Treaty of 1870,” 670. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 2317–18 (April 20, 2868).
44. Both platforms can be found at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php. Foner, Reconstruction, 343.
45. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 4445–46, 4474 (July 25, 1868). Morrow, “Treaty of 1870,” 673–74.
46. 15 Stat. 223 (Act of July 27, 1868). Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess., 4498.
47. Attorney General George H. Williams affirmed that expatriation rights applied to American citizens wishing to naturalize abroad. 14 Op. Attorney Gen. 296 (August 20, 1873).
48. Seward to Johnson, July 20, 1868; August 27, 1868, in D’Arcy, Fenian Movement, 305. Lord Stanley to Thornton, September 19, 1868; Lord Stanley to Thornton, October 9, 1868, in Great Britain Foreign Office, Correspondence…the “Alabama” and British Claims, Naturalization, and San Juan Water Boundary, 6, 7.
49. Great Britain Foreign Office, Correspondence…the “Alabama” and British Claims, Naturalization, and San Juan Water Boundary, 7–8 (Protocol). Arrest of American Citizens in Great Britain, 40th Cong. 3d Sess. House Rep. No. 44, 5–6.
50. Grant retorted in response to a recommendation that Fenian supplies be seized, “The British did not seize or stop the Alabama,” and in discharging some detectives who investigated Fenian designs against Canada, he grumbled, “The British did not employ detectives to prevent raids from Canada during our war.” Report of the Royal Commissioners for Inquiring into the Laws of Naturalization and Allegiance, iv, v. Jenkins, Fenians, 284, 293, 295–96, 303 (Grant quotes in Hamilton Fish diary, April 15; April 25, 1870).
51. Opinions…Expatriation, 82–83 (May 12, 1870, act). Bevans, Treaties, 12:158–60 (Treaty). On February 23, 1871, a supplemental convention, ratified by the Senate, President, and United Kingdom and entered into force on May 4, 1871, articulated the renunciation procedure contemplated by the May 13, 1870, treaty. Bevans, Treaties, 12: 167–69.
52. Page, The Naturalization Question. Quigley, Second Founding, 74–75, 80–81. This act is at 16 Stat. 254.
53. American forces captured O’Neill again after he led a small band in seizing a Canadian post on the Hudson Bay in October 1870. O’Neill avoided lengthy punishment and ended his days settling Irish in Nebraska. He died in 1878. Samito, “John O’Neill,” in Glazier, Irish in America, 746. Jenkins, Fenians, 305–6, 313–14.
54. For an example of this consciousness of American strength, see Davis, Speech…September 24, 1863, 27–29 (“Every despot in Europe curled his lips when the rebellion broke out, at the feeble, wretched, vacillating, dilapidated government that undertook to restore its authority,” but on reunion, Davis looked forward “to the day when the black regiments shall stream to the capital of the Montezumas while the Army of the Potomac becoming the army of the St. Lawrence, shall march to Quebec and Montreal,” and the American navy could match that of Britain so that he could “hear of the explosion of the bombshells over the dome of St. Paul’s, and of the arches of London bridge sent into the air.”). See also Boutwell, Reconstruction…July 4, 1865, 10. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 19.
55. Kerby Miller identified Fenianism as “the most popular and powerful ethnic organization in Irish-American history.” Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 336.
56. Arrest of American Citizens in Great Britain, 40th Cong. 3d Sess. House Rep. No. 44, 3. New York Times, May 24, 1870.
57. New York Times, May 24, 1870.
Epilogue
1. The number of Irish Americans who fought for the Union is much more difficult to pinpoint than the number of African Americans. Shaffer, After the Glory, 11. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 336.
2. Boutwell, Reconstruction…July 4, 1865, 15. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884) (Native Americans).
3. McClintock, “Civil War Pensions,” 458, 460. O’Leary, To Die For, 6, 19. 10 Op. Attorney Gen. 382 (Nov. 29, 1862). Lieber, Amendments of the Constitution, 15–16, 27–28.
4. Basler, Collected Works of Lincoln, 2: 499–500. Lawson, Patriot Fires, 7. America’s new-found security from outside attack helped this process to occur. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 19–21. Lloyd, “Revising the Republic,” 23.
5. Wilson, Black Phalanx, 504. Foner, Reconstruction, 144–48. Blum, Reforging the White Republic, 51–86.
6. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 14–19, 28–30. O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 238–39. Frederick Douglass, “The Negro Exodus from the Gulf States: A Paper Read in Saratoga, New York, on 12 September 1879,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, Frederick Douglass Papers Series One, vol. 4:510–33, 523.
7. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 493, 495, 500, 523, 533–34. Bhroiméil, “The Gaelic Movement, 1870–1915,” 88–89, 99 100. Erie, Rainbow’s End, 27, 76.
8. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 497, 498. Harper’s Weekly, April 6, 1867; November 20, 1869; July 29, 1871.
9. Williams, “Irish-American Lace-Curtain Satire,” 9–10, 12, 20, 22, 24.
10. Irish Americans comprised only 7.5 percent of the labor force but constituted one-sixth of the teamsters, metalworkers, and masons, and almost a third of the plumbers, steamfitters, and boilermakers. Nelson, “Irish Americans, Irish Nationalism, and the ‘Social’ Question,” 147. Finley Peter Dunne used his fictional Mr. Dooley character to issue biting criticism of conditions in Bridgeport in the mid-1890s. Fanning, Finley Peter Dunne and Mr. Dooley, 85–100. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 500, 502–5, 508–9, 512, 516.
