USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Plymouth > History of the town of Plymouth, Connecticut : with an account of the centennial celebration May 14 and 15, 1895 : also a sketch of Plymouth, Ohio, settled by local families > Part 17
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Ladies and Gentlemen: My work to-day is to tell in a few words something of one of the younger generation of the men of Plymouth, of one still living in the far off Southern Sea, of whose work in the civil war this good old town has much reason to be proud.
The point of interest-special and noteworthy-in his career as a soldier, was in connection with the Union prisoners of war taken by the Confederates and held in their military prisons- particularly that at Andersonville ; his making secretly a copy of their death register while a prisoner there himself, and bringing it through the lines-his transfer of a right to copy it to the Gov- ernment and his persistent demand for a copy himself for publi-
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cation after he had delivered his first copy to the Adjutant-Gen- eral Department ; his re-enlistment as a soldier, his assignment to duty in the expedition sent to mark the graves at Anderson- ville where his original list came into his hands in the way of his duty ; his placing it in his trunk and returning with it to Wash- ington ; his arraignment and trial by court martial on two charges and two specifications. One charge, that of "conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in taking his list without authority from the tent of his superior officer at Andersonville." Another of "larceny in having then and there stolen that list from that officer," his sentence by that court martial to a fine of $300, to forfeit all pay and allowance then due, and to be confined for eighteen months at hard labor, at such prison as the Secretary of War might designate ; to restore the roll to the War Department and to stand committed at hard labor till that fine was paid and that roll was so restored.
It is a story that in the dangerous, important and self- imposed service which he rendered to his country, in his youth ; in the penetrating intelligence with which he devised and carried out his work ; and in his misfortunes connected with it he recalls most vividly another young hero of Connecticut-Nathan Hale -whose work and whose fate in the revolutionary war have ever since been a matter of mournful pride to every true son of Connecticut, and whose statue now fitly adorns the Capitol at Hartford.
With these general features of the case you are probably all familiar. You know that his list contained the first authentic in- telligence and the only statement in detail that ever came to the Union authorities in regard to the awful facts in relation to about 13,000 prisoners who had died of starvation and exposure in An- dersonville at the hands of the Confederate authorities. Thirty- five thousand soldiers had been confined there; more than one- third of these soldiers died within a few months; they died at the rate of 130 a day on an average, during the time covered by Atwater's list.
A few prisoners that had been kept at Richmond and Belle Isle had been exchanged, and their deplorable condition was made the object of special investigation, and report by a com- mittee of the Sanitary Commission of which Dr. Valentine Mott, the eminent surgeon, was the chairman, and by a joint committee of Congress, of which Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, was chairman. The evidence was substantially the same and the conclusions were identical.
Surgeon Vandeknift stated that "one day we received 360 prisoners from the Confederates; 14 died in 12 hours, six died on board the transport that brought them up from City Point."
In April, 1864, had occurred the horrible massacre of black soldiers, mostly Tennesseans, at Fort Pillow. About 300 in the fort were overwhelmed by five or six thousand assailants, and nearly all were murdered in cold blood after their surrender. A considerable part of the work was resumed and completed the next day.
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In May, 1864, Secretary Stanton said that the enormity of the crime committed by the rebels toward our prisoners for the last several months is not known or realized by our people, and can but fill with horror the civilized world when the facts are fully revealed.
General Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoners, said "that our soldiers in the hands of the rebels are starved to death, cannot be denied "
Senator Wade said "that the evidence proves beyond all manner of doubt a determination on the part of the rebel authori- ties to destroy our soldiers by privation and exposure."
All these inferences were amply justified by the facts.
But here in Atwater's list were names, dates, companies, regiments and States, of men who had died. The numbers were on a prodigious scale. It was in the nature of a day by day con- fession under their own hands.
It threw a side light of the highest importance upon the whole conduct of the Confederates after the Emancipation Proclamation, after the arming of the blacks and their great disasters in 1864. It plainly showed how desperation, reck- less cruelty and inhuman ferocity marked their common determin- ation and their universal barbaric instincts.
So that the time when Atwater's list came to the Govern- ment's hands made it specially important. It was still more im- portant because it was then believed it would play an important part in the anticipated trial of Jefferson Davis and other Confed- erate leaders for the wholesale murder of these thousands at An- dersonville, even if they were never punished for their treason.
But its importance was greatest of all by the certain, definite, compact intelligence it brought to so many thousands of friends and relatives as to when and how their heroes lived and suffered and died.
For these, it had been originally designed, and been patiently worked out, and he had fully determined that they should have it.
You will perhaps pardon a repetition of some of the details of the trial-a statement of the present legal position of his case.
