190 “bands of partisan rangers”: OR, series 4, 1: 1094–95.
190 Arkansas: Robert R. Mackey, The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861–1865 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 30.
190 Missouri: Fellman, Inside War, 103.
190 reluctant to adopt: Sutherland, Savage Conflict, 53–54; Donald E. Sutherland. “Guerrilla Warfare, Democracy, and the Fate of the Confederacy,” Journal of Southern History 68 (2002): 275–77.
190 “might lay waste to Philadelphia”: Sutherland, Savage Conflict, 94.
190 “plundering, devouring”: Mackey, Uncivil War, 39–40.
190 “hurricane violence”: Silvana R. Siddali, ed., Missouri’s War: The Civil War in Documents (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 82.
191 “principal occupation”: OR, series 1, 8: 641–42.
191 Randolph was gone: Brooks D. Simpson & Jean V. Berlin, eds., Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860–1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 306; see also Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 114–17.
191 “all persons who shall be taken with arms”: OR, series 1, 3: 466–67.
191 “not commissioned or enlisted”: Sutherland, Savage Conflict, 59.
191 “duly enrolled” . . . “exempt them from punishment”: OR, series 1, 8: 822.
191 “expressly authorized”: William Oke Manning, Commentaries on the Law of Nations (London: S. Sweet, 1839), 153.
191 Martens had said the same: G. F. von Martens, Summary of the Law of Nations: Founded on the Treaties and Customs of the Modern Nations of Europe, trans. William Cobbett (London: William Cobbett, 1795), bk 3, ch. 3, §6, pp. 284–85.
191 “a commission from their sovereign”: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 3, ch. 15, §226, p. 400.
192 “without a sanction from their governments”: Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law, Designed as an Aid in Teaching, and in Historical Studies (Boston: J. Munroe, 1860), 280.
192 “partizan and guerrilla troops”: Halleck, International Law, 386.
192 “You must be aware”: Sutherland, Savage Conflict, 64.
192 “specially appointed”: Ibid., 63–64.
192 “recognized by me”: Mackey, Uncivil War, 33.
192 “We cannot be expected”: OR, series 1, 13: 726–28.
192–93 “acting under the authority”: OR, series 2, 3: 885.
193 fiercely defended the partisan rangers: OR, series 2, 4: 907; Siddali, Missouri’s War, 147–48.
193 their oldest son: FL to Alexander Dallas Bache, June 18, 1862, box 32, Bache Correspondence, Rhees Collection, HL.
193 “has thus knocked”: FL to Henry Halleck, August 9, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
193 Behind the scenes in 1861: Edward Bates to FL, August 13, 1861, December 19, 1861, May 6, 1862, May 9, 1862, and June 24, 1862, all in box 2, FLP HL; FL to Henry Halleck, January 30, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
193 call on Lieber to solicit: Edward Bates to FL, June 10, 1862, box 2, FLP HL; FL to Matilda Lieber, August 7, 1862, box 36, FLP HL. Stanton requested, and Lieber wrote, a memorandum on the “military use of colored persons.” FL to Henry Halleck, August 10, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
193 a formal memorandum: FL to Henry Halleck, August 9, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
193 “I highly approve”: Henry Halleck to FL, August 20, 1862, box 9, FLP HL.
194 “self-constituted”: Lieber, Guerrilla Parties, 8.
194 “maintained in good faith”: Ibid., 17.
194 verbose and rambling: E.g., David Glazier, “Ignorance Is Not Bliss: The Law of Belligerent Occupation and the U.S. Invasion of Iraq,” Rutgers Law Review 58 (2005): 154–55; Fellman, Inside War, 84.
194 Clausewitz had described: Clausewitz, On War, 76.
195 “Whether the guerrillas”: William T. Sherman to Maj.-Gen. Thomas C. Hindman (C.S.A.), September 1862, in Mackey, Uncivil War, 35.
195 summary field executions: OR, series 1, 17: 97; OR, series 2, 4: 86–87; OR, series 2, 5: 411; Fellman, Inside War, 86–87; Clay Mountcastle, Punitive War: Confederate Guerrillas and Union Reprisals (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 39; Siddali, Missouri’s War, 137–38.
