Blood on the Moon

by Edward , Jr. Steers

  Lincoln believed that purchasing the slaves would save thousands of lives and millions of dollars. It was a simple case of common sense to Lincoln. His compensation plan was aimed at the Border States of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. These four slave states remained loosely tied to the Union. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri formed a broad buffer zone or “border” between the Northern states and those of the South. Their place in the Union was crucial and Lincoln and Jefferson Davis placed them high on their agendas. Davis hoped that these critical states would eventually secede and cast their lot with the Confederacy. To do so would prove the deathblow to reunion. This was especially true of Kentucky, the state of Lincoln’s birth. Lincoln’s connections with Kentucky ran deep. His three law partners were Kentuckians, as was his wife. Henry Clay, his “beau ideal,” and Joshua Speed, his closest friend, were both Kentuckians.2 Lincoln wanted Kentucky in the Union, but more than that, he needed Kentucky. Lincoln had said “to lose Kentucky is to lose the whole game.”3 Conversely, Lincoln believed that if Kentucky and her sister Border States were to declare against slavery by accepting compensated emancipation, the Confederacy was doomed to fail.

  On July 12, 1862, he addressed an appeal to representatives of the Border States offering a plan for gradual emancipation: “Let the states which are in rebellion see, definitely and certainly, that, in no event, will the states you represent ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they can not, much longer maintain the contest.”4 On July 14, Lincoln followed his appeal by introducing his own draft of a bill that would result in compensation for slave property among the Border States. The bill called for the transfer of six-percent interest-bearing bonds of the United States Treasury to each state equal to the aggregate value of all the slaves within that state based on the census of 1860. The Congress would fix the price per slave. The transfer would be coordinated with emancipation in installments as slaves were set free, or the whole amount turned over at once if emancipation were immediate.5 One day later, on July 15, a majority of Border State representatives rejected the proposal on the ground that “the Federal government could not stand the expense.”6 This, of course, was not true. As Lincoln pointed out in a letter to newspaper editor Henry J. Raymond following his March 6 message to the Congress, “one half-day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware, at four hundred dollars per head—that eighty-seven days cost of this war would pay for all [the slaves] in Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri at the same price.”7 Did anyone really believe that to continue the war would cost less money, let alone fewer lives, than purchasing all of the slaves in the Border States, thus isolating the Confederacy even further?

  Frustrated in his efforts at compensation, Lincoln pulled the trigger on the Confederacy’s slavocracy by issuing his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22,1862. In it he declared, “All persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”8

  What prompted Lincoln to issue his proclamation after seventeen months of war is arguable, but its effect, which became official on January 1, 1863, established several important objectives. First, by declaring those slaves who were covered by its provisions “forever free,” it irrevocably linked any future reunion with emancipation. Second, it called for the enlistment of Black men into the Union army.9 And third, it ended any thought of “restoration,” or returning to conditions as they existed prior to hostilities. With the issuance of his proclamation, Lincoln closed the door to any hope of returning to the Union as it once was. Emancipation became the central issue of the conflict.

  This irrevocable nature of Lincoln’s action was one that Jefferson Davis understood. In his message to the Confederate Congress on January 12, 1863, eleven days after the proclamation became official, Davis said, “A restoration of the Union has now been rendered forever impossible.” Davis went on to state that the proclamation was “a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation ‘to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defense.’”10 It was this last “recommendation” that caused the harshest reaction among the proclamation’s critics. Both Davis and the British government decried the statement, claiming it was aimed at doing just what it asked slaves not to do, rise up and overthrow their masters using violence where necessary which, in reality, was everywhere.

  Davis described the proclamation as the “most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man.”11 In retaliation for Lincoln’s proclamation, he defiantly announced that he would deliver to state officials all commissioned officers of the United States Army that may be captured and they would be dealt with in accordance with each state’s laws covering individuals who incite slave insurrection. Such laws carried the death penalty. Davis went on to say that enlisted men, however, would still be paroled as “unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes.”12 Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and Davis’s bluster was never carried out. But the very act of declaring emancipation throughout the rebellious South was considered an act outside the bounds of civilized warfare. To Davis and his cohorts, the Emancipation Proclamation was an incitement to slave revolt with the inevitable consequence of the massacre of innocent women and children. Davis reduced Lincoln to a barbarian when he described his actions as “execrable.” Such a person was not entitled to protection under the rules of civilized warfare.

