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Home North North October 7, 1861 - Men of Melancholy Mien: Lincoln, Sherman, and “The Hypo”

October 7, 1861 - Men of Melancholy Mien: Lincoln, Sherman, and “The Hypo”

June Saunders
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gen_wm_t_shermanThe hero of Fort Sumter, Brigadier-General Robert Anderson, has turned over restive Kentucky to the administration of Brigadier-General William Tecumseh Sherman. Will Sherman be up to the task? There are rumors that Sherman is going insane.

While he faces a divided state with “marauding bands” who “are doing all the injury they can to those who will not join them in their accursed warfare,” as Anderson put it in a letter of October 7th,  Sherman is said to have speculated that with 200,000 men, he could finish the war in the area. The vastness of this request makes the man look unbalanced.

Is he? Like our President, Sherman is a man of melancholy mien. He is pessimistic about the war and he has always said the army is unprepared and the nation does not recognize the magnitude of the conflict. He is not sanguine about the outcome and is rumored to suffer from “the hypo”—what President Lincoln calls his own black moods of despair.

Lincoln was known for such moods in Illinois. It is said that when Abraham Lincoln came to the stage in Decatur, Illinois to accept the Republican nomination, “the roof was literally cheered off” because some awnings collapsed from the reverberations of the thunderous ovation. Yet candidate Lincoln did not seem happy. A spectator commented that he looked like one of “the worst plagued men I ever saw.”

After the convention, the lieutenant governor of Illinois said he came upon Mr. Lincoln sitting alone in the deserted convention hall with his face buried despairingly in his huge hands. He tends to see the world as a grim and dismal place, full of suffering. A friend of his from his lawyer days said, “No element of Mr. Lincoln's character was so marked, obvious and ingrained as his mysterious and profound melancholy.” Other close associates said that the man was drenched in melancholy.

Given to writing lugubrious verses about death and the gloomier aspects of life, our President has at times worried friends so much that they made sure, as he himself made sure, that there were no blades in his room or his pocket that he might use against himself.

Now we all know that the President is full of humorous stories, wisecracks, and scintillating one liners that show a deep-seated and canny appreciation of life and its ironies as well as its beauty and truth. As a young man, he very much enjoyed contests of strength, foot racing, telling yarns, and he was markedly sociable. He was interested in marriage and the life-affirming prospect of fatherhood.

At the same time, Lincoln is rumored to be the author of an 1838 melancholy verse about a man about to commit suicide alone in the woods. The first lugubrious verse goes: “Here, where the lonely hooting owl, Sends forth his midnight moans, Fierce wolves shall o'er my carcass growl, Or buzzards pick my bones.”

The whole poem is so depressing as to make the reader think: “This man’s got the hypo badly!” However, the most telling line of the poem is that the suicide is considering doing his dastardly deed because he hopes it will “ease me of this power to think.”

Is it possible that men of melancholy mien, like Brigadier-General Sherman and President Lincoln, are that way for good reason—because of their ability to see what other men do not see? Both men look at situations unblinkingly and are able to endure the bright, hard, cold light of agonizing truths. They are strong enough look at situations unflinchingly, and while the vision causes them fierce pain, it also enables them to act in accordance with realities, albeit with great sadness. They act effectively to ameliorate the awfulness they so accurately see.

Perhaps such men of melancholy mien are just what are needed at this tragic time, for the conflict looks to be long, awful, and costly beyond calculation—costly in life and limb, costly in mind and matter, costly to the very idea of America and with outcome uncertain. Happier, less realistic men might not have the mettle to face the times.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

