USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 24
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It was not long after the call for troops that their movement to the front began. We have noted the departure of New York's Seventh Regiment, one week after Fort Sumter's bombardment. On April 20 orders came for two of Brooklyn's regiments to move to Wash- ington, and the Thirteenth and Twenty-eighth were selected by the military authorities. These and the Seventieth had been asked to enlist only for three months. Quite different terms were placed be- fore the Fourteenth, as a consequence of which it has ever since borne the honorable and enviable sobriquet of the " Fighting Fourteenth." The War Department at Washington for some reason declined to receive this regiment into its service unless it would consent to enlist for three years, or, as many as the war would last. These rather se- vere conditions were accepted with great alacrity by the brave fel- lows, and forward they went on May 19, 1861. It was growing dark as they set forth, but their progress was one triumphal march from armory to ferry. Thousands of people lined the streets, the red.
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white, and blue, and stars and stripes made bright the house fronts, cheers and tears mingled as the boys went by, and prayers of ". God- speed " in undertones accompanied the lustier shouts of encourage- ment. And just two months later the "Fighting Fourteenth " had a chance to show its mettle, and to experience what was meant by " enlisting for the war." On July 30 the Thirteenth returned un- scathed from the front, and on August 5, the Twenty-eighth did the same, both having served out their three months. But, on July 21. the Fourteenth was in the thickest of the fight at Bull Run. We have already comment- ed on this disastrous beginning of hostilities between the armies of the North and South, in our previous volume. Though a rout and a flight at the end, our troops were by no means guilty of cow- ardice. " Some one had J. blundered," and there were plenty of men then holding high mili- tary office who were abundantly capable of blundering-the politi- cal brigadiers or col- onels, whom partisan necessities had fur- nished with places and U. S. GRANT POST, G. A. R., BROOKLYN. gold lace, and incident- ally with salaries, and whose military qualifications were about nil. With such hands at the management of a campaign or a battle no wonder that things went awry. From early noon till a late hour of the afternoon (as we stated before) the Union men had fought against great odds, and still no reinforcements came to relieve them. Then, when the enemy was supported by fresh troops, nature could hold out no longer, and the ranks broke and fled. Doing its painful duty as heroically as any of the rest, Brooklyn's Fourteenth was earning an imperishable title to its sobriquet. At its head was Colonel Alfred M. Wood, later Mayor, and President of the Board of
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Aldermen when he left with his regiment for the war. Loath to turn when the inevitable panic started by camp followers and hangers- on swept everything before it, Colonel Wood was severely wounded just at that critical moment. He was carried on a litter for some distance, and then transferred to an ambulance. But in the extrem- ity of his terror the driver cut the horse's traces and fled for his life. The wounded man and a few of his companions escaped to the woods, but after four days they were captured, whereupon followed several months of imprisonment, in the course of which Colonel Wood was once about being shot in retaliation for some executions perpetrated upon prisoners held by the North. But the rank and file suffered as well as their Colonel. One hundred and forty-three of the Four- teenth's men were left upon that first battlefield, killed, wounded, or missing. Such services deserved enthusiastic recognition. When, late in February, Colonel Wood returned from captivity, having been exchanged, the whole city was astir to receive him. A joint commit- tee of the Aldermen and citizens met him at Philadelphia, and a pub- lie reception, with procession and speeches, was tendered him at home. The next year he was nominated for Mayor, and elected by a large plurality, even over the excellent ex-Mayor, Kalbfleisch. And when later it became necessary to recruit the ranks of the " Fighting Four- teenth," the estimate in which the citizens of Brooklyn held the regi- ment found striking expression in the circumstance that Mr. S. B. Chittenden gave $10,000 to be distributed in sums of $50, as bounties to men who would enlist in the Fourteenth. The whole sum was thus promptly disposed of.
