1861 (74 page)

105.
“Die Fahnenwacht” was also the title of a song popular during the 1848 revolution. It was sung at the flag presentation in St. Louis: “
Der Sanger hält im Feld die Fahnenwacht, / Im seinem Arme ruht das Schwert, das scharfe
” (“The singer is the color guard in the field, / In his arms rests the sword, the sharp
sword”).

106.
Engle,
Yankee Dutchman,
pp. 56–57;
Westliche Post,
May 8, 1861, in Rowan and Primm,
Germans for a Free Missouri,
pp. 195–7;
Missouri Democrat,
May 4, 1861.

107.
Cyrus B. Plattenburg, “In St. Louis During the ‘Crisis,’ ”
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society,
vol. 13, no. 1 (April 1920), p. 19.

108.
Francis Preston Blair, Jr., to Simon Cameron, Apr. 18, 1861, Blair Family Papers, LC; Simon Cameron to Nathaniel Lyon, Apr. 30, 1861,
OR
I, vol. 1, p. 675.

109.
Gerteis,
Civil War St. Louis,
p. 94; Peckham,
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon,
p. 139; Arenson,
Great Heart,
p. 114;
Missouri Democrat,
April 27, 1861; Boernstein, pp. 284–85; Winter,
Civil War St. Louis,
p. 40.

110.
Phillips,
Damned Yankee,
pp. 166–67; Boernstein,
Memoirs of a Nobody,
pp. 286–88; Franklin A. Dick to Benson Lossing, July 6, 1865, Franklin A. Dick Papers, LC; Anderson,
A Border City,
pp. 78–79. About 5,000 of the guns
soon ended up in the hands of Ohio state troops—thanks to the efforts of a
newly appointed officer who was sent to procure them, Colonel James A. Garfield.

111.
Sherman,
Memoirs,
vol. 1, p. 201.

112.
Phillips,
Damned Yankee,
pp. 181–82.

113.
Some later historians have questioned whether the story of Lyon’s cross-dressing mission was a myth, like similar stories of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis disguising themselves in women’s clothing at other points in the war. But while the Lincoln and Davis rumors were concocted in each case by enemies trying to make them look ridiculous, the Lyon
story was attested to in two separate and detailed accounts by two of Lyon’s own co-conspirators. One of these was James Peckham (in his 1866 book
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861,
op. cit., pp. 139–40), and the other was Franklin A. Dick (in his 1865 manuscript “Memorandum of Matters in Missouri in 1861,” LC).

114.
Winter,
Civil War in St. Louis,
p. 44; Engle,
Yankee Dutchman,
p. 58;
Anzeiger des Westens,
May 9, 1861, in Rowan and Primm,
Germans for a Free Missouri,
p. 190.

115.
Westliche Post,
May 1 and 8, 1861, in Rowan and Primm,
Germans for a Free Missouri,
pp. 189, 202–03, 206. The following week, when the editors learned the full story of the artillery shipped to Camp Jackson, they were outraged that the steamer had not been intercepted on its way upriver by federal troops in Illinois, and blamed it on military disorganization: “Things are even worse here than with the Imperial Austrian Military High Command in
Vienna.”

116.
Francis Grierson,
The Valley of Shadows: Sangamon Sketches
(Boston, 1948), pp. 229–30.

117.
Ulysses S. Grant,
Memoirs and Selected Letters: Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
(New York, 1990), pp. 155–56; Sherman,
Memoirs,
vol. 1, pp. 200–01; Peckham,
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon,
p. 150; Anderson,
A Border City,
p. 96.

118.
James W. Covington, “The Camp Jackson Affair: 1861,”
Missouri Historical Review,
vol. 15, no. 3 (April 1961), p. 206; Peckham, pp. 150–51.

119.
Peckham,
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon,
pp. 151–52; Dick, “Memorandum of Matters in Missouri in 1861.”

120.
Grierson,
Valley of Shadows,
p. 227; Arenson,
Great Heart,
pp. 191–92;
Missouri Democrat,
May 13, 1861;
Missouri Republican,
May 12, 1861; Peckham,
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon,
pp. 153–35.

121.
Missouri Republican,
May 11 and 12, 1861; Sherman,
Memoirs,
pp. 201–02;
Missouri Democrat,
May 13, 1861; Engle,
Yankee Dutchman,
p. 59.

122.
Sherman,
Memoirs,
p. 202;
Missouri Democrat,
May 13, 1861; Dick, “Memorandum of Matters in Missouri in 1861.”

123.
Grierson,
Valley of Shadows,
p. 230.

124.
Anderson,
A Border City,
pp. 106–07; Plattenburg,
In St. Louis,
pp. 19–20;
Westliche
Post, May 15, 1861, in Rowan and Primm,
Germans for a Free Missouri,
pp. 214–17; Boernstein,
Memoirs of a Nobody,
pp. 303–04;
Missouri Republican,
May 11 and 12, 1861;
Missouri Democrat,
May 13, 1861; Peckham,
Gen. Nathaniel Lyon,
pp. 157–63; A. Fulkerson to Francis Preston Blair, Jr., May 15, 1861, Blair Family Papers, LC.