April 21, 1863 - Lincoln Signs Proclamation Admitting West Virginia

As early as 1769, the people of western Virginia tried, unsuccessfully, to separate from the whole of Virginia.  Settlers slowly made their way across the Allegheny Plateau barrier during the 18th century, establishing small farms without the use of slavery.  Though the region became increasingly important to Richmond, the economic, political and social differences estranged the west from the east.  Because slaves were counted in allotting representation, wealthy eastern planters dominated the Virginia legislature, and demands by western Virginians for lower taxes and infrastructure development were not met. In 1860 the forty-eight western counties of Virginia comprised one-third of the population, one-fourth of the area of that slate, and almost all its mineral resources. The population of those counties in 1860 was 380,000. These counties strongly opposed secession when, by a vote of 88-55, the Virginia State Convention passed this ordinance on April 17, 1861. The outraged citizens of the western counties of the state thereupon held two conventions in Wheeling, the first on May 13, and the second on June 11. At this second Wheeling Convention, the ordinance of secession was specifically repudiated, and all the existing offices of the state government functioning at .Richmond were declared vacated. A so-called "Restored Government" of Virginia on the basis of loyalty to the United States was established. Francis H. Pierpont was named Governor, while W. T. Willey and John S. Carlile were elected United States Senators. A general referendum of the voters in the western counties, held on October 24, 1861, approved all that had been done at Wheeling thus far.  It also indicated that the popular desire was ultimately to establish an entirely new state. A third convention was then convened in Wheeling between November, 1861 and February, 1862. At this convention a new constitution was written and the name, "West Virginia," was officially adopted. In April, 1862, another referendum approved these actions by a vote of 18,862 to 514. On May 13, 1862, Governor Pierpont of the "Restored Government" of Virginia called his General Assembly into session, and this body promptly gave assent to the partition of the state and the formation of West Virginia. Late in 1862, after a favorable vote of 23-15 in the Senate, and a similar vote by a margin of 95-66 in the House, a bill to admit West Virginia as a new state to the Union was sent to Lincoln's desk.  However, Mr. Lincoln did not immediately sign it.  Governor Pierpont telegraphed Lincoln on the 18th that a presidential veto would ". . . be death to our cause."  Two days later, Pierpont telegraphed that ". . . great feeling exists . . . in reference to your delay in signing the bill for the new state." The President asked his cabinet for help in evaluating the constitutionality of the admission.  He wrote: But is the admission into the Union, of West-Virginia, expedient. This, in my general view, is more a question for Congress, than for the Executive. Still I do not evade it. More than on anything else, it depends on whether the admission or rejection of the new state would under all the circumstances tend the more strongly to the restoration of the national authority throughout the Union. That which helps most in this direction is the most expedient at this time. Doubtless those in remaining Virginia would return to the Union, so to speak, less reluctantly without the division of the old state than with it; but I think we could not save as much in this quarter by rejecting the new state, as we should lose by it in West-Virginia. We can scarcely dispense with the aid of West-Virginia in this struggle; much less can we afford to have her against us, in congress and in the field. Her brave and good men regard her admission into the Union as a matter of life and death. They have been true to the Union under very severe trials. We have so acted as to justify their hopes; and we can not fully retain their confidence, and co-operation, if we seem to break faith with them. In fact, they could not do so much for us, if they would. Again, the admission of the new state, turns that much slave soil to free; and thus, is a certain, and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the rebellion. The division of a State is dreaded as a precedent. But a measure made expedient by a war, is no precedent for times of peace. It is said that the admission of West-Virginia, is secession, and tolerated only because it is our secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still difference enough between secession against the constitution, and secession in favor of the constitution. I believe the admission of West-Virginia into the Union is expedient. Mr. Lincoln's approval of the West Virginia statehood bill occurred on December 31, 1862.  The next day, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  For West Virginia, statehood was now conditioned upon the acceptance by the people of that state of the Willey Amendment to their own constitution. This provision specifically provided for gradual emancipation of the negroes of the state. On February 17-18, 1863, a recalled session of the West Virginia Constitutional Convention unanimously approved the Willey phraseology. On March 26, 1863, the constitution with the Willey Amendment was submitted to the people of West Virginia for ratification. By the overwhelming vote of 27,749 to 572, the electorate approved the revised document. Yeterday, on April 20, 1863, some 94 years after the western region of Virginia tried to separate from the eastern region, President Lincoln signed a proclamation admitting West Virginia as the 35th state of the United States, effective June 20, 1863. By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, by the Act of Congress approved the 31st. day of December, last, the State of West Virginia was declared to be one of the United States of America, and was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, upon the condition that certain changes should be duly made in the proposed Constitution for that State; And, whereas, proof of a compliance with that condition as required by the Second Section of the Act aforesaid, has been submitted to me; Now, therefore, be it known, that I Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do, hereby, in pursuance of the Act of Congress aforesaid, declare and proclaim that the said act shall take effect and be in force, from and after sixty days from the date hereof. 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 twentieth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.    

