USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume I > Part 18
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While Delaware responded in an enthusiastic way to the call of the President for troops, and the major part of the population strongly sided with the Union and was willing to sacrifice blood and treasure in the prosecution of the war, yet a considerable portion of the people of the State were opposed to the war and not disposed to sustain by active efforts the hostilities in which the Federal government had now become involved. They expressed themselves as opposed to forcing the Southern States back into the Union, and some went the length of openly favoring the cause of the Southern Confeder- acy. While many Delaware people opposed the war there were comparatively few who desired the success of the Con- federate cause.
After the war had been in progress for two months there were many people in the State who were still of opinion that there could be a peaceful adjustment of all questions which
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distracted the country and many representative citizens united in a call for a general meeting to be held at Dover on the 27th of June, 1861. This meeting was held and the news- papers of that day estimated the attendance to have been about 1500. Ex-Governor William Temple presided. The meeting was largely controlled by men who theretofore had been active Democrats in politics. The main speeches of the day were made by William G. Whitely and Thomas F. Bayard. Both of these gentlemen deplored the fact that eleven States had gone out of the Union but suggested that it would be better to allow these States to withdraw peaceably than run the risk of a civil war. The resolutions adopted by the meeting were in touch with this sentiment and express dominant feeling in the State at that time on the question of secession. The resolutions were as follows :
" Resolved, 1. That whilst we deeply deplore the revolution which has severed eleven States from the Union, we prefer peace to civil war, and believe that if a reconciliation by peaceful means shall become impossible, the acknowledgment of the independence of the Confederate States is preferable to an attempt to conquer and hold them as subjugated provinces.
"2. That the reign of terror attempted to be inaugurated by the War Party, by denouncing all men as disunionists, secessionists and traitors, who are opposed to civil war, and to the palpable and gross violation of the Constitution, com- mitted by the present administration, will not deter us from the expression of our opinion, both privately and publicly.
"3. That we believe the effect of the doctrines and measures of the War Party, if not their object and intent, under the name of preserving the Union, will be the subversion of the State governments, and the erection of a consolidated gov- ernment on the ruins of the Federal Constitution.
" Resolved, That we tender our grateful thanks to Senators Bayard and Sauls- bury for the bold and patriotic stand they assumed, in the second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, for the maintenance of the peace and prosperity of our now distracted country, and we earnestly request them to use all honorable means to bring the ' Civil War' which now hangs over us like an incubus, to a speedy close, and that if in their judgment no other mode presents itself whereby this end can be attained, to advocate the acknowledgment by the United States Government of the Independence of the Confederate States, so that peace and prosperity may be restored among us."
This meeting had the affect of unifying the Anti-Union senti- ment in the State, and most, if not all the men who were
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prominent in this meeting, became active in Democratic poli- tics afterward.
At the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress which convened at Washington on the 2nd of December, 1861 Dela- ware was represented in the Senate by two Democrats, James A. Bayard and Willard Saulsbury, and in the House by George P. Fisher, originally a Bell and Everett man, but who had at this time linked his fortunes with the Republican party. Early in the session Mr. Saulsbury offered the follow- ing resolutions looking to a peaceable adjustment of existing national difficulties :
" WHEREAS, The people of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Car- olina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee are in revolt against the Constitutional Government and authority of the United States and have assumed to secede from the Federal Union, and to form an independent government under the name of the Confederate States of America ; and
Whereas, The Congress of the United States, approving the sentiment expressed by the President in his annual message, ' that the Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed,' and believing that kind and fraternal feeling between the people of all the States is indispensable to the main- tenance of a happy and prosperous Union, and being willing to mauifest such feelings on their part, to the end that peace may be restored to a distracted coun- try, and the Union and Constitution be preserved and maintained ; and inviting the co-operation of the people of the aforesaid States in the accomplishment of objects so beneficial to each and all, do resolve as follows:
" Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Millard Fillmore, Frankliu Pierce, Roger B. Taney, Edward Everett, George M. Dallas, Thomas Ewing, Horace Binney, Reverdy Johnson, John J. Crittenden, George E. Pugh and Richard W. Thompson be, and they are hereby appointed commissioners on the part of Con- gress, to confer with a like number of commissioners to be appointed by the States aforesaid, for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitu- tion, and that they report the result of their said conference to Congress for ap- proval or rejection.
" Resolved, That upon the appointment of commissioners, as hereby invited, by said States, and upon the meeting of the joint commission for the purpose of con- ference as aforesaid, active hostilities shall cease and be suspended, and shall not be renewed unless the commission shall be unable to agree, or in case of an agree- ment by them, said agreement shall be rejected either by Congress or by the afore- said States."
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The above resolutions were received but at once laid on the table and nothing further came of them.
