USA > New Jersey > New Jersey and the rebellion : a history of the service of the troops and people of New Jersey in aid of the Union cause, Pt. 1 > Part 3
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
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THE UPRISING IN NEW JERSEY.
the products of Northern acres. The same mountain ranges which cradled Northern hamlets on their slopes, lifted their heads over Southern vallies, with contented populations nestling in their laps. A vast system of railways, reaching from the Northern lakes to the Gulf, with lateral lines extending from the Atlantic seaboard to the Rocky Mountains, contributed to the creation of a community of interests and equality of responsibility in the government, among all sections of our extended domain. The language in which Southern men appealed to God around the family altar, was that in which New England sung her thanksgiving hymns and taught the duty of obedience to. law in her Christian schools. Were not all these bands of union ? Did not these things con- stitute physical arguments against dismemberment-geographical disabilities to separation ? Was not ours a common destiny ; were there not ties of kindred, trade, history, tradition, which, in the last resort, would hold us all together, proving stronger than the passion of demagogues, stronger than the hates, however vehe- mently nourished, of faction or of section ? Did the South, indeed, mean to do battle with the whole spirit of the age? It was in thoughts like these that the people grounded the hope that, spite of growing clamors and deepening exasperations, war would after all be escaped, and the nation safely delivered out of all its perils. The storm might gather, indeed, and the thunder mutter overhead, but surely the clouds would ere long break and the blue sky appear, sheathing in its serene depths every angry bolt, silencing in its vast abysses every clamorous menace.
Thus confiding in the loyal instincts of the people ; unable to believe that the spirit of sedition would flower into open revolt ; and when the blow was finally struck, stunned alike by indignation and surprise, the North was obviously unprepared for war. A giant in strength, with vast resources at its command, it was yet for the moment wholly incapable of defence, and with all its athletic vigor was but a child in capacity for immediate resistence. The Federal army, scattered in feeble detachments on frontier stations, or employed in garrisoning seaboard defences, numbered in all but
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a paltry aggregate of twelve thousand men. The national arsenals, not in rebel hands, were comparatively empty, and the armories upon which the government depended for the production of arms and munitions, were either inadequate or altogether abandoned. Had an army of thirty thousand men leaped into the arena, fully organized, at the first gun of the foe, the whole North, even if dragged with a seine, could not for months after the first assault, have furnished sufficient effective arms to equip it. Nor was this all. There was not in any State, with perhaps a single exception, a thoroughly organized and equipped militia upon which to fall back for support and defence. The Free States, relying for protec- tion against exceptional excesses and disorders upon the vigorous. underlying sentiment of obedience to law, and the conservative in- fluence of enlightened opinion, by which it was characterized-hav- ing in their midst no institution which constituted a perpetual menace of the public peace-bad only in rare instances bestowed attention upon the cultivation of the martial spirit; for the most part had neglected entirely the organization and maintenance of a reserve military establishment which, while essentially voluntary and republican in form, should second, in sudden or pressing emergencies, the efforts of the civil magistracy in enforcing resisted law and maintaining endangered authority. There was, undoubt- edly, in this prevalent decay of the military spirit, and this absence of any efficient militia system, a gratifying, and to strangers an amazing, exhibition of popular confidence in the strength and per- manence of free institutions, as well as in the general virtue of the citizen ; but this fact, however pleasing in itself, atoned but poorly for the general defencelessness when at last the shock of arms shook down the nation's confidence in peace, and armed rebellion, stand- ing at the very gates of the capital, demanded the surrender to its control of the fairest portion of our heritage.
