USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 45
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There were, of course, many considerations that had to be weighed in view of the fact that so many workers would be called from their employment and from those dependent on them, and here, as in other matters, the localities just north of the Harlem set a good example
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to other localities that were farther away. In Port Chester, before the Bartram company was fairly organized, it became plain that something was necessary to supply the families of the volunteers of the town, who were, in many instances, married men with children. Therefore, on April 30th, James H. Titus, a well-known citizen of that locality, 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 Seventeenth Regiment in New York. He was closely followed on May 3rd by W. P. Abendroth, with a hundred dol- lars, and by May 9th the subscriptions amounted to four hundred and forty-four dollars. This money, and much more afterwards, was raised by a "Union Defense Committee," of which Mr. Titus, an ardent Re- publican, was chairman, and John E. Marshall, an equally uncompromis- ing Democrat, was treasurer. The union of both parties in the same cause did much to soften the acerbities of political strife through the course of the war. In all the money raised by the Defense Committee during the war the only item which was not that of relief, in weekly payments, to the wives and parents of actual soldiers, was 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 to- gether, by enabling their board to be paid in the city till accepted ; 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, almost at the same time, sent out sixty men, raised by 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 New York, and drifted into different regiments, so that not a man of the sixty was ever credited to the county, and some of them even returned home. Another party of sixteen went off to White Plains, under the command of William M. Bleakley, of Verplanck's Point. On the roll of Company A, Twenty- seventh Regiment, they appear as credited to Elmira. The company of Joseph J. Chambers was another instance of the confusion of affairs, for though the men hailed from White Plains, they were likewise cred- ited to Elmira.
Other towns north of the Harlem 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. The whole history of the two years' volun- teers in Westchester County is one of men pressing their services 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 managed to identify Port Chester officially with the movement, but
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no other town in Westchester County could boast of an equal record, either in volunteering or in patriotic efforts to help soldiers by private means. But the two years' volunteers were not long in being filled up; and the serious nature of the war, with the equally serious way in which it was regarded by the Legislature of the State, appeared almost before the last man was mustered into the United States service. The first order of the adjutant-general, on April 18th, called for "seventeen regiments of infantry or rifles." A second order appeared on the twenty- fifth of the same month calling for twenty-one regiments more; so that the complete quota of two years' volunteers, in the State of New York, included all regiments, up to the Thirty-eighth. Within a week from the time when the Port Chester company was finally mustered into the United States service, May 22nd, the Thirty-ninth Regiment was mus- tered in' as an additional force, and the term of service of the men en- listed was three, instead of two, years. From that time forth the history of Westchester during the war was to become the history 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 terminated.
Organizing Military Units-The first regiment taken into the United States service from the State of New York for the term of three years was mustered in on May 28, 1861. The first identification of the region north of the Harlem with the three years' volunteers came on the rolls of the Fourth New York Cavalry, which was mustered by companies, beginning August 10th and ending November 15, 1861. The next organ- ization in which Westchester appears to have taken any official part was the Fifth Independent Battery, mustered into the United States service on November 8, 1861, in New York City. The roll of this battery contained the names of Privates Charles Cadigan and John Turbitt, from Yonkers; and Benjamin Moore and Charles Moore, from Mount Vernon.
The First Regiment Mounted Rifles, which was mustered into the service in squadrons and companies, all the way from August 31, 1861, to September 9, 1862, may be cited as the only regiment in which West- chester County could be said to have been fully represented during the war. This concludes the raising of the three years' volunteers in West- chester County as organizations, of which the records are accessible, in an official form, up to the raising of the regiment whose rolls are next in order.
The Sixth Heavy Artillery was originally raised at Yonkers for the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth New York Infantry, and was mustered into the service from September 2, 1862, for three years. It then con-
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sisted of eight companies, but in December of that year two more were added, and the whole was mustered in as the Sixth Heavy Artillery at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland. The last organization with which the Westchester region appears to have been identified was the Six- teenth (Sprague Light) Cavalry, which was mustered into the service from June to October, 1863. The companies in this regiment to which men were furnished by the Westchester region were K L and M. This closes the history of the three years' volunteers in Westchester County, as far as the original enlistments were concerned, the names being found on the original muster-rolls, but not including subsequent enlistments, which did not appear in the publication issued by the State adjutant-general.
