History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 128

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 128

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

[Much valuable and interesting matter relating to the late Civil War can be found also in the respective town histories published elswhere in this work .- EDITOR. ]

come ; but its adversaries steadily predicted its oc- currence, or confined themselves to the expression of a hope, against probability, that "the evil might be spared the nation." Westchester County, from its position, close to the metropolis of American com- merce, might be expected to take a commercial view of the question, and did so. The distribution of par- ties within its limits was similar to that in the city of New York, and the issue between the supporters of opposite views of the government was strongly marked.

As in New York, the three factions into which the one party was divided, sunk their issue in a common electoral ticket, whose expressed bond of union was hatred to the " Black Republicans " and " Aboli- tionists" as a class. The leading papers of the county were the Eastern State Journal of White Plains, the Highland Democrat of Peekskill, and the Yonkers Herald. All three were well established, marked by vigorous writing, well able to support their editors, and all exist to-day, under the same names, except the Herald, which was changed to the Gazette in May, 1864.

The attitude of parties in the county is best exhib- ited by the way in which these papers treated the question on the eve of election and immediately thereafter. The headlines of the Eastern State Jour- nal, which we have taken as a fair specimen of the whole, and wherein the tickets were printed on the 2d of November-the Friday before election-day-read thus :

" Union Electoral Ticket, Anti-Lincoln, Anti- Black Republican."

No President is named. There are thirty-three electors, and W. Kelly is named for Governor. The editorial on the subject says,-

" This is the day on which the fate of battle is suspended. Let every true man do his duty. . . . Be at the polls early. . . . Vote before breakfast if possible. Permit no Black Republican enemy of his country to deprive you of a sacred right, or swerve you from your pur- pose. Challenge every illegal vote. Permit no insolent, paid and drilled Wide Awakes to dictate tbe law or your duty. . . . Stand firm and defiant-and get in every vote possible for the Union Ticket.

Further on, and scattered through the paper, are statements that the 'Black Republicans are panic- struck ;' adjurations to 'bring every man to the polls;' ' to vote against the Negro and Black Republican ticket, next Tuesday.' 'Cast your vote against Negro Suffrage. Be true,' etc.

The result of these appeals comes out, two weeks after, in the official canvass of the vote: " Union Electoral " ticket, eight thousand one hundred and twenty-six ; "Republican" ticket, six thousand six hundred and seventy-one. The majority of one thousand four hundred and fifty-five cast against the latter ticket is not sustained in other cases, the ma- jority for Kelly for Governor being about a thousand, while that for the Congressman is only six hundred and fifty. The neighboring counties of Putnam and Rockland show about the same state of parties.

The editorial comment on the result of the election,

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THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-65.

after an admission that the country districts had car- ried the State for the Republicans by "about sixty thousand majority," is as follows:

"The result is deeply to be regretted, not so much on party grounds, as for the continued peace and prosperity of the country. . . . The election of a sectional President-against which WASHINGTON warned his countrymen in his farewell address - has now been tried, and we are to witness the result. We hope for the best, yet we are not withont se- rions apprehensions. . . . The U'nion Electoral ticket gets about thir- teen hundred majority, but the State is black enough. New York City gives the Union Electoral Ticket 28,000 majority."

From this time forth the tone of the paper is mor- bidly mournful ; but few comments are made till the assembling of Congress, when President Buchanan's message is praised as being " an able, statesmanlike and patriotie production," and the rest of the paper, up to the 4th of March, 1861, is occupied with copies of letters from prominent Southerners, in advocacy of secession, including the " farewell" of Howell Cobb, in which he alludes to Mr. Buchanan as the " last Presi- dent of the United States." The points of Mr. Buchanan's message, briefly stated, were,-that the Union was in peril ; that there was no similarity be- tween the attitude of South Carolina in the nullifiea- tion of 1832 and her seeession of December 20, 1860 ; because, in 1832 the sympathy of other States was against her ; while, in 1860, that of the Gulf States was with her. That the trouble had arisen in con- sequence of the Northern States interfering with slavery-a thing they had " no more right to meddle with, in other States, than in Russia." That the ques- tion had arisen, what was to be done? That he was of opinion that secession was " unconstitutional," but also of opinion, " after much serious reflection " that the United States " had no power to everce a secoding State," closing this part of the argument with the re- mark : "The faet is, the Union rests on publie opinion, and can never becemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war." A week after the secession of South Carolina the Eastern State Journal published a serinon, by Rev. H. S. Van Dyke, in Brooklyn, on " Abolitionism," in which the Bible defense of slavery was promulgated, and Abolitionists were denounced as "infidels." This sermon occupied ten columns of the paper, in small type, and the editor drew attention to the leading point-the "identity of Abolitionism and infidelity." Extracts from Southern papers form the staple of news for the next few weeks, and on January 11th the editor announced, " The mission of Black Republicanism is the destruction of the Union. The mission is rapidly being accomplished. South Carolina leads offin seceding. .. . Those who organized the Republican party are responsible for the present condition of affairs." January 18th, the statement was inade that " Yancey, Toombs and Rhett are no more disunionists than Horace Grecley." In this inorbid strain the opinion of the majority of the county appears to have run till February 1st, when a " State Convention of Democrats" was announced, to "insist " that there should be " no coercion, no civil

