The Maryland Campaign of September 1862: Volume I - South Mountain
624
The Maryland Campaign of September 1862: Volume I - South Mountain
624Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781932714814 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Savas Beatie |
| Publication date: | 06/03/2010 |
| Pages: | 624 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d) |
About the Author
Thomas G. Clemens earned his doctoral degree at George Mason University, where he studied under Maryland Campaign historian Dr. Joseph L. Harsh. Tom has published a wide variety of magazine articles and book reviews, has appeared in several documentary programs, and is a licensed tour guide at Antietam National Battlefield. A retired professor from Hagerstown Community College, he also helped found and is the current president of Save Historic Antietam Foundation, Inc., a preservation group dedicated to saving historic properties.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Maryland
In the early days of the War of the Rebellion, Maryland was represented by the Southern People as a weeping maiden, bound and fettered, seeking relief from the cruel fate that had deprived her of liberty and forced her to an unholy and unnatural alliance with the North. Southern orators and writers dilated largely and eloquently on her wrongs, sentiment and song were invoked to save her, and General Lee records that one of the objects of his campaign of September 1862, was by military succor, to aid her in any efforts she might be disposed to make to recover her liberties. It is well, therefore, before entering upon the narrative of this military campaign, to consider the condition of the state and see which liberties had been taken from her and wherein she had been suppressed.
Maryland was at heart a loyal state, although she had much sympathy with her Southern sisters. Her position was a peculiar one. Bounded on her entire southern border by Virginia; having the same interests in slavery; closely connected with her by business interests and family ties, she watched the course of that state with great anxiety. Slavery was the source of much of her wealth, and she had a greater financial interest at stake in the preservation or the Union, with slavery, than any other southern state. It is estimated that the value of the slaves in the state, in 1861, was fully $50,000,000 and her proximity to free territory made them a very precarious kind of property. The largest slaveholding counties were those adjacent to Washington and in the southern part of the state. Like Virginia, a part of her territory was bordered by free states and the free state of Pennsylvania had the same effect on Maryland that free Ohio had on western Virginia.
After the secession of the cotton states many, believing the Union hopelessly divided, favored a grand middle confederacy, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, leaving out the seceded states and New England. The best men of Baltimore and of the state opposed secession; they as strongly opposed coercion. They desired to be strictly neutral. Many were ready to make common cause with the seceded states should North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia take a position of resistance to the government. Like the other Border States and states North and West, a majority of her people could not and did not appreciate the impending crisis and fondly hoped that the Union might be preserved. The state had been faithful in the observance of all its constitutional obligations, was conciliatory in all its actions, and had kept aloof from the extreme schemes or the Southern leaders. It was as little disposed to take political lessons from South Carolina as from Massachusetts, and it is safe to say that four fifths of her people regarded the action of South Carolina and other cotton states, as rash and uncalled for. But they were almost unanimous against coercion.
Immediately after the election of Mr. Lincoln, Governor Hicks was solicited to call an extra session of the Legislature, to consider the condition of the country and determine what course should be taken. The secessionists had made a careful canvass and found that a majority of that body were in full sympathy with them and would act according to their dictation, could they be convened. Their intention was to have a convention similar to those by which South Carolina and other states had been declared out of the Union. Governor Hicks well knew the designs of these men and refused to convene the Legislature, again and again refusing, when repeatedly urged and threatened.
It was urged upon him, by those who honestly believed that Maryland, by a wise and conservative course, could control events, that she had influence with the North and South, and that this influence could be exercised to promote harmony. But the greatest pressure came from those who desired an expression of sympathy with the South, those who would have the state follow the example of South Carolina.
On the 27th of November, Governor Hicks, in a letter to ex-Governor Pratt and others, replied to those urgent appeals, declining to convene the Legislature, for reasons that he fully set forth. He did not consider the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was fairly and constitutionally chosen a sufficient cause for the secession of any state, and he proposed to give his administration a proper support. He knew from personal observation that an immense majority of all parties were opposed to the assemblage of the Legislature. He would at least wait until Virginia acted. He would await the action of the National Executive, whose duty it was to look, not to Maryland alone, but to the entire Union. He believed that to convene the Legislature would have the effect to increase and revive the excitement pervading the country, then, apparently on the decline.
A large and influential body of the people believed in the Governor and confided in his judgment. He was born and lived in a slaveholding county of the state, was himself a slaveholder, and had always identified himself with the extreme southern wing of the Whig party. In hearty sympathy with those who were defending Southern rights, he was opposed to the policy of secession and distrusted those who were leading in that direction. With some apparent inconsistencies he was, however, a Union man, and in his persistent refusal to call an extra session of the Legislature, at that time, doubtless prevented the secession of Maryland and performed an inestimable service to the Union and to the cause of humanity.
