Document 1: Presidential Election Map 1860 Presidential Election Map of 1860
Civil War Harper's Weekly October 18, 1862 pg.659 Document 2: Southern reaction to Emancipation Proclamation THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION IN SECESSIA. The news of President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation has fallen like a fire-brand into rebeldom. In the rebel Senate, on the 29th ult., Mr. Semmes, of Louisiana, submitted a joint resolution on the proclamation, and said, it was "a gross outrage on the rights of private property and an invitation to servile war, and therefore should be held up to the execration of mankind and counteracted by such severe retaliatory measures as, in the judgment of the President, may be best calculated to secure its withdrawal or arrest its execution." The subject stirred up the ire of the rebels; they gave vent to their rage in severe bombast, threats of annihilation, black flags, etc., ad infinitum. The Richmond Dispatch thinks "that the proclamation itself does not in the least alter the character of the war, as it has been an abolition contest from the beginning: the Yankees have stolen and set free all the negroes who were willing to go wherever their soldiers had possession of the country." The Richmond Enquirer has a rabid editorial on the proclamation. It says that document "ordaining servile insurrection, has not been for a moment misunderstood North or South." It styles President Lincoln "a savage" and a "fiend," and "the very ignorance which drives him to his own destruction stimulates him to the darkest excesses." It then compares the scenes to be enacted under the proclamation with the Nat Turner massacre in 1831. The Enquirer says: "It is one of the means which the most callous highwayman should shudder to employ." The article closes: "The hellish new programme will, necessarily, destroy all terms between us. The next campaign will be a tremendous one, both for the character and magnitude of the hostility. Let our authorities prepare the whole strength of our people for a tremendous shock." MORE RETALIATORY MEASURES. On 1st October Mr. Semmes introduced into the rebel Congress resolutions of a very savage retaliatory nature, declaring that after the 1st of January, 1863, all officers and non-commissioned officers found invading the Confederate States should be treated as criminals, and put to hard labor until the end of the war, or the repeal of the Confiscation act. All such officers as may command or train negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederacy, or incite them to rebellion, shall suffer death. Other pains and penalties are prescribed for different acts of our officers, and a war of extermination, in which the rules of civilized warfare are to be ignored, is proclaimed. These resolutions were read in the Senate, and not yet voted upon. In the House the spirit evinced was still more bitter, Mr. Lyons, of Virginia, introducing a resolution exhorting the people of the Confederacy to kill every officer, soldier, and sailor of the enemy found within their borders, unless a regular prisoner of war; declaring that after the lst of January, 1863, no officer of the enemy ought to be captured alive, or if recaptured should be immediately hung; and offering a bounty of twenty dollars, and an annuity of twenty dollars for life, to every slave and free negro who shall, after the 1st of January, 1863, kill one of the enemy. The Virginia Legislature resolved to grant immunity to any person who may kill any parties found on the sacred soil, armed or unarmed, aiding to carry out the "fiendish purposes" of the proclamation. THE PROCLAMATION IN NORTH CAROLINA. The Union feeling in North Carolina appears to be dominant. The President's emancipation proclamation has been received there with great enthusiasm by the non-slaveholders. They are to hold a great Union mass-meeting at Beaufort in honor of the event, in which all the counties in the two neighboring Congressional districts are to be largely represented. All the candidates for Congress in both districts are to be present and address the people on the occasion.
Letter from Hannibal Hamlin to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, September 25, 1862 Document 3: Letter from Hannibal Hamlin to Lincoln Bangor Sept. 25 1862. My Dear Sir I do not know, as, in the multiplicity of the correspondence with which you are burthened, this note will ever meet your eye-- But I desire to express my undissembled and sincere thanks for your Emancipation Proclamation. 1 It will stand as the great act of the age-- It will prove to be wise in Statesmanship, as it is Patriotic-- It will be enthusiastically approved and sustained and future generations will, as I do, say God bless you for the great and noble act. Yours Sincerely H Hamlin [Note 1 Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862.]
