This election was the first in which Ohio soldiers in the field could cast a legal vote. Joseph Leeds of the Seventy-Ninth Ohio Infantry wrote that there was not much excitement in camp as all but a dozen soldiers in his regiment were voting for Brough. He described a “frolick” that the men had a few days before the election. “We hung old Val in effigy,” Leeds related, “and if we had the old boy himself we would serve him the same way.” Numerous officers, like Colonel Stephen McGroarty of the Sixty-First Ohio Infantry, were given furloughs so they could hit the meeting circuit and stump for the Union candidates.8
The candidates barnstormed all over the state. From mid-August through mid-September, Anderson gave nineteen speeches in thirty-four days. Pugh’s voice gave out during an exhausting campaign schedule as he stood in for his exiled running mate. As victory for Brough and Anderson neared, the election rhetoric grew more personal. Vallandigham gained a coup of sorts on August 21, when Anderson’s brother Marshall declared for the Democrats. Marshall’s logic was simple. Whoever supports the war effort, by virtue of the Emancipation Proclamation, supports abolitionism. “Abolitionism,” Anderson’s brother declared, “is the sire and dam of disunion.” Marshall had worked hard early in the war to enlist troops and willingly sent two sons into Union service. His nephew died at Vicksburg. What he could not abide, however, was the loss of civil liberties that Lincoln’s wartime actions foreshadowed. He supported Vallandigham, he declared, because he prefered “the principle of Liberty to the price of blood.”
Marshall went on to compare the Union ticket to a jockey and his horse. “Smiling Jack” Brough left Anderson carrying the heavy speaking load during the campaign. If not kept to a focused message, Marshall claimed, “just as sure as the glowing hide of the fat knight emits the odors of Africa, so surely will Charley fly the track, and then ‘farewell, a long farewell to all your hopes and glory.’” Vallandigham sent the same message about Anderson in a less brotherly tone: “Charles is a very uncertain quantity—a filthy gentleman whose brain is not very securely anchored in his skull cap.” Political independence was not something that many politicians or even brothers understood or respected.9
On September 18, Anderson gave the last of his campaign speeches in Mount Vernon, Ohio. A day later, the bloody Battle of Chickamauga began. Anderson’s former regiment suffered severely, among nearly thirty-five thousand casualties. Its commanding officer, Colonel Hiram Strong, was mortally wounded. Other friends and family were casualties of this epic battle. Colonel Nicholas Anderson of the Sixth Ohio suffered grave injuries. Kitty Anderson’s fiancé, the loyal and brave Will Jones, died on the field. Charles Anderson went home to grieve with his daughter, hoping that this military defeat would not turn the tide of the election. He need not have worried.
Brough and Anderson won the day by more than one hundred thousand votes amid the largest turnout in Ohio electoral history. They won the soldier vote by a majority of nearly forty thousand, while winning both Vallandigham’s home county and the city of Dayton. Officials in the Lincoln administration celebrated. Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase said that the Union could “count every ballot a bullet fairly aimed at the heart of the rebellion.” Lincoln himself admitted that he was more anxious about the Brough-Vallandigham contest than he had been over his own election in 1860. When Ohio governor David Tod wired the good news to the president, Lincoln reportedly responded, “Glory to God in the highest; Ohio has saved the Union.”10
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Pit Bull and the President
THE OHIO ELECTION RESULTS WERE widely publicized, thrusting Anderson back into the national spotlight. When New York’s Union Party faced a tough battle with Democrats for control of the state legislature, party leader William P. Wellen reached out to Anderson, asking him to speak before the November 3 contest. He declined. Anderson had made it clear to anyone listening during his own campaign that he was in the race for one purpose only: to win the war and save the Union. “I am and expect to be neither a Republican nor a Democrat,” he declared. “The one is not better than the other.” In later years he looked back on this opportunity, calling himself a “fool.” Anderson believed that his stubborn independence and refusal to go fishing for higher office may have ultimately cost him a shot at the vice presidency.1