President Lincoln devised a scheme for the emancipation of the slaves, whereby it was proposed to save the slave-owners from loss by paying them for each slave liberated. Soon after George P. Fisher went to Washington in 1861 as Congress- man-elect, he and President Lincoln became staunch friends. This friendly feeling was evidenced by the President, when, after Fisher failed of re-election to Congress in 1862, he was appointed to a judgeship on the bench of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. As Delaware was the state hav- ing the smallest slave population, the President thought it the best state in which to inaugurate his scheme of gradual eman- cipation by paying for the slaves. The plan proposed was to emancipate the eighteen hundred slaves, from year to year, covering a period of ten years, and that the government of the United States was to pay to the State of Delaware therefor the sum of nine hundred thousand dollars-ninety thousand dol- lars a year-and out of this amount the slave-owners were to be paid what each slave was reasonably worth.
The President sent for and consulted with Mr. Fisher and entrusted to the latter the management of the Delaware end of the scheme. Both houses of the Delaware legislature were Democratic. Mr. Fisher felt the pulse of the people and of the members of the General Assembly. It had been deter- mined not to introduce the measure into the General Assem- bly until enough votes were assured for its passage. Mr. Fisher, and those who were working with him, succeeded in getting enough votes in the Senate, but they failed in the House ; and Mr. Fisher, in speaking of it years afterwards, said it failed because the one man in the House who liad been elected as an avowed Lincoln Republican was strenuously op- posed to it and no pressure that was brought to bear swerved him in the least ; so the project was abandoned.
In the summer of 1862 the President ordered a draft for 300,000 men for service in the United States Army to serve
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for a period of nine months. Under this call Delaware was required to furnish over 3,000 men. A large bounty fund was raised, and through voluntary enlistments Delaware's quota was supplied, and the draft from the State of Delaware was annulled by order of the President. Early in the fall of 1862 the Confederates made several raids into Maryland, and these raids had the effect of creating much anxiety in Wil- mington, it being feared that an attempt might be made to destroy the DuPont powder works. Additional steps were taken for defending the city and the Mayor by public procla- mation urged the forming of military companies for home protection.
A fund for the relief of the families of enlisted men was maintained during the continuance of the war, and from this fund, it is stated, relief was afforded to over five hundred fam- ilies during the first two years of the war. The First, Second and Third Delaware Regiments were actively engaged in the campaign of 1862, and in the battle of Antietam the Second Delaware Regiment was mentioned for the bravery and daring displayed by its men ; this regiment was in the thickest of that battle and suffered severe losses. Captains Watson and Rick- ards were killed in this battle and their bodies were afterwards brought to Wilmington and interred in the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery. On the day they were buried the whole city turned out to do honor to their memory ; business was generally suspended, and people lined the streets through which the procession passed. The Fourth Delaware Regiment, under command of Colonel A. H. Grimshaw, left Wilmington for the seat of war on November 10, 1862, and a month later Nields' Independent Battery Light Artillery, commanded by Captain Benjamin Nields, entered the active service, going directly from Wilmington to Washington.
The campaign of 1862, leading up to the State election in November in that year, was an animated one. Old party lines were discarded and the voters of the State were arrayed with either the Republican or Democratic parties. William
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Cannon was the candidate of the Republican party for Gov- ernor and George P. Fisher was the Republican candidate for Congress. The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Jefferson for Governor and William Temple for Congress. Large and en- thusiastic meetings were held by both parties. The State was thoroughly canvassed and the greatest interest manifested. The contest resulted in the election of William Cannon, Re- publican, as Governor by a majority of 111, and William Temple, Democrat, was elected to Congress by a majority of 37. The Republicans carried New Castle County but the Democrats carried Kent and Sussex. In the State Senate the Democrats had a majority of one, and in the House of Repre- sentatives a majority of seven. This gave the Democrats a majority of eight on joint ballot in the General Assembly.
At the opening of the Legislature in January, 1863, Gov- ernor Burton sent to that body his last massage before retiring from office. In it he complained that peaceful and loyal citizens of the State had been deprived of their liberty and been subjected to unwarranted and unconstitutional arrests because of their political opinions. He denounced this course and also criticised with much warmth the presence of the United States military forces in the State, which, if continued, he said, " will most inevitably result in the perversion of the principles and power of the government and its ultimate and final destruction." This part of the Governor's message was afterwards referred to a joint committee of the General As- sembly who took testimony, and subsequently submitted a re- port condemning the use of troops and severely arraigning Governor William Cannon and Congressman Fisher.
