The Public "I": CIVIL WAR

Showing posts with label CIVIL WAR. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 05, 2019

REAL FAKE NEWS

I cannot conceive of a worst possible moment for the young men to deliver the false missive. Two weeks before, the 3 day long battle of the Wilderness had killed and wounded some 17,666 Federal soldiers. Three days ago, in the Shenandoah Valley, yet another Federal Army had been ambushed by a smaller rebel force in the Battle of New Market. And this morning, 18 May, 1864, General Grant was leading his weary army into the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, which would kill and wound another 18,400, including legendary Union General John Sedgwick. It seemed as if everything the Federal government attempted in this third spring of the American Civil War, was producing only disaster. And this young man, and others like him, arrived at 3:30 in the morning, with their missives, to seemingly drop the other shoe.

It purported to be a bulletin from the Associated Press, which had been in business since 1848, and contained the text of a White House Proclamation. The operative passage began in the third paragraph. “In view, however, of the situation in Virginia...and the general state of the country, I, Abraham Lincoln...by virtue of the power vested in me by the Constitution...call forth the citizens of the United States, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, to the aggregate number of four hundred thousand, in order to suppress the existing rebellious combinations...”

The reaction to news of a new half million man draft, in the city which the year before had produced three days of rioting (above) in response to Lincoln's first draft call was expected to be even more violence. One hundred twenty had died in the summer of 1863, at least eleven African-Americans had been lynched, untold numbers beaten, and fifty large buildings had been burned down - at least one of them a orphanage for black children. Many on Wall Street took this as a sign the Federal government was losing the war, and they expected investors to dump their stocks for gold.

At first glance the notice seemed legitimate. It was written on the same cheap oily tissue paper used by the Associated Press. But it had not arrived in the usual fashion. Several editors were suspicious, but there were only moments before the deadline to start the presses for the morning papers. Under this time constraint, and fearing they would be “scooped” by competitors, three Democratic leaning papers rushed the story into the print – The World, the Journal of Commerce, and the Brooklyn Eagle. But the night editor of the Times, a Republican paper, did not recognize the handwriting, and found it had not been delivered in an AP envelope. This editor held his own presses while he dispatched a messenger for confirmation. The AP editor replied, “The 'Proclamation' is false as hell and not promulgated through this office. The handwriting is not familiar.”

Wall Street was in an uproar that morning, with investors and brokers crowding all the newspaper offices (above), demanding an answer. Was the proclamation real or not? When the markets opened, the price of gold rose about 10%, but quickly fell back after William Seward, Secretary-of-State and Edward Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary-of-War, both declared the report to be “an absolute forgery.” And if the Lincoln administration had stopped right there everything would have been all right. But Lincoln himself ordered the Military commander in New York City, General John Dix, to seize the offices of the Journal of Commerce and the New York World, and to ”arrest and imprison...the Editors, proprietors, and publishers.” It seemed the bloody mess in Virginia was making everybody very jumpy.

The Journal of Commerce was a small anti-slavery newspaper founded by Arthur Tappan and Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph. But the owners opposed the Lincoln administration's decision to use force to put down the rebellion. So the Postmaster General had refused to deliver the JOC via the mail, crippling the paper outside New York City, where most of its 35,000 readers lived. William Prime, business manager of the JOC, wrote to his wife that afternoon, “Found on coming down town that we, in common with the World...had been hoaxed by a most ingenious scoundrel.” That evening Federal soldiers arrived to close down the paper and arrest the guiltless Mr. Prime.

Considerably less innocent was the two cent per copy, “New York World”. The paper was owned by the Democratic National Committee, and directed by the DNC chairman, August Belmont. In its pages anything with a whiff of Lincoln or Republicanism about it was opposed. Every day the paper was filled with articles warning of the threat of the ballooning war debt, and criticism of the administration's military strategy. Its editorials called for repeal of the emancipation proclamation, and a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. It was the platform of the Democratic Party in 1864. But these were not the position of the World's editor, Mr. Manton Malone Marble.

Marble (above) was a newspaperman with printer's ink in his veins. Employed as the Night Editor, he had bought the bankrupt World in 1861, dreaming of a non-partisan fact based style of journalism. But after just six months he had been forced to seek new backers, and the Democratic Party had eagerly stepped in. Marble lost friends and staff members when he signed the deal, and the joke among journalists in the city was that Marble was now little more than a conductor for the stories Belmont wanted in the paper day in and day out. But there was still a spark of independence in the man, and when he learned from an alert staffer, before dawn on the morning of 18 May, 1864, that his paper had published the proclamation, he ordered all copies still unsold to be withdrawn from street vendors, and dispatched a fast ship to stop and board the steamer “Nova Scotia”, carrying bundles of the newspaper bound for England. Marble even ordered the ship's captain to buy back the free copy provided to the Nova Scotia's purser. It made no difference. Marble was arrested the evening of 18 May, and the offices of “The World” padlocked shut.

