General Henry Knox in the US Revolutionary War: The Noble Train of Artillery at the Siege of Boston

General Henry Knox (1750-1806, US Secretary of State for War from 1789 to 1794) played a key role in the American Revolutionary War. During the 1776 Siege of Boston he had a brilliant idea that manifested into the perilous journey of his noble train of artillery. Elizabeth Jones explains.

A portrait of Henry Knox from the 1780s. Painting by Charles Willson Peale.

Henry Knox was larger than life. Clocking in at over six feet and weighing more than 300 pounds, he was a giant during his lifetime and remains a giant in Revolutionary War history over 200 years after his death. And not only was he big, but in November 1775, he also had big problems. He had to find a way to move over 60 tons of artillery and munitions across the frozen 300 miles between Fort Ticonderoga and the city of Boston, which was under siege by the Americans due to the occupation of Boston by British forces.

Needless to say, the outcome looked grim. Without the firepower provided by the cannons and howitzers captured at Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys in 1775, the revolutionaries stood little chance of freeing Boston from her shackles. But Henry Knox wasn’t going to stand idly by while the British Army occupied his hometown.

Henry Knox, patriot and bookseller

Henry Knox was a first-generation American born in Boston in 1750. His formal education ended at age twelve when his father abandoned the family, and to support his mother he went to work as a clerk in a bookstore. As a result of his early and constant exposure to books, he became a voracious reader and educated himself on topics ranging from military strategy to advanced forms of mathematics.

Knox continued working in the bookstore, but he also made time for mischief, running with some of Boston’s notorious street gangs. At 18, Knox joined an artillery company presciently named The Train. He served in the company for several years, and once injured himself by shooting off two of his own fingers.

Knox opened his own bookstore in 1771 at the age of 21 and operated it until tensions between the British and their unruly American colonies reached a boiling point at Lexington and Concord on April 15 and 16, 1775.

Siege of Boston

The British forces took control of the city following the “shot heard ‘round the world” and Knox and his wife Lucy were forced to flee Boston, leaving the bookstore to be looted and vandalized. Knox immediately enlisted in the militia that was laying siege to the occupied city and served as an engineer, building fortifications.

Following the Battle of Bunker Hill, Knox was recognized for his work by the new Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington, but he still remained without a commission into the Army proper. Still, he continued to serve valiantly, even though the siege seemed to be going nowhere fast.

Besides, he had an idea. One that just might be crazy enough to work.

The noble train of artillery

On May 10, 1775, not one month after the fighting between the British and the Americans began in earnest, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys (including then-Colonel Benedict Arnold) captured Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York from the British, and with it an arsenal of heavy artillery. Ticonderoga was then largely managed from afar by Arnold and used intermittently by other American forces. But one man remembered.

Henry Knox, still without his commission, approached General Washington with the idea of ending the siege of Boston by using the 60-ton arsenal that remained at Fort Ticonderoga. The only problem was that the feat was a logistical nightmare, especially considering the level of sophistication of the transportation available at the time. But Washington believed in the still-green Knox and gave his plan the green light. So Knox set out from Boston with a team of men, animals, and vehicles to bring the guns of Ticonderoga to the city under siege in a convoy.

The recovery operations began in earnest on November 17, 1775, when the company left Boston. It arrived at Fort Ticonderoga on December 5th, and the team promptly began loading the nearly 60 guns and accompanying munitions and stockpiles. The easiest part completed, the company set back for Boston with the guns in tow in the midst of an 18th-century winter.

The elements were unforgiving, but the terrain was even more so. Bodies of water and mountain ranges stood between Knox and his destination, but Knox refused to be deterred. They reached the northern tip of Lake George on the cusp of it freezing, which would have made the crossing impossible. The guns were loaded onto the ships, with many of them being loaded onto a ship called a gundalow.

The challenges begin

The gundalow sank near the lake’s southern shore. Nearly 120,000 pounds of desperately-needed munitions lay on a ship near the bottom of a rapidly-freezing lake. Most people would have been disheartened and abandoned the entire endeavor, but Henry Knox wasn’t most people. The determined man worked with his team to bale out the sunken gundalow and recover the guns from Lake George.

The company reached the outpost of Fort George, and Knox found time to pen a quick letter to General Washington, stating that he hoped “to be able to present your Excellency a noble train of artillery”. The name stuck. Henceforth the expedition to bring the guns of Ticonderoga to Boston came to be known as the noble train of artillery.

Upon leaving the fort, the noble train of artillery had to cross a river, upon which sleds holding the guns were dragged. Suddenly the strong ice began to crack, and guns fell through the ice to the bottom of the river. Once again, Knox refused to abandon even a few pieces of artillery, and once again the guns were raised from the bottom of a body of water.

It would seem as if the worst was behind Knox and the noble train, but they still had to cross the Berkshires, an unforgiving mountain range that was covered in ice and snow. The crossing was difficult and the elements worked against them at every turn, but the noble train of artillery persevered, and they reached the other side of the mountain range, and on January 25, 1776, the company reached Boston, much to Washington’s relief.

Lifting the Siege

The guns gave the Americans a much-needed edge, but there was still work to be done. Artillery relentlessly pounded the city, until, in the dead of night, Washington ordered the guns to be positioned upon the twin peaks of Dorchester Heights in present-day South Boston. This strategy, along with Knox’s perseverance, led to the departure of the British from the city on March 17, 1776. To this day, March 17 is celebrated in South Boston as Evacuation Day.

Knox finally received his commission into the Continental Army and was eventually promoted to the rank of major general, becoming the youngest in the army. He served the majority of his Revolutionary War career as the American chief of artillery and was appointed by President Washington to become the first Secretary of War. Knox died on October 25, 1806.

Conclusion

General Henry Knox was more than just a trusted right-hand to General Washington and an able artillery chief for the Revolutionary Army. He was a visionary whose forward-thinking and willingness to take risks ended the Siege of Boston, ultimately moving the needle of independence forward.

What are your thoughts on General Knox? Was he brilliant or a mad-man, or both? Comment below to let us know what you think about the fabled bookseller-turned-general.

References

https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=463&pid=15

1776 by David McCullough

Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolutionby Mike Puls

The Role of the Baptists in the Pursuit of Religious Liberty in America: Part 2 – Roger Williams and Religious Freedom

When thinking about the Constitution of the United States, names like James Madison usually come to mind. But a friend of the great "architect of the Constitution," John Leland, a Baptist minister, had much to do with Madison's giant accomplishments. In fact, without Mr. Leland's influence the establishment clause in the First Amendment may not exist as we know it. In this series of articles we will explore the critical but little-known role played by the Baptists in helping to secure America’s cherished religious freedoms. In the second article we look at the important and lasting influence of Roger Williams, a 17th century religious thinker who argued for religious freedom. 

Victor Gamma explains. You can read part 1 on the persecution suffered by Baptists in 17th century America here.

Return of Roger Williams from England with the First Charter, 1644. From a painting by C.R. Grant.

Last time we looked at some early examples of how Baptists resisted state control of religion and some of their motives and the reasons for conflict with the established church. In this next article we will examine the impact and career of one of the most famous early colonists: Roger Williams. Not only is he credited with establishing the first Baptist church in America, he was an early champion of quintessential American liberal ideals such as separation of church and state, fairness in dealings with Native Americans and the abolition of slavery. In holding these convictions, Williams was far in advance of most contemporaries. Naturally, such sentiments did not sit well with the austere Puritans, especially when expounded by someone like Williams, who was one of those people who insist on loudly proclaiming all the vagaries of their conscience regardless of the consequence. 

Williams was not the first nonconformist to set foot in the New England wilderness. Massachusetts would be the scene of the first confrontation in the long Baptist contest for freedom of conscience. In 1620 the first dissenters from England arrived when 102 settlers came to Plymouth. Many were members of a separatist group under the leadership of John Robinson. Soon the settlement attracted a variety of those seeking religious freedom. However, in the Great Migration of the 1630s, large numbers of non-separating Puritans began settling in the colony. These Puritans believed that, for all its faults, the Church of England was still a true church. 

The early clashes with the Puritan establishment represent the first phase of the Baptist quest for liberty: the right to simply exist and gather together as a body. This goal was achieved by the end of the seventeenth century. Leading this early effort was the brilliant, idealistic and combative visionary Roger Williams. In England the harsh treatment of dissenters by Archbishop Laud, led Williams, who had become a Puritan, to immigrate to Massachusetts in 1631. Soon after arriving, Williams broke with the Church of England entirely and, after offending the authorities at Boston with his nonconformist views, moved to Salem where he worked with a separatist congregation for a time before moving to Plymouth. It did not take long for the outspoken Williams to clash with the establishment again. 

An Exile Founds a Colony

The Massachusetts government found it impossible to ignore this charismatic and persuasive man in their young colony who would not back down nor be silenced. He was also a threat due to his intelligence. A precocious youth, Sir Edward Coke had discovered him as a mere lad recording Star Chamber speeches and sermons in shorthand. For his part, Williams forced the issue by the bold and perhaps intemperate manner of his proclamation on the doctrine of tolerance and by sternly questioning the right of the king and the colonial government to appropriate lands from Native Americans without recompense. The state, Williams confidently asserted, has power only over “the Bodies and Goods, and outward state of men.” He argued that civil magistracy has no legitimate right to persecute citizens for their beliefs. He also refused to acknowledge the legality of a church-state alliance such as existed in Massachusetts. Massachusetts in turn condemned Williams, linking him with John Smyth, the founder of the Baptist Church. The official charges against Williams stated that he “hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates, as also writ letters of defamation both of the magistrates and churches here.” The ‘letters of defamation’ consisted of an appeal to the charter Williams had written and a letter he wrote to his congregation regarding the separation of church and state. The sentence of banishment read, “It is therefore ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the court.”