On the inauguration of Governor Cannon, in January, 1863, in his inaugural address he sought to justify both the arrests of of citizens and the presence of the military which had been com- plained of by Governor Burton. Governor Cannon urged in his address that in the excited condition of the populace owing to the prevalence of war there were apprehensions of violence ; that the troops were placed under the control of citizens of good
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repute and wise discretion ; and that their presence was salutary in securing good order and preventing probable collision among our own people; if arrests had been made it was on the ground of disloyalty and no undue violence was used. Dur- ing the session of the General Assembly a bill was passed by a strict party vote entitled an " Act to Prevent Illegal Arrests " the purport of which was that no white person in the State should be arrested except upon legal process issued by an officer authorized to issue process by the laws of the United States or this State, and it must be for the purpose of prevent- ing a breach of the peace or the commission of a crime against the State of Delaware or the United States.
The Governor had no veto power under the constitution but after the passage of this act Governor Cannon took occasion to send a message to the General Assembly, setting forth at length his objections to it and closing with the following forcible suggestion as to what he considered his duty in the premises :
"My predecessor, in an official communication, expressed the opinion that 'a majority of our citizens, if not in all our counties, at least in the two lower ones, sympathize with the South.' Without admitting the correctness of his estimate of numbers, I do not doubt of the existence of wide-spread disaf- fection. That there has been no outbreak here is the result of want of opportunity. It is the duty of the executive, not only of the United States, but of this State, to take care that no opportunity shall be afforded. If, to secure the public peace and to prevent insurrection, it becomes necessary to arrest any individual in this State, whether he be a citizen or a non-resident, I will not only 'assent to the act, but will maintain it.
"Invested by the Constitution with no power of veto or re- view of the action of the Legislature, the Governor has a gen- eral control over the operation of criminal enactments, and such control I will exercise to its utmost extent to protect any person acting under the authority of the President of the
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United States, or any citizen aiding such person in bringing to light any conspiracy, or in arresting any one guilty of dis- loyal practices or treasonable designs against the government."
Senators Bayard and Saulsbury brought the subject of il- legal arrests and of soldiers interfering with the people of the State of Delaware in the exercise of their right of suffrage by introducing a resolution in the Senate of the United States directing the Secretary of War to inform the Senate by what right or authority Dr. John Laws and Whitely Meredith, citizens of the State of Delaware, had been arrested and im- prisoned in Fort Delaware. The resolution was discussed at some length and was finally laid on the table by a vote of 29 to 13.
The General Assembly of 1863 re-elected James A. Bayard to the United States Senate for a term of six years from March 4th, 1863. Mr. Bayard received 19 votes and Edward G. Bradford received the 10 votes of the Republican members of the Assembly. Abraham Lincoln's famous Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1st, 1863. Under its provisions freedom was declared to all the slaves in the States that had seceded, except Tennessee, a few counties in Virginia, and some parishes in Louisiana. All the slaves in the border States, including Delaware, were exempted and remained in bondage as before under the State laws.
In June, 1863, when the Confederate forces under command of General Robert E. Lee started out of Virginia on their raid northward it led to much anxiety in Wilmington, as it was feared that Lee intended coming by way of Baltimore, to Philadelphia. Mayor Gilpin, on June 30th, 1863, issued an appeal or proclamation to the citizens of Wilmington earnestly calling upon every one capable of bearing arms to enroll him- self in some military company, and upon all those who had any experience or skill in the profession of arms to take the lead, organizing and drilling such volunteers as may be willing to serve in this emergency. The following proclama- tion was issued by Governor Cannon under date of July 1st,
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1863: "A desperate enemy has invaded the neighboring States of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, the main reliance of the Government for the transportation from the North of men and munitions of war, is menaced, not only by open, but by marauding Confederates, who, under cover of darkness, threaten to destroy us.
"The defence of your soi! lies in keeping open the door of communication, through which re-inforcements can be for- warded. The true military line of this State is the bank of the Susquehanna. The most effective way to prevent the spoliation of your house is to keep the enemy outside of it.
" In this emergency an appeal was made to the loyal men of Delaware. They have responded with a readiness that challenges encomium, and a self-sacrificing spirit that extorts admiration. They have left their work-shops, their stores and their fields. The plough stands in the furrow, and the reaper in the grain already white for the harvest. They have aban- doned their homes and committed their wives and children to your protection.
"I appeal to you, citizens of Delaware, not to permit their devotion to be unacknowledged or their sacrifices unrewarded. Save their crops, till the fields, succor their families.
"May God have them in his holy keeping and incline your hearts to acts of charity and duty."
For a week or more after the battle of Gettysburg it was feared that railroad communication to Baltimore would be cut off, and a call was made for men to serve for thirty days. Several hundred responded to the call, both from Wilmington and the lower part of the State. A committee of one hundred citizens was formed, and this committee pledged itself to stand responsible for the pay of five hundred men for the term of one month. Several companies of these emergency men were sent to Perryville and beyond, to protect the railroad. In the course of a week or so the excitement subsided, business was resumed, and the recruiting stations were closed. About the
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same time a draft was ordered by the President, the quota de- manded from Delaware being about 1000 men. This an- nouncement caused much commotion, and at this time Dela- ware was in a greater state of excitement than during any other period of the war. The draft was ordered to take place at Smyrna on August 12, 1863. Men who might be drafted were allowed to commute at the rate of $300 per man. Drafted men were warned not to leave the State under penalty of arrest and imprisonment in Fort Delaware as deserters.