David Tod identified with Anderson’s unfettered stance. The governor, a radical Democrat before the war, had governed under the Union banner. Tod placed the welfare of the country above party loyalties. As his administration wound down, the governor, who had demonstrated so much commitment and patriotism in raising volunteers for the war, searched for ways to secure his legacy. He looked to Anderson to help his cause by staying the course. The governors of the various states that had suffered casualties at the epic Battle of Gettysburg were asked to send delegations to a ceremony in November 1863. The consecration of a new national cemetery within the borders of the battlefield prompted this great gathering. President Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, and countless other government officials planned to attend. Tod embraced the idea with more enthusiasm than any of his peers. He assembled a large delegation of state officials, including former governor William Dennison, Brough, and Anderson, to represent Ohio at a mass meeting the evening following the dedication. When it came to a featured speaker for the event, Tod’s choice was obvious. He asked the lieutenant governor-elect to prepare suitable remarks for the occasion. Anderson eagerly accepted.2
The governor and most of the Ohio delegation departed on Monday, November 16. They expected to stop for the night in Altoona, Pennsylvania, but fate intervened. Two freight engines collided on the tracks near Coshocton, Ohio, so the dignitaries were delayed after a trip of fewer than eighty miles. Tod was already under attack from Democratic newspapers for funding the transportation from the state treasury. He and his fellow passengers added fuel to the fire when they spent the next four hours enjoying libations at a local distillery called Hay’s Fountain. “High Times on the Way to Gettysburg,” jeered the headline in the Daily Ohio Statesman. The Cincinnati Enquirer hooted that Ohio’s public officials “should be ashamed of themselves.”3
Brough and Anderson missed the party at Hay’s Fountain, joining the delegation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. The railroad added as many extra trains as they could as the assemblage swelled to more than fifteen thousand. Governors from at least eight states arrived in the tiny town of Gettysburg with their entourages. The Presidential Guard, multiple detachments of infantry, eight companies of artillery, and a cavalry unit converged on the scene. Shortly after sundown, President Lincoln, three cabinet secretaries, foreign diplomats, and distinguished citizens disembarked for the next day’s festivities. When the immense crowd pleaded with the president to speak, he made his apologies. Lincoln was ill and fatigued.4
One man who seldom appeared tired was legendary Massachusetts politician and educator Edward Everett. David Willis, who helped finance the cemetery project and organized the event, chose Everett for the dedication’s principal speech. He so coveted the famous orator that he was willing to delay the consecration a month to give Everett adequate time to prepare. Everett’s pedigree was impressive. He was a former governor who had served in both houses of Congress. He held the post of ambassador to the United Kingdom and later became the twentieth U.S. secretary of state. Everett was once a Unitarian preacher and a former president of Harvard College. His unsuccessful candidacy for vice president on the John Bell ticket in 1860 closed out his political career, and he became a full-time orator. His words were much anticipated by the throngs attending the memorial ceremonies.
November 19 dawned cold, and a heavy fog reinforced the solemnity of the occasion. At ten o’clock the long retinue of dignitaries began a slow march through the streets of Gettysburg to the cemetery. The head of the procession arrived at the speaker’s platform at a quarter past eleven, when the soldiers honored the president with a military salute and the dedication program began. Lincoln sat betwee
n Seward and Everett on the packed stand. The crowd listened as the band played a funeral dirge composed by Adolph Birgfeld called “Homage d’un Heros.” The Reverend Thomas H. Stockton, chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, then gave a long and soulful prayer, which left most people in the audience, including Lincoln and Everett, in tears. Another musical interlude followed before Everett rose to deliver the keynote address.
Everett’s speaking style was classical in every sense. He prepared meticulously for each major oration and usually memorized his speeches. He had poured over maps of the battlefield and interviewed participants. His purpose was not only to honor the dead but also to inform and inspire the living. Battlefield memorials were his specialty. He had given memorial speeches at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Everett was world renowned for his dramatic flair, his sweet, almost musical voice, and his commanding stage presence. He rivaled the great actors of his day in his ability to hold an audience spellbound for hours. But the Massachusetts icon was also a sick old man who would be dead in a little more than a year. This was to be one of his last important moments.
