Negro Soldier Pay

 

This Site:

Civil War

Civil War Overview

Civil War 1861

Civil War 1862

Civil War 1863

Civil War 1864

Civil War 1865

Civil War Battles

Confederate Generals

Union Generals

Confederate History

Robert E. Lee

Civil War Medicine

Lincoln Assassination

Slavery

Site Search

Civil War Links

 

Civil War Art

Mexican War

Republic of Texas

Indians

Winslow Homer

Thomas Nast

Mathew Brady

Western Art

Civil War Gifts

Robert E. Lee Portrait


Civil War Harper's Weekly, November 28, 1863

This site features online versions of the Harper's Weekly newspapers published during the Civil War. This archive serves as an important source of eye-witnesses accounts and illustrations of the war. Harper's was the most popular newspaper of the day, and still serves as an important resource for researchers today.

(Scroll Down to See Entire Page, or Newspaper Thumbnails below will take you to the page of interest)

 

Brazon Santiago

Brazos Santiago

Texas Expedition

Texas Expedition

Pay for Negro Soldiers

Negro Soldier Pay

Hazen's Brigade

Hazen's Brigade at Lookout Mountain

Washburne

General Washburne

President Lincoln Cartoon

President Lincoln Cartoon

Lookout Valley

Battle of Lookout Valley

Battle on the Rappahannock

Battle on the Rappahannock

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga, Tennessee

 

 

NOVEMBER 28, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

755

(Previous Page) civilization upon a large scale? No. Why do the rebels so nervously denounce us as barbarians and extol themselves as highly civilized? Because they know this truth. Unless, then, they can prove slavery to be the sign of an advanced and advancing civilization, they forecast their own doom.

PAYING COLORED SOLDIERS.

IN his late Message to the special session of the Massachusetts Legislature, Governor Andrew recommends that the State pay its colored regiments the difference between their present wages and those of other United States soldiers. His argument is conclusive. There is no law of the United States by which any discrimination in payment of military service can be made by reason of color. In truth, nobody but those who are blinded by the stupid prejudices of slavery would for a moment think it compatible with national honor to invite men to give themselves to the military defense of the country, and then pay some of them lower wages because they were of a different complexion. But in the case of the Massachusetts regiments the men were expressly told that they were to receive the same pay as other soldiers, so that it is a special injustice to them.

Governor Andrew presumes that Congress will correct the unwise and dishonorable discrimination. For nothing is more plainly established than the bravery, fidelity, and docility of the colored troops. Moreover, their employment is part of the policy of the war, and unless it be also part of that policy to prevent enlistments and destroy the morale of the army, this foolish reluctance to a frank acknowledgement of the services of every good soldier will disappear. When it is remembered how splendidly these men behaved upon the Mississippi and at Morris Island—that, wounded and upon his knees, the color-sergeant of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts held up the flag, and brought it still flying out of the fiery storm—and how ardent and profound is their attachment to the flag and the cause it stands for, it is incredible that any man, not a rebel or a Copperhead, should for a moment doubt what ought to be done.

THE VICTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA IN 1832-3.

THE Loyal Publication Society have lately issued a very interesting paper by Judge John Mason Williams, ex-Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts. It is a brief account of the Nullification Controversy of 1832-3, and is intended to show that South Carolina, and not General Jackson, was the victor. And the Chief Justice shows what he intends, as appears from a very simple statement.

On the 24th of November, 1832, the South Carolina Convention passed the Nullification Ordinance, making it the duty of the Legislature to arrest the operation of the tariff of '32 in South Carolina after the 1st of February, 1833. The Convention also issued an address to the other sovereign States, stating that, in its desire to preserve the Union, South Carolina would make certain concessions—which were, in substance, that it would allow Congress to pass a revenue but not a protective tariff. This address was sent to the President and to the Governors. Judge Williams quotes the replies of seventeen of the twenty-three States, which, with the exception of that of Virginia, vehemently denounce the South Carolina doctrine. The other six are Rhode Island, Vermont, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Of their action he has no record at hand.

The Act of Nullification reached President Jackson early in December. He acknowledged its receipt on the 10th, in the famous proclamation written by Edward Livingston. But in his annual Message of the 4th, after the threats of South Carolina had been openly made, he recommended that the tariff be reduced to the revenue standard. On the 12th of February, 1833, Mr. Clay's Compromise bill was introduced, which was intended to raise no more revenue than was "necessary for the economical support of the Government." Mr. Calhoun, incarnate nullification, immediately approved it. Mr. Robbins, the scholarly Senator from Rhode Island, said, "We offer her [South Carolina] this bill, not to renounce this power [of nullification], but to refrain from its exercise at present....If this precedent is to govern, where is the security for the stability of the Union I can not see." Mr. Choate, of Massachusetts, said, "You suppress nullification....by just promptly granting....all it demands."