  While Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation called for the enlistment of Blacks into the military, little happened until May 22, 1863.13 On that date, the War Department established the Bureau of Colored Troops. The Southern reaction to the enlistment of Black troops was virulent. Black soldiers who fell into the hands of the Confederate military would not be treated as prisoners of war. Alarming incidents of Confederate atrocities involving Black troops began to filter north. Captured Black troops were often executed summarily or forced into slavery.14 In a letter to Confederate general Richard Taylor, General Kirby Smith’s assistant adjutant general S.S. Anderson stated what disposition should be taken in regard to Black soldiers by writing, “No quarter should be shown them. If taken prisoners, however, they should be turned over to the executive authorities of the States in which they may be captured, in obedience to the proclamation of the President of the Confederate States.”15 On hearing that Taylor’s troops had taken Black soldiers as prisoners, Kirby Smith wrote to Richard Taylor: “I hope this may not be so, and that your subordinates who have been in command of capturing parties may have recognized the propriety of giving no quarter to armed negroes and their officers. In this way we may be relieved from a disagreeable dilemma.”16 The “propriety of giving no quarter” was akin to murder. Word of the “disagreeable dilemma” soon reached Lincoln. In July of 1863, Lincoln responded by issuing an “Order of Retaliation” which stated in part:

  The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy’s prisoners in our possession.

  It is therefore ordered that for every [Black] soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for everyone enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.17

  Despite the threats, neither Davis nor Lincoln retaliated. Davis’s message to his Congress and Lincoln’s order of retaliation, however, are two examples that challenge the modern belief that the American Civil War was fought by gentlemen who exhibited only the highest standard of moral conduct
in carrying out their duty. As the war progressed both sides began to adopt actions that, at a personal and governmental level, fell under the concept of black flag warfare. By the winter of 1864, the burdens of a cruel war began to bear heavily on both sides. As the weeks turned into months with no clear resolution in sight on either side, strategies began to change. Targeting the respective heads of state was no longer outside the boundary of acceptable warfare. By the end of 1863 it seems clear that Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln were viewed as legitimate military targets, as evidenced by the events that took place in the first part of 1864.

  In February of 1864 a daring plan was hatched in Washington aimed at the very heart of the Confederacy. The plan had its antecedents in the fall of 1863. By November of that year an estimated 13,000 Union soldiers were being held in prisoner-of-war camps in the Richmond area. These men were held at two principal sites, Libby prison in the heart of Richmond and Belle Isle prison camp located on an island in the James River immediately south of the city.

  As reports began to filter into Washington it became clear that the conditions of these prisoners was appalling. With Lee hard pressed to feed his own army, Union prisoners were at greater risk of malnutrition and starvation. Not only were prisoners suffering from a shortage of rations, but word also reached Lincoln that the men were often subjected to brutal treatment by sadistic guards. To make matters worse, Mary Lincoln’s brother, Captain David Todd, was one of the wardens in charge of Libby prison. Sergeant Charles Whitcomb, a Michigan cavalryman, told a House committee investigating the treatment of Union prisoners how Captain Todd had slashed him across his leg with a saber in an unprovoked attack simply because he hated Yankees.18 Such treatment was believed common in Richmond’s prisons. Lincoln felt increasing pressure to take action.

  In May of 1863, during the Chancellorsville campaign, Major General George Stoneman was sent by the Army of the Potomac’s commanding general, Joseph Hooker, on a raid behind Lee’s lines in an effort to disrupt Lee’s supply lines. Moving completely around Lee’s army, contingents of Stoneman’s cavalry breached the Richmond defenses and came within two miles of the center of the city. Several Union officers imprisoned in the city reported to their superiors following their exchange that the defenses protecting Richmond were so poor that Stoneman’s men could have entered Richmond without opposition and burned it to the ground. One of these paroled officers, General August Willich, personally met with Lincoln on May 8 and told Lincoln about the defenses surrounding Richmond.19 Impressed with Willich’s story, Lincoln sent Hooker a telegram in which he stated, “There was not a sound pair of legs in Richmond, and our men, could have safely gone in and burnt everything & brought us Jeff. Davis.”20 Lincoln was not one to write idle thoughts. The idea of bringing out Jeff Davis was in Lincoln’s head, and he favored the thought.

  On February 6, 1864, Brigadier General Isaac J. Wistar, under the command of Major General Benjamin F. Butler, launched a cavalry raid against Richmond designed to breach the poorly manned defenses and enter the city freeing Union prisoners, destroy key facilities, and “capture some of the leaders of the rebellion,” including Jefferson Davis.21 James W. White, a prominent New York politician allied with Horace Greeley, wrote to Greeley following White’s visit to Butler’s headquarters shortly before the raid began. White stated that one of the objectives of the raid was to “first capture Davis and then blow up the Tredegar Ironworks.”22

  Butler was in command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina at the time, and had made certain that both Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton were fully aware of the planned raid against the Confederate capital and her leaders.23 Wistar’s raid was aborted, however, when his troops reached the key crossing points of the Chickahominy River and found them heavily guarded in anticipation of the Yankee raiders. Confederate intelligence had received detailed information about the raid and had ample time to prepare to meet it head on at the point where it had planned to cross the river.

