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United States (United States) (search for this): chapter 10
s of our position, that the whole anti-slavery contest was a thing inevitable,--an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, --and that the United States must and would sooner or later become entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free labor nation. Either, Seward said, the plantations of the South must egular proceeding quite undesirable. Coming back to Worcester, I was offered the majorship of the Fourth Battalion of Infantry, then hastily called into the United States service; and when I declined this, the position was offered to my old schoolmate, Charles Devens, who, though almost wholly ignorant of military drill, acceptrs offered for him when he escaped from slavery; and once, when visiting New York as General Hunter's orderly, he had been mobbed in the street for wearing the United States uniform, and had defended himself successfully against half a dozen men, taking his position in a doorway. After the war he was appointed a justice of the pea
Magnolia, Fla. (Florida, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
was the only position that had been held on the mainland in the Department of the South, and was reoccupied (March, 1863) by two black regiments under my command, with the aid of a naval gunboat under Captain (afterwards Admiral) Charles Steedman, U. S. N. We took a large supply of uniforms, equipments, and extra rations, with orders, when once Jacksonville was secured, to hand it over to white troops that were to be sent under Colonel John D. Rust; we meanwhile pressing on up the river to Magnolia, where there were large unoccupied buildings. These we were to employ as barracks, and as a basis for recruiting stations yet farther inland. It was of this expedition that President Lincoln wrote to General Hunter (April I, 1863): I am glad to see the account of your colored force at Jacksonville. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape and grow and thrive in the South, and in precisely the
Cleveland (Ohio, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
he way to others still. Moreover, passports were now for the first time refused to free colored men, under the Taney decision, on the ground of their not being citizens of the nation. It was also understood that, under this decision, slaveholders would be protected by the Supreme Court in carrying their slaves with them into Free States and holding them there. Such things accounted for the temporary development of a Northern disunion feeling about that time; and a national convention at Cleveland, following the state convention, had been fully planned by a committee of which I was chairman,--the call for this receiving the names of more than six thousand signers, representing all of the Free States,--when there came the formidable financial panic which made the year 1857 so memorable. As this calamity had begun in Ohio, and was felt most severely there, it was decided that the convention should be postponed, and this, as it proved, forever. In the following year Senator Seward
New England (United States) (search for this): chapter 10
ry purpose alone could not have accomplished; yet we acted at the time according to our light, and we know from the testimony of Lincoln himself that it was the New England Abolitionists from whom he learned that love of liberty which at last made him turn the scale. Then came the John Brown affair, as described in a previous chapter; and there followed after this, in the winter of 1860, a curious outbreak in New England itself of the old proscriptive feeling. There ensued an interval when the Boston Abolitionists were again called upon to combine, in order to prevent public meetings from being broken up and the house of Wendell Phillips from being mobbewent home undisturbed. All these things looked like a coming storm. It was observable that men were beginning to use firearms more, about that time, even in New England. I find that in those days I read military books; took notes on fortifications, strategy, and the principles of attack and defense. Yet all these preliminary
Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
t me again summon Montgomery and his men from Kansas; going with them into the mountains of Virginia, there to kindle a back fire of alarm and draw any rebel force away from Washington. Governor Andrew approved the project, but had no contingent fund; Dr. S. G. Howe entered warmly into it, and took me on State Street to raise money, as did Mr. S. G. Ward, afterwards, on Wall Street in New York. One or two thousand dollars were pledged, and I went to Harrisburg to see Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania. He said that he would give a thousand dollars if John Brown could be brought back to life, and had my plan under consideration, when the rapid progress of events strengthened the government enough to make any such irregular proceeding quite undesirable. Coming back to Worcester, I was offered the majorship of the Fourth Battalion of Infantry, then hastily called into the United States service; and when I declined this, the position was offered to my old schoolmate, Charles Devens, w
Maine (Maine, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