195 “The most disciplined soldiers”: Lieber, Guerrilla Parties, 17.
195 death spiral of retaliation: FL to Henry Halleck, June 2, 1863, box 27, FLP HL.
196 precisely to avoid: Robert R. Mackey, “Bushwackers, Provosts, and Tories: The Guerrilla War in Arkansas,” in Daniel E. Sutherland, ed., Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Homefront (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 1999), 176–77.
196 tablet on the mantelpiece: Description of Francis Lieber’s Library (n.d.), box 55, FLP HL.
196 “war in earnest”: Clausewitz, On War, trans. J. J. Graham (London: N. Trubner, 1873), 149.
196 “Blood”: Childress, “Francis Lieber’s Interpretation,” 44.
Chapter 7. Act of Justice
197 The extraordinary spectacle: Daniel Ruggles to Benjamin Franklin Butler, July 15, 1862, OR, series 1, 15: 520.
197 a nineteenth-century celebrity: Allan Nevins, Frémont: Pathmarker of the West (New York: D. Appleton Co., 1939).
198 “Their slaves, if any they have”: OR, series 2, 3: 467.
198 was inspiring outright terror: Joseph Holt to AL, September 12, 1861, ALP LC.
198 As protests from Kentucky: Joshua Speed to AL, September 1, 1861, ALP LC; Green Adams and James Speed to AL, September 2, 1861, ALP LC.
198 Missouri: AL to David Hunter, September 9, 1861, ALP LC; Montgomery Blair to AL, September 14, 1861, ALP LC.
198 “liberating [the] slaves”: Basler, 4: 506.
198 “nearly the same as”: Ibid., 4: 532.
198 “as long as the necessity lasts” . . . “their permanent future condition”: Ibid., 4: 531.
199 “private property on land”: H. W. Halleck, International Law, or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War (San Francisco: H. H. Bancroft & Co., 1861).
199 Roger Taney had endorsed: See United States v. Percheman, 32 U.S. 51, 65 (1833).
199 Henry Wheaton: Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law: With a Sketch of the History of the Science (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1836), 252–54.
199 “The just fame”: “The Rightful Power of Congress to Confiscate and Emancipate,” Monthly Law Reporter 24 (1862): 469, 480.
199 “double character”: Thomas R. R. Cobb, An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., 1858), 83.
200 “the constant terrors”: “Histoire de l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité,” North American Review 91 (July 1860): 90, 94.
200 slaves had massacred: C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), 88–89. For a brilliant account of the memory of Haiti during the Civil War, see Matthew J. Clavin, Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).
200 any “point of our immense coast”: George Mifflin Dallas, A Series of Letters from London Written During the Years 1856, ’57, ’58, ’59, and ’60 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1869), 106.
200 “You cannot fight!”: “Our Women in the War.” The Lives They Lived; The Deaths They Died. From the Weekly News and Courier, Charleston, S.C. (Charleston: News & Courier Book Presses, 1885), 340.
200 a “private war”: Lysander Spooner, A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery, and to the Non-Slaveholders of the South (New York: Lysander Spooner, 1858).
200 at the request of John Brown: Herbert Aptheker, “Militant Abolitionism,” Journal of Negro History 26, no. 4 (October 1941): 438, 468.
201 “consequences attendant on”: Joel Parker, The Character of the Rebellion and the
Conduct of the War (Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow & Co., 1862), 41.
201 Buchanan blamed abolitionists: Richardson, 5: 627.
201 South Carolina listed northern incitement: Journal of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, Held in 1860, 1861, and 1862 (Columbia: R. W. Gibbes, 1862), 465.
201 a “servile insurrection”: Thomas Jackson Arnold, ed., Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, “Stonewall” Jackson (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1916), 294.
201 whispered to one another: C. Vann Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 43–44.
201 Stories of secret caches: Susan Dallas, ed., Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1892), 431–32.
201 Suspicious arson in Texas: See Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 17.
201 slave conspiracy planned for March 4: Armstead L. Robinson, “In the Shadow of Old John Brown: Insurrection Anxiety and Confederate Mobilization, 1861–1863,” Journal of Negro History 65, no. 4 (Autumn 1980): 279, 287–88.
