USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 16
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Events Leading to the War of 1812-England had become involved in difficulties with France again, or rather with Napoleon Bonaparte, and the commerce of the former government had been thrown into con- fusion. The United States, as the only really neutral nation, was in a position to reap the rich advantages of the situation, and New England gathered in the most of the wealth. Her ships sailed to every port; it was the Golden Era of her mercantile marine. But New England's suc- cess aroused the enmity of Great Britain, and the envy of less fortunate parts of the United States. England revived an old ruling under which was claimed the right to seize and condemn in her admiralty courts, the
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REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY
vessels of other nations. Her application of this "rule of 1756" as prac- ticed against American ships and cargoes was little better than high seas piracy. Boston suffered severely, and her leaders in governmental affairs urged the President to deal with England with a strong hand. With lit- tle consideration for the interests of New England, an Embargo Act was passed by Congress which tied the shipping of Massachusetts to its wharves. What this meant to Boston may be understood when it is realized that three-eighths of all the tonnage of the United States was owned in Massachusetts, and the great bulk of it made the port of Boston its home. Ruin stared the town in the face. Her merchants and ship- builders, her sailors and laboring classes were threatened with poverty.
Boston Sentiment Against the War-The embargo was lifted in 1807, but between this year and that of 1812 nothing was done by the Federal authorities to revive the shipping of Massachusetts. Meanwhile the Navy, such as it was, had been allowed to rot. Had Jefferson, at the beginning of the outrages committed by England, boldly declared war, no part of the country would have given a more complete and enthusi- astic support to the President. But as conditions were in 1812, Massa- chusetts considered war worse than inadvisable, for it could only prove a finishing blow to its enfeebled commerce and prosperity. The senti- ment in Boston seems to have been one of a determination to have nothing to do with the war. Secession, which the same city so con- demned a half century later, was preached as a panacea for all her ills. The presence of the "Constitution" and the newly launched "Independ- ence" in the harbor were considered a danger to the town, and Commo- dore Bainbridge of the Charlestown Navy Yard was asked to send them farther away from Boston. Boston sat sullenly down determined to have nothing to do with this War of 1812.
The British, however, forced the hand of Boston, for in its policy of attacking seaport towns along the Atlantic coast, it began to look as though a visit might be paid to the principal of seaports, and the town that more than any other had been the competitor of her shipping. Expecting but getting no aid from the government, Boston went to work improving her harbor defenses. The old forts were put in order, and a new one, Fort Strong, was thrown up on Noddle Island. Loammi Bald- win, the engineer of the Middlesex Canal, the first large dry-dock and other notable structures, was the architect of the fortifications. Volun- teers built the forts and manned them upon their completion. Fortun- ately Boston was never attacked throughout the war, although her port became the refitting place for the ships of war and the privateers that decided the fortunes of conflict.
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METROPOLITAN BOSTON
"Old Ironsides"-Since the War of 1812 was principally a naval affair, Boston played a larger part in it than most sections of the United States. Massachusetts supplied a larger share of those serving in the Navy than any other State, and it must not be forgotten that what is the most famous war vessel ever produced by the United States is the thor- oughly Boston ship, the "Constitution," or as she is lovingly called, "Old Ironsides." The "Constitution" was built in Boston at Edmund Hart's shipyard-now Constitution Wharf. A Boston shipwright chose her timbers, Paul Revere supplied the copper spikes and bolts that went into her construction, Ephraim Thayer of the South End made the gun car- riages, the factory that wove the duck for her sails was located on the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, and the sails were made in the old Granary that stood on the site of the Park Street Church. Old Iron- sides was expected to be a "Bad Luck" ship since it was not until the third attempt that she slipped gracefully into the water, but her career proved very much otherwise. Into her career we will not go, except to point out in the words of another that: "Into Boston Harbour, Com- modore Hull sailed her after his escape from a British squadron in the summer of 1812." To Boston again she came after the fight with the "Guerriere" a few weeks later, and when she had returned again under Bainbridge, the Java had struck to her off the Brazillian coast. Still later-on June 1, 1813-the hills and housetops of Boston were crowded with people watching the Chesapeake as she sailed down the harbor and joined in that disastrous conflict with the "Shannon," of which the dis- tant smoke and sounds were not beyond sight and hearing. Yes, Boston, ungraciously and unwillingly, saw very much of the War of 1812, and did its share in bringing it to a successful conclusion.