When the work at Andersonville was finished, he put his copy of this list into his trunk and returned with it to Washing- ton. A day or two after his arrival there, being asked if he had the list, he said, "he had, and that he wished it to be distinctly understood that he wanted Captain Moore to be relieved from all responsibility for the loss of the rolls." A clerk in the War De- partment asked him what he had done with the rolls. He said "the law allowed a man to take his own property wherever he could find it." They searched his room at his hotel. Atwater said "you can search the place but you won't find the rolls." The clerk asked him twice where the rolls were; he merely said "they are safe, they are all safe." They searched the place but they did not find the rolls.
He was an enlisted soldier in the general service ; he was then under arrest; he was sent immediately to the old Capitol
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prison. Soon after he was arraigned and tried by a court mar- tial on two charges, one of conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, the other of larceny. In this the taking of the roll from Captain Moore at Andersonville without authority-and that he stole it from Captain Moore. After a hasty trial he was found guilty on both charges and both specifi- cations and sentenced to pay a fine of $300; to be dishonorably discharged from the service with loss of all pay and allowance then due ; to be confined at hard labor for eighteen months, at such place as the Secretary of War might direct; to return the rolls and to stand committed at hard labor until this fine should be paid and the stolen property should be returned to the War Department. This was a harsh, cruel sentence, and considering all the circumstances of the case, it was a blunder and crime itself.
The proceedings of the court were approved without exami- nation by the Major-General commanding the Department, and by the Judge Advocate General September 27, 1865, and it was recommended that "the sentence be carried into effect." Auburn State Prison was designated by the Adjutant-General as the place of his punishment.
The Captain of the Reserve Corps who had him in charge at the old Capitol prison, and who was to take him to Auburn, remarked in his hearing: "I want that Atwater hand-cuffed dam'd tight; I know what kind of a fellow he is; I have heard of him before." In irons and under guard as a felon he was marched through the streets of Washington to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad station, taken to Auburn prison on September 27, 1865, and in prison garb he commenced to serve out his sentence. It was equivalent to life sentence ; for the $300 he had received he had spent in his sickness and in helping his little fatherless brothers and sisters, and he had no property himself. His father had died of an illness contracted in taking care of Dorence him- self on his return from Andersonville.
Atwater's friends were shocked and indignant. He remained at hard labor in Auburn prison for a little more than two months, when suddenly, by a general order of the War Department dated December 16, 1865, he was ordered to be immediately dis- charged-simply discharged-from imprisonment by order of the Secretary of War, no reason being given.
Atwater states that he was released under a general pardon of the President on the 30th day of November, 1865. But no such pardon appears in the papers in the case, which were after- wards (July 16, 1866,) sent by Secretary Stanton to the House of Representatives, in compliance with a resolution of the House. The order of discharge does appear among those papers. That, however, was Atwater's understanding of his release at the time.
He then devoted himself, first of all, continuously for forty days and nights, to the preparation, printing and publication of his list, for the benefit of those for whom chiefly it had been originally made. The Tribune Association published it and dis-
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tributed it broadcast. From its publication Atwater never ex- pected or received one cent, and the Tribune Association pub- lished it at its bare cost ; it was on all hands regarded as a duty costing time and work and money, and none of them was spared.
This duty done first of all, Atwater immediately afterwards, on the 22d of March, 1866, sent his memorial to Congress, stat- ing the facts and asking that they be inquired into, and that justice be done him. The monstrous injustice that had been done in the case struck the House as calling for investigation. They unani- mously passed resolutions calling for an investigation. This matter was warmly followed up by Hon. Mr. Hale, then repre- senting the north eastern counties of New York.
He had made some preliminary investigations of the case himself; had carefully examined all the evidence on which Atwater had been convicted. He made this declaration to the House : "I say, on my reputation as a lawyer and as a man, that it is impossible for any intelligent man to read the record of that court martial without saying it is a case of the grossest and most monstrous cruelty and injustice that ever oppressed any human being."
He had caused a copy of Atwater's memorial to be sent to the President, with a request that the Judge Advocate General be requested to really examine the case; it had been passed over with only the formal examination usual in cases tried by court martial. That officer did re-examine the whole record, evidence and all, and made an elaborate report in the case to the Secretary of War, for use of the President.
That report, under date of May 10, 1866, concluded with this paragraph :
"What is now desired appears to be that the stigma resting on Atwater's character, arising from a conviction of felony, be removed. It is suggested that no formal pardon has yet been issued to him, he having been released from confinement by an order of the War Department. A pardon may therefore be issued to him, setting forth the grounds on which it is granted, to wit, the insufficiency of the testimony on which his conviction rested. This, it is believed, would afford as impressive an evi- dence of the President's judgment, and would as effectually remedy the discredit which has attached to Atwater as would an attempted annulment of his conviction and sentence."