Clashing Views on the War-During the war opinion and feeling in the valley of the Bronx and in the Westchester region were not marked by any smooth and rounded harmony. There was great difference of view and there was a good deal of party rancor; and it is important, in stating the facts as they appeared, to bear in mind the pre-existing prejudices which had made them possible. The prime cause of the di- visions was the close proximity to the city of New York, to which the country looked for light and leading, and whose opinions and passions it reflected. As in the case of the Revolutionary War Westchester County became a sort of debatable ground, on which both parties strove for the ascendant. The reproachful terms of "Whig," "Tory," "Cow- boy," and "Skinner" were changed to "Abolitionist," "Copperhead," "Nigger-Worshipper" and "Traitor." Families were divided; churches were rent into factions; and actual fighting was only spared to the region of The Bronx and Westchester County generally during the draft riots of 1863 by the fact that the rioters did not screw up their courage to the fighting point till it was too late to do anything. The most prominent factor in the feeling, as shown in the comments of the "Eastern State Journal," already quoted, was intense dislike of the Re- publicans, rather than active sympathy with the Secessionists. At the time of Lincoln's election the majority of the voters in the country north of the Harlem honestly believed with the "Eastern State Journal" that all Republicans were designing knaves, who strongly desired to break up the Union.
To the period of the extinction of the old Whig party the distinction between that alignment of view and the ideals of Democracy had been broad, simple and easily understood. The one party was centralizing, the other decentralizing. The disturbing element of slavery had altered all this; the old line of demarcation gradually vanished; but the forms of expression that had been used so long did not die with the ideas they were aimed at expressing. The extreme partisans on both sides
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kept on talking and thinking about abstractions that had ceased to have any real existence. Under the operation of the Fugitive State Law, the Democrats had become advocates of "Federal Coercion," in favor of slavery, in Kansas; while the Republicans preached extreme doctrines of "State-rights," in the "personal Liberty Laws," by which the North- ern States resisted or evaded the opposition of the United States mar- shals, whenever it was sought to enforce the act. Individuals of the party, like Wendell Phillips, openly denounced the Union as "a cove- nant with death, and a league with hell." Furthermore, a spirit of sec- tional pride, roused by the arrogant bearing of Southern members of Congress and by the assault of Brooks of South Carolina on Charles Sumner, was gradually becoming prominent. The young men of the party, not unjustly denominated "sectional," in the North, were getting ready to fight, just as the Southern youths were preparing in their own States for the coming conflict. The Democrats, who under Thomas Jefferson had been distrustful of the Constitution, insisting on amend- ments in the direction of personal liberty, had, in 1860, become the most ardent of "Constitutional-worshippers," insisting on the absolute perfection of the instrument and on the right of the Southern States to full protection, under its provisions, for their slaves, in the free States. In the legal aspect of the case they had the advantage of the concur- rence of the Supreme Court on their side. The Republicans, on the other hand, treated the "constitutional" arguments as not practical, and constantly shifted the ground to that of the right or wrong of slavery. They cultivated habits, which did not leave them, during the war, of decrying their opponents as "dough-faces," "trucklers to the South," "men devoid of proper spirit," and after the war had begun, even as "traitors." The Democrats retorted, with equal conviction, charges that the Republicans were not "true Union men"; that they were not "for the Union, under all circumstances, with or without slavery." It was the fact that there was a measure of truth at the bot- tom of all these recriminations that rendered them so exasperating, caus- ing party feeling to run higher in the region north of the Harlem than in any other part of the Union, save the city of New York, Southern Indiana, or New Jersey.
It has often been remarked that the war between the North and the South would never have taken place had the people of the two sec- tions known each other better. It is also true that the party divisions that rent Westchester County would never have arisen to such propor- tions and such a level of bitterness had the members of both parties tried to see, in the minds of the others, the real convictions which un- derlay the apparently radical differences in politics. The literature of the time, carefully perused, appears to show that there was scarcely a
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real "Secessionist" to be found at all in the Westchester region. Even the Democrats were opposed to secession, though they held to Bu- chanan's doctrine that the Union "rested on Public opinion," and "could never be cemented by the blood of its citizens." Their real antipathy to the Republicans arose out of the fear of centralization and military despotism, which after-facts showed to be unjustified by the designs of Lincoln's administration.
Bull Run and the Press-The official paper of Westchester County, as the "Eastern State Journal," published at White Plains, may be con- sidered, will perhaps testify better than any other source the state of feeling of the region north of the Harlem. The "Journal" on May 17, 1861, put at the head of its columns the following card, which it kept up till the November of the following year, as an explicit statement of its position in the contest :
"THE TRUE SENTIMENT
"Mr. Lincoln is not the United States Government. The government is ours and we owe allegiance to it. Mr. Lincoln is not ours, and we do not owe allegiance to him. Mr. Lincoln's term of office is brief and fleeting : the government, we hope, will last forever."