The ruling caused such an uproar in Salem, that the Magistrates began to reconsider their decision and extended the time of his required leaving into the spring. Williams regarded this as a sign of leniency and began to proclaim his radical views all the more loudly, to which he now added that he was an Anabaptist, denying the validity of infant baptism. This outburst ended any sympathy Williams had preserved among the majority of settlers and led Governor Haynes to resolve to remove this thorn in the side of the colony and deposit him back to England immediately. Having learned that Williams’ refused a summons to appear at court in Boston, a vessel was dispatched to Salem for his arrest. Warned by former Governor Winthrop, Williams and some followers, in the midst of a New England winter, escaped and made their way with the help of local tribes to Narraganset Bay in what is now Rhode Island.

Of his new colony Williams wrote, “I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed of conscience...” and he worked hard to make that statement a reality. In 1640 the Providence township articles of government announced: “We agree, as formerly been the liberties of the Town, so still to hold forth Liberty of Conscience.” After some years of hosting church meetings in his home, Williams established the first Baptist Church in America in 1638. Settlers and refugees of a similar mind, including Anne Hutchinson and her family, soon formed communities nearby. These settlements maintained a loose association until threats against their independence led them in 1643 to seek to become an English Colony. Accordingly Roger Williams set out for England in 1644 to secure a charter. 

The tolerant reputation of Rhode Island quickly spread and soon non-conformists such as Quakers were making Rhode Island their home. True to his word, Williams, although opposed to the Society of Friends, allowed them to live in the colony, freely holding their meetings and discussing their beliefs. Soon Rhode Island became an example to other colonies. Rhode Island’s religious pluralism also drew criticism. It led Cotton Mather to write, “There never was held such a variety of religious together on so small a spot of ground . . . Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Antisabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters—everything in the world but Roman Catholics and real Christians.”

A "Bloudy" Controversy

Restless as ever, Williams did not remain with the Baptists for long, but nonetheless, his example and writings had a powerful influence on the future of the Baptist Church as well as the cause of religious liberty. Many of Williams’ most influential writings appeared in a series of treatises written as part of a long-standing debate with Cotton Mather, who defended the Standing Order. Mather issued statements and correspondence which argued for state support of religious uniformity. Williams first took aim at the Puritan Divine in 1644 with The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed. In this treatise, Williams attacked religious and political intolerance. Cotton Mather returned fire with The Bloudy Tenant, Washed, and Made White in the Bloud of the Lamb, in 1647. After returning from England in 1652, Williams' answered with The Bloudy Tenent, yet more Bloudy: by Mr. Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash it White in the Bloud of the Lambe. In these works, Williams laid out his beliefs on religious liberty, namely; that God alone can judge the conscience, the use of force by the civil authority in matters of religion is entirely ineffective and in fact an evil against God’s design and contrary to Christ’s methods, and non-Christians could be good citizens. Williams limited the role of government to non-religious matters such as maintaining order and justice. The Bloudy Tenantmade full use of the Williams skills at argumentation and was written in the form of a dialogue between Truth and Peace. Williams has both Peace and Truth plead movingly against religious persecution:

Peace: Dear Truth I have two sad complaints. First, the most sober of your witnesses that dare to plead your cause, how are they charged to be mine enemies—contentions, turbulent, seditious! Secondly, your enemies, though they speak and rail against you, though they outrageously pursue, imprison, banish, kill your faithful witnesses, yet how is all need over for justice against the heretics! 

The words and deeds of Roger Williams gave a powerful impulse to the cause of religious freedom. Williams’ impact went well beyond a controversy with the Massachusetts religious establishment, his writings would be cited as philosophical support for John Locke, The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the writings of Thomas Jefferson on religious liberty. 

In part 3 (here), How the Baptists Ensured Religious Freedom, you can read about another heroic defender of religious liberty (there seems to be no end of them!), the early Rhode Island colony and the early Baptists in Massachusetts.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

The Importance of the Telegraph in the US Civil War: Part 3 - The Union’s Use of the Telegraph

The American Civil War (1861-65) saw a breakthrough in various technologies. One of particular importance was the telegraph, a communication technology that had grown greatly in significance in the years before the US Civil War broke out. Here, K.R.T. Quirion concludes his three-part series on the importance of the telegraph in the US Civil War by looking at the role of the telegraph in the later years of the Civil War and its importance in the Union’s victory.

You can read part 1 in the series on the history of the telegraph in the 19th century here and part 2 on the telegraph in the early years of the US Civil War here.

Wagons and men of the U.S. Military Telegraph Construction Corps. Brandy Station, Virginia, 1864.

President Lincoln in the Telegraph Office

As an early adopter of the telegraph, Lincoln realized the importance of building a strong telegraphic infrastructure within the government and the military. With the Union facing the prospect of a 1,000-mile battle front, the telegraph gave Lincoln an unprecedented ability to “converse with his military leaders in the field as though he were in the tent with them” and power to “assume the role of commander-in-chief in a more titular sense.”[1]

Before Lincoln could exercise any degree of control over the nation’s dispersed military forces, it was necessary to organize the telegraphic capabilities of the Union. At the start of the Civil War all government telegraphs passed through one central communications hub, not even the War Department had its own separate line. [2]The organization of the USMTC soon remedied that deficiency when its headquarters were established inside of the War Department. By March of 1862, the telegraph had become so vital to the prosecution of the war that Secretary Stanton moved the USMTC telegraph office into to the “old library room, on the second floor front…adjoining his own quarters.”[3]In short order, the telegraph office of the War Department became Lincoln’s “Situation Room, where the president not only monitored events through incoming messages but also initiated communications directly to the field.” Lincoln spent more time in the telegraph office than in any other location during his presidency.[4]

Lincoln Takes Command

At first, Lincoln’s telegraphs were few. In the last six months of 1861, Lincoln sent only thirteen telegrams.[5]Despite this infrequency, the President exhibited no qualms about using the telegraph to “issue instructions regarding the disposition of troops.”[6]In these early telegraphs, Lincoln began exercising the authority of the commander-in-chief in a direct way. In one telegraph to John C. Fremont, the President ordered the General to begin deploying his troops in Kentucky. [7]Lincoln even went so far as to countermand Fremont’s own dispensation of his troops. [8]These first forays in taking direct command of Union troops were on a “glimmer of what was to happen.” [9]By 1862, the president had begun using the telegraph as means of directly communicating with commanders in the field without the filter of their commanding general. [10]Part of this direct action by Lincoln was brought about by has frustration with General George B. McClellan’s hesitancy to engage the enemy.

In May, the President traveled to the front lines of McClellan’s Peninsular campaign to see the work first hand. Upon arrival, Lincoln discovered that although the Union occupied Fort Monroe, the General had done nothing to silence the Confederate ironclad the Merrimac, or its base of operations at Norfolk, both of which resided just across the waters of Hampton Roads. Furious with McClellan’s complacency, the President took it upon himself to capture Norfolk and began “directing the movements” from his mobile White House at Fort Monroe. [11]

Having taken action and tasted the fruits of his decisiveness, Lincoln thereafter began issuing “explicit and direct command to his generals” through the telegraph network. [12]His deepening involvement with the intricacies of the war led Lincoln to practically live in the telegraph office, going so far as to request a cot be set up in that room so that he could remain in proximity to the wires rather than return to the White House. [13]The cipher and telegraph officers of the War Department on whom Lincoln relied said of the President that the “Commander-in-Chief…possessed an almost intuitive perception of the practical requirements of that….office, and…was performing the duties of that position in the most intelligent and effective manner.” [14]All of the “intuitive perception” in the world would have been useless however, had it not been for the amazing power of the telegraph.

Union Military Commanders Use the Telegraph

Lincoln was not the only Union commander who learned to use the telegraph to project himself across the vast lengths of the battlefront. It was in fact the “Young Napoleon” George McClellan himself that first grasped the great potential of this new technology. Later, General Ulysses S. Grant would perfect the use of the telegraph giving him a precision of control over the movements and actions of his troops unheard of before in the history of warfare.

McClellan had experience with commanding through the telegraph before he was appointed to lead the Union army. Fresh out of West Point, the Army sent McClellan to Europe as an official observer of the Crimean War. There he witnessed the first application of the telegraph in battle. Following that, he resigned his commission to become a railroad executive, where he became intimately acquainted with the telegraph. Thus, when he rejoined the army at the start of the Civil War, there was perhaps no military commander better suited to make use of this new technology.