Boston the "Occasion of all Wars"-An orator of the last century accused Boston of being the "Occasion" of all the wars into which the United States had been drawn, a remark worthy of attention, and about as true as are all-inclusive statements. There probably would have been a Revolution without a Boston "tea party" but hardly as soon. There might have been no War of 1812, had the mercantile marine of the town been less aggressive and successful. But it is hardly fair to saddle upon the city the Civil War, even though many of the principles involved in the struggle were evolved in Boston. The "Hub" held no brief, at first, for abolition, even though it later became the center of the abolitionist movement. At the end of the Revolution, there were more than 2,000 slaves held by Boston owners. In 1781, October 25, the State Legis- lature put an end to slavery in Massachusetts, but that did not prevent citizens of the Commonwealth from engaging in the purchase and sale
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REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY
of blacks or of sending vessels to Africa to secure and bring to the West Indies and the southern sections of America the humans which they sold.
When William Lloyd Garrison in his "Liberator" urged too vigor- ously the abolition of slavery in 1835, he was mobbed by a crowd made up of many from the better classes of the city. "This mob," says Henry Wilson, "came not from the purlieus of Fort Hill and Ann Street, but from the counting houses of State Street and the parlors of Beacon Street." If there was one locality more than another that had the best of reasons for not interfering with an institution of the South, it was Massachusetts, for no State was more dependent upon the negro labor of the South, or had more citizens in more intimate and vital associations with the Southern slave owner. The growth of the cotton manufactur- ing industry in Massachusetts, financed and controlled by Boston cap- italists, brought the moneyed class into the closest relations with the slave-owning class of the cotton growing States. Southerners came in numbers to Boston and were received into the best of the homes, were wel- come guests of the finest hotels, and their sons entered Harvard, making friends who could not regard slavery with any particular hatred. As said one noted merchant of that day-a man of New York-"Slavery is a great evil, a great wrong ; but it was consented to by the founders of our Republic. It was provided for in the Constitution of our Union. A great portion of the property of the Southerners is invested under its sanction ; the business of the North, as well as of the South, has become adjusted to it. There are millions on millions of dollars due from South- erners to the merchants and mechanics of this city alone, the payment of which would be jeopardized by any rupture between the North and South. We cannot afford to have slavery overthrown. It is not a matter of principle with us; it is a matter of business necessity." These words summed up the attitude of the average business man toward abolition. As Boston desired, in 1806, to be allowed to go on with its foreign com- mercial operations without the interference of an Embargo Act, so now she wanted nothing to happen that would interrupt the flow of cotton to the mills of the State, nor the good-fellowship that existed between the North and the South.
The Boston Attitude Towards Slavery-If the majority had ruled, it seems likely that Massachusetts would never have been the leading State in the opposition to any interference with Southern institutions. More by accident than otherwise, Garrison, who for a brief period had been in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was jailed for publicly protesting against the slave sales, set up his "Liberator" in Boston. He may have chosen the city because he knew, as did many another, that whatever the Bos- tonian believed, he still would listen to those of other faiths ; the agitator
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METROPOLITAN BOSTON
was certain of a hearing if not a following. Garrison was heard for nearly a half dozen years before the mistake was made of trying to quiet him by the force of a mob. Nothing of greater importance came out of this riot than the arraying of the adherents of abolition, and the let well enough alone parties in definite opposition to each other. It was a serious mis- take on the part of the conservatives. It aroused the women, for a meet- ing of the Boston Female Antislavery Society, announced to be held at No. 46 Washington Street, had brought the crowd together that attacked Garrison. They prevented all but about thirty of the ladies from getting into the hall, a deed that turned hundreds of the women who had been but mildly interested in the anti-slavery movement, into fiery partisans.
