* Some important questions really need answering,

 

What is the relevance of the Civil War to my life?

What is a Unionist?

What was the Civil War really all about, and why portray a Union Civil War Soldier?

 

These days many books, plays and movies seem to idealize the old South and its "cause." Perhaps many more books and movies can be found supporting the "lost cause" than the North's. For modern day  Republicans, the republican party was born in 1854 as the great conflict approached, it was the party of the Northern opposition to slavery and its spread into the new territories. Therefore, it was the party of the Union, the North, Lincoln, the freeing of the slaves, victory in the Civil War, and the imposition of Reconstruction (1865-1875).

1. Fundamentally, the Civil War, was an ideological and cultural crisis, an attempt to determine the real meaning of equality and freedom.

Throughout the eighteenth century Philadelphia Quakers had denounced slavery because of their egalitarian theology. The antislavery movement was also strengthened by the Enlightenment emphasis on reason and natural rights which made legal justifications for slavery increasingly hollow. Also, evangelical Protestantism inspired a spirit of abolition in some northern circles by advocating charity toward all people. More to the point, because some Scripture was used in a way that seemed to justify slavery, there was a movement to subject slavery to the total demands of the Law of love, therefore, virtually, all forms of contemporary slavery stood condemned. That the slave trade and slavery were the principal concerns of early humanitarian reformers is understandable enough. Slavery symbolized in a peculiarly graphic way man's inhumanity to man and the total denial of human liberty.

The Legal slave trade was officially ended by decree throughout France and her colonies in 1815. The Dutch abolished their slave trade by royal decree in 1814. The United States ended its international slave trade in the same year as did England, in 1808. Also, several of the northern states had ended slavery within their borders before the start of the nineteenth century. Slavery itself was ended in Britain by 1834. In fact, by the 1780's there were few defenders of slavery on moral grounds in Britain. Religion, economics, philosophy, and political studies all pointed to the undesirability of slavery. It was a system in England with relatively few defenders. Why, I ask myself, with the South's love of all things "French and English" leading up to the 1860's, why did they hold onto their "institution" with such force?

Another "cause" for the Civil War is found by looking at the census of the United States for 1860. For sake of convenience we will compare New England and Virginia, they being the most influential in 1860. We see two systems of education at work. One originating in Massachusetts was radical, commencing at the bottom and educating upward; the other in Virginia commenced at the highest rank in society and educated downward, but never reaching the bottom. In New England we find that of persons over twenty years of age, only one out of thirty-eight was unable to read. However, in Virginia and of the same social class as New England, one out of every fifteen was unable to read. The greater numbers of population of this country were found in the countryside not in the cities in 1860. So, it is fair to state that both farmers in the North and South would have lived under similar, not "different," conditions. The general intelligence of the Northern portion of the country had to affect its material progress and gain. In the South, industry was an irksome necessity, since they looked upon manual labor as the special province of the slave, and therefore, degrading. The dignity of the intelligent farmer or mechanic, who read books, educated his children and obtained knowledge of passing local or world events by reading the newspapers, was almost unknown to them in the South. Northern newspapers, books or public speakers not pleasing to leaders in the South were prohibited, (newspaper offices printing undesirable material were burned down) making it easier for the non-slave-owning population to be deceived and marched to war.

Northern agriculture and industry became capital rather than labor intensive, relying on machines instead of people whenever possible. Because wheat, corn, and livestock farms as well as eastern factories did not depend on slave labor, the economic foundation of slavery crumbled in the North. Nor was there a social rationale. The black population of the North was too small to threaten white society. There were only 75,000 blacks out of nearly 1.5 million northerners in 1776, and that ratio declined to only 250,000 blacks out of 20 million northerners in 1860. Not often frightened by the black minority, whites did not resist abolition, and vested social and economic interests had little to lose from it.

2. Southern Plantation Oligarchy versus Northern Entrepreneurs.

The slave mode of production was profitable, so the South was the most prosperous and powerful region in the country from late 1700's to the 1850's. Southerners owned most of the productive land, much of the agricultural produce for export, tools and mills, and the slave labor. They controlled the U.S. politics, as most presidents between Washington and Lincoln were slaveholders or were sympathetic to slavery. Very few decisions made by the federal legislative and judicial branches went against the interests of the slaveholding oligarchy. The U.S. Civil War was, to a substantial degree, a struggle for power between northern industrialists and small farmers on the one hand and the southern plantation oligarchy on the other. The victory of the north marked the arrival of the northern industrialists as the dominant force in the United States economy and government.

