USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 25
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).
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 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
217
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
to-day, wherefore some still apply to parts of it a name of greater vigor than elegance. In the regions of old Bushwick, back along Newtown Creek, were establishments whose unsavory products, or, perhaps, more correctly speaking, unsavory methods of producing needful articles of commerce and domestic use, could induce only people of very low grade of intelligence or morals to engage in their employ. It was not much better with many of those employed in the great sugar refineries along the East River shore in old Williams- burgh. But the people of these sections disappointed all sneh exper- tations, the threatened outbreak ocenrring in quite another part. On Wednesday evening, July 15, two grain elevators were set on fire by a mob of some two hundred ruffians at the Atlantic Basin. When the firemen rushed to the spot, thinking it was an ordinary fire, and therefore unaccompanied by the police in great force, the mob attacked them and in every way songht to interfere with their work. This of course was an easy thing to do, considering the innerous appliances that have to be put into operation, and requiring skill and practice to concentrate upon a fire under the most favorable conditions. Hence the fire raged furiously so that in spite of the noble and desperate efforts of the firemen to get at it, before the police had succeeded in scattering the hostile mob and their movements became untrammeled, both the elevators were consined ; but the adjoining property was saved. One of the structures was np- on the shore, and cost $80,000, the other being a floating one, was val- ued at only $25,000. Thus, even at the rate of a little over one hundred thousand dollars, Brooklyn's loss was immeasurably less than that of New York during that trying week.
While thus waiting and watching in anxious suspense lest harm should come to herself, Brooklyn remained not without efforts to ren- der assistance to her distressed sister across the East River. A num- ber of citizens gathered together in Gothic Hall, on Adams Street, and resolved to offer themselves to the authorities in the metropolis to aid in suppressing the riot, whose excesses seemed to know no lim- it and were continued from day to day. Knowledge of their generous intention was communicated to the civil and military officers, and it was intimated to them that their services would be most needed in strengthening the hands of General Sandford at the Arsenal on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. We have seen in our previous vohime ( p. 417) that General Sandford was doing his utmost with a handful of militia to protect the valuable stores of arms and ammunition here from the mob. So great a prize was eager- ly sought by the rioters, and again and again they returned to the attack. The condition of affairs in New York is easily imagined when we are told that these Brooklyn vohmteers could not venture to proceed to the Arsenal in a body. They would have been simply ent to pieces. The men went over separately, as if with no ostensible
218
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
object, and so reported themselves for duty one by one to the com- manding officer. Lines of picket-guards had been skillfully disposed in the neighborhood, shutting off the approaches along the several streets leading to the building. But the fewness of his men had made these lines dangerously thin, and the men from Brooklyn were warmly welcomed and were at once made to fill up these lines to more efficient quotas. Hence succeeding attacks were repulsed with more certainty of success. Meantime the regiments of New York troops had been returning from the seat of war, and by July 18 the worst was over, and the Brooklyn contingent returned home from their praiseworthy errand. They had not even thought it worth while to keep a record of their names, so that disinterestedness and modesty must be added to the credit of their courage and neighborliness. Apropos of the draft which caused this serious outburst of villainy in New York, it may be interesting to transcribe here some figures and facts preserved by other historians, as they apply to Brooklyn and Kings County. The draft was carried into effect in September, 1863. The County comprised the Second and Third of the Districts into which the State was divided for the purposes of the draft. The Second District, in detail, meant the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Wards, together with the outlying towns, New Lots, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrecht, thus leaving untouched the more dense- ly populated portions of the city. This district was officially esti- mated as containing 21,553 persons liable to conscription. Only one in every seven of these was required to be drawn, so that the quota to be furnished was 3,075. The Third District included the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Wards; and a glance at a map of the city will at once reveal the fact that these are all closely grouped together in the densely populated parts of Brooklyn. Though comprising much less territorial area, the quota required of this dis- trict was actually greater than that of the other, amounting to 4,054 men.