The Adjutant-General, who had been the chief power mov- ing in the prosecution from the beginning, remonstrated warmly against the opinion and advice of the head of the Bureau of Military Justice, and concluded his remonstrance with the remark which throws a marvellous light over his whole connection with the case : "Such an act of clemency (as had been recommend- ed) would give a coloring to his ( Atwater's) false representation against the Adjutant-General's office."
Thereupon the President turned the case over to the Secretary of War for his final action, and nothing further was ever done, except that the War Department did send to the House, when it was called for, a transcript of all the evidence and every paper
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connected with the case. And it was at last all printed and the opinion of Congressman Hale and of the head of the Bureau of Military Justice is amply sustained by the evidence printed, as it was in full, in the papers sent to the House.
The case was undoubtedly involved in technicalities ; the pub- lic business pressed from every side ; Senator Wilson, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, cut the whole matter short for the time by procuring for him his appointment as Consul to the Sechelles Islands, in the Indian Ocean, where he resided for several years, and was atter transferred to the Con- sulate at Tahiti, where he has since lived.
Adjutant-General Townsend, I am informed, is now dead. His conduct in this case may possibly carry his name and fame farther than all his honorable career in the army.
But it ought to be remembered that his persistent error in this case was not really what it seems on the surface, even now at the distance of thirty years. It was not altogether that of a bat-eyed, wrong-headed martinet, simply abusing power in the old, old way.
It ought to be remembered that it was then a time of quick harsh judgments against subordinates, on the part of those in command, at the end of a long and irritating war-that money making schemes of every vile kind were being sprung upon the Government on every side, and that his soldierly instincts revolted against them, everyone. He seems to have mistaken Atwater for one of these money-making harpies. He cherished, perhaps, an habitual high sense of the honor and the duty of a soldier. Atwater had been disrespectful to the Adjutant-General's office in a matter in which not only his honor was involved, but also the bleeding hearts of thousands of his countrymen were involved, for whom he had braved death in its most terrible form at the hands of the Confederates.
The Adjutant-General would have been incapable of acting the strange part he did act in this case if he had really seen the whole case, and his own part in it, with any moral perspective. If he had realized that he was acting a dreadful part in one of the saddest tragedies of the war. Whether he lived to regret it, I do not know. It is quite probable that he did, for he often after- wards kindly inquired about Atwater, after powerful friends had gathered around him, and the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, afterwards Vice-President, had become his friend and benefactor, and he was widely recognized as one of the modest, true heroes of the war. It is a pity, I think, that in this life they had not met and passed an act of formal forgiveness and amnesty for a cruel wrong. Jefferson Davis himself, and all but Wirtz, among the Confederates, have long since been forgiven. Their great violations of all law, human and divine, have been wisely passed over.
It seems as if the Adjutant-General himself may well be included by the friends of Atwater in the general amnesty.
I vote him not morally so guilty as he seems at a first glance ;
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indeed, to be really not guilty at all, when we remember that the intent is the essence of crime. Atwater was a boy and a private soldier, the Adjutant-General was an officer and a martinet in discipline. He possibly thought he was doing God and his country a high service, even as Paul himself did, when he per- secuted the Christians even unto strange cities.
The virtue of standing alone against the opinion of the world is not so common or so barren of good that we may not recognize and even applaud the motives of the Adjutant- General, while we condemn his act.
As a fair-minded officer, he made one great sad mistake, in a case he did not properly comprehend. He did not think how his own conduct would look at the distance of thirty years.
For one I pardon the great offence of the late Adjutant General of the Army, and recommend him to the mercy of that great court martial of history, from which, for a soldier, there is no appeal.
While the Confederates-even those in command at the prison pen at Andersonville-have all been pardoned, the wrong to Atwater, one of the noblest young heroes of the Civil War- the true hero of Andersonville-still remains unredressed. The power to properly reinstate him in his true position as an honor- able soldier and to remove from him the stigma of a felon, remains alone in the Congress of the United States.
On this day, memorable forever in the history of the grand old town of Plymouth, I ask you, the friends and the townsmen of Dorence Atwater, to pass the following resolution :
WHEREAS, At this centennial celebration of the establishment of the town of Plymouth, held May 15, 1895, the case of Dorence Atwater, a native of this town, was recalled to the attention of the citizens of the town, and the people assembled here, illustrative of his heroic character, the noble, disinterested and important service rendered by him to his country, and the extraordinary and cruel injustice under which he has so long suffered ; therefore,
Resolved, That the Representatives of this town and the Senator from this Senatorial District in the General Assembly, now in session at Hartford, be requested to take such action in the premises as may lead the Congress of the United States, by joint resolution or otherwise, to annul the action of the court martial by which undeserved dishonor was cast upon Dorence Atwater, and in substance and in form to restore to him his unsullied name, and to give him some proper recognition of his services to his country.
[The resolution was adopted at the service held in the afternoon.]