That very night the member papers of the Associated Press telegraphed the President, strongly defending Prime and Marble. The next day several of the editors, including Horace Greeley, of the Republican leaning Tribune, joined the chorus of demands that Marble and Prime be released. And it began to occur to Lincoln, that he had stepped into something unpleasant. He also had the calming influence of General Dix, who seems to have quickly suspected, along with the members of the AP, that this was not a rebel plot, nor even a Democratic one.

At the same time he arrested Prime and Marble, Dix also ordered the arrest of Joseph Howard, night editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, the only other paper to actually publish and distribute the false proclamation. Within a day Howard confessed. He had correctly assumed the false proclamation would drive up the price of gold. In preparation for this he had bought gold futures “short”, on credit. As one historian has noted, “Nothing worse was ever done for the purpose of speculation.” Two days later, on Saturday morning, 21 May, police detectives stopped and arrested Francis Mallson, a reporter for the Eagle, who had actually authored the fake telegram. Francis had just been drafted into the army. He hoped the scam would provide for his family while he was away at war. The next day, Sunday 22 May, military authorities released both Prime and Marble. But the damage had been done.

Marble was in a rage. He clearly felt betrayed and laid the blame for his arrest directly on Lincoln's head - where it belonged. On Monday, 23 May he unleashed his pen, in a letter that took up several columns of "The World". “Not until today,” Marble wrote, “has The World been free to speak. But to those who have ears to hear, its absence has been more eloquent than its columns could ever be.” Lincoln had acted, wrote Marble, “for the purpose of gratifying an ignoble partisan resentment” He wondered “would you, Sir, have suppressed the Tribune and the Times as you suppressed the World and the Journal of Commerce?” He then answered the question for Mr. Lincoln. “You know you would not... Can you, whose eyes discern equality under every complexion, be blinded by the hue of partisanship.” George Templeton Strong, an diarist and observer of politics in New York, noted, “The martyred newspaper...vomits acid bile most copious.”

Marble now became the publicist for the Democratic Party, and its chosen nominee, General McClellan (above, center). He spent the next six months retelling every old lie and creating every new lie he could conceive about Lincoln. He charged the president with wanting to force race mixing on the public, and ignoring the pain and sacrifices of Union soldiers on the battlefield.

And all of that might have cost Lincoln the election that November. Excerpt on 2 September, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, the rail and industrial heart of what was left of the Confederacy. In that instant it was clear Lincoln was winning the war, and the Democrats were revealed as defeatists, with no answers, only protests. That November Lincoln received only 33% of the vote in New York City. Despite that, he won the state, if barely, on his way to re-election, 55% of the popular vote, and 212 electoral votes to Democrat General George McClellan's 21

The World did not accept defeat, disparaging Lincoln's speech the day after Lee had surrendered, on the night of 13 April, 1865. It described the President as groping “like a traveler in an unknown country, without a map.” The following night John Wilkes Booth murdered the President, transforming Lincoln into a martyr, and the The New York World and it's editor into a petty, vindictive and racist party mouthpiece. History does that every once in awhile.

- 30 -

Saturday, September 08, 2018

FAKE NEWS WITH A PURPOSE

I cannot conceive of a worst possible moment for the young men to deliver their false missive. Two weeks before, the 3 day battle of the Wilderness had killed and wounded some 17,666 Federal soldiers. Three days ago, in the Shenandoah Valley yet another Federal Army had been ambushed by an even smaller rebel force in the Battle of New Market. And this morning, 18 May, 1864, General Grant was leading his weary army into the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, which would kill and wound another 18,400, including legendary Union General John Sedgwick. It seemed as if everything the Federal government attempted in this third spring of the American Civil War, was producing only disaster. And these young men arrived at 3:30 in the morning, with their missives, to seemingly drop the other shoe.

The reaction to news of a new half million man draft, in the city which the year before had produced three days of rioting (above) in response to Lincoln's first draft call was expected to be even more violence. One hundred twenty had died in the summer of 1863, at least eleven African-Americans had been lynched, untold numbers beaten, and fifty large buildings had been burned down. Many on Wall Street took this as a sign the Federal government was losing the war, and they expected investors to dump their stocks for gold.