In the appointment of commissioners by the seceding states, Maryland was especially remembered. The commissioner from Mississippi, Mr. A. H. Handy addressed the citizens of Baltimore, December 19, 1860, on the objects and purposes of the secessionists. Upon his arrival in Maryland, he asked the Governor to convene the Legislature for the purpose of counseling with the constituted authorities of Mississippi, as represented by himself. The very day he was addressing the citizens of Baltimore, on the peculiar designs of the secessionists, Governor Hicks was writing him that "the state though unquestionably identified with the Southern States in feeling, is conservative, and above all things devoted to the Union of those states under the Constitution. The people intend to uphold the Union and I cannot consent, by any precipitate or revolutionary action, to aid in its dismemberment."
Mr. Handy was a native of Maryland and his speech to the people of Baltimore, on the 19th made a deep impression, of which those in sympathy with the South took quick advantage. They called a meeting for December 22nd at the Universalist Church to "take some action in regard to convening the Legislature." The meeting was fully attended and a free interchange of opinions resulted in the appointment of a committee to wait upon the Governor.
The committee discharged this duty on Christmas Eve and urged him to convene the Legislature. They used taunts and threatened him. They intimated fears for his personal safety, should he decline their request, said that blood would be shed and Mr. Lincoln not be permitted to be inaugurated. To which the Governor responded that he was a Southern man, but could not see the necessity for shedding blood or convening the Legislature.
Following this there were meetings in Anne Arundel, Prince Georges, Queen Anne, St. Mary's, Charles and other counties of the state, with resolutions demanding an extra session. Public meetings and strong resolutions were supplemented by personal appeals and social blandishments, but all to no purpose, the Governor would not yield. From Alabama came as commissioner, J. L. M. Curry, a minister formerly a member or Congress, a man of character and ability. Governor Hicks was absent from the Capital, but Mr. Curry, under date of December 28, 1860, informed him that as a commissioner from the Sovereign State of Alabama, to the Sovereign State of Maryland, he came to advise and consult with the Governor and Legislature, as to what was to be done to protect the rights, interests and honor of the slaveholding states, to secure concert and effectual cooperation between Maryland and Alabama; to secure a mutual league, united thought and counsels, between those whose hopes and hazards were alike joined in the enterprise of accomplishing deliverance from abolition domination, to oppose that "anti-slavery fanaticism that sentiment of the sinfulness of slavery embedded in the Northern conscience, that infidel theory corrupting the Northern heart." "To unite with the seceding states," said the sanguine commissioner, "is to be their peers as confederates and have an identity of interests, protection of property and superior advantages in the contests for the Markets, a monopoly of which has been enjoyed by the North. To refuse union with the Seceding States is to accept inferiority, to be deprived of an outlet for surplus slaves and to remain in a hostile Government in a hopeless minority and remediless dependency."
On the 6th day of January, 1861, the Governor appealed to the people in these words:
I firmly believe that a division of this Government would inevitably produce civil war. We are told by the leading spirits of the South Carolina Convention that neither the election of Mr. Lincoln, nor the non-execution of the Fugitive slave law, nor both combined constitute their grievances. They state that the real cause of their discontent dates as far back as 1833. Maryland and every other state in the Union with a united voice, then declared the cause insufficient to justify the course of South Carolina. Can it be that these people, who then unanimously supported the cause of General [Andrew] Jackson, will now yield their opinions at the bidding of modern secessionists.
That Maryland is a conservative Southern State all know who know anything of her people or her history. The business and agricultural classes, planters, merchants, mechanics and laboring men; those who have a real stake in the community, who would be forced to pay the taxes and do the fighting are the persons to be heard in preference to excited politicians, many of whom have nothing to lose from the destruction of the Government but hope to derive some gain from the ruin of the State. Such men will naturally urge you to pull down the pillars of this 'accursed Union,' which their allies in the North have denominated a 'covenant with hell.' The people of Maryland, if left to themselves, would decide, with scarcely an exception, that there is nothing in the present causes of complaint to justify immediate secession; and yet against our judgment and solemn convictions of duty, we are to be precipitated into this revolution, because South Carolina thinks differently. Are we not equals? Or shall her opinions control our actions? After we have solemnly declared for ourselves as every man must do, are we to be forced to yield our opinions to those of another State, and thus in effect obey her mandates? She refuses to wait for our counsels. Are we bound to obey her commands? The men who have embarked on this scheme to convene the Legislature will spare no pains to carry their point. The whole plan of operation, in the event of assembling the Legislature, is, as I have been informed, already marked out, the list of ambassadors who are to visit the other States have been agreed upon, and the resolutions which they hope will be passed by the Legislature, fully committing this State to secession, are said to be already prepared. In the course of nature, I cannot have long to live, and I fervently trust to be allowed to end my days a citizen of this glorious Union. But should I be compelled to witness the downfall of the Government inherited from our fathers, established as it were by the special favor of God, I will at least have the consolation, at my dying hour, that I neither by word nor deed assisted in hastening its disruption.