201 “an insurrection” . . . the countryside near Huntsville, Alabama: Robinson, “In the Shadow of Old John Brown,” 288.
201 “whole families”: “Imminent Peril of a Slave Insurrection [Correspondence of the New York Tribune],” Liberator, August 16, 1861, p. 130.
201 letters poured into the offices: Robinson, “In the Shadow of Old John Brown,” 288.
201 In the War of 1812: See “Negro Stealing,” Palladium of Liberty (Fauquier County, VA), January 8, 1814; “Norfolk Public Ledger,” Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), April 12, 1815; “Editorial,” Raleigh Register, April 7, 1815.
201 “in this, as in all other instances”: “Mobile Register [excerpt],” Liberator, June 14, 1861, p. 1.
202 Southern state governors . . . 200,000 Confederate troops: Robinson, “In the Shadow of Old John Brown,” 283–88.
202 “suppress servile insurrection”: OR, series 1, 2: 661–62.
202 George Cadwalader of Philadelphia: See “Speech of Wendell Phillips, Esq., at the Anti-Slavery Celebration at Framingham, July 4, 1861,” Liberator, July 12, 1861.
202 Union forces in western Virginia: Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988), 79.
202 the assistance of his Massachusetts forces: OR, series 2, 1: 567.
202 “contraband of war”: Adam Goodheart, 1861: Civil War Awakening (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 295–347.
202 better suited to pistols: Kate Masur, “ ‘A Rare Phenomenon of Philological Vegetation’: The Word Contraband and the Meanings of Emancipation in the United States,” Journal of American History 93 (March 2007): 1050, 1066.
202 Butler was no abolitionist: For Butler’s life and career, see Hans L. Trefousse, Benjamin Butler: The South Called Him Beast! (New York: Twayne, 1957).
202 at New Orleans, he would turn slaves away: OR, series 1, 15: 439–40.
203 Angry abolitionists: “Repressing Slave Insurrections,” Liberator, May 17, 1861, p. 79.
203 “one of the inherent weaknesses”: “The Governor of Massachusetts on Slave Insurrections,” Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London), June 2, 1861.
203 “In what manner” . . . “honorable warfare”: “Interesting Correspondence: Repressing Slave Insurrections,” New York Times, May 16, 1861.
204 Sir Guy Carleton had: Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution (New York: Ecco, 2006), 151.
204 Adams rediscovered his antislavery commitments: William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 186–88; William Jerry MacLean, “Othello Scorned: The Racial Thought of John Quincy Adams,” Journal of the Early Republic 4, no. 2 (1984): 143–60.
204 Contesting the so-called gag rule: Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 1st sess., appendix 433–36.
204 “laws and municipal institutions” . . . “slavery and emancipation”: Worthington Chauncey Ford & Charles Francis Adams, Jr., John Quincy Adams: His Connection with the Monroe Doctrine (1843) and with Emancipation Under Martial Law (1819–1842) (Cambridge: J. Wilson & Son, 1902), 75–77.
204 “was fully warranted” . . . “why may he not negroes?”: Orville H. Browning to AL, September 30, 1861, ALP LC.
205 from the day Fort Sumter was shelled: David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), 388.
205 Sumner became convinced: Charles Sumner, “Emancipation Our Best Weapon,” in The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1870–83), 6: 31.
205 Lincoln had abandoned: Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 57.
205 an October speech: Sumner, “Emancipation Our Best Weapon,” 1–64.
205 “horrid policy”: quoted in ibid., 42.
205 “the slave property of rebels”: “The News,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Honolulu), March 27, 1862, p. 2 (quoting New York Journal of Commerce).
205 “nothing is truer”: “The Lounger,” Harper’s Weekly, October 19, 1861, pp. 658–59.
205 “let slavery feel”: “Just and Sound,” Independent, December 12, 1861, p. 4 (quoting Christian Intelligencer).
205 defending a broad war power: William Whiting, The War Powers of the President and the Legislative Powers of Congress in Relation to Rebellion, Treason and Slavery (Boston: J. L. Shorey, 1862).