At first glance the notice seemed legitimate. It was written on the same cheap oily tissue paper used by the Associated Press. But it had not arrived in the usual fashion. Several editors were suspicious, but there were only moments before the deadline to start the presses for the morning papers. Under this time constraint, and fearing they would be “scooped” by competitors, three Democratic leaning papers rushed the story into the print – The World, the Journal of Commerce, and the Brooklyn Eagle. But the night editor of the Times, a Republican paper, did not recognize the handwriting, and found it had not been delivered in an AP envelope. He held his own presses while he dispatched a messenger for confirmation. The AP editor replied, “The 'Proclamation' is false as hell and not promulgated through this office. The handwriting is not familiar.”

Wall Street was in an uproar that morning, with investors and brokers crowding all the newspaper offices (above), demanding an answer. Was the proclamation real or not? When the markets opened, the price of gold rose about 10%, but quickly fell back after William Seward, Secretary-of-State and Edward Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary-of-War, both declared the report to be “an absolute forgery.” And if the Lincoln administration had stopped there everything would have been all right. But Lincoln himself ordered the Military commander in New York City, General John Dix, to seize the offices of the Journal of Commerce and the New York World, and to ”arrest and imprison...the Editors, proprietors, and publishers.” It seemed the bloody mess in Virginia was making everybody a little jumpy.

At the same time he arrested Prime and Marble, Dix also ordered the arrest of Joseph Howard, night editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, the only other paper to actually publish and distribute the false proclamation. Within a day Howard confessed. He assumed the false proclamation would drive up the price of gold, in preparation for which he had bought gold futures “short”, on credit. As one historian has noted, “Nothing worse was ever done for the purpose of speculation.” Two days later, on Saturday morning, 21 May, police detectives stopped and arrested Francis Mallson, a reporter for the Eagle, who had actually authored the fake telegram. Francis had just been drafted into the army. He hoped the scam would provide for his family while he was away at war. The next day, Sunday 22 May, military authorities released both Prime and Marble. But the damage had been done.

Marble now became the publicist for the Democratic Party, and its champion, General McClellan (above, center). He spent the next six months retelling and even creating every lie conceivable about Lincoln, charging him with wanting to force race mixing on the public, and ignoring the pain and sacrifices of Union soldiers on the battlefield.

And it might have cost Lincoln the election that November , excerpt that on 2 September, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, the rail and industrial heart of the Confederacy. In that instant it was clear Lincoln was winning the war, and the Democrats were revealed as defeatists, with no answers, only protests. That November Lincoln received only 33% of the vote in New York City. Despite that, he won the state, if barely, on his way to re-election, 55% of the popular vote, and 212 electoral votes to Democrat General George McClellan's 21

- 30 -

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

CLIMBING MISSIONARY RIDGE

I think most Americans know about Picket's charge in July of 1863, when 15,000 rebels attacked across a mile of open ground outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. But few know that four months later 18,000 Midwestern farm boys in blue crossed half a mile of open ground to storm rifle pits filled with rebel veterans, and then clambered, grasping and panting, 500 feet up a 45 degree slope and threw themselves against even more rebel veterans and fifty cannon in what came to be called “The Miracle of Missionary Ridge”.

In late September of 1863, the 60,000 man federal Army of the Cumberland under General William Rosecrans, was ambushed along Chickamauga Creek in the the mountains of northern Georgia by a 65,000 man rebel army under General Braxton Bragg. The first day of the assault left Rosecrans, in Lincoln's estimation, “confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head.”

But through the second day a single union corps under General George Thomas (above) stood like a rock against the rebel assaults, even as Rosecrans scampered 20 miles back to the union supply base at Chattanooga.

The city of Chattanooga (above), perched on the south bank of the Tennessee River, was then placed under siege by Bragg's army .The Appalachian mountains touched the river south west of town at the 2,400 foot tall Lookout Mountain (above - background), which Bragg's left wing occupied. That closed the union supply line to the south.

The rebels also entrenched along the crest and the base of the two mile long Missionary Ridge (above), which loomed directly over the city.

And rebel artillery on three 400 foot high mounds north of the city - Alexander's Hill, Tunnel Hill and Billy Goat Hill (above) - closed the river to supply boats there as well. It looked like the Army of the Cumberland would be starved out. After the defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, this was the South's “last chance at independence.”