Within the first few months of the war, McClellan enlisted the services of a Western Union Executive, Anton Stager, to organize a military field telegraph. It was soon after this that Stager was assigned to oversee the operations of the USMTC. In short order, McClellan, because of the telegraph, was able to exert unprecedented tactical communication with his command which allowed him to rapidly change battle plans. [15]He brought his experience with using the telegraph network with him once he was appointed to lead the Union’s forces. Once in Washington, McClellan’s headquarters were quickly “festooned with wires connecting him to all the fronts and making [him] the hub of military information.” [16]

Unfortunately for the President, all the information in the world could not get McClellan to move. The commander who would most effectively employ the telegraph was Ulysses S. Grant. Greely writes that:

From the opening of Grant’s campaign in the Wilderness to the close of the war, an aggregate of over two hundred miles of wire was put up and taken down from day to day; yet its efficiency as a constant means of communication between the several commands was not interfered with. [17]

The lines of the USMTC bound the corps of the Army of the Potomac together like “a perfect nervous system, and kept the great controlling head in touch with all its parts.” [18]Never after crossing the Rapidan did a single corps lose direct communication with the commanding general. 

Grant, more than any commander before him, employed the telegraph for both “grand tactics and for strategy in its broadest sense.” [19]From his headquarters in Virginia, Grant daily issued orders and read reports on the operations of his commanders who were dispersed across the vast battlefront of the Confederacy. With Meade in Virginia, Sherman in Georgia, Sigel in West Virginia, and Butler on the James River, Grant commanded a military force exceed half a million soldiers and conducted operations over eight hundred thousand square miles. [20]In his memoirs, General William Tecumseh Sherman said that, “[t]he value of the telegraph cannot be exaggerated, as illustrated by the perfect accord of action of the armies of Virginia and Georgia.” [21]

Conclusion

The successful application of the telegraph by the Union was the result of the concerted effort of Lincoln, his military commanders, and thousands of skilled USMTC operators. By the end of the Civil War, the USMTC had constructed 15,000 miles of dedicated military telegraph lines. [22]These lines were operated in addition to the thousands of commercial lines which were taken over by the federal government. Together this vast telecommunications network brought the President, the War Department, and the commanding generals “within seconds of each other”, though enemy fortifications or even thousands of miles of wilderness might have intervened. [23]

This intricately organized network allowed Grant to utilize the full potential of the telegraph. Grant more than any other commander besides Lincoln, learned to project himself using this new technology. In this way, Grant was able to strategically maneuver his forces across the battlefields of Virginia, Georgia, West Virginia and elsewhere with rapidity and precision. As Plum writes, the telegraph was of “infinite importance to the Commander, who, from his tent in Virginia, was to move his men upon the great continental chess-board of war understandingly.” [24]Grant acquired a precision and speed with this powerful new technology that allowed him to out maneuver his opponents. He used this power to command his army in ways that were unthinkable to previous generations of military leadership. With a clear picture of the immense theater of war and a powerful means of mobilizing his units Grant was able to cut off reinforcements to General Lee and shorten the conflict. [25]

 

How important do you think the telegraph was in the Union’s victory in the US Civil War? Let us know below.

Remember, you can read part 1 in the series on the history of the telegraph in the 19th century here and part 2 on the telegraph in the early years of the US Civil War here.

[1]Tom Wheeler, Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War, (New York, NY: Harper Business, 2007), 65. 

[2]Ibid., 1.

[3]Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War, 38.

[4]Wheeler, Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War, 10. 

[5]Ibid., 40.

[6]Ibid., 42.

[7]The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed., Roy Basler, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), vol. IV, 485. 

[8]Ibid., 499.

[9]Wheeler, 41.

[10]Ibid., 44.

[11]Bates, 117.

[12]Wheeler., 54

[13]Ibid., 77.

[14]Bates, 122.

[15]Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 37.

[16]Wheeler, 40.

[17]Greely, “The Military-Telegraph Service.”

[18]Ibid.

[19]Ibid.

[20]Ibid.

[21]Plum, Vol. II, 140.

[22]Greely.

[23]Ibid.

[24]Plum, Vol. II, 128.

[25]Greely.

The Battle that Turned the War of 1812?

The War of 1812 took place between the US and the UK from 1812 to 1815. There were many twists and turns in the war, and here Chuck Lyons tells us about the naval encounter at the Battle of Plattsburgh/Battle of Lake Champlain. This battle may have turned the course of the war.

The US Sloop Saratoga (left center) and the U.S. Brig Eagle (right) engaging the British flagship Confiance (center) off Plattsburg, New York, 11 September 1814. By Edward Tufnell.

In September 1814, twenty-seven months into the War of 1812, four British warships and a dozen gunboats sailed into Plattsburgh Bay at the northern end of Lake Champlain between New York State and Vermont. They were there to support an 11,000-strong army under General Sir George Prevost, an army that has been called “the strongest…that had ever been sent to North America,” and an army that intended to sever the new United States with a march on New York City.

In the battle that followed broadsides were fired at point blank range and gunboats exchanged fire within pistol shot of each other.

It would be a turning point of the War of 1812.

The opposing sides

The American ships were under the command of Lt. Thomas Macdonough, who was 28-years-old but had been in the Navy since he was sixteen, had fought with Stephen Decatur in the First Barbary War, and had been in command of Lake Champlain naval operations since October of 1812. The British force was under the command of newly-arrived Capt. George Downie, a twenty-year veteran of the British Navy.

Capt. Downie commanded the Confiance, a 1,200-ton frigate carrying thirty-seven guns, that was nearly double the size of the 734-ton American flagship Saratoga.  She was accompanied by the sloops Linnet, Chubb, and Finch, as well as twelve gunboats, each carrying one or two guns. In all, the British had sixteen vessels. Opposing them would be America’s fourteen vessels.  

Lt. Macdonough had retired to Plattsburg Bay to nullify the British superiority in long guns and was waiting in a north-south line when at about 9 a.m. Sept. 11, the British vessels rounded Cumberland Head on the eastern side of the bay firing blank charges to notify Prevost of their arrival 

The battle was quickly on.

The battle

“The firing was terrific, fairly shaking the ground, and so rapid that it seemed to be one continuous roar, intermingling with spiteful flashing from the mouths of guns, and dense clouds of smoke soon hung over the two fleets,” wrote Julius Hubbell, who watched the battle from Cumberland Hill on the east side of the Bay.

Capt. Downie was killed in the first fifteen minutes of the fighting.  

About 10:30 a.m. Lt. Robert Henley, commanding the American ship Eaglecut her cable and allowed his ship to drift south to the rear of Saratoga, which was now receiving fire from theLinnet and theConfiance. There he joined in firing on the latter with his undamaged port side guns.

By now nearly all the Saratoga’s starboard guns had been knocked out, and the ship had been set afire twice by hot shot from the Confiance. Finally, the single cannon left on the Saratoga’sstarboard side broke free and fell down the main hatch. Confiance by this time had only four port guns still operational. At this point, Lt. Macdonough let go his stern anchor, passed the hawser from one of the ship’s kedge anchors, which had been laid off Saratoga’s bow, under the bow and hauled to “wind ship” and bring the Saratoga’s thirteen undamaged port guns to bear on Confiance. Trying the same maneuver, but too badly damaged to execute it, the Confiancegot stuck halfway around leaving her stern open to the Saratoga’s guns.

Helpless,Confiancesurrendered at 11 a.m.

Lt. Macdonough then hauled again on the Saratoga’sanchor cable and turned her fury on the isolated Linnet. With water rising to as much as a foot above her lower deck, and the wounded in danger of drowning, the British brig struck her colors at 11:20 while USS Ticonderoga was finishing up its engagement with the British gunboats.Those gunboats that had not already dropped out of the fighting fled the scene.

None of the large vessels of either side had a mast left that would bear a sail.

The British had lost five officers, including Capt. Downie, forty-nine enlisted men killed and 116 wounded, a casualty rate of eighteen percent. The Americans suffered a casualty rate of thirteen percent with four officers and forty-eight men killed and another fifty-eight wounded. 

Meanwhile on land the British and American forces had engaged in an artillery duel until word reached Gen. Prevost of the defeat of his naval support in the bay.  Realizing there was no longer any reason for his assault and that Plattsburgh itself was no longer an objective, Provost called off the action and retreated north. 

Five months later the war was over.

What do you think the impact of the Battle of Plattsburgh/Battle of Lake Champlain was on the War of 1812? Let us know below.

The Importance of the Telegraph in the US Civil War: Part 2 - The Telegraph in the Early Years of the War

The American Civil War (1861-65) saw a breakthrough in various technologies. One of particular importance was the telegraph, a communication technology that had grown greatly in significance in the years before the US Civil War broke out. Here, K.R.T. Quirion continues his three-part series on the importance of the telegraph in the US Civil War by looking at the role of the telegraph in the early years of the US Civil War and how the Union made use of it.

You can read part 1 in the series on the history of the telegraph in the 19th century here.

US Military Telegraph Service battery wagon, Army of the Potomac headquarters. In Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864.

The Telegraph Demonstrates its Usefulness 

In 1861, journalists flooded into Washington, D.C. and would remain through the course of the Civil War to disseminate information across the country. The news of the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12 spread like wildfire and was immediately followed by President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 militia volunteers. [1]Because of the telegraph, Americans would read about war as the events unfolded. This speed in communications precipitated a speed in events as well.

Having read Lincoln’s call for the organization of a military, secessionists in Virginia and Maryland mobilized, hoping to capture Washington off guard and end the war before it began. The Confederacy’s secretary of war predicted that his new nation’s flag would “fly over the U.S. Capitol by May 1.” [2]Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts however, had already mobilized his state’s militia for action. 