The clergy, too, came to the aid of the persecuted Garrison, although in the early stages the churches were decidedly conservative, with their ministers finding little to commend in the purposes and methods of Gar- rison and his radical friends. And from the younger progressives of the city came many brilliant men who joined the ranks of the Abolitionists. What an array of talent it was that gave inspiration and force to the movement! Wendell Phillips, who as a boy of eighteen, sprang into fame by the fiery eloquence and unanswerable arguments of his extem- poraneous reply to a speech lauding the mob that killed Owen Lovejoy, the Abolitionist. Phillips was the matchless orator of the anti-slavery forces. Theodore Parker, preacher par excellence, but even more noted as a leader of the New England band which aided so many fugitive slaves to escape, was another. Then there were Channing, Edmund Quincy, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, Dr. Bowditch, Whittier the poet, R. H. Dana, Jr., and Charles Sumner, just to name a few of the leaders of the day.
Aid Given Negro Fugitives-Abolition swung from being principally a moral question whose propagation was by eloquence, to a political affair when President Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. There were many former slaves resident in Boston. In February, 1851,. Shadrach, a negro, was arrested. As none of the jails in the city would house the prisoner, he was held in the United States Court room awaiting trial. A mob of his own race rescued him and sent him off to safety in Canada. It was only a temporary respite for the fugitives, for in April of the same year, Thomas Sims (or Semmes) was imprisoned and tried. Condemned to return to his former master, he was led in chains sur- rounded by three hundred policemen to the ship that was to carry him to Savannah. In 1854, May 24, Anthony Burns, a recent fugitive slave, was lodged in a Boston jail, awaiting trial and probable deportation. Never since the "Tea Party" had Boston been in such a rage and turmoil as during the next few days. Such men as Phillips, Parker, Dr. Howe and Thomas Wentworth Higginson connived at the escape of Burns by
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REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY
means of a directed mob. "It was one of the very best plots that ever failed" said its originator, Colonel Higginson. And of the Colonel it is written by Dana, who so fervently, but in vain, pleaded the prisoner's case, "I knew Higginson's ardor and courage, but I hardly expected a married man and a clergyman, and a man of education to lead the mob." The mob attack was a futile affair, causing the death of one man, but accomplishing nothing. But at least it illustrated the change that had come over Boston, when her ministers and leading citizens were as ready to assault the law in their hatred of slavery, as had been a former mob to attack Garrison the Abolitionist.
Burns was turned over to his master, June 2, 1854, and was placed on a revenue cutter and taken to Virginia. It was a victory for the South, but as a Southern editor wrote: "We rejoice at the recapture of Burns, but a few more such victories and the South is undone." He had in mind the armed force that was needed to see the colored slave safely aboard the craft that was to bear him south. Two companies of United States troops escorted the prisoner, "with cannon loaded with grape and all the military of Suffolk County." More than 20,000 people thronged the street down which he was taken, crying shame as the parade came in sight. The bells on the churches tolled, shops and offices were draped in black. Flags hung union side down were over the street under which the cortege had to pass. Near the State House swung a coffin bearing the words: "The Funeral of Liberty." Thus was the last slave ever cap- tured in Massachusetts, sent from the State, bidden farewell by an aroused citizenship. When later, Sumter fell and Lincoln sent out a call for volunteers, the response of Boston was full and instant; the experi- ences of the preceding two decades had made her as ready to fight as she had been to talk.
Civil War and the Famous Sixth-Lincoln's first call for troops was issued on April 15, 1861. Governor Andrew, even before this, had been studying the situation and endeavoring to collect and equip the militia of the State. On the 16th, soldiers were gathering in Boston, and on the third day, the 19th, three regiments were on their way to Washington. One of these, the 6th, traveled by way of Baltimore, where it was at- tacked by a mob. The first blood of the Rebellion was shed on the anni- versary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, as the 6th tried to force its way through Maryland's city streets. It succeeded, and upon its arrival at Washington was greeted with relief and pleasure by the Presi- dent, for it was the first regiment reasonably completely equipped to come to the aid of the Capital.
There was a surprising unanimity of opinion as well as of action in Boston when one considers how at odds many of its leaders had been.