The Governor had a powerful supporter in the person of Henry Winter Davis, a representative in Congress from the City of Baltimore. On the 2nd of January, Mr. Davis issued a strong appeal to the voters of his district, taking ground against the calling of the Legislature or the assembling of a "Border State" Convention. He denied that Maryland had been wronged by the General Government; and asserted that her interests were indissolubly connected with the integrity of the United States. She had not an interest that would survive the government under the Constitution. "Peaceful secession is a delusion," said Mr. Davis,
and if you yield to the arts now employed to delude you, the soil of Maryland will be trampled by armies struggling for the National capital. If the present Government be destroyed, Maryland slaveholders lose the only guarantee for the return of their slaves. Every commercial line of communication is severed. Custom-house barriers arrest her merchants at every frontier. Her commerce on the ocean is the prey of every pirate, or the sport of every maritime power. Her great railroad loses every connection which makes it valuable. ... Free trade would open every port, and cotton and woolen factories and the iron and machine works of Maryland would be prostrate before European competition.
The hope held out to them by the secessionists that Baltimore would be the emporium of a Southern Republic was a delusion too ridiculous to need refutation, nothing ever intended for the South would ever pass Norfolk. Davis opposed the calling of the Legislature because the halls of legislation would immediately become the focus of revolutionary conspiracy. "Under specious pretexts, the people will be implicated, by consultations with other States, by concerted plans, by inadmissible demands, by extreme and extensive pretensions, in a deeply-laid scheme of simultaneous revolt, in the event of the failure to impose on the Free States the Ultimatum of the Slave States. Maryland will find herself severed from more than half of the States, plunged in anarchy, and wrapped in the flames of civil war, waged by her against the Government in which we now glory." In the face of such circumstances he contended there were no justifications, no excuse, for convening the Legislature. Within its constitutional powers it could do nothing, and there was nothing for it to do.
As to the meeting of the Border States, Mr. Davis was utterly opposed to it, the Constitution forbid any agreement between Maryland and any other States for any purpose. He warned his constituents against the agitation of subjects in which they had no earthly interest, which was of no practical importance to them:
If by common consent any change can be made which will silence clamor, or soothe the sensibilities, or satisfy the jealousies excited by the recent contest, let the changes be made. But that is the only interest you have in any change; and if none can be obtained of that character, it is our policy to let that question alone. ... The firm attitude of Maryland is now the chief hope of peace. If you firmly hold to the United States against all enemies, resolved to obey the Constitution and see it obeyed, your example will arrest the spirit of revolution, and greatly aid the Government in restoring without bloodshed, its authority. If Maryland yields to this revolutionary clamor, she will be overcome in a few months in the struggle for the National capital; and her young men, torn from the pursuits of peace, excluded from the work-shop and counting — house, must shoulder the musket to guard their homes at the cost of fraternal blood.
Much in the same vein wrote another of her patriotic sons:
Maryland has no future out of the Union. It is impossible, in the event of a separation, that she should go with the South or the North. As a member of the Southern Confederacy, she would be a slave State without a single slave within her borders, and a Southern State on the wrong side of the division line. As a member of the Northern Confederacy, her fellowship would be far away from her sympathies. It is indeed by no means certain that her territory would not be split in two, and the parts go off in opposite directions. Baltimore would be a provincial town, with the grass growing in her streets, and the fox looking out of the window ... Maryland has in her keeping the capital of the nation. It was confided to her by George Washington. To the great duty of its safe keeping she has been consecrated by an authority but, one remove a little lower than the Divine. Like the sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi, she has the charge of the tabernacle and the holy things of the temple; and let the storm come, let the earthquake come, and they will find her faithful and true to her charge."
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Foreword by Ted Alexander,
Introduction and Acknowledgments,
Note on the Carman Manuscript,
Chapter 1 Maryland,
Chapter 2 The Confederate Invasion of Maryland,
Chapter 3 The Confederate Army Crosses the Potomac,
Chapter 4 General McClellan and the Army of the Potomac,
Chapter 5 Advance of the Army of the Potomac from Washington to Frederick and South Mountain,
Chapter 6 Harper's Ferry,
Chapter 7 South Mountain (Crampton's Gap), September 14, 1862,
Chapter 8 South Mountain (Fox's Gap), September 14, 1862,
Chapter 9 South Mountain (Turner's Gap), September 14, 1862,
Chapter 10 From South Mountain to Antietam,
Chapter 11 McLaws and Franklin in Pleasant Valley,
Appendix 1 Organization of the Armies,
Appendix 2 Interview With Thomas G. Clemens,
Footnotes,
Bibliography,
Maps and Illustrations,
A gallery of photos and original maps by Gene Thorp,
What People are Saying About This
Ezra Carman's long-unpublished history of the 1862 Maryland Campaign is an essential source on the operations that produced the bloodiest day in American military history and largest surrender of U.S. troops before World War II and there is no one better qualified than Thomas Clemens to bring it to print. Not only does this volume make Carman's study broadly accessible to students of the war, but Clemens's many years studying the events of September 1862 and unmatched knowledge of Carman and his work enable him to skillfully and authoritatively explain and scrutinize Carman's take on events. (Ethan S. Rafuse, author of McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union and Antietam, South Mountain, and Harpers Ferry: A Battlefield Guide)