When news of the secessionist’s plan reached the capitol on April 17, the Massachusetts militia was called by the War Department. Andrews telegraphed back that, “Two…regiments will start this afternoon.” [3]These forces however, were held up by secessionists in Baltimore en routeto intercepting the forces headed to Washington, D.C. [4]Luckily, five Pennsylvanian companies had been contact by telegraph and ordered to hasten to the Capital before the arrival of the Massachusetts soldiers, thereby cutting off the secessionist coup d’état.[5]Without the near instant communication of the telegraph, Union forces would have arrived too late to secure the capitol.

The Union Organizes its Telegraph System

As the events of April 17 demonstrated, the telegraph was destined to play a significant role in the course of the Civil War. Anticipating this, Myer hoped toexpand the role of the Signal Corps by creating an officer core. In 1861, he submitted a draft of legislation to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, “for the organization of a signal corps to serve during the present war, and to have the charge of all the telegraphic duty of the Army.”[6]Despite various appropriations of money to buy equipment, Congress did not approve the creation of a dedicated officer corps for the Signal Corp until March 1863. In the interim, Myer had to rely on field commanders to detail officers and men to duty in the “acting signal corps.” [7]

Concurrent with Myer’s efforts to grow the Signal Corps was the creation of a rival organization, the U.S. Military Telegraph Service (USMTC). The secessionist uprising in the North and Upper South during 1861 caused the “seizure of the commercial [telegraph] systems around Washington.” [8]A young, ambitious Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad was tasked with rebuilding, reinforcing, and extending the telegraph and railway infrastructure from Washington south toward the heart of the Confederacy. [9]The Superintendent’s name was Andrew Carnegie. Completing this, Carnegie and his task force enlarged the network to connect important stations such as “the navy yard and the arsenal, with the War Department, and to run lines to Arlington, Chain Bridge,” and other outposts.” [10]

Anson Stager, the general superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company was appointed captain and assistant-quartermaster of the USMTC on November 11, 1861, and was “assigned in Special Order 313 to duty as general manager of military telegraph lines.”[11]Stager and the entire USMTC reported directly to Secretary of War Stanton. By an act of Congress in 1862, the civilian operated USMTC, through the oversight of the War Department, took control of all commercial telegraph lines in the Union.

Battle for Supremacy

In an effort to outflank the USMTC, Myer proposed the creation of a “Telegraphic or Signal Train to accompany the Army on the march.”[12]These “trains” consisted of two wagons equipped with five miles of telegraphic wire and telegraph equipment. Raines, explains that, “[i]n battle, one wagon remained at the starting point as a receiving station, while the other traveled into the field with the sending instrument.” [13]The first field operations of the telegraph train were during the Peninsula campaign in May 1862. General McClellan witnessed “the great usefulness of this system” but perceived it as a supplement to the work already being done by the USMTC. [14]

The telegraph trains of the Signal Corps were again deployed during the battle of Fredericksburg. Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside was connected with his division commanders Maj. Gen. Edwin Sumner and Maj. Gen. William Franklin, as well as the Union supply base at Belle Plain throughout the course of the combat. The success of the trains enabled Myer to appropriate additional funds so that “by late 1863 thirty [telegraph trains] were in service throughout the Army.” [15]This success however, exacerbated the tension between the Signal Corps and the USMTC both of which were actively operating lines throughout the battlefront.

This inter-governmental conflict reached its peak following the failure of the Chancellorsville campaign in 1863. At the battle of Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, both the Signal Corps and the USMTC were once again deployed side by side. The Signal Corps however, was forced to relinquish some of its lines to the USMTC as a result of the “technical limitations” of the Beardslee telegraph machine which the Signal Corps employed.[16]

The problem was that the Beardslee, which was powered by revolving magnets rather than by batteries, was only capable of generating enough electricity to transmit message in the five to eight mile range. [17]Maj. Gen Joseph Hooker was on the South side of the Rappahannock while his chief of staff Gen. Butterfield was ten miles on the North side of the river. The Signal Corps required three hours to transmit messages between the two commanders using a combination of electrical and visual signals. [18]Butterfield and Hooker soon overloaded the capacity of the Signal Corps lines which were staffed with many new operators and badly in need of repair after months of use. The system eventually collapsed entirely and the USMTC took over complete control of communication duties for the remainder of the campaign.

The USMTC Takes Over

In the wake of the Chancellorsville disaster, Myer decided to convert the Signal Corps to the superior Morse machine. This action however, put the Signal Corps in direct competition with the USMTC for trained operators. Without gaining the approval of Secretary Stanton, Myer placed a series of advertisements in the Army and Navy Official Gazette “calling for expert telegraphers to apply for commissions in the Signal Corps.” [19]Myer’s action was promptly chastised as “irregular and improper” by Assistant Secretary of War W. A. Nichols. [20]

Colonel Stager reacted to Myer’s action by recommending to Secretary Stanton that “management of all field and military electric telegraphs be confined to the...[USMTC], or, that that Department be abolished, and the whole business placed under the control of the Signal Corps.” [21]On November 10, 1893, Myer was recalled to the War Department where he was relieved of command. Stanton promptly issued Special Order 499 requiring “all magneto-electric field signal trains and apparatus” of the U.S. Signal Corps to be turned over to the USMTC as well as all Signal Corps personnel. [22]

In the aftermath of the Civil War the USMTC would be disbanded and the Signal Corps would by the sole department tasked with maintaining military communications. From 1863 until the end of the war however, all military telegraph communications would be carried out by the War Department through its civilian apparatus the USMTC. With this consolidation, the Union would finally be able to realize the potential of the telegraph.

What do you think about the importance of the telegraph in the US Civil War? Let us know below.

Now, you can read part 3 on The Union’s Use of the Telegraph in the US Civil War here.

[1]Paul Farhi, “How the Civil War gave birth to modern journalism in the nation’s capital,” Washington Post, (March 2, 2012). 

[2]Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 Fort Sumter to Perryville, (New York, NY: Random House, 1958), 53.

[3]James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2001), 164.

[4]John E.O’Brien,Telegraphing in Battle: Reminiscences of the Civil War, (Scranton, PA: The Reader Press, 1910), 5.

[5]Plum, Vol. I, 64.

[6]Plum, Vol. I,9.

[7]Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, 8.

[8]A.W. Greely, “The Military-Telegraph Service,” Signal Corp Association.

[9]David Nasaw, Andrew Carnegie, (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2007), 73.

[10]J. Emmet O’Brien, “Telegraphing in Battle.” The Century, Vol. 38, Is. 5 (Sep., 1889).

[11]David H. Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War, (New York, NY: D. Appleton-Century Company Inc., 1907), 31.

[12]Raines, 17.

[13]Ibid., 18.

[14]U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 Vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 5, 31.

[15]Raines, 20.

[16]Ibid.

[17]Paul J. Scheips, “Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict,” Civil War History, Vol. IX, No. 4 (Dec. 1963), 11.

[18]Raines, 20.

[19]Scheips, “Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict,” 11.

[20]Raines, 21.

[21]Plum, Vol. II, 101.

[22]Ibid., 102.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Bates, David H. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. New York, NY: D. Appleton-Century Company Inc. (1907).

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Ed. Roy Basler. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (1953).

Greely, A.W. “The Military-Telegraph Service.” Signal Corp Association. Accessed May 3, 2016. 

http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/telegreely/telegreely.html

Morse, Samuel F.B. “Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism.” Patent No. 1,647. United Stets Patent Office. (June 20, 1840).

O’Brien, John E. Telegraphing in Battle: Reminiscences of the Civil War. Scranton, PA: The Reader Press. (1910).

Plum, William R. The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I & II. New York, NY: Arno Press. (1974).

“War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 Vols.” U.S. War Department. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. (1880–1901).

Secondary Sources:

Cambou, Don. Civil War Tech in Modern Marvels. New York, NY: A&E Television Network. (2006).

“Civil War and Industrial Expansion, 1860–1897 (Overview).”  Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. Accessed February 28, 2016. 

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400169.html

Clark, John E. Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. (2001).

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York, NY: Random House. (1958).

“First transatlantic telegraph cable completed.” History.com. Accessed March 01, 2016. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed.

Hagerman, Edward. The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (1988).

McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. (2001).

Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York, NY: Penguin Books. (2007).

Peters, Arthur K. Seven Trails West. New York, NY: Abbeville Press. (1996).

Raines, Rebecca R. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History. (1996).

Wheeler, Tom. Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War. New York, NY: Harper Business. (2007). 

Journal Articles:

Farhi, Paul. “How the Civil War gave birth to modern journalism in the nation’s capital.” Washington Post.(March 2, 2012). 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-the-civil-war-gave-birth-to-modern-journalism-in-the-nations-capital/2012/02/24/gIQAIMFpmR_story.html.

O’Brien, J. Emmet. “Telegraphing in Battle.” The Century, Vol. 38, Is. 5 (Sep., 1889). http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/teleinbat/teleinbat.html.

Scheips, Paul J. “Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict.” Civil War History, Vol. IX, No. 4 (Dec. 1963).

Trotter, William R. “The Music of War.” HistoryNet. http://www.historynet.com/the-music-of-war.htm.

What if Queen Victoria never made it to the Throne? Part 1 - The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte of Wales

Queen Victoria is one of the most famous monarchs in history. Her reign of 63 years was the longest in the history of the United Kingdom until Queen Elizabeth II surpassed her, reigning 68 years and counting. Her name is synonymous with an entire time period. Surely there was never an individual that made such an impact on a country, if not the world. 

