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John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 7. (search)
h. On the day before his first inauguration as President of the United States, the Autocrat of all the Russias, Alexander II, by imperial decree emancipated his serfs; while six weeks after the inauguration, the American masters, headed by Jefferson Davis, began the greatest war of modern times to perpetuate and spread the institution of slavery. The excitement produced by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, by the election forays of the Missouri Border Ruffians into Kansas in 1855, and by the succeeding civil strife in 1856 in that Territory, wrought an effective transformation of political parties in the Union, in preparation for the presidential election of that year. This transformation, though not seriously checked, was very considerably complicated by an entirely new faction, or rather by the sudden revival of an old one, which in the past had called itself Native Americanism, and now assumed the name of the American Party, though it was more popularly known by
John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 10. (search)
l differences between its Northern and Southern wings could by any possibility be removed or adjusted, whether the adherents of Douglas and those of Buchanan could be brought to join in a common platform and in the support of a single candidate. The Democratic leaders in the Southern States had become more and more outspoken in their pro-slavery demands. They had advanced step by step from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the attempt to capture Kansas by Missouri invasions in 1855 and 1856, the support of the Dred Scott decision and the Lecompton fraud in 1857, the repudiation of Douglas's Freeport heresy in 1858, to the demand for a congressional slave code for the Territories and the recognition of the doctrine of property in slaves. These last two points they had distinctly formulated in the first session of the Thirty-sixth Congress. On January 18, 1860, Senator Brown of Mississippi introduced into the Senate two resolutions, one asserting the nationality of slav
Philip Henry Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army ., Chapter IV (search)
s, when the soldiers in their fury about the ammunition destroyed the Mission. At the time of its destruction a rumor of this nature was circulated through camp, started by some wag, no doubt in jest; for Ord, who was somewhat eccentric in his habits, and had started on the expedition rather indifferently shod in carpet-slippers, here came out in a brand-new pair of shoes. Of course there was no real foundation for such a report, but Rains was not above small things, as the bringing of this petty accusation attests. Neither party was ever tried, for General John E. Wool, the department commander, had not at command a sufficient number of officers of appropriate rank to constitute a court in the case of Rains, and the charges against Ord were very properly ignored on account of their trifling character. Shortly after the expedition returned to the Dalles, my detachment was sent down to Fort Vancouver, and I remained at that post during the winter of 1855-56, till late in March.
Philip Henry Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army ., Chapter XVIII (search)
upervision of that arm, though the batteries, either as units or in sections, were assigned to the different divisions in campaign. Each one of my division commanders was a soldier by profession. Torbert graduated from the Military Academy in 1855, and was commissioned in the infantry, in which arm he saw much service on the frontier, in Florida, and on the Utah expedition. At the beginning of hostilities in April, 1861, he was made a colonel of New Jersey volunteers, and from that positio of 1862 to be a brigadier-general, thereafter commanding a brigade of infantry in the Army of the Potomac till, in the redistribution of generals, after Grant came to the East, he was assigned to the First Cavalry Division. Gregg graduated in 1855 also, and was appointed to the First Dragoons, with which regiment, up to the breaking out of the war, he saw frontier service extending from Fort Union, New Mexico, through to the Pacific coast, and up into Oregon and Washington Territories, wher
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 1, Chapter 36: Third year as Secretary of War. (search)
ficient, and deficiency bills be necessarily the consequence. The report showed that during the year the manufacture of smooth-bore arms had been stopped; that new models of all small arms had been adopted upon a rifle principle; that many samples of breech-loading rifles had been placed in the hands of the troops for trial in the field, a test deemed necessary before adopting any as a standard weapon; that arms had been distributed to the militia of the States, as prescribed by the law of 1855; that arrangements had been made to convert arms of the old model used by the States into rifled arms of the new model; that the work upon the military roads in Minnesota had made satisfactory progress; that the survey of the Northwestern lakes had been prosecuted with skill and energy; that the reports of the officers employed to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a transcontinental railroad had reported in favor of the route of the thirty-second parallel. In forwar
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Volume 4., The Confederate cruisers. (search)