Meanwhile troops were raising in South Carolina; and Congress passed the "Force Bill," while it was hastening to yield the point in dispute. After that was yielded, on the 11th of March, the South Carolina Convention met again. It congratulated itself upon its attitude of resistance to the Government, by which it had procured a modification of the tariff of 1832, even before it took effect. The Convention therefore repealed the Nullification Act, which had achieved its purpose. But it declared the "Force Bill" null and void within the State; and that act of nullification was never repealed, revoked, or modified.

Thus, according to Judge Williams, who supports his point by ample historical citations, the tariff of 1832 was modified by Congress under a threat from Smith Carolina. That the Government was authorized to compel the execution of the laws is of no importance, in view of the fact that the attitude of resistance had been assumed and the day named for revolt to begin. Under such circumstances to change a law is to surrender the dignity, the honor, and the power of the Government. If the present Administration had abandoned Sumter before the 12th of April, 1861, it would have done exactly what the Administration of 1832 did. Both said to South Carolina, "You will fire at your peril." But the one hastened to do what Carolina wanted before she had a chance to fire; the other calmly did its own duty, and has turned the traitorous fire of South Carolina against her own heart. There has been a great deal of sighing for General

Jackson since this war began. General Jackson was a resolute soldier, but this war demanded a wise man.

NEW PICTURES.

No American picture is better known than "Mercy's Dream," by Daniel Huntington, the President of the National Academy. It was first exhibited in 1841, and the impression it then made of grace, tenderness, richness, and loveliness has been since most widely extended by a print which suggested, if it did not reproduce, the painting. Seventeen years afterward Mr. Huntington, naturally anxious that a work, the fruit of his earlier powers, which had been so universally admired should be made as perfect as possible, painted another copy in a more masterly manner, which he intrusted to one of the most eminent of the English engravers, Mr. Barlow, whose work is familiar to all of us in his exquisite "Huguenot Lovers." It is this second, mature work which is now exhibited under the auspices of Mr. M'Clure at Goupil's Gallery.

It is a picture of great brilliancy and beauty. The angel, lightly poised, is just placing the radiant crown upon the head of Mercy, which is raised toward it with yearning tenderness. The scene is a wood, and at the right of the spectator a deep, rich vista of landscape nobly completes the work. It is remarkable for its purity, sweetness, and simplicity, and the face of Mercy has a touching loveliness which haunts the memory. The picture has also an interest of curiosity in its remoteness from the topics of the time, and from the "sensational" effect, which is as popular in art as in literature. Its charm depends upon the intrinsic beauty of the theme and the treatment, and they are of the kind which time does not wither.

In another gallery at Goupil's is Mr. James Hart's Memory of Berkshire Scenery—a large landscape, belonging to Senator Morgan. It is full of the characteristic points of the Berkshire landscape, although there is a sombreness in the long ranges of hills covered with dark evergreens which is scarcely enough felt in the open, sunny rurality of this scene. But the brawling brook, the intervale, the wood, the hill-side, the farm, the long, delicious reach of summer perspective, with the white church tower, and the remote, glimmering hills, are very beautiful. "Think of sitting at your winter breakfast," said a friend, "and seeing upon your walls this glimpse of summer!" That describes its magic. It is the painter's memory of a summer made real and permanent.

IN EXTREMIS.

THERE can be little doubt that the rebellion is sorely pinched. Simultaneously with the confessions of want which appear in the Southern papers comes the capture of two of the chief blockade-runners. It remains only that Wilmington should be sealed up, and the privation which the rebel Commissary-General feared last April will be felt by every ill-starred rebel in the South. As was said in the editorial columns of this paper last week, the suppression of the rebellion becomes merely a question of time. And then what? What is the danger? Merely that we shall be in possession of a victory which we do not know how to use; that appeals to magnanimity will be forcibly made in order to defraud success of its value.

The one thing that every man who really understands the war will bear in mind is this, that although the rebel armies may be defeated, the rebel mind will remain the same. The war is only the cropping out of the radical, vital, social contest, which will generate open war just so long as it continues. If an early New England settler, living on the edge of the forest, supposed that he had secured peace and safety because he had driven the wolf that threatened his farm into the woods, he was mistaken. The wolf was the threat; the wolf was the danger. While the wolf lived the settler could not lay his gun aside; but when he had killed him the peril ceased.