But what if that had never happened? What if she never came to the throne? What if the original heir presumptive had lived to take the throne? And most importantly, how would the world have been different? This is an examination of those scenarios and how one death changed the entire world.

Denise Tubbs starts this series by telling us of the tragic death of Princess Charlotte of Wales.

Princess Charlotte of Wales and her husband Prince Leopold. By George Dawe.

Her name was Charlotte. Princess Charlotte to be formal.  She was the only daughter of King George IV and his wife Caroline of Brunswick. To say that her parents were in a loveless marriage didn’t quite cover the whole story. Prior to George’s ascension to the throne, he had been a party boy. He despised his father and used any chance he could get to live and spend his money. But as George III got older, he pressured his son to marry and have an heir. With him being the Prince of Wales, it was his duty. He was forced to marry Princess Caroline, Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel; a woman he found utterly undesirable in every way. Now there is a rumor that George had already been married and that his new marriage to Caroline was invalid. You see George had a love and her name was Maria Fitzherbert. The two of them had been in a torrid affair long before Caroline entered the picture. But there was a problem with Maria. She was a Catholic. And for those unfamiliar with English history, that’s not a good thing. The Church of England is a Protestant church; and its head is the reigning monarch. There were rules that forbade Protestants and Catholics from marrying. After a time of being together, it is suspected that the two were married in a Catholic ceremony held in secret. If it were true it would have thrown the succession and the state of the country into question. There has never been any confirmation of this, but his treatment of Caroline was downright horrible. Caroline’s story is a sad one, and she wouldn’t live long enough to see the events that later transpired.

The feeling was mutual on Caroline’s part. She hated George. After the wedding night, the two never found each other in the same bed. But at least one thing came of the wedding night. Charlotte was born just after the new year in 1796. Now that he had an heir, George felt his duty was fulfilled. Little did he know or realize that his father George III would eventually descend into madness. His madness was called “the madness of King George.” At the time, no one understood what caused the old king to lose all his faculties. His illness would later be a fear to all those descended from him. Every monarch after him feared that they too would get the madness. Later on, the theory was that his madness was based on the disease of Porphyria. Whether or not there is any truth is still debated to this day. 

George became more and more involved in the day-to-day responsibilities for his father until the old King died in 1820. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. So much happened in the five years before the old king passed away that changed the history of the world. 

Charlotte grows up

As Charlotte became older, naturally she was told she would be wed to someone of equal stature. She had many suitors to choose from. She was introduced to William, Hereditary Prince of Orange, who did not make the best impression on her. There was a rumor that her father got a hold too that Charlotte wanted to marry Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. This would be problematic since they were closely related. Prince William Frederick and Charlotte were both grandchildren of George III. This would make them first cousins, a bit too close in the bloodline. Her father was against this and berated her for even thinking of the notion. 

She eventually settled on a young Prince, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. He was a German who had fought with Russia against Napoleon. They married in 1816, and she became pregnant with their first child soon after. On November 3, 1817 she went into labor. Up until that moment, Charlotte had what seemed to be a normal pregnancy. But it became apparent soon after that not all was right. She was having trouble pushing the child out, and time was passing quickly. On November 5 she finally gave birth to a stillborn son. Charlotte was exhausted after the ordeal and her doctors confirmed that the Princess was doing well.

Tragedy

However, the situation was far from ok. On November 6, Charlotte woke up to sickness. She vomited and held her abdomen in pain. The doctors were recalled to her bedside, while others rushed to wake Prince Leopold. The Prince, who had stayed with his wife throughout the previous days, was given opium and had gone to bed to rest. The doctor noticed she was clammy, cold, and bleeding. He could not stop the bleeding despite his efforts. By now Charlotte was having difficulty breathing, and they were having trouble waking the Prince. Sir Christian Stockmar, who was the primary doctor of Prince Leopold, had run into the room to see the Princess. She said the words “they have made me tipsy.” Sir Richard turned to go back to the Prince when the Princess shouted at him “Stocky, Stocky!” He returned to the room to find that the Princess was dead. 

Charlotte’s death sent shockwaves across the country. Only during the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, some 180 years later had there been this amount of grief in the nation. You could say that she was the Diana of her day. Adored by all, and a loss of not just to the Royal Family but the country too. Shops were closed for days, commemorative trinkets were produced in her memory, and windows and doors were draped in black. Her father was distraught with grief. So distraught, he could not even go to her funeral. They say her death changed him forever; he was never the same after. She is buried with her son in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. 

But there was one more thing that her death caused. A vacuum had been opened. And soon it would be large enough to have all of George III’s sons scrambling to find wives. Now that Charlotte was gone, there was no heir. She had been the only legitimate child of the Hanover dynasty. When George became King in 1820, a race began to see which of George III’s sons would have a legitimate child.

Next up, we’ll discuss the other sons of George III and just how weak Charlotte’s death made the monarchy.

Now, read part 2 here: What if Queen Victoria never made it to the Throne? Part 2 - The Many Sons of George III

What do you think the legacy is of Princess Charlotte of Wales? Let us know below.

The Importance of the Telegraph in the US Civil War: Part 1 - The Invention of the Telegraph

The American Civil War (1861-65) saw a breakthrough in various technologies. One of particular importance was the telegraph, a communication technology that had grown greatly in significance in the years before the US Civil War broke out. Here, K.R.T. Quirion starts his three-part series on the importance of the telegraph in the US Civil War by looking at the history of the telegraph globally and in the US before the war broke out.

Samuel Morse sending the message ‘What Hath God Wrought’ in 1844. Image available here.

Introduction

The five years of the American Civil War saw the development of hundreds of new technologies. The number of patents approved by the U.S.Patent Office had been steadily increasing before the war. In 1815, the agency issued 173 patents, 1,045 in 1844, and 7,653 in 1860. [1] With the start of the Civil War, the rate of innovation increased so much that at least 15,000 patents were issued every year of the war. [2]

Some of these technologies, like the Gatlin Gun and the Ironclad, were developed specifically for the battlefield; others, such as improvements in transportation and communication were not. Much has already been written on the role that these new technologies played in the Civil War. For instance, that the Minie ball contributed to the high casualty rate has been widely accepted as has the significance of the railroad across the nation’s 1,000-mile battlefront. 

This article will focus on the role of the telegraph. Specifically, it will look at how the Union employed this new technology to successfully prosecute the war. It will argue that the telegraph allowed Union commanders, the War Department, and President Lincoln to control huge armies with unprecedented precision across the vast American landscape. This was made possible by thousands of miles of telegraphic wire, sophisticated mobile communication units, and hundreds of trained and dedicated operators. Together, these factors helped to shorten one of the most tragic episodes in American history. 

The development of the military telegraphic communication system was a slow and difficult process. Not until the closing years of the war was the Union able to achieve a high level of telegraphic integration within its command structure.  In order to appreciate the important role of the telegraph, it is necessary to examine both the development of this infrastructure and how Union leaders sought to integrate it into the military’s command structure.

Military Communication before the Telegraph

Prior to the invention of the telegraph, commanders and their civilian leaders had limited means with which to communicate. The principal method was through writing by couriers or orally by messengers. On the field of battle, other means to communicate were developed to coordinate dispersed units. Smoke signals, trumpets, drums, and flags became important in this regard. In 1794, the French military organized two companies of balloon riding “aeronauts” who used flags to signal their observations of enemy troop movements to friendly units on the ground. [3]

By the 18thcentury, practically every nation had adopted its own signature march which its troops were required to memorize. Amid the chaos of battle, the identity of a distant column of troops could often be identified solely by their marching music. On multiple occasions, resourceful commanders were able to use this to their advantage. One German force in the Thirty Years’ War, obscured its identity by maneuvering to The Scots Marche. According to William Trotter, “Allied (Anglo-Dutch-Austrian) drummers played The French Retreate so convincingly” that part of the French army withdrew from the field during the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708. [4]

In America, the organizational structure of the British Army was closely followed, including field communication by fife and drum. These were further improved during the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge. There, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben instituted the Continental Army’s first system of drill procedures, which included standardized maneuver and communication signals. These signaling methods “remained virtually unchanged until the invention of the electric telegraph.” [5]

In 1854, Dr. Albert Myer developed a new military signaling system which used a flag and torch combination. This system, known as “wigwag” employed only one flag as opposed to the traditional semaphores signaling, which employed two flags. [6]After appearing before a board of examination in Washington D.C., Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee declared that Dr. Myer’s wigwag “system might be useful as an accessory to… but not as a Substitute for the means now employed to convey intelligence by an Army in the Field, and especially on a Field of Battle.” [7]

Myer’s was authorized to test his new system in combat simulations. In June of 1860, the U.S. Army Signal Corps was created and Dr. Myers was appointed as its sole officer. By 1861, Myer had patented his signal system and was testing it in active combat situations in New Mexico under the command of Col. Thomas T. Fauntleroy. During this same time however, an even more revolutionary communication system was being created.   