Among the exciting events of those stirring days prominent men- tion belongs to what was called in the newspapers of the day the " Navy Yard Scare." It was well the scare operated before it could be ascertained what the extent of the mischief contemplated was, and it certainly was no coward who was led to act in the matter of insti- tuting precautionary measures. Captain Foote, later Admiral, had command of the Yard, and in this capacity he called upon Mayor Powell one day late in April, 1861. It had come to his knowledge that an attack was to be made on the National property that night by a force led by emissaries from the South, and consisting of sym- pathizers with secession, of which there were not a few among the " masses " of the metropolis. Later developments revealed the pre- cise nature of the intended maneuver. The conspirators were to come from New York in squads of three, four, or more, but not so large as to attract attention, and by different ferries. The rendezvous ap- pointed was the City Park, which adjoins the Navy Yard at its south- western extremity. They were armed with fire-balls which, if skill- fully thrown over the low walls, could have set much valuable prop- erty on fire, without even the necessity of scaling this outer barrier. Captain Foote had only eighty men at command to defend the ex-
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tensive lines of the Yard, and hence he desired aid from the police and the militia. These promptly responded to the call. Mayor Powell appealed to the Metropolitan Police Board, and a thousand men were detailed for the service. These watched the numerous ferries, took up their station at the entrances to the Navy Yard, and patroled the river in boats filled with armed officers. At the armory in Port- land Avenue, not far from the Yard, the Seventieth Regiment was in readiness for action. These effective measures prevented the attempt from being made, and for a time made many people skeptical as to whether so sinister a design was really entertained. It was well, if an error was committed, that they who erred did so on the side of caution.
On the same day that the Thirteenth Regiment left the city, April 23, 1861, a " war meeting " of Brooklyn citizens was held in Fort Greene Park. As at the Union Square meeting in New York it was promised that Major Anderson or some of the heroes that were with him at Fort Sumter, would present themselves to the view of the people, bearing some of the tattered and torn colors that had suffered in the fire of that portentous engagement. A great concourse of people assembled, counting more than fifty thousand, which was a large figure considering that Brooklyn's population had not then as yet attained the three hundred thousand mark. Before the speaking commenced a salute of thirty-four guns were fired, the number of the States then in the Union. Three stands for speakers had been pro- vided. Mayor Powell, now near the end of his term, presided at one of these, and addressed the assembled multitude briefly and to the point. The clergy of Protestant and Catholic persuasion lent coun- tenance to the patriotic occasion by their presence, and none was more ardent for the preservation of the Union than Father Sylvester Malone. The Rev. Dr. Vinton offered a prayer, and a letter from Bishop Loughlin voiced the sentiments of the Roman communion. Speeches were made by men of local renown and those from abroad, one being by Senator Baker from faraway Oregon. Music by bands discoursing National airs contributed to swell the tide of patriotic enthusiasm, and by the meeting much wavering sentiment was ren- dered fixed and firm, while the otherwise somewhat vaporing fervor took shape in needed enlistments. contributions toward the equip- ment of the forces ready to march, and the cheerful submission to taxes or deprivations made necessary to furnish the sinews of war and put arms into the hands of those willing to fight.