hese were the commonplaces of the institution, what must its exceptional tragedies be? With such an experience in my mind, and the fact everywhere visible in Kansas of the armed antagonism of the Free State and pro-slavery parties, I readily shared the feeling-then more widely spread than we can now easily recall — of the possible necessity of accepting the disunion forced upon us by the apparently triumphant career of the slave power. It was a period when Banks had said, in a speech in Maine, that it might be needful, in a certain contingency, to let the Union slide; and when Whittier had written in the original form of his poem on Texas,-- Make our Union-bond a chain, We will snap its links in twain We will stand erect again! These men were not Garrisonians or theoretical disunionists, but the pressure of events seemed, for the moment, to be driving us all in their direction. I find that at the jubilant twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Massachusetts Anti-Sl
Beaufort, S. C. (South Carolina, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
n. Their dresses must be brown or black, with no bows, no curls or jewelry, and no hoopskirts. Undaunted by this well-meant prohibition, Mrs. Lander, who was then a little more than thirty, but irreclaimably good looking, came down to Beaufort, South Carolina, accompanied by her mother, in the hope of establishing a hospital there. A sudden influx of wounded men gave General Saxton, erelong, the opportunity of granting her wish, and she entered with immense energy into her new task. She hadally, Spiritual wounds, madam! No time for that, sir, now,--no time for that; there are still thirty men in yonder hospital with no beds to lie on; we must secure the common comforts first. Timidly explaining that he had come from the North to Beaufort for his health, and that he had been recommended to her for a comfortable lodging, the pallid youth withdrew. It was no fault of his that he was forlorn and useless and decidedly in the way at an army station; but I could not help wondering if,
Newport (Rhode Island, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
regular army, and others to undertake cotton-raising at the South. In few cases did this impulse last long; a regular army career in time of peace usually proving unattractive, as did also the monotony of the plantation. In my own case this unsettled feeling soon passed away, and the old love of letters rapidly revived;--the editing of the Harvard memorial biographies affording an easy transition, as was also the work of translating the noble writings of Epictetus, of whom I could think with satisfaction that he was himself a slave, and was the favorite author of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black military leader. Moreover, my wife had removed for health's sake to Newport, Rhode Island, and I found ready distraction in the new friendships and social life of that attractive place of residence. Of this portion of my life I have already given some glimpse in the novel called Malbone and in the collection of sketches called Oldport days, so that I will not dwell further upon it here.
Worcester (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
rrisonian Abolitionists in calling a state disunion convention at Worcester on January 15, 1857; but the Republican party was by no means reaid not happen to be present at the John Brown gathering, being in Worcester; but at the larger convention January 24, 1861), held at Tremont the very day when the news reached us, to several leading men in Worcester, who gave me a letter of recommendation to Governor Andrew, that ny such irregular proceeding quite undesirable. Coming back to Worcester, I was offered the majorship of the Fourth Battalion of Infantry,ep out of the affair no longer, but opened a recruiting office in Worcester. Being already well known among the young men there, through themirable one,--afterwards General A. B. R. Sprague, since mayor of Worcester,--all went as it should. I was only a month with the regiment, bvret, of Boston, and ran as follows : There was a young curate of Worcester Who could have a command if he'd choose ter, But he said each rec
Massachusetts (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
slave-holding nation or entirely a free labor nation. Either, Seward said, the plantations of the South must ultimately be tilled by free men, or the farms of Massachusetts and New York must be surrendered to the rearing of slaves; there could be no middle ground. Lincoln had said, in the controversy with Douglas, A house dividedment of freed slaves, and wished me to be its colonel. It was an offer that took my breath away, and fulfilled the dream of a lifetime. This was long before Massachusetts took steps in the same direction; Kansas was, however, enlisting a regiment of free negroes, and three similar regiments, formed by the Confederates in Louisiare thus saved from all solicitude such as beset for a time the mind of that young hero, Colonel Robert Shaw, when he took the field, six months later, with his Massachusetts colored regiment. When I rode over to his camp to welcome him, on his first arrival, he said that while I had shown that negro troops were effective in bush-
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