There was opportunity but for mere allusion in our preceding vol- ume (p. 412), to an achievement on the part of a citizen of Brooklyn, which brought undying fame to himself, made him the boast and pride of his city and his country, and did immense service to the cause in which he was enlisted heart and soul, and for which the land was willing to endure the throes of war for an indefinite length of time. We mean the splendid championship of the principles upon which the war was undertaken, by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of Plymouth Church in Orange Street, during a visit to Great Britain in 1863. No other pulpit or platform in the land had rung with such passionate, eloquent, stirring appeals to men to uphold the cause of righteousness and liberty and repudiate oppression and wrong. In
219
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
days when it required a sublimer heroism than that needed on the field of battle to speak out one's mind on the burning question of slavery, Mr. Beecher had never hesitated to speak, and to speak strongly, with that warmth and breadth and originality and brilliancy which he alone could command. From his first coming to Brooklyn in 1847, he took up the line of antagonism to slavery which he had followed in his more modest Western charges. In fact, this explains the appar- ently useless breaking off of a few members from Dr. Storrs's Church, scarcely itself begun, to form another Congregational Society, whose pastor Mr. Beecher was called to be. The church was started as distinctly in sympathy with anti-slavery doctrines, although not necessarily harboring the vagaries of the doctrinaire abolitionists, who were for sacrificing the Union rather than retain slavery, and who were secessionists in advance of the slaveholders. It was no light risk for Mr. Beecher to take this position in the ante-bellum days. As his estimable widow wrote only shortly before her death : " He was abused as a negro-worshiper; he was threatened with personal violence; a mob was formed in New York to tear down the church in which he preached. I have known him, in response to my entreaties to be careful, to walk in the middle of the streets of Brooklyn with his hand on the revolver in his pocket, lest he should be suddenly attacked. Letters announcing the dispatch of infernal machines to our house were often received, in fact. they averaged one or two per week. I remember that one day an immense box came by express, after the receipt of such a letter. I was afraid to open it, and equally afraid that Mr. Beecher, who never knew fear, would open it as soon as he returned home. So I sent for a policeman, and, after being thoroughly soaked, the box was found to contain a life-size negro doll." Mr. Beecher at one time hit upon a most original and im- pressive object-lesson to bring home to the people of Brooklyn what slavery really meant. Men at the North had vague ideas of its anom- aly in a republic; even kind-hearted Christian people had a dim notion that it was sanctioned in some way by Scripture. They had good reason to suspect that some of its horrors and cruel wrongs were exaggerated by the agitators against the system; and the extrava- gance of the abolitionists only served to create a revulsion which awakened sympathy and esteem for the abused Southerners rather than a condemnation of their persistent adherence to the practice. So Mr. Beecher conceived the idea of affording his church and his city a practical living illustration of slave dealing. Repeatedly ap- peals came to him to assist with voice or purse in the purchase of slaves who were about to be sold into a worse bondage, with threat- ened death or dishonor before them, than they had endured before; and it occurred to him to procure one of these unfortunates and sell him or her at public anction in Plymouth Church. His intention to do so was made public, and the day set for such an exhibition was
220
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
Sunday, June 1, 1856. An immense crowd thronged the approaches to the church two hours before the doors were opened, and the pastor himself could only gain access to the building by the aid of the po- lice. The scene within the church that day was described by Mrs. Beecher only a year or two ago. After prayer and Scripture-reading he began by saying : " About two weeks ago I had a letter from Wash- ington informing me that a young woman had been sold by her own father to be sent South-for what purpose you can imagine when you see her. She was bought by a slave trader for twelve hundred dol- lars, and he has offered to give you the opportunity of purchasing her freedom. She has given her word of honor to return to Richmond if the money be not raised, and, slave though she be called, she is a woman who will keep her word. Now, Sarah, come up here so that all may see you. A young woman, almost white, ascended the plat- form by his side, and Mr. Beecher instantly assumed the manner, tone of voice, tricks of speech and all, of a regular hard-hearted auc- tioneer of slaves, who can see in the human creature before him noth- ing but a marketable commodity, whose every good point meant so many more dollars. "How much for her? " Mr. Beecher called out vigorously. " Will you allow this praying woman to go back to Rich- mond to meet the fate for which her father sold her? If not, who bids? Who bids?" The people were almost wild with excitement. " Tears of pity and indignation." writes Mrs. Beecher, " streamed from eyes unused to weeping. Women became hysterical; men were almost beside themselves. For half an hour money was heaped into the contribution boxes, while those to whom the baskets seemed too slow in coming, threw coin and banknotes upon the pulpit. Women took off their jewelry and put it in the baskets. Rings, bracelets, brooches piled one upon the other. Men unfastened their watches and handed them to the ushers. The collection left no deficiency to be made up. All of the twelve hundred dollars had been given for the purchase of Sarah's freedom, and there was money enough besides to buy for her a little home at Peekskill." More such scenes were destined to be witnessed in Plymouth Church, among the last being the pur- chase of a little girl called " Pinky." She was bought, given an edu- cation, baptized Rose Ward, after Miss Rose Terry, later the author- ess, Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke ( who was an enthusiastic participant). and Mr. Beecher himself; and after the war she went as a missionary among her liberated people at the South. The auction of little Pinky took place in February, 1860, when the conflict of arms was near at hand.