Nearly two weeks later, on May 6, 1861, Mayor Powell's term ex- pired, and he was succeeded by the Mayor-elect, Martin Kalbfleisch. In any case, a man called to this eminent and responsible position in the city at a crisis like this, would deserve more than a passing men- tion; but, apart from this, the incumbent was worthy of notice as a man of mark. It is to be observed in the first place as an exceed- ingly interesting circumstance that the man now honored with the
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chief magistraey of what had grown to be the third city of the Union from the hamlet of Breuckelen, was a native of the land whence Brook- lyn had derived its peculiar name. He was born at Flushing (Vlissin- gen), in the Province of Zeeland, Netherlands. It is true that his name is thoroughly German in form, but many genuine Hollanders of a later date bear German, French, and other foreign names, owing to the fact that the enterprising Dutch republic of previous centuries drew citizens from all the surrounding nations to try their fortunes amid the vast trade advantages which Holland offered. In 1826, at the age of twenty-two, Mr. Kalbfleisch settled in New York City, and started a color manufactory in a small way in Harlem. After a short residence in Connecticut, he established color works in Green- point, 1842. He prospered greatly and gradually modified his busi- ness, so as to confine it to the manufacture of acids as a specialty, which was carried to such dimensions that he outstripped all other concerns in the country. His works were now located a little south of Greenpoint, in the part of Bushwick that afterward became the Eighteenth Ward. A man of force and intelligence generally, he soon was recognized as a leader. In 1851 he was elected Supervisor of old Bushwick town, holding that office until it became a part of the con- solidated cities. He was a candidate for Mayor at the election pre- ceding the consolidation, when George Hall was elected. He was sent year after year to the Common Council as Alderman from his dis- trict, now the Eighteenth Ward, the last time carrying the election by all but one vote. For three years in succession he was made Presi- dent of the Board by his colleagues. After having served as Mayor he was sent to Congress, and became Mayor a second time at the election in 1867, retaining the esteem of his fellow-citizens of Brooklyn till his death in 1873. Certainly Holland had no need to be ashamed of the native it had sent to America to enjoy all these civic honors in the latter portion of the nineteenth century, in the service of a city whose origin reached back into the days of the glo- rious Republic of the seventeenth century; an origin due to the com- mercial impulse and the instincts of self-government rife among its free people. Those who love coincidences will also note with interest that while Breuckelen was begun as a hamlet but a year or two be- fore the close of the Eighty Years' War waged for liberty by the Dutch Republic, her Dutch Mayor in 1861 governed her greatly enlarged territory while the preservation of the liberty and union modeled after that of the Dutch Republic was hanging in the balance for America.
If New York was directly interested in the battle between the Mon- itor and Merrimac, March, 1862, in Hampton Roads, as briefly de- scribed in our previous volume (p. 406), Brooklyn might boast of a still nearer connection. While designed and constructed in New York Port or Harbor, it was a portion of it more particularly identified with the younger city which had the honor of seeing that construction go
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on upon its own shore. Ericsson's inventive mind having conceived the idea which has since revolutionized modern naval warfare,-capi- tal was not lacking to put it into actual shape, and one of the ship- yards at Greenpoint, that of A. J. Rowland, was selected for the build- ing of the since so famous Monitor. Carefully were the approaches of the yard guarded as the curious craft was nearing completion in the fall and winter months of 1861 to 1862. At last, on January 30, 1862, the time had arrived for launching it, and the little vessel slid from the ways into the water, and was therefore now visible to all passing craft. Little as it was its weight was formidable; deep in the hull was located the machinery; over the hull on all sides pro-
APPLICANTS FOR ENLISTMENT AT THE NAVY-YARD GATE.
jected the deck armored with ball-proof iron, and rising but eighteen inches above the water. Upon the deck there was only the pilot- house, three feet high, provided with eye-holes, consisting of narrow horizontal slits in the iron walls, about half an inch wide. `Behind this from the center of the deck rose a turret or tower perfectly round, twenty feet in diameter and nine feet high. This tower was entirely of iron and its walls a foot in thickness. Within it were two heavy guns, firing the largest balls known up to that time. In order to command every direction where an enemy might appear, and to save the vessel's own maneuvering in the water to reach him, the in- genious inventor had provided machinery so that the turret, with all its enormous weight, could be turned with ease on an axis. It was this peculiar addition to the navy which was launched on Janu- ary 30, and then proceeded from Greenpoint to the Wallabout to be
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put in further readiness for service. There was great need for haste, for rumors were rife of the building of a strange and ugly looking craft on the part of the Confederates at the Norfolk Navy Yard. Yet it was not till nearly a month later, on February 25, 1862, that the Monitor was placed in commission. Lieutenant Worden probably needed all that time to train a crew to the novel duties and maneuvers required. No time was lost to get her under way when the commis- sion was effected, and eleven days later took place the engagement at the South wherewith the world still rings. Unfortunately, the Monitor arrived too late to save the Cumberland and Congress, but compensation is ours in the splendid heroism displayed on board these ships, without whose record the annals of the American navy would be distinctly poorer in stimulus, abundant as that is. The Monitor had so well vindicated its inventor's confidence in the strength and efficiency of that kind of craft, which he claimed to be absolutely invulnerable, that orders for the construction of more such vessels came at once from the Government. Within a year or two Mr. Rowland's yard at Greenpoint set afloat seven monitors, the proper noun having become a common one in compliment to the origi- nal specimen, and to meet the necessities of language to express a thing hitherto unnamed in naval nomenclature. In the beginning of 1864 there were building here two of the largest of that style of vessels that had ever before been attempted. One was to be known as the Puritan, its length 340 feet, beam 50, depth 23 feet; the other, the Cohoes, which was to be 300 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 28 feet in depth of hold. The Puritan was launched in May. Her successor in the name at the present day still carries the tradition of the older one in being of the same class of vessel, and the largest and most for- midable of her class. This earlier Puritan had a displacement of about three thousand tons, while her modern representative has one of over twice that number. At two other yards in Greenpoint Gov- ernment ships were building; at Henry Steers's there was under way in March, 1864, a sloop of war that was to be provided with two propellers, an unusual feature in those days.