125.
Missouri Democrat,
May 13, 1861; Boernstein,
Memoirs of a Nobody,
p. 304.

126.
James M. McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
(New York, 1988), pp. 291–92.

127.
Grant,
Memoirs,
p. 155. For a highly critical account of Lyon, see Phillips,
Damned Yankee.
For a fascinating perspective on the events in St. Louis as the “second Baden revolution,” see Steven Rowan’s introduction to Rowan and Primm,
Germans for a Free Missouri
.

128.
Sandusky Daily Commercial Register,
Oct. 31, 1861.

1.
Philadelphia Press,
n.d., quoted in
Milwaukee Morning Sentinel,
May 13, 1861.

2.
David Hackett Fischer,
Liberty and Freedom
(New York, 2005), p. 299.

3.
Emory Holloway, ed.,
The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman
(Garden City, N.Y., 1922), pp. 32–33.

4.
Washington Star,
May 6, 1861;
Philadelphia Press,
n.d., quoted in
Milwaukee Morning Sentinel,
May 13, 1861.

5.
“A Letter from One of Our Boys,” unidentified clipping [“The Leader,” May 1861] in 11th Infantry Regiment Civil War Newspaper Clippings file, New York State Military Museum; Ernest B. Furgurson,
Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War
(New York, 2004), p. 87; Isaac Bassett, “A Senate Memoir,” unpublished manuscript, U.S.
Senate Historical Office.

6.
New York Times,
May 3, 1861;
Harper’s Weekly,
May 25, 1861.

7.
[Theodore Winthrop], “Washington as a Camp,”
Atlantic Monthly,
July 1861.

8.
George Alfred Townsend,
Washington, Outside and Inside. A picture and a narrative of the origin, growth, excellencies, abuses, beauties, and personages of our governing city
(Hartford, Conn., 1873), pp. 637–38.

9.
Daily National Intelligencer
(Washington, D.C.), May 4, 1861.

10.
Hay, May 2, 1861, in Michael Burlingame and John R. T. Ettinger, eds.,
Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay
(Carbondale, Ill., 1999), p. 17.

11.
Margaret Leech,
Reveille in Washington 1860–1865
(New York, 1941), pp. 61–62.

12.
James McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
(New York, 1988), pp. 284–85; Currier & Ives, “The Lexington of 1861,” Prints & Photographs Division, LC.

13.
Carl Sandburg,
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
(New York, 1939), pp. 230.

14.
McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom,
p. 325.

15.
Mrs. Roger Pryor,
Reminiscences of Peace and War
(New York, 1904), pp. 3–4.
A stalemate was achieved when the senator grabbed his adversary by both horns. “Let go, Mr. Clay, and run like blazes,” shouted one youthful onlooker. Clay heeded his advice, and sprinted up the avenue with the goat in hot pursuit.

16.
Mary Clemmer Ames,
Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as a Women Sees Them
(Washington, D.C., 1873), p. 68; William Howard Russell,
My Diary North and South
(Boston, 1863), p. 36; Henry Adams,
The Education of Henry Adams,
Ernest Samuels, ed. (Boston, 1973), p. 99.

17.
Leech,
Reveille in Washington,
ch. 1–3, passim.

18.
Washington Evening Star,
May 3, 1861.

19.
Ruth Painter Randall,
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: A Biography of Lincoln’s Friend and First Hero of the Civil War
(Boston, 1960), pp. 239, 243.

20.
New York Herald,
May 4, 1861; Constance McLaughlin Green,
Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878
(Princeton, N.J., 1962), p. 215.

21.
Washington Star,
May 4, 1861;
Milwaukee Morning Sentinel,
May 8, 1861; Hay, May 7, 1861, in Burlingame and Ettinger,
Inside Lincoln’s White House.

22.
Cincinnati Press,
n.d., quoted in
Fayetteville Observer
(N.C.), May 20, 1861.

23.
Daily National Intelligencer,
May 4, 1861.

24.
Daily National Intelligencer,
May 10, 1861;
New-York Tribune,
May 10, 1861;
New York Times,
May 11, 1861;
Brooklyn Eagle,
May 9, 1861;
New York Herald,
May 12, 1861;
Philadelphia Press,
n.d., quoted in
Daily Cleveland Herald,
May 11, 1861;
Harper’s Weekly,
May 25, 1861.

25.
New-York Tribune,
May 8, 1861.

26.
[John Hay]
New York World,
May 10, 1861. In Michael Burlingame, ed.,
Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864
(Carbondale, Ill., 1998), pp. 58–64.

27.
Hay, “Ellsworth,”
Atlantic Monthly,
July 1861; Hay, May 2, 1861, in Burlingame and Ettinger,
Inside Lincoln’s White House.

28.
New-York Tribune,
Apr. 30, 1861; Hay, May 12, 1861, in Burlingame and Ettinger,
Inside Lincoln’s White House.

29.
Randall,
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth,
pp. 175, 233.

30.
John G. Nicolay and John Hay,
Abraham Lincoln: A History
(New York, 1890), vol. 4, p. 314; William O. Stoddard,
The White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln’s Secretary
(Lincoln, Neb., 2000), pp. 9–10, 163–64.

