The Devil's Own Work

by Barnet Schecter

With an awareness that the Civil War had yet to be won and its goals secured, the Syracuse convention issued an address to the American people, urging them not to take the demise of slavery for granted, as their forefathers had, but instead to work actively for its destruction.

  Why would you let slavery continue? . . . Do you answer, that you no longer have anything to fear? That slavery has already received its death-blow? That it can only have transient existence, even if permitted to live beyond the war? We answer, So thought your Revolutionary fathers when they framed the Federal Constitution; and to-day, the bloody fruits of their mistake are all around us. Shall we avoid or shall we repeat their stupendous error?14

  Garnet had envisioned the convention as a means of building unity and had opened the first session by exhorting the delegates to resume regular meetings until "complete freedom is ours." However, the divisiveness that prevailed, exemplified by the challenges to Garnet by Douglass and others, produced bitter feelings and little agreement on concrete recommendations to the black community. Like emancipation itself, the black convention movement was beset by uncertainty.15*

  Ultimately, the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation could only be guaranteed by an amendment to the Constitution; first, however, it would have to be secured by Union victory on the battlefield. Jubal Early's forces made one more attempt to retake the Shenandoah Valley but were soundly beaten by Philip Sheridan at Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864. Grant, meanwhile, had kept up the pressure on the Confederate forces around Petersburg, forcing them to stretch their lines thin. Lee sensed that disaster was imminent. Northern soldiers saw victory on the horizon and reenlisted; the draft proceeded without major problems, and Grant's forces were replenished with far better troops than the draftees, substitutes, rioters, and bounty jumpers that had weakened the army during the previous year. Republicans on the campaign trail pointed to military successes in order to reelect Lincoln.16

  Enraged by military defeats, the destruction of huge swaths of the South, and the likelihood of a second term for Lincoln, the Confederates had revived their plans for sabotage in the North, despite their failed insurrection in Chicago. In September 1864, twenty rebel agents operating out of Windsor, Canada, had tried to capture a Union gunboat on Lake Erie and liberate Confederate prisoners of war on Johnson's Island, but a War Department detective posing as a sympathizer uncovered and foiled the plot. In October, leading figures in the Sons of Liberty were arrested in southern Indiana, after provost marshals discovered caches of weapons linked to the group.17

  Accused of conspiring to help the enemy and foment an uprising, the defendants were tried in a military court where Union agents on the case testified that leading Democrats, particularly Vallandigham, were involved in the Sons' schemes to bring down the federal government. During the trials, the U.S. judge-advocate general issued a report describing the Sons of Liberty as a formidable, well-armed group, supported by the Confederacy, that posed a grave threat to the North. With the presidential election just weeks away, Republicans made the most of these charges. "REBELLION IN THE NORTH!! Extraordinary Disclosure! Val's Plan to Overthrow the Government! Peace Party Plot!" blared Republican newspapers. Four men were condemned to death by the military tribunal.18

  While Vallandigham was indeed the titular head of the Sons of Liberty, his direct involvement in the organization's plots, like that of other top Democrats, was probably exaggerated by the Republicans. As the failed uprising at the Democratic convention had demonstrated, the rebel spymasters in Canada—Thomas Hines and Jacob Thompson—were perpetually frustrated by the lack of cooperation from professed allies in the North and their wishful, unrealistic claims about the number of members in the Sons. Nonetheless, the organization and others like it were real, and Thompson, who had conferred with some of their leaders in Canada, claimed he had enough documentation to prove the membership included "very many of the prominent men in the North."19

  Like the Sons of Liberty in the Midwest, the organization in neighboring Missouri—which still called itself the Order of American Knights—consisted of some die-hard leaders with very little dependable grassroots membership. However, it wreaked far more havoc, particularly by forging an alliance with Confederate general Sterling Price, naming him the order's "military commander," and inviting his forces to come north from Arkansas to invade the state.