Among the States of the Union none, perhaps, was so poorly pre- pared for the harsh exactions and inevitable necessities of war, as New Jersey. Her militia system, never properly fostered or sustain. ed, was but a system of shreds and patches, without organic unity,
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and almost entirely worthless as a means of defence, or even as a nucleus for a more perfect organization." The supply of arms at the command of the authorities was scarcely equal to the equipment of three full brigades, and those within reach were of the poorest description-altogether unfit for active service. They might answer for mock engagements on peaceful muster-days, or for target-firing on holiday parades, but beyond this they could be of little use .- These, obviously, were not only inconveniences in the situation of the State ; they amounted to positive disabilities. But these were not the only embarrassing features of the situation. The military bureau of the State had been organized on a purely peace basis, and as such had been administered through a period of profound calm, during which not a single demand had been made upon its energies. It was as ignorant, practically, as the people themselves of the realities and business of war. Its heads knew absolutely nothing from experience as to the vast and consuming necessities of armies, or of the methods of high organization now brought to bear upon their structure.3 Suddenly called upon to act, they were compelled
: "The proclamation of the President of the United States, which appeared on the fifteenth day of April last, calling out the militia of the several States to suppress rebellion already commenced in a portion of our country, found the State of New Jer- sey almost wholly unprepared for such a call. * * Many years of profound peace, and the absence of any feeling of alarm, had left our reserve militia entirely unorgan- ized, and to a great extent unenrolled throughout the State, while the active militia (which had been almost entirely supported by the individual patriotism and exertions of its members, with little or no encouragement from the State,) though it amounted in the aggregate to about four thousand four hundred officers and men, consisted in a great measure of scattered companies, attached to the various brigades of the State, and these in many cases but poorly armed."-Report of Adjutant-General Stockton, 1861.
3 The reader will not misunderstand these remarks. They are not meant to reflect at all upon the capacity of the heads of this department of the State Administration. Robert F. Stockton, Jr., who served during the whole period of the war as Adjutant- General, was in every respect admirably qualified for that position. Inheriting a pre- dilcetion for the profession of arms, and thoroughly patriotic, he brought to the dis- charge of his duties the highest energy, with a sobriety of judgment and a vigor of perception which made him invaluable. No man was more sensible than he was of the defects of our militia system, and the difficulties of his position resulting therefrom, and from the very first he labored industriously to secure the introduction of such reforms as would, in a measure at least, remedy the existing evils. But with all this, General Stockton was without experience in the actual business of organizing large bodies of troops, and it is to this fact, for which he was no more to blame than any other citizen, that we refer in this resume of the embarrassinents attending the opera- tions of our military bureau in the early stages of the war. Later in the struggle no such statement would apply. The Quartermaster-General, Lewis Perrine, labored under 3
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to acquire, by slow and painful application, that facility in organiz- ing troops without which their efforts were liable to be baffled at every turn. For at the centre of all military authority and activity --- the capital of the nation-narrow-minded, impracticable men seemed for a time to have exclusive control; men who, in the face of a hostile army, with eleven States in open revolt, and war already striding with kindled torch through the land, not only estimated the rebellion as a mere temporary ebullition which would disappear in thirty, or at most, ninety days, but actually organized their measures of defence upon this narrow estimate.4 Hence, it came to pass that when the people, more correctly interpreting the signs of the hour, thronged in with lofty courage, by hundreds and thousands, to defend the nation's life, they met rebuff's rather than encouragement ; checks and hindrances amounting to positive restrictions, were laid upon the recruitment and reception of in-com- ing volunteers ; and, as a result, State authorities were constantly exposed to unnecessary annoyances-were compelled to conform to stereotyped and effetè methods in the organization and equipment of their regiments, and to undergo the most irksome processes of circumlocution even as to the most trivial details. Necessarily, this persistent adherence to forms, to old usuages, to the methods of the schools, in the presence of a crisis demanding instant and decisive
· the same difficulty as his associate, but, like him, displayed, from first to last, an untir- ing assiduity and conscientious fidelity in the performance of his duties, which achieved for him, justly, an exalted reputation among our troops, no less than with the publie at large. We shall have occasion to refer again to both these officials in the course of this work.
