May 1863
May 19, 1863 - The Spirit of Our Men ShareThe average Confederate soldier is a young man in his early 20s, unshaven, unkempt, gaunt, but tough from months of difficult living. The Rebel soldier’s woolen hat and uniform is grey, ragged form either having been worn too long, or having been “handed down” from a dead soldier. It is not unc... Read more... |
May 15, 1863 - Lee Meets with Davis to Discuss Summer Strategy ShareGeneral Robert E Lee left his encampment at Fredericksburg and traveled to Richmond to meet with President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet today to discuss strategy for the coming months. Though there are some reasons for optimism, overall, the future of the Confederacy, its a... Read more... |
May 10, 1863 - Stonewall Jackson Dead ShareThe Confederacy lost perhaps its most gifted military commander today when Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson passed away from complications of pneumonia at Guinea Station. During the battle at Chancellorsvile, Lt. Gen. Jackson was shot by Rebel pickets when he returned to camp after sco... Read more... |
May 18, 1863 - Vallandigham Denied Habeas Corpus ShareOn September 24, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that suspended habeas corpus and made discouraging enlistments, drafts or any other disloyal practices subject to martial law and trial by military commissions. On April 13, 1863, Union General Ambrose Burnside, w... Read more... |
May 13, 1863 - How Colored Troops Should be Treated ShareThe Liberator tackled the subject of "How Colored Troops Should be Treated" by publishing a recent letter from Governor Andrew of Massachusetts in reply to questions addressed to him by Mr. Downing, concerning the position of colored troops in respect to pay, equipments, bounty and protect... Read more... |
May 6, 1863 - News of Chancellorsville Reaches Northern Public ShareYesterday, President Abraham Lincoln sent a telegraph to Union General Joseph Hooker at 3:10PM: "We have news here that the enemy has reoccupied heights above Fredericksburg. Is that so?" At 3PM today, the President received a telegram from General Hooker with this message: "Hav... Read more... |
HIGHLIGHTS
April 21, 1863 - Lincoln Signs Proclamation Admitting West Virginia
As early as 1769, the people of western Virginia tried, unsuccessfully, to separate from the whole of Virginia. Settlers slowly made their way across the Allegheny Plateau barrier during the 18th century, establishing small farms without the use of slavery. Though the region became increasingly important to Richmond, the economic, political and social differences estranged the west from the east. Because slaves were counted in allotting representation, wealthy eastern planters dominated the Virginia legislature, and demands by western Virginians for lower taxes and infrastructure development were not met. In 1860 the forty-eight western counties of Virginia comprised one-third of the population, one-fourth of the area of that slate, and almost all its mineral resources. The population of those counties in 1860 was 380,000. These counties strongly opposed secession when, by a vote of 88-55, the Virginia State Convention passed this ordinance on April 17, 1861. The outraged citizens of the western counties of the state thereupon held two conventions in Wheeling, the first on May 13, and the second on June 11. At this second Wheeling Convention, the ordinance of secession was specifically repudiated, and all the existing offices of the state government functioning at .Richmond were declared vacated. A so-called "Restored Government" of Virginia on the basis of loyalty to the United States was established. Francis H. Pierpont was named Governor, while W. T. Willey and John S. Carlile were elected United States Senators. A general referendum of the voters in the western counties, held on October 24, 1861, approved all that had been done at Wheeling thus far. It also indicated that the popular desire was ultimately to establish an entirely new state. A third convention was then convened in Wheeling between November, 1861 and February, 1862. At this convention a new constitution was written and the name, "West Virginia," was officially adopted. In April, 1862, another referendum approved these actions by a vote of 18,862 to 514. On May 13, 1862, Governor Pierpont of the "Restored Government" of Virginia called his General Assembly into session, and this body promptly gave assent to the partition of the state and the formation of West Virginia. Late in 1862, after a favorable vote of 23-15 in the Senate, and a similar vote by a margin of 95-66 in the House, a bill to admit West Virginia as a new state to the Union was sent to Lincoln's desk. However, Mr. Lincoln did not immediately sign it. Governor Pierpont telegraphed Lincoln on the 18th that a presidential veto would ". . . be death to our cause." Two days later, Pierpont telegraphed that ". . . great feeling exists . . . in reference to your delay in signing the bill for the new state." The President asked his cabinet for help in evaluating the constitutionality of the admission. He wrote: But is the admission into the Union, of West-Virginia, expedient. This, in my general view, is more a question for Congress, than for the Executive. Still I do not evade it. More than on anything else, it depends on whether the admission or rejection of the new state would under all the circumstances tend the more strongly to the restoration of the national authority throughout the Union. That which helps most in this direction is the most expedient at this time. Doubtless those in remaining Virginia would return to the Union, so to speak, less reluctantly without the division of the old state than with it; but I think we could not save as much in this quarter by rejecting the new state, as we should lose by it in West-Virginia. We can scarcely dispense with the aid of West-Virginia in this struggle; much less can we afford to have her against us, in congress and in the field. Her brave and good men regard her admission into the Union as a matter of life and death. They have been true to the Union under very severe trials. We have so acted as to justify their hopes; and we can not fully retain their confidence, and co-operation, if we seem to break faith with