  Price in turn wooed the leaders of guerrilla bands that had been terrorizing Missouri residents for years in the worst violence of the Civil War by forces outside the regular military. Ever since the struggle over "popular sovereignty" in 1854, the border between Kansas and Missouri had been the scene of savage attacks and reprisals between proslavery and antislavery guerrillas, which grew far worse after the war broke out. The pro-Confederate fighters, in league with the Order of American Knights, also encouraged Price to invade Missouri, promising that his arrival would spark a massive insurrection to shake off Union control of the state.

  Launching a coordinated assault, Price crossed the border into Missouri with twelve thousand cavalry in September 1864. The guerrillas operated behind Union lines, ahead of Price in the center of the state, attacking trains, wagons, and boats, and putting the Federals in the jaws of a pincer movement. The Order of American Knights, meanwhile, was supposed to rouse the inhabitants and turn the invasion into a popular rebellion. Once the Copperhead leaders had been arrested by Union forces, however, it quickly became clear that they had no base of support.

  By contrast, the proslavery guerrillas flocked to Price's side as he moved toward the state capital, Jefferson City, intent on installing the Confederate governor he had brought with him. However, Union forces along with militia from both Missouri and Kansas closed in from all sides. In late October, they clashed repeatedly with Price and his auxiliaries southeast of Kansas City, forcing the general to retreat back to Arkansas, killing many guerrilla leaders, and ending their reign of terror in Missouri.20

  As they had with the conspiracy trials in southern Indiana, Republicans used the reports of Copperhead resistance in Missouri to accuse Democrats of disloyalty and bolster Lincoln's campaign to stay in the White House. Thrown on the defensive, Democrats resorted to the same tactics they had used in the fall of 1862: shrill appeals to the racism of northern whites and to their fear of black emancipation.21As it had before and during the draft riots a year earlier, Manton Marble's World played a conspicuous role in articulating the Democratic doctrine of white supremacy and stirring up racial antagonism.

  Two members of the World's staff produced an anonymous pamphlet titled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races. In it they posed, not very convincingly, as Republicans and advocated interracial marriage or "miscegenation." The pamphleteers also appealed to immigrant hatred of Republican nativists when they wrote that blending with blacks would "be of infinite service to the Irish." The clear message of this pamphlet and many others was that Lincoln's reelection and a war for abolition would culminate in racial amalgamation. A flood of such racially and sexually charged propaganda issued from the Democratic camp.22

  Democrats once again linked abolition and the draft, denouncing both Lincoln the emancipator and "Abe the Widowmaker," who sent hundreds of thousands of white men to die in battle because, they said, he "loves his country less, and the negro more." Supporting petitions to suspend the draft, one newspaper called on the people to "suspend Old Abe—by the neck if necessary to stop the accursed slaughter of our citizens." In Wisconsin, a parody of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" appeared in a Copperhead newspaper supporting McClellan:

  The widow-maker soon must cave,

  Hurrah, Hurrah,

  We'll plant him in some nigger's grave,

  Hurrah, Hurrah.

  Torn from your farm, your ship, your raft,

  Conscript. How do you like the draft,

  And we'll stop that too,

  When little Mac takes the helm.23

  For several weeks before the November election in 1864, Thomas Hines m
oved about undetected through the midwestern states, rallying the Sons of Liberty and trying to organize them into commando squads with military discipline. The saboteurs were trained to cut telegraph wires, blow up prison gates, and start fires in government buildings. On Election Day, November 8, Hines planned to wreak havoc throughout the North, from New York City to rural Iowa.24

  Charles Walsh, the Chicago political boss, was one of the few key leaders in the Sons of Liberty who had not been imprisoned during the arrests and trials in October, and he promised Hines there would be no repeat of the fiasco at the Democratic convention. He had hundreds of weapons stashed beneath the floorboards in his house, a stone's throw from the entrance to Camp Douglas, and his Copperhead followers were now "ready to shed blood."25