In the summer of 1863, when Gettysburg had been fought, and the Civil War had reached its highest point north. Mr. Beecher went to England for much needed rest and recuperation from the strain of the exciting events in which he had borne no minor part. In the pursuit of this purpose he kept perfectly quiet during the summer months, pre-
221
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
sumably waiting also until the time was passed when his old en- emy, the hay fever, could cause him no more trouble. But in Octo- ber he was thoroughly himself again, and now began those battles from the platform, repeated in five of the leading cities of the realm, which put to the utmost test all the remarkable powers of public address of which the American preacher was possessed. He was now just fifty years of age-precisely that on June 24, 1863-and, there-
-
NAVY YARD-A WAR-SHIP ENTERING DRY DOCK.
fore, at the very height of his mental powers. The round of addresses began at Manchester, on October 9, 1863, in the immense Free Trade Hall, with a seating capacity for seven thousand. It was crowded with a number far beyond that on this occasion. Mr. Beecher had selected different points to be made at these various meetings, and at Man- chester it was his aim " to give the history of the external political movements for fifty years past," in order to bring out the fact that " the war was only an overt form of the contest between liberty and slavery, which had been going on politically for half a century." At Manchester he encountered some interruption from opponents in the audience, but it was not a circumstance to what he was compelled to endure at Liverpool. From Manchester he went to Glasgow, and there he sought to point out that " the Southern cause was the nat- ural enemy of free labor and the laborer all over the world," because
222
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
it " brought labor into contempt, affixing to it the badge of degrada- tion." At Edinburgh he delineated the interesting process by which separate, strongly individualized colonies, as free States intensely jealous of each other's rights and several sovereignty, yielded up enough of the latter to become welded into one nation, or a strong federal republic, instead of a confederacy of weakness; and how the policy on which the South now claimed the right to act was sub- versive of nationality and all the good attained thereby; claiming this right in order to have the power to maintain that slavery for which all the world condemned and mocked the free republic, because it feared that the conscience of the nation, as a nation, would compel it to abolish it. After Edinburgh, Mr. Beecher returned to Liverpool, where fierce opposition to the war had been the prevalent sentiment, because thereby the cotton ports of the South had ceased to send forth their valuable exports to England, whose principal port of entry and market for this product was the city on the Mersey. Here, therefore, he met a vast throng determined to gag and thwart his utterances, and if possible to silence him. They did not know their man. He told them plainly : " I am born without moral fear. I have expressed iny views in any audience, and it never cost mne a struggle. I never could help doing it." It was his purpose here to prove that " slavery was, in the long run, hostile to commerce and manufactures all the world over "; that " a slave nation must be a poor customer, buying the smallest quantity and the poorest goods, at the lowest profit "; that " a slave population, which buys nothing, and a degraded white population, which buys next to nothing," was hostile to every prin- ciple of political economy, " as striking at the vital interest of the manufacturer, not by want of cotton, but by want of customers." For three hours in St. George's Hall, Mr. Beecher elucidated these points, while his audience for much of the time was like " a raging sea of insult." We can hardly believe the reports of the meeting, held in a civilized country boasting such a fondness for fair play, which tell of taunt, irony, impertinent questions, blackguardism, curses, hisses, cat-calls, stampings, hootings, yells. All this savagery, however, utterly failed to silence, daunt, or even confuse the Ameri- can preacher. In the face of it all he uttered such noble appeals and lofty argumenta ad hominem as the following: " If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain, you will not understand us; but if the love of liberty lives as it once lived, and has worthy successors. of those renowned men that were our ancestors as much as yours. and whose example and principles we inherit to make fruitful as so much seed corn in a new and fertile land, then you will understand our- firm, invincible determination -- deep as the sea, firm as the moun- tains, but calm as the heavens above us-to fight this war through at all hazards and at every cost." With perfect good humor he met the most vindictive and hateful interruptions; with the marvelous:
223
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
readiness at repartee, for which Mr. Beecher was noted, he answered impertinences and questions that it was thought would embarrass him. His wit often turned the laugh on those who supposed they had cornered him. Conscientious seruples that had been respectfully expressed he dealt with kindly but effectively. Some had said that all war was wrong, and, therefore, they must condemn ours. With a warm tribute to that excellent class of people, the Quakers, he went on to say : " But excepting them, I regard this British horror of the
American war as something wonderful. What land is there with a name and people where your banner has not led your
soldiers? Old England ashamed of a war of principle! Her national ensign symbolizes her history-the cross in a field of blood. And will you tell us-who inherit your blood, your ideas, and your pluck-that we must not fight?" Such happy sallies forced cheers and applause even from such an audience. In fact, before the end good humor, courage, wit, perfect self-possession, matchless read- iness at reply, the genius and eloquence of oratory, had effected a complete conquest. It was a battle few men in all the world could have fought to a finish, and that with success. The universal com- ment of the American press upon this remarkable performance at Liverpool did not hesitate to express the conviction that " there was not a more heroic achievement on any field of battle during the great American conflict than the successful delivery of Mr. Beecher's speech against the tempest of odds which opposed it!"