Mr. Pond-We are highly favored to-day in having with us a lady whose reputation is not confined to the State of Connecti- cut, or to the United States; whose name is spoken with reverence and love throughout the length and breadth of the United States as well as abroad. From her life of devotion to the sick and suffering, she has been classed by a recent writer as the greatest heroine America has ever produced. I have the honor of introducing to this audience Miss Clara Barton, Presi- dent of the American Society of the Red Cross.
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Miss Clara Barton, who is a personal friend of Mr. Atwater, made the following appeal :
" I regret that this call has been made. I am sorry to take from you one moment of the time so exclusively your own, and yet I have been asked to say a few words, to let you hear my voice-if you can hear it. If I were to say anything, it would be to remind you that thirty years ago I came into your state. I went through its villages, its towns, its cities-even your legislative halls, and told the story of Dorence Atwater. I even took him with me and showed him to the people, and I asked that the disgrace which rested on him be removed. I never failed to draw the sympathy of the people ; it was felt and under- stood; but when more was asked for it failed. I said that he had done a work which God approved and angels smiled on. I asked, moreover, that the government should be asked to retrieve what had been done. I wanted him placed where he should be. When I saw this fail and death staring him in the face, for he was poor, sick, degraded, disheartened-a prisoner of both South and North-when I saw he was not likely to endure it, I asked then a consulate for him in some climate where he might have a chance to live. It was given, and for twenty years he served his country in a civil capacity as faith- fully as he had ever done in military ; not one word in all the state department ever rested against the work of Dorence Atwater as a consul. He laid that office down a few years ago as no longer needing it. He was no longer poor; he had attained social rank that few men gain; he had married the magnificent wife who graces his home, who was a royal princess of the line on one side and of the most scholarly blood of England on the other.
"But there is something else I would say to you. In my house for thirty years has remained the record that he kept and the dishonorable discharge that he received. In a cabinet in that house are the relics, the largest, perhaps the only collection of relics of the stockade of Andersonville, the poor little cups and spoons and ladles, and whatever there was that strove to keep life in those poor wretches and helped them on as they went to their death. I gathered them there in that stockade with Dorence Atwater. They lie, as I told you, in that cabinet in my house, and along with them, on the same shelves, lies the dishonorable discharge of Dorence Atwater.
"I have waited and waited, lo! these thirty years for the State of Connecticut to ask the government to draw that out of my hands I would have it replaced by an honorable discharge such as it deserves. It waits; it is there. and it lies side by side with the relics of that fated prison. I only ask : Shall I keep it? Men of Connecticut, men of Plymouth, shall I keep it there, or will you direct the government to demand it of me? I will surrender it when you do."
At the close of her address three cheers were given for Miss Barton.
Mr. Pond-The next in order is " Remarks by Invited
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Guests." We have but eight minutes to do it in and I hardly know where to commence. We will extend the time slightly, but shall confine you to just five minutes, not more than that, and you will hear this (pointing to the gavel) but we want to hear from you all. Now do not decline simply because there is a lack of time. We shall call upon no one that we do not want to hear, and we will begin with the clergy. I notice that we have with us the Rev. Mr. Meade. Mr. Meade, five minutes.
Mr. Meade -- I will not take five minutes, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to be with you to-day; I rejoice in everything that you rejoice in here. I suppose the only reason I am here is because I was born here as a minister, and I am glad to stand here as one who has had that birth in the glorious town of Plymouth. Of course, everything that bears the name of Plymouth has a part of the honor of Plymouth Rock in it. The greatest fact, I believe, of 1795, was the formation of these towns, which are the unit of our great Union, as has been said. The questions that occupied our fathers, that made them and us into citizens, have made our land what it is.
I believe I am now serving a church which furnished a governor to this state at the time you were made a town. My study window looks out upon his birthplace. Samuel Hunting- ton was President of the Assembly of the Continental Congress and governor of this state; in fact, while he lived, no other man was thought fit to be governor, for the last ten years of his life. Every town like that was raising up men to stand as citizens, as lawyers and as judges in our early history.
I will not try to make a speech. I have lots of things down here I would like to talk about, but I had figured it out by a Thomaston watch that I should not get called on, and it broke up my whole array of facts. I rejoice with you here not only in the problems of government and citizenship which our fathers have settled, and in the great ideas which have grown out in the history of this town, and the inventions that have had such a wide influence over this country. While the people of this town were forming this church, a son of this town was sending that steamer, the first steamer, across the ocean. Churches and steamers go well together to make up prosperity and to build up the right life of a nation. From mouse traps to marine clocks this town of Plymouth is known over the whole land. You have furnished also a man, who is here-I have not shaken his hand yet-who furnished a cartridge to help destroy the enemies of his country, and now is furnishing the children of this land with the best methods of understanding God's Word and Christ the Saviour. I hope to get hold of his hand and to congratulate him and the town upon having produced such a man, but he is one among many.
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