war," with the assertion : " The border States will not permit Lincoln to coerce the Gulf States." [The italics are copied.]

I regret extremely that, from this period to the 10th of May, there is a gap in the files of this paper ; so that it is not possible to say how the Westchester County Democrats officially took the news of the firing on Fort Sumter. It can only be judged from the coincidence of the tone of this and the other papers of the county with that of the New York papers of the same opinion. That it could not have changed materially is plain from the first heading that strikes the eye on May 10th, which is " Peace ! Peace! Down with the Black Republicans," though, among the news items, appears the drilling of a com- pany in White Plains, raised by Captain (afterwards Colonel) James J. Chambers, in which complimentary notice is given the men.

The news of the attack on Fort Sumter, and espe- cially that of its surrender, as is well known, pro- duced a great change of public opinion in the city of New York, in favor of the administration of Mr. Lincoln, and of an effort to put down the Rebellion.

The bombardment of the fort began on Friday, April 12, 1861 ; the place was surrendered by Major Anderson on Saturday, 13th, after an attack in which one man was wounded-none killed-on the side of the United States forces. The news was published in the papers of Sunday, the 14th, with the head-line, in the New York Herald, " Dissolution of the Union," and the people had all Sunday to think over the news, and the comments made thereon by the op- ponents of the administration. The exasperation of feeling produced by the news itself was intensified by the way in which these comments were made, and especially by the call made for a " peace meeting " in New York City. The Herald, in the same issue in which the surrender of the fort and the " dissolution of the Union " was announced, stated that a " prelim- inary meeting " had been held on Saturday evening, at which steps were taken to call a great mass-meet- ing, to " force " the administration to surrender, and desist from Mr. Lincoln's expressed intention to " cocree the seccding States." Westchester County was represented at this preliminary meeting by some prominent officials, who hield to the extreme Denio- cratic doctrine of "States rights."

On Monday morning, April 15th, appeared Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. It called for seventy-five thousand militia, for three months, to suppress the Rebellion. That proclamation had the effect of a spark to a train of gunpowder in the city of New York, and the effeet was felt in the county of West- chester in a proportionate degree. Men who had been waiting, sick at heart, in view of the quiet way in which the government was apparently submitting to destruction, realized that the end of submission had come at last, and that public opinion might be in- voked to repel the suicide of a nation. Then came

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the sudden outburst, in the city, of a popular anger, which filled the streets, in five minutes from the first rush into the open air, with a dense crowd of excited men, whose only purpose seemed to be to make every Democratic newspaper in New York " hang out the flag." They were roused at last.

THE TWO YEARS' VOLUNTEERS .- When such a state of feeling showed itself in a city which had cast a heavy majority against Mr. Lincoln, it may well be supposed that in Albany, where his friends and partisans were in the ascendant in the Legisla- ture, it would rise still higher.

Such was the case; and the singular anomaly was presented, in the history of that stirring time, that the President's demand found itself far behind the popular judgment of the needs of the case. The call was for seventy-five thousand militia for three months' service. It arrived on the 15th of April. On the very next day the New York Legislature passed, with an unexampled celerity, and the Governor signed, a law providing-in addition to the quota as- signed to New York State under the call (thirteen thousand two hundred and eighty men)-for thirty thousand volunteers, to serve for two years. The law authorized the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, comp- troller, attorney-general, State engineer and sur- veyor, and State treasurer, or a majority of them,"' to "accept the services, and to cause to be mustered into the service of the State," the volunteers named, "in addition to the present military organization of the State, and as a part of the militia thereof." It further provided for pay and allowances, the same as then prevailed in the United States service, to the force to be raised, and that the men should be " liable at all times to be turned over to the service of the United States, on the order of the Governor, as a part of the militia of the State, upon the requisition of the President of the United States."