The last of this series of oratorical battles was announced to come off at Exeter Hall, London, on October 20, 1863. The meeting here was held under the auspices of the Emancipation Society, and, therefore, in advance, there was some guaranty that there would be that decent treatment of the speaker which had been so conspicuously and dis- gracefully lacking at Liverpool. To somewhat restrict the enormous rush for places which was naturally anticipated an admission of one shilling was charged at lowest, with four hundred reserved seats at two and a half shillings. Nevertheless, the crowds were immense. The speech was advertised to begin at 7 o'clock in the evening, doors to be opened at 6.30. But at five o'clock the adjoining streets began to be thronged with people, and the doors were thrown open at 6. The temper of the people of London was evidently different from that at Liverpool, for, when Mr. Beecher arrived at the building, and while the police were mowing a swath through the multitudes to get him within, he received an ovation from the waiting crowds, everybody struggling to get near him to shake hands. There was no way to get him into the Hall but by carrying him bodily upon the shoulders of two burly policemen. And inside Mr. Beecher was not subjected to any of those insults which he had so bravely borne down at Liver- pool. The enemies of the North had indeed made some efforts to pack the Hall with a disturbing element. The walls of London had been
224
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
plastered with posters, and handbills were industriously circulated among the people at the doors, expressing hostility to Mr. Beecher, and maligning the cause he came to advocate. But these efforts were utterly swallowed up and lost in the vast enthusiasm which his presence in the metropolis excited. His speech in London was a presentation in brief of all the points he had been making in the other cities. If there was any special emphasis laid upon any question here, it was upon the position of slavery in the South so far as the Constitution legalized it. It was shown clearly to the British audi- ence how it came to be legalized at all in the days of the founding of the Republic, and that, as the result of its treatment then, slavery had ever been a question for the States to settle for themselves, and not to be touched by the central government at all. Speaking under the auspices of the Emancipation Society, the speaker naturally gave special attention also to Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation at the beginning of the year. How could slavery be reached if the Constitution for- bade the Federal Government to act on it? Mr. Beecher explained it thus: " The great conflict between the North and South when we began this war was, which should control the government of the territories-slave institutions or free institutions? That was the ques- tion. It was not emancipation, or no emancipation-the Government had no business with the question. The only thing the Government could join issue on was, shall the national policy be free or slave? It was for this the North went to war. It produced emanci- pation. But she went to war to save national institutions, to save territories, to save those laws which, if allowed to act through a se- ries of years, would infallibly first circumscribe, then suffocate, and finally destroy slavery." Apropos of what we are rejoicing to notice from day to day in the times of war that are upon us at the pres- ent writing-the entente cordiale unofficially but radically existing between England and the United States, it is more than interesting to observe, as one commentator remarks, that "the most striking and important parts of Mr. Beecher's address were his noble and earnest efforts to promote, to the utmost of his ability, that supreme international object of his oratorical efforts-a good understanding between England and America, in which all the higher interests of civilization, freedom, and progress are so directly involved. In dis- cussing this great and vital question he rose to a pitch of moral enthusiasm and elevation, which, stranger as he was, in the midst of his country's reputed enemies, and standing, as he did, the solitary spokesman for that country, in the presence of a surging and excited multitude, presented a spectacle of moral and forensic sublimity, rarely witnessed in any country." After Mr. Beecher's return from England, Oliver Wendell Holmes said of his mission: " He kissed no royal hand, he talked with no courtly diplomats, he was the guest of no titled legislator, he had no official existence. But through the
225
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
heart of the people he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, the throne itself."
Thus ended this wonderful progress of Mr. Beecher through the United Kingdom, doing effective battle for his country with the weapons which God had given him. In this way he created a frame of mind among the sober, thinking portion of the British public dis- tinetly friendly to America. Whatever of any other sentiment had been prevalent was due to misunderstanding of the situation in the United States. And certainly that was considerably puzzling to those who had not made a study of our Constitution, and of the unique composition of our Federal Union-with its central sovereignty and its sovereignty of the several States, beautifully harmonizing, except where sinister designs were harbored to sacrifice nationality and country rather than an institution intrinsically wrong, but socially rooted and economically profitable (as it seemed to be). By these five addresses frankly dealing with these peenliar questions of Fed- eral Government, it was shown how helpless we were to deal directly with slavery until war made it possible to do so, and then only as a military necessity outside of the Constitution. It was slavery which Great Britain hated with all its heart. It was because the North failed so long to deal directly with slavery until the war came that Great Britain suspected that the North also at heart sustained the iniquity. Now that it was understood that the North was as genuinely the foe of that evil as the British public, cordial sympathy and friend- ship could flow unrestrained toward the upholders of the Union. It is more than possible that this creation of friendly understanding, do- ing so much to keep England's hands off in the struggle yet at its fiereest when Mr. Beecher spoke, has also been the reason that both the Alabama and the Venezuelan questions could be settled by courts of arbitration instead of by armaments on land and sea.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.