Invention of the Telegraph

The development of the electric telegraph was the work of many individuals over nearly a span of 80 years. In 1774, the first experiments with electronic signaling were conducted by Georges Louis Le Sage of Geneva. Le Sage’s technique employed twenty-four insulated wires that each represented an individual letter and were connected to a pith ball electroscope. When the desired letter was imputed, the electrical current would excite the respective ball on the other end thereby spelling words letter by letter. [8]

Samuel B. Morse began his work on the telegraph in 1832.  Morse’s improved telegraph machine was patented on June 20, 1840. Patent number 1,647 covered the electro telegraph machine itself, Morse’s specialized “code” system, the type set for communicating those symbols and even its accompanying dictionary. His patent also included a “mode for laying the circuit of conductors” needed to operate the telegraph system. [9]

With this new design, the electric telegraph would soon transform the nature of communications. Morse, too poor to test his invention on a large scale, went before Congress in order to request $30,000 with which to construct an appropriate experiment. Wary of spending taxpayer monies on a dead end, Morse’s request was initially rejected by Congress. Despite this, the 1843 Congress approved the expenditure in its “expiring hour” and Morse began the work of constructing a “double (circuit) wire between Washington [D.C.] and Baltimore.”[10]

Finally, in 1844, Morse sent the world's first electric telegraph message across the Washington-Baltimore circuit. [11]He quoted four simple words from Numbers 23:23, “What God hath wrought?” Underlying this dramatic message was the knowledge that the world had entered a new era of communication and connectedness. [12]In 1841, it had taken 110 days for the news of the death of President Harrison to reach Los Angeles, California. [13]By the end of the decade, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph line would tie together the American landscape. This near instant transmission of information forever altered the course of history.

The State of Telegraphic Communications before the Start of the Civil War

Implementation of the telegraph on the battlefield would first occur in Europe during the Crimean War (1854 - 1855). This crude military telegraph system was limited to inter-command center communications. Two years later in India, the English used a system of rollers and carts to deploy miles of telegraph lines that were said to have worked over distances of one hundred miles. [14]The success that the English experienced with the telegraph caught the attention of the German military. Beginning in 1855, they instituted the first telegraph system as a permanent part of their military organization. The French and the Spanish militaries followed soon after.

In America, the telegraph had just over seven years to “develop in peaceful employments” before the start of the Civil War. [15]During that time, thousands of miles of wire were laid in conjunction with the rail lines that were beginning to crisscross the American landscape. Together, these new technologies began to change the pace of American life. Near instant communication and speedy travel “began to insinuate time as a factor into people’s daily lives...” and “…in business thinking.” [16]

Three great companies grew out of America’s growing reliance on telecommunications: the American Telegraph Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Southwestern Telegraph Company. By 1861, the combination of these three concerns had connected all of the major cities in the Union with the exception of those to San Francisco, California which were not completed until the end of the year. [17]There were more than 50,000 miles of telegraph cable in operation by 1861. [18]Yet, as the country headed toward war, the vast potential of the telegraph had only begun to be realized. Over the following five years, the telegraph would prove itself to be among the most revolutionary inventions of the 19thcentury. 

 

What do you think about the importance of the telegraph in the 19th century? Let us know below.

Now, you can read part 2 on the telegraph in the early years of the US Civil War here and part 3 on the Union’s use of the telegraph in the US Civil War here.

[1]“Civil War and Industrial Expansion, 1860–1897 (Overview),” Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, 1999, Encyclopedia.com, accessed February 28, 2016.

[2]Ibid.

[3]William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1974), 16.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Rebecca R. Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1996), 4.

[6]Ibid., 5.

[7]Ibid., 6. 

[8]Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I,24.

[9]Samuel F.B. Morse, “Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism,” Patent No. 1,647, United States Patent Office, (June 20, 1840), 1.

[10]Plum, Vol. 1,25.

[11]Don Cambou, Civil War Tech inModern Marvels, (New York, NY: A&E Television Network, 2006).

[12] “First transatlantic telegraph cable completed,” History.com, accessed March 01, 2016. 

[13]Arthur K. Peters, Seven Trails West, (New York, NY: Abbeville Press, 1996), 173.

[14]Plum, Vol. I,27.

[15]Ibid., 26.

[16]John E. Clark, Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 10.

[17]Plum, Vol. I,63.

[18]Cambou.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Bates, David H. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. New York, NY: D. Appleton-Century Company Inc. (1907).

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Ed. Roy Basler. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (1953).

Greely, A.W. “The Military-Telegraph Service.” Signal Corp Association. Accessed May 3, 2016. 

http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/telegreely/telegreely.html

Morse, Samuel F.B. “Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism.” Patent No. 1,647. United Stets Patent Office. (June 20, 1840).

O’Brien, John E. Telegraphing in Battle: Reminiscences of the Civil War. Scranton, PA: The Reader Press. (1910).

Plum, William R. The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I & II. New York, NY: Arno Press. (1974).

“War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 Vols.” U.S. War Department. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. (1880–1901).

Secondary Sources:

Cambou, Don. Civil War Tech in Modern Marvels. New York, NY: A&E Television Network. (2006).

“Civil War and Industrial Expansion, 1860–1897 (Overview).”  Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. Accessed February 28, 2016. 

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400169.html

Clark, John E. Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. (2001).

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York, NY: Random House. (1958).

“First transatlantic telegraph cable completed.” History.com. Accessed March 01, 2016. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed.

Hagerman, Edward. The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (1988).

McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. (2001).

Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York, NY: Penguin Books. (2007).

Peters, Arthur K. Seven Trails West. New York, NY: Abbeville Press. (1996).

Raines, Rebecca R. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History. (1996).

Wheeler, Tom. Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War. New York, NY: Harper Business. (2007). 

Journal Articles:

Farhi, Paul. “How the Civil War gave birth to modern journalism in the nation’s capital.” Washington Post.(March 2, 2012). 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-the-civil-war-gave-birth-to-modern-journalism-in-the-nations-capital/2012/02/24/gIQAIMFpmR_story.html.

O’Brien, J. Emmet. “Telegraphing in Battle.” The Century, Vol. 38, Is. 5 (Sep., 1889). http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/teleinbat/teleinbat.html.

Scheips, Paul J. “Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict.” Civil War History, Vol. IX, No. 4 (Dec. 1963).

Trotter, William R. “The Music of War.” HistoryNet. http://www.historynet.com/the-music-of-war.htm.

The Role of the Baptists in the Pursuit of Religious Liberty in America: Part 1 – Baptist Persecution

When thinking about the Constitution of the United States, names like James Madison usually come to mind. But a friend of the great "architect of the Constitution," John Leland, a Baptist minister, had much to do with Madison's giant accomplishments. In fact, without Mr. Leland's influence the establishment clause in the First Amendment may not exist as we know it. In this series of articles we will explore the critical but little-known role played by the Baptists in helping to secure America’s cherished religious freedoms. Our story begins by focusing on the persecution suffered by Baptists in 17thcentury America – and a hot New England summer.

Victor Gamma explains.

An engraving of the 1651 whipping of Obadiah Holmes.

In July 1651 the Newport Baptist Church received a request from a house-bound member in Lynn, Massachusetts named William Witter. Witter was desirous of hearing the Word of God preached. Being blind and quite elderly, he requested a pastoral visit from Baptist minister and physician John Clarke along with co-religionists Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall. The three men made the eighty-mile journey to Lynn, where Witter lived. While in Massachusetts they baptized Witter in accordance with 'believer's baptism'. Clarke and Holmes were known to the Massachusetts authorities. The Bay Colony required that any who denied infant baptism or taught this to others, or who denied the right of the state to make war should be arrested and banished from the colony. Witter was no stranger to the authorities as well, being bold to the point of insolence. Salem court records have preserved some of his statements made during his earlier trial;

          “The baptism of infants is sinful.”

         “Infant baptism is the badge of the whore.”

         “They who stay whiles a child is baptized do worship the devil.” 

News of Clarke and his associates’ presence at Witter’s home spread quickly. By that very evening a warrant had been issued for their arrest, which action was carried out the following day.  The three were forced to attend a congregational service, in which they refused to remove their hats and attempted to preach. They were imprisoned and then taken to Boston for trial. Their prosecutor was John Cotton, who argued that the defendants, whom he called Anabaptists, were worthy of the death penalty for heresy. After a ‘trial’ which consisted merely of charges and sentencing, the three Baptists were given the penalties of paying fines or to be ‘well-whipt.’

Of the three Baptists, Clarke and Holmes refused to pay a fine. Clarke avoided the whipping post when a friend paid his fine while he was being led to his punishment. The steadfast Holmes, however, would brook no aid from friends or sympathizers, saying, “Agreeing to the payment of my fine would constitute admission of wrongdoing.”  By refusing to pay a fine and not allowing anyone else to, Holmes was making a statement that the law was completely invalid and unjust by its very nature.  The sentence was carried out publically with thirty stripes, which was ten less than the forty considered to be a death sentence, but equal to that given to rapists. The “whipper’s” instrument of torment featured three leather strips, so in reality Holmes received ninety lashes. Holmes chose the opportunity to preach to the crowd while being whipped. An eyewitness, John Spur, described the whipping of Obadiah Holmes. As the 'whipper' removed the clothes from his upper body in order to administer the beatings, Spur records that Holmes declared, "Lord lay not this sin upon their charge." During the whipping Holmes stated, "O Lord I beseech thee to manifest thy power in the weakness of thy creature." According to Spur, Holmes submitted to the whipping, ". . . neither moving nor stirring at all for the strokes, (and) broke out into these expressions,  'Blessed and praised be the Lord,' and this he carried it to the end and went away rejoicingly." Many onlookers were moved to loudly request the beating to stop, and were themselves arrested. As a result of his beating, Holmes was unable to sleep on his back for a month. After recovering, Holmes went on to continue his evangelistic work. His bold stand had also become a symbol in the struggle for religious liberty.