Two men in the north saw the truth that the Army of the Cumberland (above) was trapped only if it was willing to be. The first was President Lincoln, who insisted Bragg's army could only “eke out a short and feeble existence, as an animal sometimes may with a thorn in its vitals.” The other optimist was General George Thomas. As the federals staggered back into Chattanooga, “The Rock of Chicamauga” replaced Rosecrans. In addition, fifteen thousand federal reinforcements under General George Hooker were dispatched from the Army of the Potomac, and 20,000 more under General William “Uncle Billy” Sherman were on their way from Vicksburg. And commander of all troops west of the Appalachians, General Ulysses Grant was ordered to Chattanooga as well.

By the time Grant arrived, Thomas already devised a plan to relive the besieged city. Grant gave the go ahead and a narrow switchback road across Moccasin Point, the Cracker Line, was opened to the north bank opposite Chattanooga, so basic supplies could be ferried into the city. And on 23 November, Hooker's corps pushed across the Tennessee and forced the Rebels back from Lookout Mountain. That opened the river to union supply and troop transports (above) to come up from the south.

Then on 24 November General Sherman threw his reinforced corps across the river above the city. That bold movement should have outflanked the entire rebel position. But Sherman became the goat after capturing and fortifying what he thought was Tunnel Hill at the northern end of Missionary Ridge, only to discover the next morning it was only an isolated mound, which is how it earned the name “Billy Goat Hill.” (above, center)

That night the moon rose cold and bright and clear and then darkened, as it fell into the shadow of the earth. Many of the soldiers on both sides, camping above and below Missionary Ridge (above), saw this total eclipse of the moon as a bad omen. The only question was, bad for which side?

The next morning, 25 November, the sun rose bright and clear, without a cloud in the sky. Sherman threw himself against the real end of Missionary Ridge, Tunnel Hill, with a vengeance. But the rebels under Clebourne had been reinforced over night. After a morning spent in a badly executed attack, the Union Left flack was about where it started. At 12:45 pm Sherman sent a desperate message, why were Thomas' men in the center were not attacking? Thomas was unperturbed. He replied, “I am here, my right (Hooker) closing in from Lookout Mountain on Missionary Ridge.” But Grant had seen Sherman's message, and about 2:30 with nothing still happening, suggested “General Sherman seems to be having a hard time. It seems as if we ought to go help him.” He then ordered Thomas to send two of his divisions to “carry the rifle pits at the foot of Missionary Ridge, and when carried to reform his lines on the rifle pits with a view to carrying the ridge."

Grant saw the attack on Bragg's center as a diversion, to discourage Bragg from reinforcing the rebels in front of Sherman. But Thomas was not thinking of a diversion. He chose to wait. It was not until after 3 that afternoon when the sounds of Hooker's fight on the left flank of Missionary Ridge at the Rossville Gap were growing louder, that Thomas finally ordered all four of his divisions into woods in front of the rebel center, to attack..

Major James Connolly, the topographical engineer in General Hazen's division, noted, “The enemy could see us from the top of the ridge, and quickly...commenced to shelling us, as our long line of regiments filed along.” When his own regiment was ordered to halt and shift into line of battle, Connolly confessed he was staggered by the challenge in front of him. “We could never live for a moment in the 600 yards between the strip of woods in which we were formed and the line of rifle pits at the base of the of the mountain, exposed as we would be to the fire of the 40 cannons massed...five to eight hundred feet immediately above us.”

Nervously he rode down the line. “I found Woods division, formed on our right and facing the ridge just as we were. I rode on and came to Sheridan's Division, formed on Woods right and facing the same. Here was a line of veteran troops nearly two miles long, all facing Missionary Ridge...The purpose at once came plain to me” At about 3:30 six cannons fired in rapid succession behind Union lines. It is the agreed upon signal. “”Forward” rings out along the long line of men and forward they go...”

A rebel officer on the crest thought the union advance a “grand military spectacle.” Grant, watching from a small rise behind the attack described it as a “grand panorama”. General Sheridan, riding in front of his division, called the three deep ranks with glittering bayonets a “terrible sight.” As the rebel artillery opened up the word was given and the union soldiers broke into a run.

The 9,000 rebels in the rifle pits (above) got in one shot before the blue crowd overwhelmed them. The rebels threw up their arms or began scrambling up the slope in retreat. The union forces paused to catch their breath and reform. Five minutes after taking the rifle pits, it happened.

One historian described the beginning this way: “They came out of the trenches in knots and clusters, with ragged regimental lines trailing after the moving flags and a great to-do of officers waving swords and yelling.”