3. The South and it's "lost cause" as the underdog

As we all know, it takes two to fight, and the South is pretty much portrayed in plays, books, and movies as the underdog. Well if they started out as the underdog it was a fight between a Southern bulldog and a Northern miniature French Poodle! The Union Army, had a standing army of only 36,000 men on the eve of war in 1860 with most of them garrisoned out west, protecting our western frontier. President Abraham Lincoln had to call upon the loyal twenty-two States of the Union, at their own expense, to raise up a militia army to defend federal property and peaceful citizens from mob rule. This call to arms by the President was seen as an act of war against the South and given as further cause for more States to leave the Union. In all, eleven States left the Union by 1861. No Southern property had been taken, no slaves had been set free, and the 36,000 man Union Army was not about to march on any southern city. Yet the South is the underdog?

Southern State Legislatures authorized the suspension of payments of all debts public and private due Northern creditors, and all duties on imports and U.S. postage collected, that were due the Federal government were kept. The forts, arsenals, and navy-yards in the South, had very few soldiers in them to protect United States property. Most would be taken over by the South by 1861. For example the arsenal at Charleston, South Carolina under the pretext of preventing its being seized by a mob, lost 70,000 stands of arms to the disunion. Also, only South Carolina permitted the people to vote directly on the subject of secession. The other ten States did not give the people the opportunity to vote, but allowed them to vote for delegates who would vote for or against secession.

One of the most remarkable fallacies with which the disunion leaders deceived themselves was that England would aid them materially in order to obtain cotton for English factories. Though the governing classes in that country, with but few exceptions, gave the confederacy their sympathy, they would not go to war over cotton when they could get it from other sources. On a par with this wisdom was the mistaken view of the character of the people of the free States, who would now turn all of their industrial activity and energy, which they had displayed in the past, to be applied to a civil war.

 

True Americanism

By Theodore Roosevelt

Former President of the United States, from The History of the American People 1910

 

We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, the courage, and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are.  We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism. Our nation is that one among all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands the fate of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dangers. All the signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall succeed, but we must not foolishly blink the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail. On the contrary, we must soberly set to work to find out all we can about the existence and the extent of every evil, must acknowledge it to be such, and must then attack it with unyielding resolution. There are many such evils, and each must be fought after a separate fashion. Yet there is one quality which we must bring to the solution of every problem. That is, an intense and fervid Americanism. We shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us, we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our Federal Republic have set before us. Unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it.

 

Reference materials;

The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade by David Eltis and James Walvin, University of Wisconsin Press, copyright 1981. History of the American People, Volume's I-IV, by J.H. Pattion and John Lord, L.W. Walter Co. Chicago, Illinois copyriJersey copyright 1989. The Ethnic Dimension in American History by James Stuart Olson, St. Martin's Press, New York, copyright 1979. Party Politics in America, by Frank J. Sorauf and Paul Allen Beck, Scott, Foresman and Company, copyright 1988.   ght 1910. Racial & Ethnic Relations by Joe R. Feagin, Prentice-Hall, Inc. New

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

 

ONE MONTH MORE

For Bounties

 

A few more Recruits can yet be received for the

FIRST CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE

(72nd ILL.) REGIMENT !

Men of Illinois, this is the last opportunity that you will have of enrolling yourselves in the glorious army that your State has sent into the field for the defense of the Union. The forward movement of our armies, in the Spring, can but crush into powder the remaining power of this miserable Rebellion.

COME FORWARD, THEN !

AND FORM A PART OF THE TRIUMPHANT HOST !

$302 BOUNTY

TO NEW RECRUITS !

$402 TO VETERANS

To any person who will bring an acceptable Recruit to my office, a cash premium of $8, or a certificate entitling him to $15 after the Recruit is mustered into the service, will be paid.

Office with ESQ Pond, South-East corner of Public Square Galesburg, Illinois.

D.W. WHITTLE, Captain 72nd Regiment Illinois Infantry.