4 Nothing in the whole record of the war appears more painfully ridiculous than the failure of Secretary Cameron, and other high Government officials, to appreciate, even approximately, the gravity of the crisis which they were called to meet. On the part of some of them, there was, apparently, utter and complete blindness, or what was still more eriminal, a fixed purpose to dwarf the contest, and measure all preparations of defence by their own low and inadequate standard. Thus, Secretary Cameron, when the Governor of this State pressed theacceptance of troops in May, 1861, said: "Three regi- ments are assigned to your State. It is important to reduce rather than enlarge this num- ber. Let me earnestly recommend you, therefore, to call for no more" (than already named.) "If more are already called for, reduce the number by discharge." Even after Bull Run, as late as August, 1861, Mr. Cameron only reluctantly consented to accept the Ninth Regiment, although the men were recruited and cager to go to the field, where only disaster had crowned our arms. If this was not an absurdity amounting to cruelty, what was it ?
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action, seriously embarrassed a bureau so inexperienced as that to which the military interests of New Jersey were committed, and with all the fidelity and industry of its heads, this added burden rendered the work of preparation for defence one of stupendous, and at first sight, appalling proportions.
In one thing, however, the State was eminently fortunate. It had an Executive of incorruptible integrity, of inflexible loyalty, and of indomitable will; one of those rare men who, outwardly unobtrusive and silent, conceal under a complacent demeanor, vast inherent strength and self-reliance, which, upon emergency, produce in them prodigies of performance. A man of quiet habits, preferring the peaceful pursuits of the husbandman to the tumults and rivalries of politics, without ambition or exalted self-appreciation," he had consented to become a candidate for Governor only upon the most pressing entreaties of those who, discerning signs of trouble in the lowering future, felt profoundly the supreme importance of securing a man of his distinguished character as Executive of the State ; and even when elected, after one of the most heated politi- cal campaigns in our history, he entered with undisguised reluctance upon the duties of the office, notwithstanding, at that time, those duties were by no means of an exacting nature. Had he foreseen, in those days of calm, what burdens awaited him in the future- what consuming and overwhelming demands would be made upon his energies in the performance of the inevitable administrative labors which the war imposed, we may well imagine that not even the most urgent solicitations would have induced him to accept the important trust which the people so willingly confided to his hands.
But the very qualities we have named as entering predominantly into Governor Olden's character, made him, when the crisis came,
5 No man could be more destitute of ambition, of the vulgar sort, than Governor Olden. During the canvass which resulted in his election, he more than once said to the writer: "Nothing but the most urgent considerations of public duty, and of attach- ment to the principles with which I have always been identified, could ever have induced me to become a candidate. If elected, I shall find no pleasure in the position. I have no children who, when I am gone, will count it an honor to be able to say their father once filled the highest position in the State; I have myself no aspirations in that direction ; why, then, should I be engaged as I am in appealing to the people for sup- port ?"
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peculiarly the man for its augmented and solemn responsibilities. The patriotic instinct which impelled him to sacrifice personal feel- ings and personal comfort to meet the call of his fellow-citizens, made him, from the first moment of the rebellion, thoroughly and desperately in earnest in all his convictions of the necessity and duty of defence. The great energy and innate integrity of purpose, the nicely-balanced temperament, the keen perception and power of rapid decision for which he was noted, made him a leader, at once, in the work of organizing the State for the task which, in common with every other commonwealth, suddenly rose before it. These qualities not only made him a leader as to larger operations-as to the general purpose and object in view,-but gave him conspicuous facility in devising and arranging details, in ordering safely and wisely the minutiæe of the work in hand, and in meeting and dispos. ing of, promptly and judiciously, the new questions and difficulties almost daily arising. Nor was this all. Governor Olden, albeit of retiring life, had been a close observer and student of character, and was a rare judge of men, discriminating with a precision which sel- dom, if ever, erred, between the good and the bad-the trustworthy and the fickle-the wise and the foolish. This quality of mind proved of the utmost value to the State and to the country. It enabled him, in the selection of his subordinates, and especially in the officering of our troops, to procure men of undoubted capacity, who could be depended upon to perform the work assigned them.6 No pretender ever imposed upon Governor Olden; no adventurer, substituting effrontery and affluence of talk for genuine merit, ever passed his searching scrutiny and acquired his endorsement. The result was that the regiments which left the State during his admin- istration were better officered and appointed than those of any other
6 Governor Olden was greatly assisted in the selection of officers by a Board of Ex- aminers, composed of Adjutant-General Stockton, Lieutenant A. T. A. Torbert and General William Cook. Lieutenant Torbert, who was at an early day assigned for duty at Trenton, rendered from the first most important service in organizing and preparing our regiments for the field. Governor Olden was also greatly assisted in the labors of his office by Captain Charles P. Smith, James T. Sherman, formerly editor of the State Gazette, Barker Gummere, Clerk in Chancery, Colonel Charles Seranton, General N. N. Halsted, Hon. Joseph W. Allen, and others-all of whom labored untiringly, and with- out compensation, in behalf of the State.