We may drive the rebel armies before us, but if we leave their cause and inspiration untouched, they retire only to recuperate. If the men who have led the rebellion return to the Union under an oath of allegiance, the necessary hostility of Slavery and Liberty will stimulate them to new plotting and treason. Some may abandon hope. But he does not know slavery who does not know that it would begin the education of a new generation of rebels.

GENERAL GANTT'S LETTER.

IT is a natural question whether the letter of the rebel General Gantt to his fellow-sinners at the South may be considered to be the expression of any very general feeling. Is it likely that the waning fortunes of the rebellion will incline many of its supporters to acquiesce in the profound social change and destruction of sectional traditions which the victory of the Government logically implies? Will suffering and loss and discomfiture, inflicted by men and a part of the country they have always been taught to despise, incline the rebels to resign with equanimity their own social system and theories? or will they generally be left sullen and unconvinced, although subdued?

That there will be very many like General Gantt can not be doubted. But can the long social and political convictions of a section like the South be uprooted by the fortune of a brief war? Is it not only very recently, and not without great reluctance, that so noble, sincere, and unreserved a Union man as Andrew Johnson has come to see that colored soldiers ought to be employed, and that slaves should be emancipated? And how many authoritative and imposing manifestations have we had from Union men in Louisiana, for instance, which we have so long held in part, and in which the slavery system has been demoralized, that they are willing to let it go, and combine heartily to try the inevitable experiment of free labor? While in Missouri, which has been mangled by the war and scourged with fire, even the

loyal vote is almost equally divided between a policy of liberty and slavery.

Such facts should be pondered, that we may not expect hearty sympathy with the emancipation policy even among Union men at the South, nor suppose that when we win the final battle we have reached the end of the struggle. As we say elsewhere in these columns, let us be ready to use our victory when it comes by previously understanding exactly what it demands of us. Let us reflect that the foundation of peace is not the capture of rebel arms, but the destruction of rebel principles and systems.

LITERARY.

As the holidays approach the publishers are busy and the trade is very lively. Scribner issues Mr. Mitchell's (Ik Marvel's) new book, "My Farm of Edgewood," which is a delightful record of the farming experience of a scholar who sees and enjoys all the poetry of his rural life, while he perfectly understands that to make his story valuable to farmers he must show that farming is profitable as well as pleasant. It is very interesting to remark the shrewd Yankee faculty under the dainty elegance of the "Bachelor," whose "Reveries" by the fire have given place to these clear, open air, open-eyed, and open-hearted sketches of the experience of a practical farmer. There is the same twinkling humor, tenderness, grace, and pathos, with the elegant culture and polish of the man of the world, in this book that are so well known in Mr. Mitchell's earlier works, "The Reveries of a Bachelor" and "Dream Life," which Mr. Scribner has now issued in beautiful form. Few prettier gift books will be found, and few more warmly prized by youths and maids. Yet we can not part with "My Farm" without regretting the tone of half ennui in which the times are sometimes mentioned, as when the author says: "The American eagle is (or was) a noble bird." Is he any less noble because traps are set for him and guns aimed at him? Does the mere fact of civil war, irrespective of its cause or probable consequence, seem to our friend, the farmer of Edgewood, as to another friend, Monsieur Aubepine, of Concord, merely a bore? If the war had been avoided by surrender to rebellion, or by compromise with traitors, would the American eagle still be a noble bird?

The utmost resources of the typographical art are to be lavished upon the "Life of Prescott," by Professor Ticknor, now preparing by Ticknor & Fields. It is to be a quarto, and as superb a book as can be made in the country.

ARMY AND NAVY ITEMS.

GENERAL DIX arrived at Buffalo on 13th, and is engaged with the authorities in concerting proper measures for defense, and in ferreting out the parties, if any, that are engaged in the reported plot at Johnson's Island.

Major-General BUTTERFIELD, who has been temporarily on ditty with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, under General HOOKER, is to be recalled and assigned to a new command elsewhere.

There are good grounds for the belief that General M'DOWELL will soon be assigned to an important command.

General BUTLER has arrived at Fortress Monroe and assumed the command of his new department. General FOSTER, upon leaving, issued a farewell order to his troops.

General RUSSEL, of the Sixth Army Corps, arrived in Washington last week, and presented to the War Department the rebel flags recently captured by his brigade on the Rappahannock.

