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Capt. Harlock -> My Personal Choice For The End Date (5/10/2015 3:08:53 AM)
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150 Years Ago Today:
Coincidentally, two events happened that were markers of the end of the Civil War. In Washington, President Johnson issued a proclamation meant to deal with the Southern commerce raiders still active on the seas (such as the CSS Shenandoah). In it, he declared that the war was "virtually at an end":
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas the President of the United States, by his proclamation of the 19th day of April, 1861, did declare certain States therein mentioned in insurrection against the Government of the United States; and
Whereas armed resistance to the authority of this Government in the said insurrectionary States may be regarded as virtually at an end, and the persons by whom that resistance, as well as the operations of insurgent cruisers, was directed are fugitives or captives; and
Whereas it is understood that some of those cruisers are still infesting the high seas and others are preparing to capture, burn, and destroy vessels of the United States:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, hereby enjoin all naval, military, and civil officers of the United States diligently to endeavor, by all lawful means, to arrest the said cruisers and to bring them into a port of the United States, in order that they may be prevented from committing further depredations on commerce and that the persons on board of them may no longer enjoy impunity for their crimes.
And I do further proclaim and declare that if, after a reasonable time shall have elapsed for this proclamation to become known in the ports of nations claiming to have been neutrals, the said insurgent cruisers and the persons on board of them shall continue to receive hospitality in the said ports, this Government will deem itself justified in refusing hospitality to the public vessels of such nations in ports of the United States and in adopting such other measures as may be deemed advisable toward vindicating the national sovereignty.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 10th day of May, A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
An hour after midnight, the 4th Michigan Cavalry arrived at Irwinville, Georgia. There they learned of a camp about one and a half miles to the north. It was not long before they quietly scouted the place and satisfied themselves that Jefferson Davis and his party were there. To avoid confusion, the Northerners waited until dawn began to break, and then charged the camp. The surprised Southerners gave up without a fight.
But sadly, there would be fighting from a different source. Another unit of Union cavalry, the 1st Wisconsin, came on the scene, and shots were fired before the two groups realized they were on the same side. In a grim echo of the two accidental deaths at Fort Sumter at the very beginning of the war, two men were killed in the skirmish between the Yankee troopers.
[image]local://upfiles/4250/4BA7BA6AB91649588AD1E9C34F4A6829.jpg[/image]
"JEFFERSON DAVIS CAPTURE SITE" by JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Davis would be imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and would be harshly treated at first, including being sleep-deprived and put in leg irons. But in a few months, the Federal authorities realized he was the most famous prisoner in the world, drawing attention even from Pope Pius IX. His treatment improved, eventually to the point of being given an apartment in the officers' quarters with his wife and their infant daughter.
As might be expected, there were many Northerners who wanted to try Davis for treason and for Lincoln's murder, and see him hanged. But there was also a movement to avoid any trials of members of the Confederate Government, because that would involve the unsettled question of whether or not secession had been legal. Additionally, no reliable evidence was ever found linking Davis to the assassination plot. After two years, Davis would be granted bail, the money put up by a variety of people including Horace Greely, Cornelius Vanderbuilt, and, oddly enough, a member of the "Secret Six" who had bankrolled John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Eventually, on Christmas Day 1868, President Johnson would issue a presidential amnesty to Davis and numerous others.
Lincoln's idea of "with malice towards none" was not completely upheld, but no members of the Confederate government were put on trial. Though there had been courts-martial and executions during the war, only one member of the Confederate military was hanged after the war: Henry Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville. There is some controversy over whether this was a miscarriage of justice, with some claiming that Wirz did as well as could be expected given the South's limited resources. While it is true that some of the evidence against him turns out to be fabricated, this writer believes the sentence was just. Wirz's "deadline" orders and his shameful neglect of sanitation increased the death toll at Andersonville greatly beyond what it had to be.
The 27th state to approve the 13th amendment, thus giving it the number to become part of the U. S. Constitution, was Georgia, on December 6. There was some debate over whether the "reconstructed" government of the state was legitimate, but the question became moot when California and Oregon also ratified by the end of the year.
Andrew Johnson was, to put it mildly, not the best man to implement the Reconstruction, the rejoining of the Southern states into the Union He had turned against slavery, but had apparently lost little of the racism of his younger years in Tennessee. He undid many of the measures to advance the rights and well-being of the freed former slaves, vetoing the "forty acres and a mule" legislation, and restoring lands to the pre-war white owners that had been allotted to the blacks. This outraged the Republicans who controlled Congress, but won him little respect from the Southerners, who considered him a renegade.
Johnson 's generosity towards the former Confederates may well have been a mistake, the cost of which sadly fell on the freed slaves. To be fair, however, there was a great question as to whether the United States could ever be whole again, or whether the lingering bitterness would eventually lead to its break-up, by peaceful or violent means. It would not be the first time in history that a nation had split apart even after considerable time had passed. The popularity of the song "I'm a Good Ol' Rebel" was not a positive sign, for when read closely, it has some disturbing lyrics:
O I’m a good old Rebel,
Now that’s just what I am,
For this “Fair Land of Freedom”
I do not give a dam;
I’m glad I fit against it,
I only wish we’d won,
And I don’t want no pardon
For anything I done.
[...]
Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is still in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us;
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot,
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.
And indeed there were many in the South who could not forgive the death and devastation caused by the war. But there were many others on both sides who had learned to respect their former opponents, for Northerners and Southerners alike had shown extraordinary courage, dedication, and willingness to sustain casualties that would render ineffective most modern armies. For the rest of his life, Lee would not allow an unkind word to be said about Grant in his presence, in remembrance of the magnanimous terms of Appomattox. Joseph Johnston felt the same way about William T. Sherman.
The argument over reconciliation arose between one Sergeant Gilbert H. Bates and a friend, who said that the Southerners "hate the Union flag. No man dare show that flag anywhere in the South except in the presence of our soldiers."
But Bates responded, "You are mistaken. I can carry that flag myself from the Mississippi all over the rebel States, alone and unarmed, too."
[image]local://upfiles/4250/58E99985E41E4169B621EBCAF74CAF58.jpg[/image]
"Sergeant Gilbert Bates & flag" by Unknown - McLean County Museum of History. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
In early 1868, Bates landed at Vicksburg (which would not celebrate July 4th until 1945), hoisted a Union flag onto his shoulder, and began walking east. After three months and 1,400 miles (2,300 km), he arrived in Washington, D.C., having traversed Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. As he had predicted, he had not been assaulted once, and in fact had received hospitality in many places.
The nation would heal.
- The End -
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