Everett’s oration did not disappoint. He opened his address by demonstrating his intimate knowledge of Greek culture and military history, comparing the present consecration to the funerary customs of ancient Athens. Referencing the funerary speech of the great Pericles before him, Everett relished his unusual opportunity to eulogize the recently slain on the very soil they died defending. One observer appreciated the intelligence of the speaker, as he placed the epic battle into the broader context of world history. This same witness remarked that, despite Everett’s regal bearing, he appeared somewhat aloof, like a Greek statue. Others listened with “breathless silence” as tears streamed down their cheeks.
Everett delivered a long discourse on the history of both the Gettysburg battle and the war. He laid blame for the conflict squarely on the shoulders of ambitious politicians from the cotton states. Everett made his case in the dignified and learned manner he felt was appropriate to such an occasion. The famous orator did not need to use incendiary language to repeat well-worn charges against the enemies of the Union. Yet he appeared naive in his conciliatory call for reunion at the close of his speech. The great masses of Southerners, he claimed, held “no bitterness” against the government in the North. On the contrary, they were “yearning to see the dear old flag floating upon their capitols, and they sigh for the return of peace, prosperity and happiness, which they enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its blessings.” History would prove him wrong on this point. Recrimination was lodged deep in the hearts of most citizens of both sections, the North and the South, after nearly three years of bloody slaughter.5
Lincoln’s famous address was intended to be little more than the brief “dedicatory remarks” mentioned in the event programs. His two-minute masterpiece stood in sharp contrast to Everett’s two-hour dissertation. Unlike Everett, Lincoln had not mastered Greek and was hardly an expert on classical history. His simple, direct language came from the heart. The president’s words transcended the battle itself, imparting lasting meaning to the immense sacrifice and tying the results of the war to a new vision of America’s future. In the last third of his remarks, Lincoln referred to an “unfinished work” and “great task” without specifically mentioning either the war or the South. The great cause of reunion was in the hands of the people, as the president so elegantly stated. Under his leadership they would win the war and save the republic.
The dedication ceremony broke up around two in the afternoon. Governor Tod announced that the Ohio delegation’s meeting would be held at the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church on Baltimore Street early that evening. The building had been used as a hospital for cavalry troops during the battle but was restored in time for the event. Tod urged Lincoln, Seward, and other important personages to attend the gathering so they could hear Anderson speak. They readily accepted the invitation. This was supposed to be Anderson’s show, but an ordinary seventy-year-old tradesman ended up stealing the headlines.6 Old John Burns was a grizzled veteran of the War of 1812. When the rebels appeared near the doorstep of his farm in sleepy Gettysburg, the old shoemaker grabbed his ancient rifle and begged Union commanders to enlist his aid as a sharpshooter to help defend the town. California writer and poet Bret Harte composed a ballad about him:
The only man who didn’t back down
When the rebels rode through his native town;
But held his own in the fight next day,
When all his town folk ran away.7
Burns mustered in with the 105th Pennsylvania Volunteers on the spot. It was said that he brought down three Confederate soldiers. Lincoln had heard the tale and made Burns his special guest for the evening. The aged hero and the president walked arm in arm in an informal procession to the Presbyterian Church. Before the president arrived, an overflowing assembly had been seated.