11. O’Donnell, “Henry George,” 409, 410. Foner, “Land League and Irish-America,” 150–51, 156–57, 171–73. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 524.
12. O’Donnell, “Henry George,” 407–19: 409, 410. Foner, “Land League and Irish-America,” 150–51, 156–57, 173, 179, 181, 183, 195–96.
13. Patrick Ford to Patrick R. Guiney, New York, July 19, 1873 in Guiney Papers, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. Rodechko, “Ford,” 524–25, 527, 530, 532–33, 536. Macnamara, Ninth Massachusetts, 425, 436. Foner, “Land League and Irish-America,” 157–61 (calling the Irish World the “voice of the politically conscious Irish-American working class” on 161), 178, 190–91. Nelson, “Irish Americans, Irish Nationalism, and the ‘Social’ Question,” 154–57. O’Donnell, “Henry George,” 410.
14. Gordon, Orange Riots, 189–90; Irish World, April 22 and June 24, 1871; March 2, 1872, quoted on 53, 190–91.
15. Guiney Scrapbook, 8–10.
16. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 41, 52–64. Rodechko, “Ford,” 531. Nelson, “Irish Americans, Irish Nationalism, and the ‘Social’ Question,” 156–57. Gordon, Orange Riots, 203, 212.
17. Gordon, Orange Riots, 1–2, 4, 5, 26, 52–53, 56, 70 (D. P. Conyngham to Herald, July 11, 1871), 151, 166, 188.
18. The American government’s response to arrests under the 1881 Coercion Act was much cooler than its response in the 1860s. Sewell, “Irish-American Nationalism and American Diplomacy, 1865–1885,” 723, 724, 727, 728–31, 733. Jenkins, Fenians, 321. Foner, “Land League and Irish-America,” 154, 169, 173. O’Donnell, “Henry George,” 410. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 538–39, 548–49.
19. Gannon, “The Won Cause,” iii, 10, 24 (quote), 92, 94–95, 97–101, 105, 106, 115, 117–19, 124, 132–77, 226–27, 242, 270–72. Shaffer, After the Glory, 7, 165–67, 169, 173–74.
20. Shaffer, After the Glory, 7, 165–67, 169, 173–74. Reid, “USCT Veterans in Post-Civil War North Carolina,” 403–8. See Samuel Green Pension File, No. 357631, for an example of postwar comradeship as well as the financial struggle of black veterans and their families. After the war, Green worked in a tannery, joined a GAR post, and remained friends with several comrades. After his first wife died in May 1874, leaving him with five children, Green married an ex-slave and had eight children with her (one was stillborn, six were under the age of sixteen when Samuel died, and one was born after his death). Green also raised his second wife’s prior child until his stepdaughter died. Green died in Kentucky in 1892.
21. Shaffer, After the Glory, 52–56, 134, 195. Foreign-born troops did not experience disparity in being awarded monthly pension awards or pension increases, although foreign-born soldiers were less likely to apply for pensions in the first instance—German-, British- and Canadian-born 19 percent less likely, and Irish immigrants about 27 percent less likely. Blanck and Song, “Civil War Pensions for Native and Foreign-Born Union Army Veterans,” 70, 72.
22. Shaffer, After the Glory, 122–23, 128–29.
23. United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785, 787, 788, 793–94 (C.C. Ky. 1866).
24. Coger v. The North West. Union Packet Co., 37 Iowa 145, 148–51, 154–58 (1873).
25. O’Leary, To Die For, 26, 30–31, 33, 112. Higginson, Army Life, 30–31.
26. Lemann, Redemption, 49, 110–17. U.S. Congress, 43rd Cong., 2nd Sess., H.R. Rep. No. 265, Vicksburgh Troubles.
27. Lemann, Redemption, 11, 22, 77.
28. Gleeson, Irish in the South, 176–81, 185, 190. Waldrep, Roots of Disorder, 146–69.
29. O’Leary, To Die For, 113. Lemann, Redemption, 150, 154, 171.
30. Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875). United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629 (1883). United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214 (1875)
31. 18 Stat. 335 (Civil Rights Act of 1875). Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
32. Kaczorowski, “To Begin the Nation Anew,” 67–68. Blight, Race and Reunion. Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction, 32–34, 40, 124, 134–37, and chap. 6.
33. Simpson, “Land and the Ballot.” 176. Shaffer, After the Glory, 4–5. Fleetwood, The Negro as a Soldier, 18.
34. Faehtz, The National Memorial Day: A Record of Ceremonies over the Graves of the Union Soldiers, May 29 and 30, 1869, 5, 97–98, 101–2, 938, 940.
35. Flood, Lee: The Last Years, 65–66.
36. Blight, “‘For Something beyond the Battlefield’: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War,” 1160, 1162, 1165, 1169. Frederick Douglass, “Address delivered on the Twenty-sixth Anniversary of Abolition in the District of Columbia, April 16, 1888, quoted in ibid., 1161. Frederick Douglass, “Speech at the Thirty-Third Anniversary of the Jerry Rescue,” 1884, quoted in ibid., 1177. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 337 (1896).