t was unable to enter either Wilmington or Charleston, and after landing her stores at Nassau she proceeded to Liverpool. Here she was seized by the authorities, and ultimately she was delivered to the United States. The last of the Confederate commerce-destroyers was the Sea King, or Shenandoah. Commander John M. Brooke, the Confederate ordnance officer at Richmond, devised the plan which was afterward adopted on her cruise. Brooke's service in the North Pacific Exploring Expedition of 1855 had familiarized him with the movements of the New Bedford whaling fleet, and it was against this fleet that the proposed cruise was to be made. The whalers generally cruised in the South Pacific in winter, going in the spring to Behring Strait, where they remained during the summer season, returning in October to the Sandwich Islands. As the Alabama and her consorts had nearly swept American commerce from the seas, the whaling fleet was the only remaining object of naval attack. The sum
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Volume 4., Sherman's march from Savannah to Bentonville. (search)
el Rhett, accompanied by a few of his men, and had captured him. Rhett before the war had been one of the editors of the Charleston Mercury, one of the strongest secession papers of the South. He was sent by Kilpatrick to General Sherman. Sherman while stationed in Charleston before the war had been acquainted with Rhett, and not wishing to have him under his immediate charge, he sent him to me. Rhett spent that night in my tent, and as I had also been stationed at Fort Moultrie in 1854 and 1855, and had often met him, we had a long chat over old times and about common acquaintances in Charleston. The following morning Rhett was sent to the rear in charge of the cavalry. He was handsomely dressed in the Confederate uniform, with a pair of high boots beautifully stitched. He was deeply mortified at having been gobbled up without a chance to fight. One of my staff told me that he saw Rhett a few days later, trudging along under guard, but the beautiful boots were missing,--a soldie
Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2., Chapter 7: military operations in Missouri, New Mexico, and Eastern Kentucky--capture of Fort Henry. (search)
don to me at these Headquarters within ten days from this date, or drive him out of the country, I shall send a force to your city with orders to reduce it to ashes, and to burn the house of every secessionist in your county, and to carry away every negro. Colonel Jennison's regiment will be intrusted with the execution of this order. Jennison, who was the commander of the First Kansas cavalry, was well known to the people as an ardent anti-slavery champion during the civil war in Kansas in 1855, See note 2, page 181. and a man ready to execute any orders of the kind. That letter, the power given to Jennison, and a proclamation issued by the latter a short time before, Jennison had said to the inhabitants of Lafayette, Cass, Johnson, and Pettis Counties, in Missouri: For four months our armies have marched through your country. Your professed friendship has been a fraud; your oaths of allegiance have been shams and perjuries. You feed the rebel army, you act as spies while c
Admiral David D. Porter, The Naval History of the Civil War., Chapter 1: organization of the Navy Department.--blockade-runners, etc. (search)
It may be supposed by those unfamiliar with the events of the times, that the rebellion was the result of measures forced upon the South just previous to the election of Abraham Lincoln, and that in his election they saw the death blow to the hopes they had cherished for extending slavery into new states and territories. If any one supposes that the rebellion was an impulsive measure, let him dismiss such an idea, for the writer was told by a Southern Senator in 1860, that, as far back as 1855, when the Colorado class of ships were built, he and others had voted to have them and all other vessels constructed of such a size and such a draft of water, that they could not enter any Southern ports; so it seems that the thought of secession had been maturing for years, and while Southern statesmen were apparently urging the building of large vessels instead of small ones, on the ground that the dignity of the Nation called for these cumbersome structures, it was really for the purpose o
John Bell Hood., Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate Armies, Chapter 1: (search)
gineers, upon a surveying expedition in the direction of Salt Lake. My duties were soon brought to a close by the receipt of an appointment as Second Lieutenant in the Second Cavalry, a new regiment organized in accord with an Act of Congress, in 1855, and commanded by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, with R. E. Lee as Lieutenant Colonel, George H. Thomas and W. J. Hardee as Majors. Lieutenant Philip Sheridan relieved me, and I returned to San Francisco en route to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri,at that period the great theatre of life upon which I was destined so soon to be thrown as an humble actor with him and others just mentioned, and who have since become so distinguished and prominent as American soldiers. In the early Autumn of 1855 I sailed from San Francisco for New York, via Panama, and reported for duty at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Soon thereafter, if my memory betray me not, I received a draft for about one thousand dollars in gold, as my share of the profit in the
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