The editorial article, in the first paper in which this "true sentiment" is put forth, contains an argument to the effect that when the war is over the Fugitive Slave Law should at once be enforced. On May 21st, the editor, in answer to a Republican paper, which had just been started, the "Morrisania Journal," explained the "true sentiment" at length ; and accused the Republicans of carrying on the war for party purposes, simply. He concludes with the assertion: "The Republicans stand by their administration; the Democrats, by our government." From this time to the battle of Bull Run, the fight is carried with the "Morrisania Journal." The paper is full of sneers at "Abolitionists," and teems with assertions that "the volunteers in the field are in the proportion of three Democrats to one Republican," with the further assertion that "all Abo- litionists are cowards." In July the paper drops politics on the first page and begins to put in serial stories, paying much attention to local items, and ignoring the war as much as possible. It is full of a Fourth of July local celebration ; and the only indication of the old feeling crops out in the paragraph, "No abolitionism. The border Slave States might be conciliated, if a promise was given them that their slaves should be retained." The editor hopes "that Horace Greeley will be thrown overboard," and that "Democrats will be called to advise Mr. Lincoln."
The news of Bull Run brings a marked approval of the "peace reso- lution," introduced by Benjamin Wood in Congress, and laid on the table by Mr. Washburn, of Illinois. The editor asks, "When will the
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war end?" and says that "another administration must come in before peace is likely to be restored to the country." In August the editor in- dignantly repudiates the assertion that "the anti-slavery feeling is spreading at the North," but admits the "apostasy" of several Congress- men, who are voting with the administration to prosecute the war. It glories in the fact that Mr. Haight, the member from the home district, is still opposed to the prosecution of the war. It further draws satis- faction from the fact that the Democratic State Convention has refused to join the Republicans in nominating a "Union State Ticket" of both parties, united only in prosecuting the war. This refusal is justified by the editor on the ground of the radical differences on the subject of slavery. On August 16th there begins in the journal a bitter contro- versy on the suspension of the law of habeas corpus, when the sheriff of Kings County tries to get out of Fort Lafayette the Baltimore Police commissioners confined there under an order of General Banks for trea- sonable action in Maryland. From this date it appears that the Repub- lican papers, recently established north of the Harlem, are beginning to strike back, for the editor is very indignant at being classed with the "Yonkers Herald," and "Highland Democrat" as "three penny-whistle, traitor sheets." He indignantly asks "if all the men opposed to the Mexican War and the War of 1812 were traitors?" and answers: "No, we are not traitors. .. We admit that the secessionists forced the war on us. . . . But we hate Abraham Lincoln's principles. ... We have exposed corruption wherever we have found it. ... If this be treason, make the most of it. If hatred of the Chicago platform be treason, we are traitors. So are three-fourths of our soldiers, and they would re- fuse to march a step if they thought that their loyalty was to be meas- ured by such a standard."
Feeling ran very high, and the editor found he was running against the current. In the next few days the White Plains paper, along with the "Highland Democrat" and the "Yonkers Herald," were formally pre- sented by the grand jury in the following terms :
"The Grand Jury of the county of Westchester, recognizing the ex- istence of the war in which the country is now engaged, with an armed rebellion in a portion of the confederacy; and the necessity for its vig- orous prosecution, until an honorable peace is conquered; and desirous of having public opinion so fixed, and individual action so shaped, in the hitherto loyal county of Westchester, in regard to the war, as to prevent breaches of the peace; feel it a duty to call the attention of all loyal citizens and the magistracy of the county to the importance of every one within its borders contributing every honorable effort to the sus- taining of the Federal arm, in maintaining the supremacy of the laws of the land, and in crushing out the rebellion of the southern traitors. They
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therefore admonish all citizens of the fact that in a state of war, interna- tional as well as local war declares the giving of aid and comfort to the enemies of a government, either by overt acts in assisting its ene- mies, or by writings or publications, tending to give such aid and com- fort, the crime of misprision of treason, to be punished, or conviction, by imprisonment.
"The Grand Inquest of the county, having had brought to their at- tention sundry articles, which have appeared in newspapers, published within this county, denying the justice of the war, in which we are en- gaged, treating it as a party war, and not involving in its issues the gov- ernment itself and our national existence, and therein sympathizing with the traitors to the Republic, deem it proper, in conservation of the peace of the county, that the proprietors and editors of these papers should be by them publicly admonished of the great moral, if not legal, crime, in which, from partizan motives, they have been indulging, to the danger of the peace and quiet of the people, and, lest injustice should be done to loyal newspapers, the following journals are particularly designated as disseminators of doctrines, which in the existing state of things, tend to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the government, and to prevent a vigorous prosecution of the war, by which alone the supremacy of the government is to be maintained, and national peace and prosperity witnessed in the land :
"The 'Yonkers Herald,' 'Highland Democrat,' and 'Eastern State Journal,' from the time of the issue of the President's Proclamation, immediately after the firing on Fort Sumter, steadily treated the war which has followed, in the extracts and articles they have published, as an unholy and partizan war, unjustly commenced and prosecuted by the administration. In so doing it has evidently been their purpose to consolidate a party, by the aid of whose opposition and influence they might prevent enlistments and retard the successful prosecution of the war."