Freedom of conscience

Bold stands such as this led the historian George Bancroft to declare, “Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first a trophy of the Baptists.” In the seventeenth century, freedom of conscience had become such a become such a defining feature of Baptists that the great John Locke was moved to write, “The Baptists were the first and only propounders of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.” Ultimately, the measures taken against Baptists would include whipping, imprisonment, fines and banishment. Because America offered such a vast abundance of space, a favorite device of those defending the Standing Order was to exile Baptists and other dissenting groups into the wilderness. As one offended contemporary put it, “All Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other enthusiasts, shall have free Liberty to keep away from us, and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can the sooner the better.”

You will not find names like Isaac Backus or John Leland in a book about the writing of the Constitution, nonetheless, these Baptists, along with their predecessors like Holmes, played a critical role in providing the underpinning attitudes that resulted in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In fighting for their own freedom, they struck a blow for all Americans, articulating a philosophy concerning the relationship between the religious and civil sphere, protecting the rights of the former. Baptists were often well ahead of their colonial brethren in the matter of freedom of conscience.

Baptists felt the heavy hand of persecution from the moment of their arrival in the English colonies. There were many reasons for this. Both the Puritans of New England and the Anglicans of Virginia believed in the union of church and state to some degree and the necessity of the civil authority to enforce religious conformity. The Protestant churches that broke away from Rome in the fifteenth century maintained the system of state support of churches. In England the government sponsorship of religion was called the ‘nursing father.’ In the English colonies, this system of the civil rulers as nursing fathers continued. Furthermore, the Puritans held that society could not function without establishment of religion, referred to as the “Standing Order.” Without it, they contended, society would crumble into anarchy and moral perversion. The 1689 Act of Toleration, although a milestone in British history, did not establish religious liberty. It extended toleration to a greater number of religious expressions, but maintained England as a protestant state with England under the prelacy of the Church of England and Scotland under the Presbyterian establishment. During the colonial era, most colonists also held the view that residents of a particular colony should properly all belong to the same church, and took it as natural that this church should be financially and legally supported by the state, including non-voluntary taxes and even laws requiring participation in religious services. Even havens of religious toleration like Pennsylvania and Maryland sometimes heard the lament of oppressed minorities.

Baptists in the New World

The Baptists, having already experienced persecution in England, arrived in the New World generally hostile to the idea of civil authorities determining their religious beliefs and practices. The Baptists eventually compiled a large amount of scriptural and historical support for their position. Isaac Backus, later to be the champion of liberty for Baptists during the Revolutionary era, relied on eighteenth-century Lutheran historian Johann Lorenz Von Mosheim to express the common Baptist view of the state of Christendom in his History of New England. Backus' history asserted that the early church's purity was perverted by  “. . . an alteration. . . that Christian ministers succeeded to the rights and privileges of the Jewish priesthood. Heathen philosophy was also called in to interpret the scriptures . . . to which they added, in the fourth century, under Constantine, the use of temporal penalties, and corporal tortures, for the same end (to promote of the interests of the church).” 

No other issue so horrified the religious establishment, though, as the issue of baptism. The Puritans and Separatists held firmly to the practice of infant baptism as one sign of the covenantal nature of the church. They saw in the ceremony a badge of the covenant a sign as circumcision was for the Jews.  As Cotton Matter put it, “They did all agree with their brethren in Plymouth in this point, ‘That the children of the faithful, were church members, with their parents, and that their baptism was a seal of their being so.’ ” In Massachusetts Puritans held to the validity of an established church, and as Anglicans in Virginia they were determined to support the canons of the Church of England including the Thirty Nine Articles. Article 27 stated, “The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institutions of Christ.” Those that refused to comply with this article were spoken of as those who “dare not submit their children to be baptized by their undertaking of god-fathers, and receive the Cross as a dedicating badge of Christianity . . .” This belief conflicted sharply with Baptist convictions. Isaac Backus in hisHistory of New England offers a quote from John Robinson which, citing scripture for each point, summarized the Baptist position on baptism “. . . the sacrament of baptism is to be administered   . . . only to such as are . . . taught and made disciples [Matt. xxviii. 19]. . . Baptism administered to any others is so far from investing them with any saintship in that estate, that [as] it makes guilty, both the giver and the receiver, of sacrilege, and is the taking of God’s name in vain.” 

The view of Baptists

False perceptions also fanned the flames of suspicion. When the Puritan or Anglican establishment looked at Baptists they often saw not simple dissenters but dangerous incendiaries. The memory of Anabaptist excesses, such as the Munster Rebellion of 1535-6 were still recalled and projected on to the Baptists. In fact, ‘Anabaptist’ was a name that continued to be applied to the Baptists.  Regardless of their efforts to distance themselves from the taint of Anabaptist excesses, the Baptists were popularly held to be dangerous subversives or degenerate antinomians.  The 1644 law banishing Baptists from Massachusetts Bay Colony stated, “Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that since the first arising of the Anabaptists about a hundred years since, they have been the incendiaries of the commonwealths and the infectors of persons in main matters of religion and the troublers of churches . . .” Baptists promptly answered such charges when given the opportunity. In 1680 John Russel, second pastor of the Baptist church in Boston, sought to dispel the irrational opinions of Baptists in a tract entitled Some Considerable Passages Concerning the First Gathering and Further Progress of a Church of Christ in Gospel Order in Boston in New England Commonly (though Falsely) Called By the Name of Anabaptists. Russell’s tract was a point-by-point refutation of the common charges laid at the feet of Baptists using simple logic. For example Russell argues against the contention that Baptists were a threat to the church, “We are charged to be underminers of the Churches. This is also a great mistake: we never designed . . . any such thing, but heartily desire and daily pray for the well-being, flourishing, and Prosperity of all the Churches of Christ.” 

Up until now we’ve explored the reasons why Baptists faced persecution in America.  In part two (here), Roger Williams and Religious Freedom, we look at the story of Roger Williams and the founding of the first Baptist church in America.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

The Controversial Career of the First Female US Senator: Rebecca Latimer Felton

In my history classes at Texas A&M University-Commerce, I enjoy talking about strong women in American history who championed for women’s rights. I consider Rebecca Latimer Felton (b. 1835) to be one of these powerful women. Felton became the oldest freshman senator  - and first female senator - at eighty-seven years old in 1922. In this article I analyze the political career of Rebecca Felton—a patriotic and successful, yet highly controversial legislator in the Progressive Era. 

Joshua V. Chanin explains.

Rebecca Felton in later life.

Political Beginnings 

Rebecca was unlike her boisterous peers on the playground, instead enjoying quieter, mature activities such as reading newspapers and partaking in dinner conversations on the state of American politics. Since her father was a Whig, young Rebecca naturally followed suite and devoted herself to reading dense material written by several prolific Whig leaders, including Henry Clay and Millard Fillmore. “I confess to a real liking for political questions. It was my habit for many years to keep up with the progress of great questions in the national congress and I found interest and food for thought in the daily, but dull, congressional record.” She later attested that Henry Clay was the greatest man in the United States in the nineteenth century. 

One of her first major political experiences was the 1844 presidential election between Henry Clay and James K. Polk. Rebecca, at age nine, “read the newspapers very diligently” and, like others among the higher social class, firmly believed that “Henry Clay’s election was a forgone conclusion. His ability as a statesman was so transcendent; defeat was unthinkable…” However, the pollsters were wrong, and Polk easily won the political race, capturing 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105. Rebecca later recalled the political shockwaves in the South following the 1844 election: “It was a terrible affair—it ruptured friendships, split up neighborhoods and got among church people.” Rebecca’s political upbringing allowed the young girl to absorb a distinct preview of the life she would be drawn to in the future—a life of activism and unforeseen outcomes.

Standing at the Side

Amid an education at Madison Female College and responsibilities at the family plantation in Cartersville, Georgia, Rebecca Latimer fell in love with Dr. William Harrell Felton, a southern minister. The couple wed in October 1853. Political ambitions were put aside as Rebecca Felton settled into domesticity where she completed chores and tendered to five children—one of whom, Howard Erwin Felton, survived childhood. She was one among the many women in the South prior to the Civil War who did not have a public voice and was obligated to stand at the side of their husband. Rebecca Felton not only supported her spouse in his expansive political career in Georgia’s House of Representatives and the national House, she gradually honed her own political skills by polishing his speeches and helping draft bills—William Felton’s constituents often bragged that they were getting two politicians for the price of one. At first Rebecca Felton believed her career was tied to her husband, however, she strategically used her husband’s position as a springboard for her future roles. And her visibility as a champion for public education—interest in this subject increased after the Felton’s opened Felton Academy following the Civil War—and in women’s suffrage grew to immense capacities in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

A Patriot

Like many Southerners during the Civil War, Felton did not label herself as a “rebel” nor a “secessionist.” Instead, she viewed herself as a patriot, a defender of Southern values, and a proud citizen of Georgia: “I loved my country. No heart ever was more loyal to the South and Southern honor.” Felton, among many in this region, were angry at the 1860 presidential election results and terrified that Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who had flirted with the idea of stopping the spread of slavery in the West, would abolish the slave trade and forcefully drive the Southern economy to a grinding halt. Thus, southerners kept a watchful eye for hostile political opponents and Union spies. Felton wrote about the hidden enemy in a diary: “..Danger lurked in every passing breeze and was concealed under every hasty legislative act of our political war leaders.” To combat this enemy fear, it was natural for southerners to adopt a patriotic tone in life and demonstrate fierce nationalism. 