205 forty-three separate printings: Mark E. Neely, Jr., Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University at North Carolina Press, 2012), 84.
205 “like the letting loose”: Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 48.
206 “wild and lawless”: Sumner, “Emancipation Our Best Weapon,” 27.
206 “Servile insurrections”: “Selections,” Liberator, December 7, 1860, p. 1.
206 “What are these madmen”: Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The President’s Message,” Independent, December 20, 1860, p. 1.
206 “Experiments of emancipation” . . . “must stand aghast!”: Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “Martial Law or Competition?” Independent, October 24, 1861, p. 1.
206 Lincoln cast a losing vote: Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010), 59–60. Don Fehrenbacher’s excellent posthumous book uncharacteristically gets this episode in Lincoln’s career wrong. See Don E. Fehrenbacher & Ward M. McAfee, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 369 n. 40.
206 “Every civilized nation”: Foner, Fiery Trial, 60.
207 from the day of his election: Anonymous to AL, January 14, 1861, ALP LC; The Count Johannes [George Jones] to AL, April 28, 1861, ALP LC; James Hamilton to AL, May 3, 1861, ALP LC.
207 Bates warned Lincoln repeatedly: Edward Bates, “Memorandum, April 15, 1861,” ALP LC; Howard K. Beale, ed., The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933), 179; Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Seward: Remarks Upon the Memorial Address of Chas. Francis Adams on the Late Wm. H. Seward (New York: Sheldon, 1874), 211–12.
207 “All of us who live”: Joshua Speed to AL, September 1, 1861, ALP LC.
207 He quietly approved Butler’s: Foner, Fiery Trial, 171.
207 And when his beleaguered: Ibid., 187–88.
207 “Seven negroes”: Ibid., 9.
207 Lincoln found himself wondering: Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 254–57.
207–208 “military necessity” . . . “forever free”: OR, series 3, 2: 48.
208 “Whether at any time”: Basler, 5: 222.
208 “Rending or wrecking”: Ibid., 5: 223.
208 on the peninsula between the Rappahannock: On the Peninsula Campaig
n, see James M. McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 426–90.
209 “I have never written you”: Basler, 5: 185.
209 “Our left is now”: George B. McClellan to Edwin M. Stanton, June 2, 1862, in Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Correspondence of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865 (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989), 286.
209 “We ought instead of retreating”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 470.
209 warfare as a kind of chess match: T. Harry Williams, McClellan, Sherman, and Grant (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962), 23.
210 “by pure military skill” . . . “brightest chapters”: George B. McClellan to Ambrose Burnside, May 21, 1862, in Sears, ed., Civil War Correspondence, 269.
210 “tired of the sickening sight”: Williams, McClellan, Sherman and Grant, 24.
210 “I confess”: Sears, McClellan: The Young Napoleon, 116.
210 “an iron hand”: Ibid., 79.
210 “sudden and general emancipation”: George B. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story: The War for the Union, the Soldiers Who Fought It, the Civilians Who Directed It, and His Relations to Them (New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1887), 33.
210 “who assured the slaveholders”: “Gerrit Smith on McClellan’s Nomination and Acceptance,” Liberator, September 23, 1864, p. 155.
210–11 “should be conducted” . . . “rapidly disintegrate our present armies”: OR, series I, 11 (part 1): 73–74.
211 “come to the conclusion”: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 1: 70–71.
211–12 “as a fit and necessary” . . . “be free”: Basler, 5: 336–37.
212 “The will of God” . . . “human instrumentalities”: Ibid., 5: 403–04.
213 “I am almost ready”: Ibid., 5: 404.
213 “certain that they represent” . . . “to favor their side”: Ibid., 5: 420.
213 “Good men” . . . facts, principles, and arguments”: Ibid., 5: 421.
213 “Do not misunderstand me”: Ibid., 5: 425.
214 “depredation and massacre” . . . “arm the slaves”: John H. Niven, The Salmon P. Chase Papers: Journals, 1829–1872 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993–), 1: 351; also David Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln’s Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (New York: Longmans, Green, 1954), 99.
Lincoln's Code Page 61