Governor Tod called the meeting to order. Tod appointed ex-governor William Dennison chairman of the meeting and instructed journalist I. P. Allen to function as secretary. Tod hoped that the meeting would comfort the families of fallen soldiers to know that Ohio not only appreciated their sacrifice but also understood what it meant to the great cause of reunion. Some attendees urged General Robert C. Schenck to say a few words, but the “Hero of Vienna” declined to upstage his old friend Anderson. With the formalities concluded about a quarter past five, Lincoln, Seward, and the secretary of the interior James P. Usher made their entrance to the enthusiastic applause of the capacity crowd. Burns, wearing the simple costume of a country farmer, sat in a pew between Lincoln and Seward. Dennison rose and introduced the featured speaker, who was treated to “rousing cheers” by the large audience. Anderson was in his element.8
Anderson’s oration was, in comparison to the words of Everett and Lincoln, as a revival meeting is to a formal homily and a benediction. Everett was erudite and subdued. Anderson was fiery and provocative. Whereas Lincoln promised a restoration of freedom and republican ideals, Anderson vowed to crush the rebellion at any cost. Fresh off a vitriolic campaign where defeat foretold unimaginable political consequences, the lieutenant governor-elect had a message to deliver: The memorial is over. This is a rally. Let’s go forth and finish the job at hand. He began with an admonition, so that the crowd would not misunderstand the purpose of the convocation. Even though Ohio was the only state to hold its own meeting in conjunction with the dedication ceremonies, this was “no narrow and exclusive prejudice of state pride.” Theirs was a meeting to promote the national interest. Ohio had sacrificed her fathers and sons for the Union cause. All of the loyal states had a solemn duty to uphold: repay the national sacrifice and restore peace and prosperity to the country.9
Anderson had credibility when it came to speaking about personal sacrifice to the Union cause. His border-state upbringing and long residence in a free state gave him a broad perspective on the key issues of the war. His legendary political independence assured listeners that his words were not merely propaganda emanating from an administration true-believer. His differences with Lincoln were well known, but on the one overriding issue, he and Lincoln were on exactly the same page. He stood in the church at Gettysburg as an unyielding apostle of Unionism. The audience listened with interest and respect.
The speaker dispensed with Everett’s conciliatory tone and spoke in a more direct manner. In memorial gatherings it was customary to tread cautiously so as not to offend the living, Anderson admitted, but “the dead must have justice at their own graves.” One should not be overly concerned with refinement or charity in such dire circumstances, Anderson insisted. Instead, he said, “We should speak and judge . . . without the cowardice of fearing that our catholic truths shall be miscalled politics.” This was the proper way to respect the dead and their ultimate sacrifice. The retired colonel then launched into a withering attack on the invaders with images of brutal honesty that were the hallmarks of his verbose yet engaging sty
le. “That host of rebels, deluded and sent hither by conspirators and traitors, were vanquished and fled cowering in dismay from this land of Penn and Franklin—of Peace and Freedom—across the Potomac into the domain of Calhoun and Davis—of oligarchic rule and despotic oppressions.” Anderson defined treason as “the bottom sin” and used biblical passages from Luke, excerpts from Shakespeare, and the poetry of Byron and Shelley to illustrate his points.
But his choicest missiles were launched straight from the heart. Anderson mocked the Southern conspirators as debased aristocrats who “were born into the inheritance of unjust power; nurtured by the milk of slaves and slavery, rocked in their cradle by servile hands.” Southern planters were “schooled in their lessons and their sports, into the indulgences of unrestrained passions,” only to be “indulged, persuaded and flattered by Northern Allies and Panderers.” These privileged despots, “cultured into morbid activities and pampered, at last, into insane, parricidal, suicidal arrogance,” plotted against and eventually betrayed “our very Civilization as a people.” Anderson was getting carried away by his own passion and recrimination. The crowd ate it up.
The very dead that lay just yards away were not sleeping the peaceful sleep of honored heroes that Everett spoke of so calmly and eloquently. “Their blood cries out from all this beloved ground,” Anderson exclaimed, “to all these wide heavens above, for God has heard that cry.” He warned that “a yet bloodier retribution awaits—nay now falls upon—those wretched men, whose crime neither Earth can hide nor the seas can cleanse.” The speaker was careful to absolve the majority of his Southern brethren and even military leaders like the noble Lee from his excoriating characterizations. “The wicked purposes of vile and desperate politician traitors,” Anderson explained, “have overruled the good dispositions and infatuated and misguided the honest impulses” of the people.
The Lost Gettysburg Address Page 17