The first formal identification of Westchester County with the two years' volunteers, and the only one in the county in the shape of a body of men ac- credited thereto, came from the village of Port Ches- ter, in the shape of Company B, Seventeenth In- fantry, known as the " Westchester Chasseurs."

The interest that attaches to this company, as being the first to volunteer, in a body, for the credit of the town, makes its personalty worthy of special notice. The following is a copy of the muster-roll, with remarks on the military history of the company and its officers :

Captain, Nelson B. Bartram ; First Lieutenant, John Vickers; Second Lieutenant, Charles Hilbert ; First Sergeant, James Fox ; Sergeants, Thomas Beal, Louis Neething and August Dittman ; Corporals, William Crothers, John Beal, Joseph Beal and Robert Magee ; Drummers, Ste- plien Floots and Williamu Fairbanks ; Privates, Aug. Adams, Charles H. Burns, John Burns, William Baker, Ardemus Barnes, Edward Bowen, George Buckley, Edward Bradley, Darius Butterfield, Frederick Cross, Amasa Conover, James Cunningham, Richard Conkling, John P. Demp- sey, Thomas Donohue, Silas Dowues, James Dooley, John G. Dewire, Thomas C. Ely, Edgar Ferris, William Farrington, Charles Frear, John Fay, John Ferguson, John Gibson, Benjamin Glauson, Conrad Graff,

George Gurtsey, W. S. Gregory, Charles Gedney, John Hart, Barney Hammil, Joseph Hibbert, William Hennessey, S. J. King, Daniel Key- ser, W. H. Lee, T. H. Lockwood, Seaman Morrell, Alexander McCloud, Theodore Miller, Christopher Menken, George and Henry Marshall, John Murphy, John Murty, C. McGrath, T. Mckay, William Mckeel, Jolın Martin, T. McQuade, W. O'Reilly, Jared Palmer, Henry Siltz, Robert Sergeant, T. Topping, Morris Thomas, James H. Taylor, James Worden, Anthony Warner, W. Whelpley, W. Woods, Max Weber and Louis Zulnaga,

Remarks .- Captain Bartram was promoted to major November 2, 1861, and to lieutenant-colonel June 20, 1862, being mustered out with the regiment June 2, 1863, from the expiration of the term of service, which was two years. Lieutenants Vickers and Hilbert were both promoted to be captains, and mustered out at the expiration of term.

Sergeant James Fox was promoted to second lieutenant, but resigned in a few mouths ; Thomas Beal was promoted to a commission August 3, 1862, and mustered out with the regiment as second lieutenant in the following year.

Captain Bartram, at the time of his enlistment, was . vice-principal of one of the New York public schools, earning a good salary ; and many people thought him one of the most foolish of men, to throw up a good place, merely for the purpose of " serving his coun- try," so low had then become the popular estimate of the value of patriotism. The effect of such publica- tions as we have briefly noticed in the case of the White Plains paper, echoed, in terins of the same or greater strength, by other papers of the county, had certainly not tended to encourage good feeling ; and it reflects on Bartram and the town of Port Chester a credit that no other town in the county can share, that he managed to get his company mustered into the service, in its entirety, as he did. He appears to have begun his work, almost the day the law was pro- mulgated-April 18th-in the form of a general order from the adjutant-general of the State, -- and had his men ready to leave Port Chester before the end of the month. Even then, however, they might never have been mustered in as a company, had it not been for the energy and patriotism of a few men in Port Ches- ter, who took hold of the matter and held up his hands. This matter brings us to the history of a movement started at the same time, in which, also, the town of Port Chester set the rest of the county a good example.

Before the Bartram company was fairly organized, it became plain that something was necessary to sup- ply the families of the volunteers of the town, who were, in many instances, married men with children. Therefore, on the 30th of April, Mr. James H. Titus, a well-known citizen of the place, set the ball rolling by subscribing a hundred dollars towards a fund for this purpose, with twenty-nine dollars additional, to pay the fares of the men to the camp of the Seven- teenth Regiment in New York. He was closely fol- lowed, May 3d, by Mr. W. P. Abendroth, with a hun- dred dollars, and, by the 9th of May, the subscriptions amounted to four hundred and forty-four dollars. All this money, and much more afterwards, was raised by a " Union Defense Committec," of which Mr. Titus, an ardent Republican, was chairman, and Mr. John E. Marshall, an equally uncompromising Democrat,

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THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-65.

of the war stamp, was treasurer. This nnion of both parties, in the same cause, did much to soften the acerbities of political strife in Port Chester all through the war, and makes the personality of this Defense Committee-the first in the county-as in- teresting as that of the banner company of the coun- ty, for whose assistance it was originally organized. The names are as follows:

Chairman, James H. Titus ; Secretary, George P. Titus ; Treasurer, John E. Marshall.