  Realizing that both the loss of surprise and the concentrated Confederate defense jeopardized his plan, Wistar ordered his forces to retreat. Despite the failure of this planned raid, it clearly demonstrated that black flag tactics were aimed at leaders of the Confederacy. Wistar’s instructions to capture “the leaders of the rebellion” appeared in the Richmond papers claiming a plot existed “to liberate the prisoners and assassinate the President.”24

  While Lincoln was apparently disappointed at Wistar’s failure, he was still in favor of attempting to rescue the imprisoned soldiers whose worsening condition weighed heavily on his mind. Within three weeks of the Wistar raid, a second plan emerged, this one from within the Army of the Potomac. Unlike the Wistar raid that had Butler’s fall support as commanding general, the second raid was opposed by the command structure of the Army of the Potomac. Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick, commander of the Third Division of the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, proposed another raid against Richmond led by himself. Nine months earlier Kilpatrick, as part of the Stoneman raid, led a cavalry brigade to the very gates of Richmond only to fall back without attempting to enter the city. It was following this raid that Lincoln sent his telegram to Hooker telling him of Richmond’s vulnerability and the lost opportunity to capture Davis. Kilpatrick’s near success in May of 1863 must have impressed Lincoln enough to give him some hope of eventual success. Lincoln must have realized that burning everything in Richmond and capturing Jefferson Davis could not happen without the loss of civilian life. While capturing the commander in chief of an enemy force was within the laws of warfare, targeting civilians was not. Once again the black flag was raised.

  Kilpatrick’s proposed raid called for the same main objective as Wistar’s earlier raid, namely the freeing of Union prisoners. Accompanying the Kilpatrick forces was a young cavalry officer, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren. Young Dahlgren was the son of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, who was in command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The younger Dahlgren was personally acquainted with Lincoln and well liked by the president. Kilpatrick’s plan consisted of a two-pronged approach with Kilpatrick attacking Richmond from the northwest while Dahlgren would slip around to the south of Richmond with five hundred men and attack from that point. Dahlgren would cross over the James River, free the Union prisoners at Belle Isle prison, and with his supplemented force enter Richmond from the south. One group of men, known as “Pioneers,” armed with oakum, turpentine, and torpedoes, were assigned to burn the city.25

  It was essential that the two forces coordinate their attacks if they were to be successful. Kilpatrick, however, met resistance and aborted his attack while Dahlgren became trapped north of the James River unable to find a fordable spot across the rain-swollen current. Cut off from Kilpatrick and unable to backtrack, Dahlgren tried to lead his troopers to the east around Richmond, only to run into a Confederate ambush. During a brief exchange of gunfire in which Dahlgren’s small troop scattered, the young officer was shot from his saddle, dying instantly.

  The raid would have been recorded as just another failure in Union efforts to breech the Richmond defenses except for one incredible error on the part of young Dahlgren. In a search of his body following his death, several documents were found that caused a sensation within the Confederate leadership and indignant denials from the Union military. Two of the documents contained written instructions detailing the raiders’ objectives. These objectives could be explained in no other terms except black flag warfare. One document, with the heading “Headquarters, Third Cavalry Corps” and addressed to “Officers and Men,” outlined the objectives of Dahlgren’s attack. The troopers were to free the prisoners from Belle Isle and then, leading the contingent into Richmond, burn the city and capture Davis and his cabinet. A second document was more detailed, giving instructions: “The men must keep together and well in hand, and once in the city it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and cabinet killed.”26 These papers were written in Dahlgren’s hand.

  One can i
magine the havoc that would occur if thousands of brutally treated prisoners of war were turned loose in the capital of the Confederacy. Releasing such prisoners into the city of Richmond armed with oakum and turpentine could only prove disastrous for the civilian population of that city. Such action was viewed by most Southerners as an act of terrorism. Calling for the killing of Davis and his cabinet was nothing short of murder. The Confederate leaders were both outraged and delighted. Outraged at the barbarity of the proposed plan and delighted that such conclusive evidence had fallen into their hands—evidence that could be laid at the feet of President Lincoln.

  The Confederates were quick to release the text of the orders and make photographic copies to prove their authenticity. It was a major propaganda coup for the Confederacy. Davis instructed Lee to give copies of the documents under a flag of truce to the Union army’s commanding general, George Meade.27 Meade’s response was to distance himself as far as possible from the whole affair. He had not authorized the raid and did not support it in any manner. In responding to Lee’s inquiry, Meade wrote, “In reply I have to state that neither the United States Government, myself, nor General Kilpatrick authorized, sanctioned, or approved the burning of the city of Richmond and the killing of Mr. Davis and cabinet.”28 Meade made it look as if Dahlgren had taken it upon himself to draft the orders and determine the objectives of his troopers once inside Richmond. Unfortunately Dahlgren was dead and unable to defend himself against such charges. Nevertheless, Meade’s letter cleared everyone in the chain of command—beginning with Dahlgren’s commander, Judson Kilpatrick, and extending up to President Lincoln—of any knowledge or hand in setting Dahlgren’s mission as described in the documents.