The first enthusiasm which sent nearly ten thousand Brooklyn men to the front was followed by a reaction in the following year. On August 4, 1862, President Lincoln called for 300,000 troops, to serve for nine months, and Brooklyn and all Kings County were to furnish of this a quota of over four thousand. The appeal fell dead upon the community at first. But there were citizens whose concern for the country was an abiding sentiment, not to be up or down with the shouts of the one hour or the indifference of the next. These steady patriots called a meeting of citizens again at Fort Greene Park, so suitable for gatherings of this kind from its topography as well as its historie memories, and here, again, the dying flame of patriotism was fanned into renewed vigor by eloquent speeches. The day after
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the meeting, held on August 15, the Supervisors of the County voted a large sum for bounties. Many citizens offered rewards to induce men to come forward. Mayor Kalbfleisch promised to pay for one hundred and sixty-eight A-shaped tents for the men, and fourteen wall-tents for the officers of the First Regiment of the Empire Brig- ade. William Wall, Congressman from Brooklyn, gave $1,000 to be distributed equally among the first one hundred volunteers. and an- other citizen gave $200 in five-dollar prizes to the first forty volun- teers. In these various ways men were induced to enlist, and as a result, over a thousand had signed their names before the week was out. The city presented a lively spectacle. Nine recruiting tents were standing in the triangular space in front of the City Hall. Many others were pitched in Fort Greene Park, the City Park, at the Navy Yard, and other places most available. Before these tents the drums kept up a lively rattle all day, putting heart into the men enlisted for the martial duties for which they were engaging them- selves. Squads of men, led by officers, were constantly passing from these tents to various headquarters in the city, so that from end to end the otherwise quiet and sedate old Brooklyn, echoing only to the tread of men going or returning to business in the morning and in the afternoon-hearing nothing more vociferous at noon than the whistles of its numerous factories-now presented to eye and ear alike the stir and bustle of a military camp near the scene of battle.
A story is told with particular relish, illustrating the enthusiasm of professional men in the cause of defense, by one of their own num- ber, Dr. Stiles. It was to be expected that this indefatigable histo- rian would preserve from oblivion with peculiar care an episode re- flecting so much credit upon his own cloth, and the story would only suffer in the telling if we did not stick closely to his own account of it. It seems that on the Sunday after the second battle of Bull Run (the date of which, as is well known, was August 29, 1862), the Post- master of Brooklyn, George B. Lincoln, while calling on Mayor Op- dyke, of New York, was told by the latter that he had received a tele- gram from the Secretary of War, requesting that he, the Mayor, would aid in securing a number of physicians and surgeons as volunteers for service at the front, where the great number of wounded men made their presence very urgent. Mr. Opdyke threw out the sug- gestion that possibly the medical fraternity of Brooklyn might wish to respond to this urgent call and share in the noble work. It at once fired Mr. Lincoln's civic pride, and he hastened back to his own city to place the appeal before the physicians there. But it was Sun- day, and it was an age when doctors had not yet generally begun to find it impossible to make their patients understand that on that day they could only expect attention at the regular hours in case of special emergencies, so as to afford them opportunity to attend church. At any rate, at the hour of Mr. Lincoln's return to Brooklyn, about
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half-past ten in the forenoon, most of the physicians were at church. On going the rounds to their houses per carriage he found all but some ten or twelve away from home. These at once volun- teered to go to the front, and Mr. Lincoln hurried back again to New York to report his success to Mayor Opdyke and arrange the matter of their transportation to Washington by train that very evening. When this business had been satisfactorily settled the Postmaster was fain to return to his own home, which he reached weary with his day's work, about five in the afternoon. A strange scene met him as he entered his house. It was filled to overflowing with doctors! Dr. Stiles goes on to say : " Old and young were there; men with a large
NAVY YARD-PERFORATED GATE OF DRY DOCK.