Military Committee : Messrs. S. K. Satterlee, Ang- ust Wiggen, August Van Ammeringe, William L. Bush, George P. Titus and Augustus M. Halsted. Relief Committee : Messrs. William P. Abendroth, Noah Tompkins, John W. Lounsberry, George L. Cornell, James H. Titus and E. Sones. Finance Com- mittee: Messrs. E. S. Swords, William B. Halsted and John E. Marshall.

In all the money raised by this committee during the war, to which reference will afterwards be made, the only item which is not that of relief, in weekly payments, to the wives and parents of actual soldiers, is found in the sums first subscribed by Mr. Titus, and applied to the purposes of the company itself. The hundred dollars served to keep the men together, by enabling their board to be paid in the city till ac- eepted ; while their fare was provided for to the camp. It is probable that, if this sum had not been raised, the company would have disbanded, and been lost sight of, as were others. The town of Cortlandt, al- mnost at the same time, sent out sixty men, raised by Mr. Benjamin R. Simpkins. For the want of the money that kept the Port Chester company together, this fine body of young men became lost in the great city of New York, and drifted into different regiments, so that not a man of the sixty was ever eredited to the county, and not a few of them returned home. An- other party of sixteen went off to White Plains, under the command of Mr. William M. Bleakley, of Ver- planck's Point. On the roll of Company A, Twenty- seventh Regiment, they appear as credited to Elmira, of all places in the world. Mr. Bleakley afterwards became Captain Bleakley in the Twenty-seventh, and was discharged in February, 1862. The com- pany of Mr. Joseph J. Chambers is another instance of the same state of affairs ; for, though the men un- doubtedly hailed from White Plains, they are like- wise credited to Elmira, their captain being made lieutenant-colonel on the 21st of May.

Yorktown also lost a great number of men in the same way, no mention of them being found in the official records of the two years' volunteers; and of other towns there is still less trace, in any documents by which official proof can be furnished of the facts. The whole history of the two years' volunteers, in Westchester County, is one of men pressing their ser- vices on the government, which seemed not to want them; and it cost more trouble. in the months of April and May, 1861, to get into the army at all, than

it afterwards did to get out of the draft. Captain Bartram, being a man of sense and experience, with a pride in his place of residence, managed to identify Port Chester, officially, with the movement, but no other town in the county conld boast an equal rec- ord, either in volunteering or in patriotic efforts to help soldiers by private means. But the two years' volunteers were not long in being filled np; and the scrious nature of the war, with the equally serions way in which it was regarded by the Legislature of the State, appeared, almost before the last man was mus- tered into the United States service. The first order of the adjutant-general, April 18th, ealled for "sev- enteen regiments of infantry or rifles." A second order appeared, on the 25th of the same month, call- ing for twenty-one reginients more; so that the com- plete quota of two years' volunteers, in the State of New York, ineluded all regiments, up to the Thirty- eighth. Within a week from the time the Port Ches- ter company was finally mnstered into the United States service-May 22d-the Thirty-ninth Regiment was mustered in as an additional foree, and the term of service of the men enlisted was three, instead of two years. From henceforth the history of the conn- ty, during the war, was to become one of quotas to be filled and calls to be met, while the ideas with which the two years' men had gone away, that the struggle would soon be over, had settled down into the sober conviction that the three years' term would be the earliest within which the battle would be ter- minated.

THE THREE YEARS' VOLUNTEERS .- The first regi- ment taken into the United States service from the State of New York for the term of three years was mustered in on the 28th of May, 1861. The first identification of Westchester County with the three years' volunteers comes on the rolls of the Fourth New York Cavalry, which was mustered by companies, beginning August 10 and ending November 15, 1861. The muster-rolls of the regiment disclose the following names :

The uon-commissioned staff has (from Yonkers) : Sergeant-Major, Reinhard Kuehl; llospital Stewards, Max Lechler and Charles Reiss ; Color Sergeant, T. R. Dodge ; Veterinary Surgeons, F. II. Walter and Rudolph Rođenhausen ; Quartermaster-Sergeant, Jobn R. Suiter ; Com- missary-Sergeant, Charles E. Cormoer.