Excerpts from Jasper Barney letter (White Union Soldier): Mound City Hospital Oct. 24th 62 Document 4: Jasper Barney Letter Dear Afectionate brother I am happy to acknowlledge the reception of yours of the 20th and to hear of your sound health fore it is a great blessing and something I haven t had fore some time and I begin to thin I never be able to perform the duties of camp life again... You say in your letter that you or your Regt is not in fore freeing the negroes I am sory to heare it you wanted to know what I and my comrades thot of the negro question. I think old Abes proclamation is all right and there is very few old soldiers that is against it it is my opinion that yourself and the greater part of your Regiment will be in favor of it before you are in the service six months. I was of the same opinion of your self when I first came in service but I have learned better. You said you thought the thing would come to a finish by spring if the negroes was left alone but I think you will soon find out different fore it is my opinion that the ware never will come to a Close while the nogroes is left wheare they are to rais supplies fore the rebel army Old Abe gave them ninty days and that was long enough fore them to come to terms and saved tghere property and negroes but is seems like they wanted to go the whole hog or none Well I think I give you a very good sample of the opinions of myself nad comrades. Hoping you will pronounce it good I will close the subject by hoping to see Abrahams proclamation on confiscation and Emancipation carried into effect... P.S. I am not in favor of freeing the negroes and leaving them to run free and mingle among us neither is sutch the intention of old Abe but we will send them off and colonize them the government is already making preperations fore the same and you may be assured it will be carried into effect. Address J.R. Barney Ward H Mound City Hospital Illinois I remain your affectionate brother Jasper Barney John Dinsmore Papers, Illinois State Historical Library
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir. Document 5: Lincoln s response to Horace Greeley I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln.
Ecerpts from a piece written by: Frederick Douglass March 21, 1863 Men of Color, To Arms! Document 6: Men of Color, To Arms! When first the rebel cannon shattered the walls of Sumter and drove away its starving garrison, I predicted that the war then and there inaugurated would not be fought out entirely by white men. From East to West, from North to South, the sky is written all over, "Now or never." Liberty won by white men would lose half its luster. "Who would be free themselves must strike the blow." "Better even die free, than to live slaves." This is the sentiment of every brave colored man amongst us. There are weak and cowardly men in all nations. We have them amongst us. They tell you this is the "white man s war"; and you will be "no better off after than before the war"; that the getting of you into the army is to "sacrifice you on the first opportunity." Believe them not; cowards themselves, they do not wish to have their cowardice shamed by your brave example. The counsel I give comes of close observation of the great struggle now in progress, and of the deep conviction that this is your hour and mine. I now for the first time during this war feel at liberty to call and counsel you to arms...i urge you to fly to arms, and smite with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. I wish I could tell you that the State of New York calls you to this high honor. Massachusetts now welcomes you to arms as soldiers. She has but a small colored population from which to recruit. She has full leave of the general government to send one regiment to the war, and she has undertaken to do it. Go quickly and help fill up the first colored regiment from the North. I am authorized to assure you that you will receive the same wages, the same rations, and the same equipments, the same protection, the same treatment, and the same bounty, secured to the white soldiers. You will be led by able and skillful officers, men who will take especial pride in your efficiency and success. The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men This is our golden opportunity Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity through all time.
Political Cartoon from Harper s Weekly The Recruiting Business Document 7: The Recruiting Business Originally Published: January 23, 1864 Caption: Volunteer-Broker (to Barber) " Look a-here - I want you to trim up this old chap with a flaxen wig and a light mustache, so as to make him look like twenty; and as I shall probably clear three hundred dollars on him, I sha'n't mind giving you fifty for the job."