Two New York City papers are further mentioned as circulating in the county, with similar doctrines, and the presentment proceeds :
The Grand Jurors, therefore, invoke the attention of the District Attorney of this county to the prosecution of the editors and proprietors named, if hereafter, after this public notice of their evil course, they should persist in thus continuing to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the government, and they request him to certify and transmit a copy of the presentment to the United States District Attorney of the Southern District of New York, with a view to his commencing such proceedings thereon as the nature of the circumstances may require.
Stephen Lyon, Foreman. W. Swinburne, Clerk.
This expression of feeling on the part of the Grand Jury naturally had its effect in the office of the "Eastern State Journal." The editor
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was a White Plains man, living within a stone's throw of the court- house and personally known to all the members of the Grand Jury, and he exerted himself to the utmost to get rid of the stain the docu- ment had produced on his reputation. He managed to get a letter from the foreman of the jury, which he published in the issue of his paper in the week following, stating that he (the foreman) had voted against putting the "Eastern State Journal" in the list of papers presented, but he had been outvoted, and therefore had signed the presentment. Mr. Lyon, in thus baring the secrets of the Grand Jury room, did what he could to save a neighbor by further saying that he was "one of nine" who voted to strike the "Journal" off the list. Next week the inde- fatigable editor managed to get two more men who were on the Grand Jury to say that they voted against the presentment, and as soon as this consummation was reached he burst out into indignant denunciation of the men who voted for it, as a "corrupt and debauched clique ;" "curs who have snarled and snapped at our heels for years;" as men who needed "a sound kicking" for "besliming and befouling all they touch," while "their putrid breath" so corrupted the air that the editor had diffi- culty in selecting the right atmosphere by which to replenish his own pure respiratory organs.
Nevertheless the presentment had a marked effect on the tone of the paper for some weeks, for the next editorial conclusion on "what pat- riotism demands of party organization" in the crisis was that the Demo- crats should, in future, "stick together on local issues," and let the ad- ministration carry on the war without interference. In the issue of the week that followed the editor spoke of the "determined and loyal course of the President." After that he explained his motto in a different spirit ; printed Union letters and speeches, in one of which a War Demo- crat declared compromise to be impracticable; and so the paper sailed quietly along until the date of the State elections, at which the Demo- crats were exhorted to hold together-"Stick to your party," "Vote the Democratic State Ticket," "Stand by the old party," "Don't be hum- bugged by the cry of no-party-ism," "It is an old dodge," etc. The re- sult of the election-which was for Secretary of State and other officers, in the off year-gave the Republicans a considerable majority. With the first appearance of Judge Robertson in the capacity of State Senator the editor finds comfort in the removal of Fremont, effected about the same time, which he assumes to be a mark of "proper respect to the sentiments of the Democracy of the North."
If the subsequent course during the war of the "Eastern State Jour- nal" was a proper criterion there still remained a body of opinion stren- uously opposed to the conduct of the war. The tone of that journal during 1862 became more decided in opposition to its prosecution,
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though the formal statement of its attitude, as indicated in the "True Sentiment," which it put at the head of its columns, was dropped. There were no more articles openly abusing "Abolitionists," but the paper stuck to the doctrine, as late as April 20, 1862, that "the general government has, even in war, no more power" to coerce a rebellious State "than the Constitution gives it," and therefore none to confiscate slaves or set them free. The vituperation directed against the "Abo- litionists" is changed, as the summer goes on, to philippics on "lazy, mindless negroes," and predictions of a "San Domingo massacre," if the slaves of the South are ever freed. As the autumn comes on, how- ever, the nomination of Horatio Seymour puts the editor on his feet again, and he begins to threaten the "Abolitionists" more boldly every day. In December he closes the year 1862 by referring to the coinci- dence of the Emancipation Proclamation of Mr. Lincoln and the elec- tion of Mr. Seymour to be Governor of New York as "The Two Procla- mationists." The one he characterizes as mere "waste paper, impos- sible of enforcement," while the other is "A proclamation that the State of New York is free once more." The lines, "The Democracy Trium- phant," "The Administration is not the Government," came out in every issue, and "it is a noticeable fact," observes one commentator, "that in this paper, as in the 'Yonkers Herald-Gazette,' as the virulence of the tone increases, so does the pressure of the county advertising increase also, showing what powerful influences were behind the papers, in the shape of the county officers."
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