At the top, in charge of 14,000 rebel soldiers, Georgian William Hardee immediately sent for reinforcements.

Below him Union General Sheridan was waving his hat in one hand and his sword in the other, screaming, “Forward, boys, forward! We can go to the top! Give 'em hell! We can carry that line!” When he came to a narrow dirt road climbing the ridge in switchbacks, he followed it up, and his men followed him.

Some union troops found shallow ravines, which protected them from rebel fire as they climbed. A union officer remembered, “Each battalion assumed a triangular shape, the colors at the apex. ... a color-bearer dashes ahead of the line and falls. A comrade grasps the flag. ... He, too, falls. Then another picks it up ... waves it defiantly, and as if bearing a charmed life, he advances steadily towards the top “

Far below, Grant demanded to know who had ordered the attack up the ridge. Thomas said he had not, and after a moment Grant realized there was nothing to be done. He chewed on his cigar and mumbled, “Someone will suffer for it, if it turns out badly.” Grant expected a disaster, a slaughter of the advancing 18,000 federal troops when the rebel gunners on the ridge top began blasting grape shot into the faces of the clambering, out of breath union men slowly struggling up the 45 degree slope.

That did not happen for four reasons, three of which could not have been predicted or expected. First the rebels behind the breastworks could not fire down because in front of the federals were their own men, who were retreating from the trenches at the foot of the ridge. Secondly, even before the general advance, some union troops left the rifle pits they had just captured because they found shelter hugging the slope. The union brigade in the attack which suffered the highest casualty rate (22%) had been ordered back to the rifle pits, where they were easy targets. In fact the veteran union soldiers knew the closer to the crest they got, the better the slope protected them. And thirdly, the rebel commander, General Braxton Bragg, was an unpleasant and argumentative man.

Many of Bragg's (above) own subordinates despised him, and nobody liked to make suggestions to him. Back in early October, when the positions along Missionary Ridge had been laid out, they had been placed along the top of the ridge, in military parlance the “actual crest”. But the “military crest” was a few yards forward of the actual crest. Bargg's topographical engineers had left his soldiers with a blind spot directly in front of them. Most of Bragg's veterans saw this at a glance, but in almost two months that the rebel army had occupied this position, nobody had felt it worth suffering Braxton Bragg's surly insults and moral degradation to point it out..

The fourth reason for the “Miracle of Missionary Ridge” was that after being delayed by a swollen creek, George Hooker's corps had resumed its attack forward from Lookout Mountain, and was now bending back the rebel left flank. General Thomas could hear the success of that attack, which is why he finally released the assault on the rebel center. And from the top of Missionary Ridge, the rebel troops could not only hear it, they could see the smoke of battle on their flank coming closer and closer.

As the great historian Bruce Catton put it, the rebels' problem was they could see too much and not enough. The rebels on Missionary Ridge could see the union army in its many thousands, arrayed before them, and now clawing its way right at them. They could see and hear the approaching federal army outflanking them. But of their own army, they could only see the men immediately around them. Even 14,000 men, trying to cover a two mile long front, were stretched very thin, with seven to eight feet between each man. The rebel positions on Missionary Ridge, the very center of the rebel defense, suddenly felt very, very lonely.

As Sheridan's division approached the rebel lines 19 year old first Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur (above) grabbed the regimental flag from a decapitated bearer, and carried it over the crest, planting it firmly in the ground. One rebel wrote later, “The Yankees were cutting and slashing, and the cannoneers (sp) were running in every direction. I saw Day's brigade throw down their guns and break like quarter horses. Bragg was trying to rally them. I heard him say, "Here is your commander," and the soldiers hallooed back, "here is your mule." Confederate Sam Watson remembered how he “retreated down the hill under a shower of lead leaving many a noble son of the South dead and wounded on the ground...” Sheridan promoted McArthur to major on the spot, and nominated him for the medal of honor. Arthur's son Douglas would follow his father into the army, reaching the rank of general and leading American troops across the Pacific in World War Two, and then in Korea.

On the crest, with the rebel army broken and retreating, union soldiers straddled enemy cannon and cheered themselves horse. Said one Army of the Cumberland veteran, “"The plain unvarnished facts of the storming of Mission Ridge are more like romance to me now than any I have ever read in Dumas, Scott or Cooper." And a witness from the War Department in Washington said, “No man who climbs the ascent by any of the roads that wind along its front (today) can believe that men were moved up its broken and crumbling face, unless it was his fortune to witness the deed."