  Hines s agent in Missouri had armed three hundred guerrillas for raids into Iowa, instructing them to put every town and village in their path to the torch. Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, and Boston were also marked for destruction by arsonists. In Toronto, Jacob Thompson doled out generous amounts of cash to fund the dozens of Copperheads and Confederate agents who pledged to set the fires and spark massive riots on election day.26

  In New York, James McMasters, the Peace Democrat whose Freeman's Journal had urged violent resistance to the conscription before the draft riots in 1863, now promised the Confederate agents a Copperhead uprising and takeover of the city. All government buildings, including the U.S. Sub-Treasury, police headquarters, and even Fort Lafayette in the Narrows, were to be seized. Liberated Confederates and political prisoners would join in the sacking and burning of New York, while General John Dix, who had enforced the resumption of the draft after the riots a year earlier, was to be taken hostage and held in the government's own prison.27

  The anti-Lincoln atmosphere in New York during the final days of the election campaign further encouraged the Confederates, a team led by Colonel Robert Martin that included Lieutenant John Headley and Robert Cobb Kennedy; Martin and Headley had both participated in John Hunt Morgan's cavalry raid in the summer of 1863. Tammany Hall held various rallies that seemed to verge on riots, and when the Democrats marched up Broadway to Madison Square by torchlight on November 5 for fireworks and a speech by McClellan from the balcony of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, effigies of Lincoln drew hisses and groans from the crowds, which dwarfed the Republican rally of the previous night.28

  However, federal authorities had infiltrated the Sons of Liberty, and by November 7, the plots across the country were exposed. Republicans who were disappointed that General Benjamin Butler had not been sent to New York to enforce martial law after the draft riots at least had the satisfaction of seeing him arrive little more than a year later with some five thousand troops to preserve order during the election. The Times declared that Butler would foil the rebel agents sent to carry out the "villainous threats, made by Richmond papers, of laying New York, Buffalo, and northern cities in ashes."29

  In Chicago, Hines barely escaped, while federal agents rounded up more than one hundred Copperheads and Confederates, including Walsh and his cache of weapons.30 In New York, the news from Chicago and the arrival of Butler and his troops prompted McMasters and the Sons of Liberty to call for a delay of the rebellion. "The more we insisted on the attempt to burn New York City, the weaker Mr. McMasters became," wrote Headley. After numerous meetings with the Copperheads, the attack was rescheduled for November 25, Thanksgiving Day. Soon, the Sons of Liberty pulled out altogether: "We have decided to withdraw from any further connection with the proposed revolution," McMasters informed Martin.31

  With most of Butler's troops discreetly out of sight but ready to intervene, Election Day passed peacefully. Lincoln won every state exccept Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey, giving him a margin of half a million in the popular vote and 212 to 21 in the electoral college. With only the northern and border states voting in 1864, the results replicated the pattern of Republican support for Lincoln in 1860. In every state where Lincoln won, the Republicans also took or retained control of the governor's mansion and the statehouse. In New York, Seymour lost the governor's race to a radical Republican, Reuben Fenton. Ben and Fernando Wood both lost their seats in Congress, where the Republicans amassed a three-fourths majority.32

  To no one's surprise, Lincoln lost in New York City, where McClellan won with Irish support. The city's Irish voters appeared to be out of step with the rest of the North, but their alliance with the city's Democratic party supported its resurgence and would help turn the tide in national politics over the next dozen years.33

  New York Democrats accused the Republicans of foul play at the voting booth and of irregularities in counting the absentee votes of enlisted men. Lincoln had not imposed martial law, but the presence of the army to supervise the draft in August and the elections in November created a grievance—justified in some cases—and an excuse for Democratic failures. Democrats like Governor Seymour's military secretary, William Kidd—who believed the Republicans had carried out the draft lottery in July 1863 when the militia were off in Pennsylvania in order to precipitate riots, have an excuse for martial law, and manipulate elections—undoubtedly saw their fears realized in the election of 1864.