them. In fact, they could not do so much for us, if they would. Again, the admission of the new state, turns that much slave soil to free; and thus, is a certain, and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the rebellion. The division of a State is dreaded as a precedent. But a measure made expedient by a war, is no precedent for times of peace. It is said that the admission of West-Virginia, is secession, and tolerated only because it is our secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still difference enough between secession against the constitution, and secession in favor of the constitution. I believe the admission of West-Virginia into the Union is expedient. Mr. Lincoln's approval of the West Virginia statehood bill occurred on December 31, 1862. The next day, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. For West Virginia, statehood was now conditioned upon the acceptance by the people of that state of the Willey Amendment to their own constitution. This provision specifically provided for gradual emancipation of the negroes of the state. On February 17-18, 1863, a recalled session of the West Virginia Constitutional Convention unanimously approved the Willey phraseology. On March 26, 1863, the constitution with the Willey Amendment was submitted to the people of West Virginia for ratification. By the overwhelming vote of 27,749 to 572, the electorate approved the revised document. Yeterday, on April 20, 1863, some 94 years after the western region of Virginia tried to separate from the eastern region, President Lincoln signed a proclamation admitting West Virginia as the 35th state of the United States, effective June 20, 1863. By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, by the Act of Congress approved the 31st. day of December, last, the State of West Virginia was declared to be one of the United States of America, and was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, upon the condition that certain changes should be duly made in the proposed Constitution for that State; And, whereas, proof of a compliance with that condition as required by the Second Section of the Act aforesaid, has been submitted to me; Now, therefore, be it known, that I Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do, hereby, in pursuance of the Act of Congress aforesaid, declare and proclaim that the said act shall take effect and be in force, from and after sixty days from the date hereof. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this twentieth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
April 15 - Civil War Enters Third Year
On April 15, 1861, then newly elected US President Abraham Lincoln assembled his cabinet in an emergency Sunday meeting to frame a Proclamation to call up 75,000 90-day militia to form against "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." The cabinet did not officially declare war, only Congress can do that and they would not be in session until three months later. As we have seen President Lincoln do over the past two years, Mr. Lincoln did not wait for Congress to return and issued the Proclamation, thereby declaring his intent to invade the South before Congress could vote on whether to officially declare war. The call to arms came in the midst of a flurry of emotion throughout the North at what happened to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The White House was besieged by callers assuring the American president of their support, including Stephen Douglas, who ran against him in the elections. In Pittsburg, hangman's nooses dangled from lampposts inscribed with "Death to Traitors!" Even in Knoxville, Tennessee, newspaper editor William G. Brownlow declared that he will "fight the Secession leaders till Hell froze over, and then fight them on the ice." Mr. Brownlow was not on the popular side of the story as most of Tennessee sided with the South. In fact, Governor Harris sent a telegram to Lincoln that said, "Tennessee will furnish not a single man for the purpose of coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers." Mr. Lincoln's declaration also offended Governor John Letcher of Virginia, whose state was asked to furnish three regiments, totaling 2,340 men and officers, to subdue the secessionists. Though he previously stated that Virginia would remain neutral, on this day in 1861 he replied to Mr. Lincoln's request that he has "chosen to inaugurate civil war," and that "no troops from the Old Dominion" would be forthcoming. In viewing the Proclamation today, it almost seems silly. It reads in part, "I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country." From the east in Virginia to the west in Mississippi, we have seen not ony destruction of property but wholesale seizures of property under the rule of war. Between the Confiscation Act and the Emancipation Proclamation, it did not take long for the gentle disposition of Mr. Lincoln's words to completely be replaced by far more forceful and adversarial doctrines. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was labeled crazy when he was asked about the President's call for 75,000 troops to serve for three months and responded that this was like trying to put out a house fire with a squirt gun. He said it would take 500,000 men and several years to defeat the Confederacy. In light of the unprecedented death toll that has been witnessed by both sides without any end to the conflict in sight whatsoever, no one today is questioning General Sherman's mental condition. At present, there are Union warships and gunboats seeking to prevent Southern goods from being exported and foreign supplies from being imported. The Mississippi River is almost completely in the hands of the US Army from the north and the US Navy from New Orleans. In the east, along the Rappahannock lie hundreds of thousands of soldiers and artillery, maneuvering to soon wage yet another battle that will certainly result in more bloodshed. Despite these Union accomplishments and notwithstanding the incredible loss of life to date, there is little hope that this third year of the war will be any less destructive, or that it will be cut short by some resolution of the conflict. Will we, one year from now, reflect again on the commencement of the hostilities and wonder when will it ever end?