 

 

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Oath of Allegiance                Army Regulations of 1861            Article 10    Revised regulations

Every non-commissioned officer or soldier, who shall enlist must take the following oath or affirmation:

"I, A. B., do solemnly swear, or affirm that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatever; and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the Rules and Articles for the government of the armies of the United States."

 

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SEVENTY-SECOND ILLINOIS INFANTRY                          CHICAGO'S ROLE IN THE CIVIL WAR

 

Welcome to the 72d Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regimental history--Company "A."

 

The First Chicago Board of Trade Regiment,--The 72d Regiment Illinois Volunteers, was raised, in response to President Lincoln's call on July 6, 1862, for three hundred thousand volunteers, to serve for three years. On July 21, an enthusiastic meeting of the Chicago Board of Trade was held, when that organization determined to raise and support a battery of light artillery, and one company of infantry to support it, later to become company "A" of the 72nd Illinois. On the evening of the 23d, John L. Hancock, president of the Board, announced that the battery was recruited full, and had been tendered to the President, and it was then resolved to raise a regiment of infantry, which should be especially under the care and patronage of the Board, which would guarantee to each member a bounty of $60, in addition to that ordinarily paid. The Board of Trade War Committee also offered a premium of $100 for the first full company raised for the regiment, and Gilbert Hubbard & Co. proffered a magnificent stand of colors and $70 additional. The same evening Isaiah H. Williams offered a company which he was raising, and it was accepted, becoming Co. "F" of the regiment. The Board asked the cooperation of the Young Men's Christian Association, which had contemplated, and commenced, raising a regiment, and that body immediately authorized its committee--J. V. Farwell and J. C. Wright--to convey its acceptance of the proposition, pledging itself to raise five companies. The Young Men's Association had offered the command of the five companies to the Board, "the tender to be unencumbered by any expression of preference."

 

On the evening of the 23d, the "Hancock Guards" which had been raised as support to the Board of Trade Battery, within the last forty-eight hours, was offered to the Board, and became Co. "A" of the 72d Illinois.

 

Mr. George H. Heafford was enrolled as the first member of the Hancock Guards, and Joseph Stockton the second. In less than two days enough companies were offered to make it certain that a regiment could easily be raised. On August 23, just one month after recruiting commenced, the regiment was complete. Co. "E" Captain William B. Holbrook, one of the companies raised by the Young Men's Christian Association, and gained the premium for being the first filled to the maximum, and in camp.

The 72d was almost exclusively a Chicago regiment, its field and staff officers, every captain but one, and nearly every other line-officer, being Chicago men. Among the companies were the "Scripps Guards," (named in honor of John Scripps, formerly of the Chicago Tribune) composed of clerks and other employees of the post office, which, as Co. "C" was the regimental color-company. The "Havelock Guards" Co. "B" was one of the companies raised by the Young Men's Christian Association. The "Underwood Guards" Co. "D" was recruited by Messrs. Underwood & Co. and J. A. Sexton, first Lieutenant 67th Illinois Infantry, who was transferred to the 72d. The "Shepherd Guards" Co. "F" was offered by Isaiah H. Williams formerly lieutenant of Co. "I" of the 13th Illinois.

 

Frederick A. Starring, colonel of the 72d Illinois was a native of Buffalo, N. Y., but had been for several years a resident of Chicago. Although but twenty years of age, he had experience in frontier warfare having previously graduated at a military school. Lieutenant-Colonel Wright, a leading member of the Chicago Board of Trade was also a graduate of a military academy.

The regiment was mustered into the service of the United States, August 21, 1862, Fred A. Starring as colonel, Joseph C. Wright as Lieutenant colonel, and H. W. Chester as major. On august 23rd the regiment embarked on board a Illinois Central train for Cairo, which we reached on the afternoon of the 24th. 

 

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THE TRIBUNE                                        Chicago,    Monday July 28, 1862

Recruits Wanted.--I have orders to raise a Company of Volunteers,

To be mustered into the first regiment organized in this country under the late call of the President for 300,000 men additional troops. When mustered in each man will receive $100 cash and from $13 to $20 per month, besides $75 bounty at the end of the war. Call at my office and enroll your names, your country wants you, Recruiting Officer, 261 & 263 Randolph street and 33 Kinzie street, corner of wells.

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For more information contact 72d Illinois Recruiter at;          EDopke@comcast.net