Image from Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper Murder of Colonel O Brien, August 1 st, 1863 Document 8: Murder of Colonel O Brien Original Caption: Brutal Murder of Col. H.F. O'Brien, near his residence, July 14. Publication: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. August 1, 1863. Event Date: July 14, 1863 Launched in New York City in 1855 by the English immigrant engraver whose name graced its masthead, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper was the first commercially-successful U.S. pictorial newsweekly. Like the more genteel Harper's Weekly, Leslie's provided northern readers with pictorial coverage of the Civil War, but it catered to a broader range of readers by also covering sensational crimes and popular entertainment. In this depiction of the beating death of Colonel O'Brien, one of the most infamous incidents of the draft riots, a handful of men bear down on O'Brien while many more descend on the drugstore in the background. An illustration in Harper's Weekly of the same incident presented O'Brien as far more vulnerable and outnumbered
Image from New York Illustrated News Lynching on 8 th Avenue August 1 st, 1863 Document 9: Lynching on 8 th Ave Description: Image of a lynching on 8th Avenue during the draft riots. Event Date: July 13-16, 1863 Publication: New York Illustrated News. August 1, 1863. Founded in 1859, the New York Illustrated News lasted only until 1864. But during that time it chronicled some of the most significant events of the era, from John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry and subsequent trial to the draft riots. African-American coachman Abraham Franklin was attacked and murdered by rioters near his home on Seventh Avenue and 27th Street on Wednesday morning, July 15th.
Eyewitness account of the Riots Colonel Arthur Fremantle From: Three Months in the Southern States Document 10: Colonel Arthur Fremantle The reports of outrages, hangings, and murder, were now most alarming, the terror and anxiety were universal. All shops were shut: all carriages and omnibuses had ceased running. No colored man or woman was visible or safe in the streets, or even in his own dwelling. Telegraphs were cut, and railroad tracks torn up. The draft was suspended, and the mob evidently had the upper hand. The people who can t pay $300 naturally hate being forced to fight in order to liberate the very race who they are most anxious should be slaves. It is their direct interest not only that all slaves should remain slaves, but that the free Northern Negroes who compete with them for labor should be sent to the South also.
Document 11: New York Times article July 16, 1863 Excerpt from "Facts and Incidents of the Riot," New York Times, July 16, 1863 At a late hour on Tuesday night the mob, number 4,000 or 5,000, made an attack upon the clothingstore of Messrs. BROOKS BROTHERS, in Catharine-street, corner of Cherry. Sergeant FINNEY, of the Third Precinct, while in the discharge of his duty in endeavoring to protect the property of this establishment, was knocked down, beaten on the head and body with clubs, and afterward shot in the hand by a pistol by one of the rioters. He was subsequently conveyed to the Station-house, where his wounds were dressed. He is very severely injured, and no hopes are entertained of his recovery. Officer DANIEL FIELDS, of the same Precinct, was knocked down and brutally beaten about the head and face at the same time a man named JOHN MATZEL was shot and instantly killed. It is reported that he was one of the leaders of the mob, and that the ball which pierced his heart came from a revolver in the hands of one of the officers of the law. He was in the act of entering the clothing-store at the time he met his death. Plunder seems to have been the sole object with the marauders in their attack upon the store of the Messrs. BROOKS. The fine ready-made clothing therein was tempting. Fortunately, the Police and the employees of the establishment successfully repelled the invaders before much property had been stolen. Three or four persons, whose names could not be ascertained, lost their lives at this place, and many others were badly injured.
Image from Harper s Weekly Rioters vs. Federal troops August 1 st, 1863 Document 12: Rioters vs. Federal troops Original Caption: Description: Fight between rioters and military. draft riots Event Date: July 13-16, 1863 Publication: Harper's Weekly. August 1, 1863. Inaugurated in 1857 by New York's Harper Brothers publishers, by 1863 Harper's Weekly had the widest circulation of the three weekly illustrated newspapers. Its popularity among northern readers was largely engendered by pictorial war reportage, composed of wood engravings based on the work of artist-reporters and photographers on the battlefield and in the boot camp. Like its war coverage, the Weekly's depiction of the July 1863 Draft Riots expressed its support of the Republican Party and Union cause as well as its antipathy toward people and institutions who opposed or disrupted the war effort, in particular poor Irish Catholic immigrants and the Copperhead (pro-southern) wing of the Democratic party. This engraving depicts a pitched battle on 31st Street and Second Avenue on the night of Thursday, July 16th between rioters and federal troops.