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METROPOLITAN BOSTON
The attack on Sumter brought such a union of men, of interests, of pur- pose as had never characterized the city in any previous war. The "Boston Post," a Democratic newspaper, appealed to the people to pre- serve "our noble Republican Government" or descend into anarchy. Edward Everett, who had just been defeated as a candidate for the vice- presidency on a ticket opposed to Lincoln, struck a keynote when he declared : "All former differences of opinion are swept away. We forget that we have been partisans; we remember only that we are Americans, and that our country is in peril." It is but fair to state, however, that the animating spirit of this loyalty and dedication to service was based on the principle of union, rather than upon abolition. Boston forgot its past differences and joined hands without reference to party or creed in the patriotic desire to preserve the United States as one; emancipation was for the time thrust into the background.
The City Prepares for War-War once declared, Boston was, as al- ways, very practical in what it did. Faneuil Hall, as well as all the other buildings under city control capable of being turned to military use, was placed at the disposal of the Governor. The banks of Boston offered to lend the State $3,600,000, pending legislative action. Committees were formed to look after the interests of every soldier who would enlist. Physicians pledged their aid to the families of those who should go to the front. The Boston bar voted to serve in law those of their profession who went to war and to see that liberal provision was made for their fam- ilies. These were but a few of the activities of the municipality during the first week.
"Of the hospitalities of the city to the soldiers going to and from the front ; of the city relief committee ; of the discharged soldiers home ; of the 'committee of one hundred' which raised and expended the Massachu- setts Soldiers' fund ; of the gifts of ice, provisions and clothing ; of Mr. Evans' offer of the Evans Home as a place of deposit for contributions. for the soldiers, and of the use made of it by Mrs. Otis who established there the 'Bank of Faith'; of the New England Women's Auxiliary Asso- ciation, a branch of the United States Sanitary Commission with head- quarters in Boston ; of the Boston soldiers' fund ; of all these mere men- tion must suffice; and to mention these leaves almost countless other patriotic acts and sacrifices unnoticed."
Boston Soldiery-Boston in all wars had unusual burdens loaded upon it because of its position as the capital and metropolis of the Common- wealth. For this reason, also, it is difficult to separate what it did as a city from what it accomplished as a center of a State. The municipality had a population of 178,000 in 1860, but as a district, including nearby
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REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY
towns that were one with Boston in nearly every respect other than gov- ernment, its population must have approximated half a million people. Thus it cannot be known just what, or even how many, regiments the city sent into the various fields of action. There probably was no military organization that had only residents of the place, but there were enough whose membership was so dominantly Bostonian as to be fairly credited to Boston. Such, for example, were the 1st, 2d, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 32d, 33d, 35th, and 56th regiments of infantry ; the 3d Regi- ment of heavy artillery; the Ist, 2d, 3d, and 4th regiments of cavalry ; and the Ist, 2d, 3d, 6th, roth, IIth, 12th, and 13th batteries. Of all of these, the majority of the men and officers came from the capital city. The 54th and 55th regiments of colored infantry and the 5th Regiment of colored cavalry were the result of Boston influence. The 44th and 45th regiments were very completely Bostonians, but served only their nine months' enlistment before many of their numbers became parts of corps throughout the war.
Boston is credited with furnishing 26,175 men for Union service, prob- ably a sixth of whom were in the navy. Massachusetts troops made an enviable reputation for themselves, and some of those mentioned as com- ing principally from the city were ranked at the very top of the list of the great fighters. During the early period of the conflict, when most of the men were volunteers, the troops were as "fine a body of men as the world has ever seen." It is to be regretted that the bounty system, which later was in force, brought into these regiments a set which enfeebled their organizations, lowering the morale of the whole to an often dis- graceful degree. It was a condition that was true of all the regiments of the East where the pernicious bounty system held sway. One must also keep this fact in mind when examining records where the number of desertions loom large. Men enlisted, received a bounty, deserted, enlisted again and continued the process until caught. The word "bounty- jumper" still has a very definite meaning in the American vernacular.
Regimental Statistics-To those interested in the statistics of the regiments coming, for the most part, from Boston, there follows a table taken from "The Memorial History of Boston." If comparisons are made with modern military facts and figures, it is well to remember that a regi- ment was a very different and much smaller unit than that used in the World War; that desertion was a fact very different from that in later wars and brought about by enlistment conditions. The very high losses are the most impressive of the totals.
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METROPOLITAN BOSTON
ORGANIZATION.