Captain SHAW, aid to Major-General AUGUR, has been ordered from New Orleans to the head-quarters at Washington.

Lieutenant-Colonel GREEN has been relieved from duty as Chief Quarter-master at Washington, by Captain PERRY, and will be assigned to another field.

Brigadier-General CHARLES K. GRAHAM has been relieved, by order of the Secretary of War, from his command in the Army of the Potomac, and directed to report to General BUTLER.

Commander HARRISON has been detached from the command of the Minnesota, and is awaiting orders.

Lieutenant-Colonel LATHROP, Inspector-General of General HEINTZELMAN'S Staff, has been relieved and ordered West.

GENERAL ORDERS—No. 356

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, November 5, 1863.

By direction of the President of the United States, Major CHARLES J. WHITING, Second United States Cavalry, is hereby dishonorably dismissed the service for disloyalty, and for using contemptuous and disrespectful words against the President of the United States.

By order of the SECRETARY OF WAR.

E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Rev. H. M. TURNER, colored pastor of the Israel Bethel church, in Washington, has been appointed chaplain of the First regiment of United States colored troops, now in South Carolina. He is the first colored minister who has been commissioned chaplain.

Brigadier-General GEORGE J. STANNARD, who has recently been appointed to succeed General CANBY in the command of the United States troops in the city and harbor of New York, in consequence of that officer having been ordered to Washington to resume his former position in the War Department, is a native and citizen of Vermont.

General TAYLOR, Commissary-General of the United States Army, has been relieved from duty at Washington and ordered to Chattanooga. Colonel SHIRAS succeeds General TAYLOR at the head of the department.

Colonel WISEWELL, of the Sixth regiment, Invalid corps, has been appointed chief of the Invalid Bureau, vice Colonel RUSH, relieved.

Major-Generals MEADE, NEWTON, and PLEASANTON, and Brigadier-General KILPATRICK arrived in Washington last week. It is understood that General MEADE proposes, should the situation of affairs at the front permit, to attend the inauguration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg on the 19th inst., and that the Army of the Potomac will also be represented on that occasion by a detachment from each division of the army engaged in that battle.

Recent advices from Pensacola state that Lieutenant FLINT, of the United States Marines, died on the 15th ult. He was from Wisconsin. The fever, which was unusually fatal, has abated. Of three hundred cases more than seventy failed to recover. The Marine Guard lost one lieutenant and thirteen privates.

Commodore WILLIAM D. PORTER has been ordered before the Naval Retiring Board, which, after a recess, has again convened. Commodore PORTER is a brother of DAVID PORTER, and saw some important service himself on the Mississippi. He some time since designed a plan of a new iron-clad vessel of war, which, however, was not adopted by the Government.

Captain G. H. SCOTT has been ordered to the command of the De Soto; Commander STANLEY to the North Atlantic Squadron; Commander LYNCH to the St. Lawrence; and Lieutenant-Commander QUEEN to the Wyalusing.

General GIBBON has been assigned to the command of the Conscript Camp at Cleveland, Ohio—his wound, received at Gettysburg, still preventing him from entering the field.

Surgeon-General HAMMOND has returned from his extended Southern tour of inspection.

The rebel General FITZHUGH LEE is on his way to Fort Lafayette.

Lieutenant-Colonel FREDERICK has been placed in command of the Invalid corps depot, vice Colonel WISEWELL, appointed chief of that bureau.

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.

CHATTANOOGA.

A DISPATCH from Atlanta, Georgia, on the 13th, says that a fight between the rebel batteries and our forces before Chattanooga continued briskly up to that time, and that our troops have made a diversion from right to left, with a view probably to attack Lookout Mountain, or, it may be, to send troops to reinforce General Burnside.

SHERMAN'S COLUMN.

Major-General Sherman was at General Thomas's head-quarters on 16th, having made a junction, with his entire corps, with the right of General Grant's army at Chattanooga.

CHARLESTON.

The latest news from Charleston is by way of Richmond to the 14th instant. On the 13th the firing from our batteries averaged about two shots a minute throughout the night, and continued with greater rapidity next day. The casualties were only two killed and one wounded.

ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK.

Every thing is quiet on the Rappahannock and Rapidan. General Meade has returned to his command. Heavy cannonading was heard on 16th in the vicinity of Stevensburg, commencing at eight o'clock, and continuing about an hour. It was renewed between eleven and twelve o'clock, and was heard at Bealton, twenty miles distant, as the train passed that point. It was supposed that Kilpatrick, who has his camp at Stevensburg, had engaged a reconnoitring force of the enemy.