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State. There was another reason for this. The Executive careful- ly avoided the error, into which some other Governors fell, of making political appointments, that is, of selecting men for purely military duties because of political service, or the solicitations of political bodies. In all his selections, of course, primary reference was had to the opinions of the persons chosen touching the war; it would have been simply suicidal to have placed in command of loyal troops men who sympathized with the enemy ; but there was no difficulty at all in finding, in both political parties, individuals of recognized competency and unqualified patriotism, who eagerly em- braced the opportunity to lead our volunteers to battle. In those first hours of the great uprising, whatever may have been the case at a later period in the struggle, party lines were obliterated, party restraints uncared for, and the claims of the country, for which in other times men had died and women had agonized and suffered, · were, with but an inconsiderable exception, recognized as sacredly paramount and supreme.
Charles S. Olden, whose peculiar qualifications for the Executive office are here presented, was, at the time of his election, sixty-one years of age, and in the prime of his strength and judgment. He had served for two terms of three years each in the upper house of the State Legislature, and was familiar with the wants, as well as . thoroughly conversant with the history, of the State. While a member of the Senate he had developed a talent for finance, and a capacity for the business of legislation, which gave him a front rank among the straightforward, old-style legislators who, before and for a time subsequent to the adoption of the present Constitution, so greatly honored the State. He was chosen Governor in Novem- ber, 1859, by a majority of one thousand six hundred and fifty-one (in a total vote of one hundred and seven thousand one hundred and seventy-six,) over General E. R. V. Wright, who was widely known as an active and influential supporter of the principles of his party,-and was, consequently, in the second year of his ad- ministration when the war commenced. Politically, Governor Ol-
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den held to the principles of the Republican party, but had no sympathy with the peculiar views of some rash extremists who clung to that organization. Slavery he regarded as an unmitigated evil, the extension of which was to be prevented by all means known to the Constitution, and the influence of which it was of the highest importance to purge from the national life. At the same time, understanding, from observation during a residence of some years in a Gulf State, the intense feeling which pervaded the South- ern mind on this subject, and constitutionally averse to strife, ex- cept where vital principles were actually involved, he looked for the removal of the system to the silent but resistless operation of Christian teaching and example, and deprecated any attempt to in- terfere, from without, with the domestic institutions of any State. In this he agreed with the great majority of his cwn party, but was, perhaps, slower than some others, when the war had vested the nation with absolute power over this subject, to come up to the standard which was finally reached, as a national expression, in Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation. On this subject, we have Governor Olden's official declarations, which must be accepted as a conclusive exposition of his views, and they fully confirm the in- terpretation here recorded. In his Inaugural Address to the Legis- lature, (January 17, 1860,) referring to the threatening aspect of public affairs, he urged with great earnestness the duty of a con- ciliatory course, declaring that " mutual concession was essential to the integrity of the Union," and adding that while "the sentiment of a large portion of the citizens of the United States was unques- tionably adverse to involuntary servitude," its extinguishment was " exclusively and eminently a matter of domestic policy, and con- trolled by each State for itself." At the same time, he declared that "every encroachment of the system of slavery upon ground not clearly ceded to it by the original compact," was in violation of it, and might be justly and lawfully resisted. He added, in the same direction, that "New Jersey having always been true to her Federal engagements, and having fallen behind none of her sister States in fidelity to the Union, sympathizes now with no party which seeks its dissolution. As she was among the first to ratify
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the Constitution, so will she be among the last to violate any of its provisions; and that Union, in the benefits and glories of which she has shared, with all the powers that God has given her she will endeavor to perpetuate until the latest day."