practice and those with little or none, representing all the pathies, and every grade and specialty of the medical profession; but all united as one man in their earnest, unqualified wish to be sent at once to the relief of the suffering and wounded at the front." If Mr. Lincoln was surprised at finding them there they had not been less surprised to find him absent from home when they arrived there. But no time was lost in explanations. Before the host's return they had organized a meeting, putting J. S. T. Stranahan in the chair and when the host appeared upon the scene he at once addressed the as- sembly thus brought to order, laying before them the case as it had been put to him by Mayor Opdyke. The appeal was responded to en masse by those present, and thus embarrassment arose from the excess rather than from deficiency in numbers, as only twenty could be accommodated. " The favored ones left that evening for the seat of
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war, envied by their less fortunate fellow-practitioners. Not until some six months after did Mr. Lincoln discover how these medical patriots came to assemble on call at his house on that eventful Sab- bath afternoon. It seems that an enthusiastic and public-spirited citizen, who met him on his recruiting rounds during the morning, rushed to the police headquarters and made use of the police tele- graph to direct the captains of the different precincts to notify all physicians within their distriets to rendezvous at Postmaster Lin- coln's on business of great importance. The result has been told." And surely there is hardly one among the numerous noteworthy incidents of those eventful days that deserves better of being handed down by history to later generations than this rally of doctors in 1862.
On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation had been given to the public, and still the clouds of war rolled thick and fast over the sky. In June a third call for troops came from the Governor of the State, and within twenty-four hours six Brooklyn regiments, counting two thousand men, stood ready to move toward any point where they might be needed. We find in the list one or two old num- bers, and several new ones : the Thirteenth, Twenty-eighth, Twenty- third, Forty-seventh, Fifty-second, and Fifty-sixth. Of these, the Twenty-eighth was required to go forward on June 18 to join other New York regiments, in the attempt to beat back the tide of invasion which had entered the State of Pennsylvania, and whose elimax was met and repelled at Gettysburg on July 3 and 4 following. Ere June was over all the militia regiments had left the city, except the Seven- tieth. And yet sadly were they needed at home, as was made but too evident in the course of a very few weeks.
For this was the time of the Draft Riot in New York City. It was a time of anxiety and uncertainty also in Brooklyn. There was no telling but the infection of riot and plunder and murder might strike across the river, and incite lawless hordes on this side to take up work so congenial to the debased classes. All the reserves of the militia that could be found in the city were summoned to appear under arms at the arsenals and armories; even the exempts were called upon to return to duty, and did so with great and commendable alacrity. It was naturally supposed that if there were any sympa- thetic outbreak in Brooklyn, the disloyal rioters would make the first and most desperate attack upon the Government property, and hence partienlar precautions were taken to be in readiness to defend the Navy Yard. The police were all called out to the last man, no one being allowed to go off duty for an hour. A large detachment was stationed in and about the City Hall, where also the Mayor and other officers of the government stayed day and night until the trouble or apprehension of trouble had blown over. There were sections of the city where there abounded elements of the population usually con- sidered " dangerous." Greenpoint had its share of these, as it has
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