A PLOT IN CANADA.

Buffalo, Detroit, and other Lake cities were much frightened last week by rumors of an intended attack from Canada. The Montreal Adviser (a rebel organ) says:

"An expedition was fitted out, consisting of thirty-six officers, under the commend of one who had distinguished himself in similar dashing enterprises, and three hundred men. The officers embarked at Wilmington, in the Confederate steamer Robert E. Lee, and landed at Halifax. The cotton and tobacco brought by that steamer as freight were sold to furnish the funds required, amounting to about $110,000. The men came overland through the States in small parties to the general rendezvous. The intention was to surprise the Federal garrison on Johnson's Island, liberate the prisoners, convey them to Canada in vessels provided for that purpose, and forward them by Halifax to Nassau or Bermuda; the greater pert of the funds being specially devoted to paying their passage to one of these points."

Unluckily for them the Governor-General of Canada communicated the plot to our Government, and measures were promptly taken which nipped it in the bud. All is quiet at Sandusky and Johnson's Island.

DISASTER IN EAST TENNESSEE.

The recent attack on General Burnside's outposts, in which six hundred of his men and four cannon were captured by the rebels, occurred at Rodgersville, Hawkins County, Tennessee, fifteen miles from Knoxville, and situated at the termination of the branch of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. This fact is communicated in a dispatch from General Burnside himself, in which he says that his main army is in an impregnable position and in good spirits, awaiting the orders of General Grant.

SUFFERINGS OF' OUR PRISONERS AT RICHMOND.

A returned prisoner from Richmond, Rev. H. C. Trumbull, of the Tenth Connecticut regiment, says that when he left the Libey prison at Richmond on Wednesday, the Union officers confined there had only received one-third of a pound of bread and some water for two days previous, and for several days no meat had been served out. The Quarter-master explained to the prisoners that be had no provisions to give them, and excused himself for the seeming inhumanity on his part. He stated that on the same day he was unable to supply the prisoners on Belle Island with any thing whatever, and that it was with the greatest difficulty he could procure a little meat for the hospitals. It is evident from these facts that the only way to relieve the Union prisoners is to take possession of Richmond and release them from misery, which it would appear the very necessities of the rebels compel them to inflict upon them.

FOOD SENT THEM FROM FORTRESS MONROE.

A large quantity of provisions, consisting of pork, beef, sugar, rice, potatoes, coffee, and bread were shipped from Fortress Monroe on 14th by the Commissary of Subsistence to the unfortunate starving Union prisoners at Richmond. Twenty-five thousand rations in all were forwarded, and it remains to be seen whether the prisoners will receive them.

COST OF BLOCKADE-RUNNING.

The attempt at blockade-running into Wilmington, North Carolina, seems to be unfortunate of late. Within a few days past five large steamers have been captured, as we have reported, by which we have not only obtained valuable cargoes and considerable quantities of arms and munitions of war, but also some valuable correspondence from the rebel agents in Europe, which has been published in the papers.

MARRIAGE OF MISS CHASE.

The nuptials of Governor Sprague and Miss Kate Chase took place on 13th in the presence of the President and Mrs. Lincoln, the several heads of departments, and a brilliant array of the foreign Ministers resident here. Among the guests at the reception were a number of the most distinguished men and women of the country.

FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND,

THE ANGLO-PIRATES.

THE case of the suspected rebel gun-boat Alexandra has been again up in the Court of Exchequer, London, and it seems probable that the Attorney-General's motion for a new trial, with a view of raising all the points of the case, will be granted, and that the ruling now had will decide the case of the Laird rams.

THE "PRINCE CONSORT."

The British iron-clad frigate Prince Consort was very badly damaged when steaming from Plymouth for Liverpool to look after the Laird rams. She put into Kingstown harbor half full of water and leaking badly.

FRANCE.

OPENING OF THE LEGISLATURE.

The session of the French Legislature was opened by Napoleon in person. His speech was of a pacific character. He made only a passing allusion to American affairs, expressed the hope that Maximilian's arrival in Mexico would prove advantageous to the country, and recommended the assemblage of a European Congress on the Polish question. The Emperor acknowledged that the financial exhibit did not realize his expectations. Reforms are promised in favor of the French people.


 

 

 

Site Copyright 2003-2018 Son of the South. For Questions or comments about this collection, contact paul@sonofthesouth.net

privacy policy

Are you Scared and Confused? Read My Snake Story, a story of hope and encouragement, to help you face your fears.