[N. B .- The muster-roll of the above men iu the State adjutant-gen- eral's office does not show the certificate of the United States mustering officer, nor is it dated ; but the men served, as far as can be ascertained]. The company rolls are more regular in form, and the following is their report as affecting Westchester County :

Company B (from Yonkers) .- Captain, Wm. R Parnell; First Lieutenant, Christopher Dolan ; Non-Commissioned Officers, C. R. Frampton, James McDowell, T. II. Philipsen, Henry T. Clench, Duncan Murchison, Au- gust Ittmann, Johu Crean, Michael Cogan, William Hillman, James P. Mist, Emil Bossart, Charles Dingler, Francis H. Tarleton, Charles Kirk, Martin Rabin, Merritt Livingston, Dennis Costello, John McAdans.

Private soldiers : Michael Barry, Albert Burbank, William Bren, Peter Burns, Peter Brown, Thomas Brady, Owen Creally, John Cunningham, Patrick Coffey, William Crozier, Thomas Conroy, William Cass, Fred. Delinger, Rudolph Deimar, Jacob Da Costa, Edward Durier, William Davis, John Freeman, Michael Fanning, John Geary, Matthew Guinan, Joseph Garry, Michael Ilirlig, Michael Hyland, Patrick Joyce, Charles Jacob, John Johnson, John Kuntze, Jacob Kern, August Koch, Charles

494

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Le Gard, W. Meyer, W. Maeder, William McHale, George Montgomery, Peter Murray, Arthur Murphy, Donald McDonald, Conrad Meyer, Thos. McCarthy, Patrick Maloney, Philip Meyer, Patrick O'Connor, William O'Connor, Henry Peasha, Philip Plessing, Thomas Ronan, Patrick Roach, Jacob Roth, Julius Richter, Michael Smith, James Smith, John Smith, Owen Sweeny, Joseph Shoran, George Swan, Edwin Teal, Edward Turner, Jabez Weeks and Walter Wall.

Company C (from Yonkers) .- Captain, Ralph H. Olmstead, the only commissioned officer ; Non-Commissioned Officers, Charles H. Ilawking, James Olmstead, James Magarity, Charles R. Smith, John Lowry, Ma- lachi Kelly, William H. Keeps, John Mulheren, Henry MI. Hyer, George F. Knhn, John H. Davis, Peter F. Gownas, Thomas Giff and Joseph A. Moore, Alfred Eyre, Lewis H. Denison and William B. Miner.

Privates as follows : William Barton, Daniel Buddy, James L. Cole- man, Reuben H. Chase, John Cole, Samnel Conroy, Alanson H. Com- stock, Daniel J. Cronin, John R. Dodge, Gilbert B. Edwards, Monroe Estes, William Forrest, George Giles, Michael Gormly, James Gray, Gil- hert Hnmmel, James Hitchcock, Jas. H. Ilowell, Jeremiah G. Huckey, Daniel Lewis, Peter Mallon, George H. Miner, Charles Miller, John Henry May, Michael McGinniss, Thomas Mnllen, Arthur Murdoch, Andrew Overbangh, Philander Payne, Dennis Ryan, Sam'l Smith, David Shaw, Henry Stone, John R. Suiter, Moses H. Terwilliger, Charles T. Terwilliger, Thomas P. Terwilliger, Richard Vanghan, Eugenius Walker, John Welsch, Alva Wickham, Garry B. Wheeler, Nicholas Wolvan and Joseph T. Ward.

Company F (frinn Yonkers) .- Captain Samnel Genther the only name.

The names of Henry Jones, of Rye, and Jacob Rosenbaum, of Tarry- town, in Company L, with that of James McAvoy, of Rye, in Company M, make np the total in the regiment credited to the county of West- chester.

The next organization in which the county ap- pears to have taken any official part is the Fifth In- dependent Battery, mustered into the United States service November 8, 1861, in New York City. The roll of this battery contains the names of Privates Charles Cadigan and John Turbitt, from Yonkers ; Benjamin Moore and Charles Moore, from Mount Vernon ; and Charles Travers, from Peekskill.

The First Regiment Mounted Rifles, which was mustered into the service in squadrons and com- panies, all the way from August 31, 1861, to Septemn- ber 9, 1862, can be noticed here, although a little out of its order, to make room for the only regiment in which Westchester County could be said to be fully represented during the war. The rolls of the First Mounted Rifles contain, in Company F, the names of John Blatchley, Charles Polhemus and Peter See, of Tarrytown ; Thomas Gerhardt, James D. Nation, George D. Newman, James W. Porteous, Al- bert Sherwood and William Wallace, of Mount Pleasant ; and Frederick Gertman, of Harrison.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 128

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354