Total.
Killed in Action.
Died of Wounds, Disease, Etc.
Deserted.
First Regiment Infantry
1981
93
88
155
Second Regiment Infantry.
2767
II6
156
276
Ninth Regiment Infantry ..
1922
153
105
24I
Eleventh Regiment Infantry.
2423
85
I47
328
Twelfth Regiment Infantry.
1758
128
I26
I9I
Thirteenth Regiment Infantry.
1584
71
75
I71
Nineteenth Regiment Infantry.
2469
104
160
174
Twentieth Regiment Infantry ..
3230
192
192
229
Twenty-fourth Regiment Infantry.
2116
63
147
II2
Twenty-eighth Regiment Infantry
2504
I61
203
228
Thirty-second Regiment Infantry
2969
79
198
163
Thirty-third Regiment Infantry ..
1412
69
107
79
Thirty-fifth Regiment Infantry.
1665
91
I34
40
Fifty-fourth Regiment Infantry (Black) .
I574
54
I54
40
Fifty-fifth Regiment Infantry (Black) ..
1295
52
I32
27
Fifty-sixth Regiment Infantry.
1319
69
134
129
Third Heavy Artillery.
2358
I
40
383
First Battery
319
5
15
7
Second Battery
415
I
25
13
Third Battery
318
6
13
9
Sixth Battery
451
5
50
57
Tenth Battery
274
4
19
4
Eleventh Battery
199
2
II
I
Twelfth Battery
300
...
25
75
Thirteenth Battery
355
...
26
99
First Cavalry
2767
49
167
I61
Second Cavalry
2841
62
147
622
Third Cavalry
2653
60
203
372
Fourth Cavalry
2018
21
123
262
Fifth Cavalry
1516
II7
124
4
General Palfrey on the Troops Sent from Boston-The endeavor has been made by General Francis W. Palfrey to credit some of the most efficient of the Boston troops in relation to their rank in an article form- ing a part of the "Memorial History of Boston." From this, not only the foregoing table but the following summary is taken. General Palfrey was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 20th Regiment at the time of its formation in 1861, and with which he served continuously on the Potomac and during the whole Peninsular campaign. In the battle of Antietam, he was so severely wounded as to prevent further active serv- ice with his regiment. General Palfrey was too modest to give any extended comment on the history of his own organization, although its story was as important, its valor as great, its discipline and brilliant steadiness in the time of stress as remarkable as that of any other body of soldiers. At Fredericksburg, the 20th crossed a stream in the face of a galling fire that within a few minutes had brought ninety-seven casual- ties. At Gettysburg, after a forced march with never a straggler, it joined the group of men that went to the aid of Pickett's division, where its losses were 102. At Briscoe Station, it took guns from A. P. Hill's corps. "On the day of disaster before Petersburg, when the enemy had
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REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY
turned our left, and was rolling up our line and capturing regiment after regiment, the 20th changed front under fire, stopped the enemy's advance, and saved the troops in the line to its right. It gave Putnam, Lowell, Patten, Babo, Wesselhoeft, Ropes, Paine, and eight more officers to the list of those killed in action or died of wounds received there." The 20th, with a record of more than thirty battles, shared in the Grand Review of the Army of the Potomac.
The 2d Regiment-The 2d Regiment was raised directly by the authority of the Secretary of War, and the appointment of its officers left to the discretion of the organizers. Some of the very best families of Boston were represented among the officers of the regiment, and the rank and file of its men were drawn from the finest of the volunteers of Massachusetts. The fortunes of war kept it from long service at the front, but in covering the retreat of General Banks in 1862, the regiment covered itself with glory. Perhaps the most notable tribute paid to Northern troops by the Southerners is one to be found in Allan's "Valley Campaign" where a description is given of the brilliant, stubborn resist- ance of the 2d Massachusetts to Jackson's advance near Winchester. The regiment distinguished itself particularly at Cedar Mountain and at Get- tysburg. Later it was sent West, and was one of the few eastern regi- ments that accompanied Sherman on his March to the Sea. At the very end of Sherman's campaign, just before the bugles blew the final truce, one of the regiment's captains was shot dead at the head of his handful of a company in an attack at Averysboro.
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