In these sentiments we have a clear and pronounced revelation of Governor Olden's character, and an index to the policy which he ever afterwards pursued. Even when the secession movement had been actually initiated by South Carolina, he still held to the hope that hostilities might be averted, and all existing difficulties harmoniously adjusted. To that end, in his Annual Message to the Legislature in January, 1861, he counselled moderation, and suggested that it might be wise to favor, by some legislative expres- sion, the calling of a Convention of all the States, in which the points at issue might be discussed and some satisfactory basis of settlement agreed upon. But in the same message, he warned the misguided men of the South that the principle of secession, tending directly to anarchy, would never be admitted by the loyal States and people; that they, and the communities for which they claimed to speak, had no wrongs, no grievances which could not be righted under the Constitution and within the Union, and repeated that New Jersey, while deprecating strife and yearning for a peaceable and orderly solution of all disputes, would still defend the Union, if in spite of all entreaties it should be assailed by armed violence, with all the enthusiasm and all the energy which her sons displayed in the struggle for its establishment. That this was no vain boast, we shall see in due course of this record.
As to the manner in which Governor Olden discharged his duties, a fact or two deserves here to be added. His capacity for labor, however arduous and incessant, was remarkable. He took no thought of himself. Family enticements, liome delights, the companionship of kindly neighbors, once so full of attraction, he entirely surrendered, and if he thought of them at all amid his crowding duties, let the thought lie sweetly in his heart, and gave no sign. For a period of twenty-one months, he was only absent from the State capital two days and nights, and during much of this time he worked at his desk not only during the day but far
1
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into the nights, making it a rule to complete each day the duties which that day brought. The correspondence alone devolved upon him during this protracted period would have fully occupied the hands of any less methodical and industrious man, but he not only regularly disposed of it, writing with his own hand all letters of importance, but gave constant attention to the more pressing duties of his office, keeping everything at all times under his personal supervision, watching closely the expenditures in the military department in the purchase of supplies and equipments, scrutinizing the claims and characters of all applicants for position, looking with fatherly care after the comfort of our troops, and pass- ing through all these harassing perplexities and cares with serene face and a lofty faith in the nation's cause which made all men around him better and stronger for their work. After such a career-a career embellished by unflinching loyalty and unselfish devotion to duty, crowned by a royal abnegation of all personal interests and tastes-it was but just that he should bear with him into his retirement, as a recompense for all his toils and sacrifices, the gratitude and esteem of all the people, and a sense of high appreciation, moreover, among all without the State, who were cognizant of his services.
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CHAPTER III. TROOPS SENT FORWARD.
THE population of New Jersey in the Spring of 1861, amounted to six hundred and seventy-six thousand. Of this number, ninety- eight thousand eight hundred and six were liable to military duty, though without military experience, and to a great extent ignorant of the use of arms. But when the call came for men to defend the nation's capital, great as had been the popular reluctance to believe that war was possible, and all-pervading as was the decay of the martial spirit, there was no hesitation or delay in the people's re- sponse. The whole North rose with glorious unanimity to vindi- cate the majesty of insulted law. New Jersey, from her Revolu- tionary battle-fields, answered the nation's call with eager pledges of help. The old flag, displayed aforetime only on fair holidays when no storms beat, flung out its folds in every town and hamlet, and over secluded country homes, and became a perpetual sign of cove- nant-keeping faithfulness,-a pledge to all the world that the cause it symbolized should be maintained at whatever cost. It had gone · down, torn and soiled, at Sumter, but it should be raised again, some day, triumphant and with new stars shining in its azure field. In every town and village, the people, assembling in public meetings, pledged their utmost resources in behalf of the imperiled Govern- ment. The banks came forward with liberal offers of money .; 1 lead-
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