  Another challenge for Tammany Democrats, in local elections, was the loss of their traditionally solid support from labor. In the fall of 1864, the labor movement in New York began fielding independent candidates. Accustomed to working from dawn until dusk, if not longer, workers demanded legislation and enforcement of an eight-hour workday. The movement called for reduced hours to secure "the independence of the working class" and create a more perfect democracy by allowing time for educational pursuits and political action. The formula of eight hours' work, eight hours' rest, and eight hours of "moral cultivation" proclaimed the "respectability" of the worker, who was disciplined and productive enough to put in a full day's labor in this reduced span of time. In the wake of the draft riots, which had buttressed the stereotype of the hard-drinking, brawling worker, the eight-hour movement sought to cast its members in a more favorable light.34

  Beyond the threats from Republicans and the defection of labor in New York, the Democratic party faced the fundamental problem that began with its internal split in the 1850s and continued with the war: the need to offer a vision for the future; to unite and rebuild the party by adapting traditional Jacksonian principles of small government, individual freedom, and states' rights to the realities of the war and the forces of change it had unleashed.35

  The demands of fighting a war against rebellion and supplying a vast army had transformed the federal government, increasing its size and turning it into a truly national power. Though they could not turn back the clock, the Democrats, over the next dozen years, would do all they could to preserve their conservative vision and stalemate the causes for which the war was fought. Locked in a struggle with a Republican Congress during Reconstruction, they would soon pay lip service to black equality in order to neutralize it as a political issue. At the same time, they would demand "home rule" in the South in order to keep blacks in a subservient role, socially, economically, and politically despite the abolition of outright slavery.36

  Despite the fall of Atlanta and Lincoln's reelection, the Confederacy remained defiant and determined to keep fighting for its independence. Jefferson Davis toured the South making speeches that rallied the people and the military. General John Bell Hood, who had succeeded Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee, continued to prey on Sherman's supply line, which stretched all the way back from Atlanta to Tennessee. Frustrated by having to backtrack and defend territory he had just covered, Sherman came up with an unorthodox and risky plan to press forward from Atlanta.

  Instead of maintaining a supply line by rail behind him, which he would constantly have to protect, he asked Grant and Lincoln for permission to plunge deeper into enemy territory and live off the land. After his reluctant superiors agreed, Sherman spent the second week of November preparing to set off on a scorched-earth camp
aign, a 285-mile march to Savannah and the sea. From Savannah, Sherman planned to march north through the Carolinas to Virginia and attack Lee from the behind while Grant pressed forward from the north.

  Instead of pursuing Sherman, Hood took his army in the opposite direction, north into Tennessee, where General Thomas with sixty thousand Federals was expecting him. Hood had already burned much of Atlanta before he fled, and on November 15 as Sherman's troops departed, they set fire to any remaining structures that might have been of use to the rebels. Heading for Savannah, the Union troops pillaged every farm and town in their path, deliberately terrorizing the inhabitants and breaking the Confederate spirit of resistance.37

  *Today's Riverdale, in the Bronx.

  *McCune Smith's health problems forced him to retire after serving the Colored Orphan Asylum for twenty-two years, but he remained a consulting physician.

  † St. Philip's Church eventually moved to Harlem too. After moving to West Twenty-fifth Street in 1889, the church finally settled on West 134th Street in 1910. See the Walking Tour in the appendix.

  *James McCune Smith noted that the draft riots destroyed nearly all the minutes of the convention movement, "our Alexandrine Library—from which some of the noblest pages in the history of our people could have been selected."

  CHAPTER 20

  War's End: Slavery Is Dead, the

  " Demon of Caste" Lives On

  The day Sherman left Atlanta, General Butler left New York City, well satisfied by the peaceful election and the gratitude of prominent Republicans who had lavishly feted and honored him for a week. Ten days later, however, on November 25, Martin and his squad of Confederates sprang into action, having decided to proceed without the help of the Sons of Liberty.