William Temple who had been elected representative in Congress at the November election in 1862, died at his home in Smyrna on May 28th, 1863, before he had taken his seat. The Governor ordered a special election to be held in Novem- ber following, to fill the vacancy. Nathaniel B. Smithers, who was serving as Secretary of State under Governor Cannon, was nominated by the Republicans for the place; his Demo- cratic opponent was Charles Brown, of Dover. The election was held on November 19th. A few days prior to the election an order was sent by General Schenck, commanding the Middle Department of the United States forces, requiring an oath of allegiance to the United States as the test of citizenship of any one whose vote might be challenged on the ground that he was not loyal or did not admit his allegiance to the United States. It was provided in the order that this oath should be taken by any one whose vote was challenged at the Congressional election to be held in Delaware on the 19th.
The Democrats expressed great indignation at this proceed- ing and at a public meeting held at New Castle on November 17th, an address was issued to the Democrats of the County and State, recommending and requesting that the Democratic voters take no part in the approaching special election. The result was that the Democrats throughout the State declined to vote, and on the day of election Mr. Smithers received 7963 votes and Mr. Brown 15.
The contempt and indignation felt by the Democrats in having a military force under the charge of United States
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officers at the polls throughout the State on election day, was not only shown by their refusal to vote at the special election, but they were loud in their denunciation of it, branding it an outrage and a blow at constitutional liberty. In December following, Mr. Saulsbury offered a resolution in the United States Senate calling upon the Secretary of War to inform the Senate whether a military force was sent into the State of Delaware to be present on election day (November 19th) and if so, by whose orders, for what purpose were they sent, how many were sent and to what places, etc., etc.
In support of his resolution Mr. Saulsbury temperately but firmly expressed the feeling of indignation held by himself and the Democratic party of the State at that time. Mr. Bayard, his colleague in the Senate also supported the resolu- tion in a strong speech, in the course of which he said :
" I hope the resolution will be adopted. I do not desire to debate it, but I de- sire the information. I think we are entitled to it. The Government of the United States having sent into the State of Delaware, under the command of a major-general of the army of the United States some three thousand troops, on the day before the election, and distributed them throughout the State-a State which has at no time whatever, either by her position, her course of conduct, or the action of her people, offered any resistance to the authority of the United States-we have a right to know the reasons for such action. It may be, and probably it will be shown, that some of our own citizens, in the heat of political excitement and partisan resentment, have made improper, erroneous and false statements to the Secretary of War. If that is so, we have a right to know it. We have a right to know who those recreant sons of Delaware are. The people of Delaware have a right to know who it was that thus attempted to cause civil strife and military rule to be established in the State. We do not want to inquire into the fact of whether the army was sent there and whether they were distributed at the polls-that is notorious ; but we want the reasons which justify an act which certainly is an infraction of the rights of the people of Delaware, and an infraction which, carried out in other States-I am not speaking of what the de- sign was, for I do not know what the grounds were ; I want to know-would en- able any existing Administration to keep itself in power and control tlie Govern- ment of this country just as long as it had the military force to do so. That would be the effect of submitting to such action. I want to know the grounds and the reasons, to sce whether there were any justifications for this action. It is not, as the honorable Senator from Iowa supposes, with any desire for judi- cial inquiry against individuals there ; nothing of the kind. It would not be evi- dence for the purpose of subjecting them to judicial inquiry."
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The resolution was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, and nothing more came of it. Shortly afterwards, the United States Senate passed a resolution prescribing an " Oath of Loyalty," which was more generally called the "Iron Clad Oath," to be taken by its members. Mr. Bayard took the position that the resolution was particularly aimed at him and he opposed its adoption in a strong speech in which he claimed that it was unconstitutional. The resolution, however, passed the Senate, whereupon Mr. Bayard took the oath, but he immediately resigned his seat in the Senate. The Legislature of Delaware which met a month later, elected George Read Riddle as his successor for the unexpired term.
At the presidential election held in November, 1864, George B. McCellan, the Democratic candidate for President, received a majority of 612. John A. Nicholson, Democrat, was elected to Congress over Nathaniel B. Smithers by a majority of 509, and the Democrats controlled the State Legislature in both branches. Governor Cannon in his message to the Legislature in January, 1865, urged the adoption of measures for the emancipation of the slaves in the State; but as the General Assembly, was in control of the Democrats, nothing was ac- complished in this direction.
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