Rebecca Felton’s love for the South and its common Confederate sympathizers during the war is evident in her 1911 memoirs: “Such heroism was unexemplified! The South has reason to be proud of its soldiers and its women. Their story of courage will bear repeating, because it was genuine, sincere and patriotic. Like all other military achievements, the officers earn and receive all the honors of war, but it was the plain soldiers and true-hearted women of the defunct Confederacy who deserve the medals of merit.” When the Confederate government ceased operations and fled Richmond in April 1865, many supporters blamed Confederate President Jefferson Davis for the country’s economic and political failures. Instead, Felton consistently defended the president’s policies, heeding to the fact that Davis had a herculean undertaking at the start of the war: “He was not faultless—he had many and violent enemies…he was victimized by newspaper reporters…he gave it the best that was in him—and went down with it in defeat.” Although patriotism plays a key role in fueling a politician’s agenda and despite being a Dixie woman of her time, Felton’s admiration for Southern racial politics cannot be ignored.

Racial Politics

Felton’s inhumane racial views coincided with her political career. She openly shunned Native Americans and called them “savages,” a label that presumably had been in her vocabulary since she was a young child when her mother occasionally told her bedside stories of Native-led massacres against the white man. Moreover, Felton promoted white supremacism by partaking in regional Ku Klux Klan activities and dissuading her husband’s political colleagues to vote on bills that favored more liberties for African Americans; she believed that more money spent on black education would result in more black crimes in neighborhoods, and voting rights for black women would lead directly to the rape of white women. Felton was eager to spread her nauseating racial beliefs to mass audiences and publicly mock the “half-civilized gorillas,” as she tried to do at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago where she proposed a southern history exhibit that featured “A cabin and real colored folk making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.” To the relief of some, the suggested slave exhibit never came to fruition. 

During a bloody time where racial violence was already prevalent in the South, Rebecca Felton advocated for more lynchings in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. She wanted the rugged noose to play a fixed role in Southern society, as evident by an explicit diary entry dated on August 11, 1897: “When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about inonce and virtue—if it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts—then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.” Following the burning of Sam Hose, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, by a white mob in Georgia’s Coweta County in April 1899—where civilians sold parts of Hose’s body as souvenirs—Felton vocally made it known that Hose was a “beast” who was no better than a rabid dog. Not only was she an aggressive advocate of racial prejudice, Felton condemned anyone who dared to question the South’s racial practices. When Andrew Sledd, professor of Biblical Studies at Emory University, published an article in the Atlantic Monthlyin July 1902 criticizing the lynchings of black men, Felton played an instrumental role in forcing Emory’s administration to terminate Sledd for improper behavior and stoked public anger towards the professor through a series of editorial attacks in the Atlanta Constitution. Felton’s racial views were perpetual as she treaded lightly with progressive politics and stayed true to antiquated Southern beliefs—Felton, having possessed slaves since she was eighteen years old, was the last member of either house of Congress to have been a slave owner. 

U.S. Senator

The peak of Rebecca Felton’s political career was her one-day appointment to the United States Senate between November 21-22, 1922. A Senate seat suddenly became vacant on September 26, 1922, following the death of Thomas E. Watson. Since Georgia Governor Thomas W. Hardwick wanted to win the November special election for the seat and appease the women voters who were displeased on his opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment, he strategically decided to appoint Felton as Watson’s temporary replacement on October 3. Despite the fact that Congress was not expected to reconvene until the end of November—President Warren Harding persuaded Congress to meet earlier due to an influx of letters from Felton’s supporters requesting the woman to take the oath of office—Walter F. George, the special election winner, chose to step aside and allow Felton to be sworn in as the nation’s first woman senator on November 21. The symbolic gesture to permit a female to sit in one of the highest political chairs in the United States (even just for a day) was a major political victory for white women.

Equal Partners

Felton did not have the opportunity to support or challenge any legislation in the Senate since she only served for one day. However, in front of a filled senate chamber, Felton delivered a speech to her male peers on November 22, pronouncing the increasing influence women had in 1920s national politics: “When women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.” The reactions in the chamber after the address varied. Felton wrote that some of the gentlemen “Seemed to be a little bit hysterical, but most of them occupied their time looking at the ceiling.” Felton’s triumphant exit from the Senate reinforced the suffrage message she had been campaigning about for decades. Felton had been an outspoken leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union since 1886 and had articulated the ideas of white women having more decision-making power in the home, acquiring education beyond basic schooling, and enjoying more influence over their children. 

Felton also had tirelessly championed for white women’s suffrage during her career—she ferociously debated anti-suffragist Mildred Lewis Rutherford in 1915. Although the suffrage marches in the 1910s propelled the government to pass the Nineteenth Amendment, the Georgia Legislature was the first state to reject the amendment on July 24, 1919. In retaliation, Felton criticized the hypocrisy of southern gentlemen who boasted about their chivalry but opposed women’s rights: “In truth, character seemed to have gone out of politics…The moral salt of character could not be rescued, inside the party, controlled by such machinery…these men in the saddle were full, fat and saucy!” Thus, white women in Georgia were not allowed to vote in the 1920 presidential election, having to wait until the 1922 congressional elections. 

Conclusion

Following an active career in politics—behind and in front of the curtain—Felton returned home to lecture at public libraries and write books; she died in Atlanta in January 1930. Senator George remarked that “All in all she [Felton] must be grouped among the great women of her time.” Despite her political success and critical efforts to advance the women’s suffrage movement, Rebecca Felton was unquestionably a flawed character, rooted in her discriminating beliefs on race and southern prejudice.

What do you think of Rebecca Felton? Let us know below.

References

Felton, Rebecca L. Country Life in Georgia in the Days of my Youth. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1919. 

Felton, Rebecca L. My Memoirs of Georgia Politics. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1911. 

Helms, Amanda. ““Poor forsaken colored girls:” Rebecca Latimer Felton, White Supremacy, and Prison Reform, 1896-1900.”  M.A. Thesis, DePaul University, 2013. 

Staman, A. Louise. Loosening Corsets: The Heroic Life of Georgia’s Feisty Mrs. Felton, First Woman Senator of the United States.Macon, GA: Tiger Iron Press, 2006. 

Talmadge, John E. Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy Decades. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1960. 

Whites, LeeAnn. “Rebecca Latimer Felton and the Wife’s Farm: The Class and Racial Politics of Gender Reform.” Georgia Historical Quarterly76 (1992): 354-372.

The Importance Today of Abraham Lincoln’s Perpetual Speech

There seems to be ever-growing division and bitterness in American politics today – but there have been warnings this would happen before. Here, Mac Guffey explains an important speech – the Lyceum Address - by Abraham Lincoln on January 27, 1838.

You can also read Mac’s past articles: A Brief History of Impeachment in the US (here), on Franksgiving (here), the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War Two (here), and Christmas 1855 in the USA (here).

Abraham Lincoln in the mid-1840s.

One hundred and eighty-one years ago, on a January evening in a small Illinois town, a man talked about the way Democracy will die in America.

It won’t be from another country, he said. “It must spring up from amongst us,” and we, America’s citizens, will be both its author and its finisher, he warned.

The blueprint that he laid out that night for this collapse was two-phased.

The first phase will involve a nation-wide increase of what he called a “mobocratic spirit”. He defined this spirit as a growing propensity for violence, and those people who participate in this violence, he labeled as a “mobocracy”. The effect of this increasing frequency of violence will be a growing indifference - a numbness - by the public as the violence becomes more commonplace.

Therein, he said, lays the beginning of the end for Democracy.

This ‘numbness’ to violence will lead to even more violence by the mobocracy as their fear of the government decreases, and their contempt for its ineptitude grows.

The other effect of the escalating violence, he pointed out, is when the numbness by law-abiding citizens to the frequency of violence now turns to fear – fear for the safety of their person and property. Then he qualified that statement: It’s when the citizens believe their RIGHT to be safe in person and in property is threatened. For that, he predicted, they’ll blame the government.

So, contempt for the government from one faction of citizens and a loss of faith in the government from the other faction creates the “perfect storm” that weakens or destroys any sense of allegiance or support for that form of governance.

At that point, from among us, comes a person who promises to fix the problems.

Driven by a desire for power or fame, this person uses the moment of wavering allegiance to stir up support for another way to run things, to tear down the way it is, and to suggest to our citizens a better way to solve the problems in order to maintain their RIGHT to be safe in person and property.

But this person’s intent is to pull down Democracy - to substitute in its place, something selfish, something self-glorifying, and something non-democratic.

The solution to this human threat, said the speaker, is three-fold: One, our citizens must always be aware that THEY are the weak link in any Democracy. Two, our citizens must remain united with one another and united as a nation. Last, our citizens must maintain their allegiance to and their faith in our way of governing. These steps, he said, will successfully frustrate any person’s designs to interrupt the ‘perpetuation of our political institutions’. [1]

The View Now

In his lecture - that cold winter evening in 1838 - Abraham Lincoln perfectly described the grave threat that currently faces America’s participatory Democracy. As he said then, the responsibility for the perpetuation of our political institutions lies with its citizens. 

Now, it’s up to US to put Lincoln’s solution to work.

What do you think of Abraham Lincoln’s speech? Let us know below.

Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions – A speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum”. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln – Vol. 1.New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953.pp. 109-116.