31.
The Mrs. Lincoln story appears in, among other sources, an interview with a Zouave veteran published many years later in the
Washington Post,
Sept. 22, 1907.

32.
Washington Herald,
n.d., cited in Charles A. Mills and Andrew L. Mills,
Alexandria 1861–1865
(Charleston, 2008), p. 16.

33.
Furgurson,
Freedom Rising,
p. 92; Donald G. Shomette,
Maritime Alexandria: The Rise and Fall of an American Entrepot
(Bowie, Md., 2003), pp. 152–53.

34.
[Winthrop], “Washington as a Camp”;
Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 25, 1861.

35.
New-York Tribune,
June 1, 1861; May 26, 1861; “Harry Lorrequer” (pseud.), “Letter from the Fire Zouaves,” unidentified clipping, 11th Infantry Regiment Civil War Newspaper Clippings file, New York State Military Museum.

36.
[Winthrop], “Washington as a Camp”;
New York Times,
May 26, 1861.

37.
James L. Huffman,
A Yankee in Meiji Japan: The Crusading Journalist Edward H. House
(Lanham, Md., 2003), pp. 24–26.

38.
New-York Tribune,
May 28, 1861; May 25, 1861.

39.
Lorrequer, “Letter from the Fire Zouaves.”

40.
New York Times,
May 26, 1861;
New-York Tribune,
May 25, 1861.

41.
New-York Tribune,
May 25, 1861; Shomette,
Maritime Alexandria,
pp. 159–61.

42.
Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 25, 1861.

43.
Randall,
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth,
pp. 256–57;
New-York Tribune,
May 25, 1861; interview with Henry Winser,
Boston Globe,
Jan. 6, 1884.

44.
Life of James W. Jackson, the Alexandria Hero, the Slayer of Ellsworth, Martyr in the Cause of Southern Independence
(Richmond, 1862), pp. 20–22, 12–13, 44.

45.
Ibid., pp. 28–30.

46.
New York Times,
May 26, 1861;
New-York Tribune,
May 25, 1861.

47.
Boston Globe,
Jan. 6, 1884.

48.
New York Times,
May 26, 1861;
New-York Tribune,
May 25, 1861;
Boston Globe,
Jan. 6, 1884; Randall,
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth,
pp. 256–58.

49.
David Homer Bates,
Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil War
(New York, 1907), p. 8;
New-York Tribune,
May 29, 1861;
Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 25, 1861.

50.
One such poetical effusion, in the
Tribune
of May 25, begins:

Hushed be each sorrowing murmur,
And let no tear be shed,
As in slow march, with drooping standards
Ye bear back the gallant dead.

Unfortunately, this is typical of the Ellsworth mortuary genre.

51.
Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
vol. 2, p. 178.

52.
New York World,
May 27, 1861.

53.
Richmond Dispatch,
May 18, 1861.

54.
New York World,
May 27, 1861;
Richmond Enquirer,
May 25, 1861, quoted in George B. Herbert,
The Popular History of the Civil War in America
(New York, 1884), p. 102.

55.
Illinois State Journal,
June 3, 1861, reprinted in Burlingame, ed.,
Lincoln’s Journalist,
p. 69;
New-York Tribune,
May 28, 1861.

56.
Daily National Intelligencer,
May 27, 1861;
New York Herald,
May 26, 1861; Randall,
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth,
pp. 264–65.

57.
New York Herald,
May 27, 1861. In the days that followed, fire companies,
militia regiments, and patriotic societies vied with one another in showering Brownell with gifts: a gold medal, a silver-mounted pistol, a jeweled dagger.

58.
Drew Gilpin Faust,
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
(New York, 2008), p. 94; Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein,
Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine
(Armonk, N.Y., 2008), pp. 99–100.

59.
New York World,
May 25, 1861;
New-York Tribune,
May 30, 1861.

60.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Chiefly about War Matters,”
Atlantic Monthly,
July 1862. Such artifacts are still in public circulation: in 2010, I purchased on eBay a sliver of wood wrapped in nineteenth-century notepaper with the inscription “A Trace of the Stairs that Elsworth stood on, when he was shot dead by Rebel at Alexandrya Va.” (And
Ellsworth’s relics are still commanding hefty prices; the bidding on the sliver closed at $105.49.)

61.
David Detzer,
Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861
(New York, 2004), pp. 357–68.

62.
Stoddard,
Inside the White House in War Times,
p. 164; John G. Nicolay,
The Army in the Civil War,
vol. 1:
The Outbreak of Rebellion
(New York, 1885), p. 114; Hay, “A Young Hero. Personal Reminiscences of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth.”
McClure’s Magazine,
March 1896.

63.
Chicago Tribune,
May 28, 1861.

64.
Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln,
vol. 2, 177, quoting
New York Mail and Express,
Feb. 11, 1899.

65.
Burlingame,
Lincoln’s Journalist,
p. 356.

66.
Chicago Tribune,
July 16, 1872;
New York World,
May 25, 1861.