 

April 15 - Civil War Enters Third Year

On April 15, 1861, then newly elected US President Abraham Lincoln assembled his cabinet in an emergency Sunday meeting to frame a Proclamation to call up 75,000 90-day militia to form against "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings."  The cabinet did not officially declare war, only Congress can do that and they would not be in session until three months later.    As we have seen President Lincoln do over the past two years, Mr. Lincoln did not wait for Congress to return and issued the Proclamation, thereby declaring his intent to invade the South before Congress could vote on whether to officially declare war.  The call to arms came in the midst of a flurry of emotion throughout the North at what happened to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  The White House was besieged by callers assuring the American president of their support, including Stephen Douglas, who ran against him in the elections.  In Pittsburg, hangman's nooses dangled from lampposts inscribed with "Death to Traitors!"  Even in Knoxville, Tennessee, newspaper editor William G. Brownlow declared that he will "fight the Secession leaders till Hell froze over, and then fight them on the ice." Mr. Brownlow was not on the popular side of the story as most of Tennessee sided with the South.   In fact, Governor Harris sent a telegram to Lincoln that said, "Tennessee will furnish not a single man for the purpose of coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers." Mr. Lincoln's declaration also offended Governor John Letcher of Virginia, whose state was asked to furnish three regiments, totaling 2,340 men and officers, to subdue the secessionists.  Though he previously stated that Virginia would remain neutral, on this day in 1861 he replied to Mr. Lincoln's request that he has "chosen to inaugurate civil war," and that "no troops from the Old Dominion" would be forthcoming. In viewing the Proclamation today, it almost seems silly.  It reads in part, "I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country." From the east in Virginia to the west in Mississippi, we have seen not ony destruction of property but wholesale seizures of property under the rule of war.  Between the Confiscation Act and the Emancipation Proclamation, it did not take long for the gentle disposition of Mr. Lincoln's words to completely be replaced by far more forceful and adversarial doctrines. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was labeled crazy when he was asked about the President's call for 75,000 troops to serve for three months and responded that this was like trying to put out a house fire with a squirt gun.  He said it would take 500,000 men and several years to defeat the Confederacy.  In light of the unprecedented death toll that has been witnessed by both sides without any end to the conflict in sight whatsoever, no one today is questioning General Sherman's mental condition.  At present, there are Union warships and gunboats seeking to prevent Southern goods from being exported and foreign supplies from being imported.  The Mississippi River is almost completely in the hands of the US Army from the north and the US Navy from New Orleans.  In the east, along the Rappahannock lie hundreds of thousands of soldiers and artillery, maneuvering to soon wage yet another battle that will certainly result in more bloodshed. Despite these Union accomplishments and notwithstanding the incredible loss of life to date, there is little hope that this third year of the war will be any less destructive, or that it will be cut short by some resolution of the conflict.   Will we, one year from now, reflect again on the commencement of the hostilities and wonder when will it ever end?

 

April 4, 1863 - Douglass Implores Colored Men to Join Fight

Douglass' Monthly, April 1863 Edition.  "Why Should a Colored Man Enlist?"  by Frederick Douglass.  This question has been repeatedly put to us while raising men for the 54th Massachusetts regiment during the past five weeks, and perhaps we cannot at present do a better service to the cause of our people or to the cause of the country than by giving a few of the many reasons why a colored man should enlist. First. You are a man, although a colored man. If you were only a horse or an ox, incapable of deciding whether the rebels are right or wrong, you would have no responsibility, and might like the horse or the ox go on eating your corn or grass, in total indifference, as to which side is victorious or vanquished in this conflict. You are however no horse, and no ox, but a man, and whatever concerns man should interest you. He who looks upon a conflict between right and wrong, and does not help the right against the wrong, despises and insults his own nature, and invites the contempt of mankind. As between the North and South, the North is clearly in the right and the South is flagrantly in the wrong. You should therefore, simply as a matter of right and wrong, give your utmost aid to the North. In presence of such a contest there is no neutrality for any man. You are either for the Government or against the Government. Manhood requires you to take sides, and you are mean or noble according to how you choose between action and inaction.—If you are sound in body and mind, there is nothing in your color to excuse you from enlisting in the service of the republic against its enemies. If color should not be a criterion of rights, neither should it be a standard of duty. The whole duty of a man, belongs alike to white and black. "A man's a man for a' that."  Second. You are however, not only a man, but an American citizen, so declared by the highest legal adviser of the Government, and you have hitherto expressed in various ways, not only your willingness but your earnest desire to fulfil any and every obligation which the relation of citizenship imposes. Indeed, you have hitherto felt wronged and slighted, because while white men of all other nations have been freely enrolled to serve the country, you a native born citizen have been coldly denied the honor of aiding in defense of the land of your birth. The injustice thus done you is now repented of by the Government and you are welcomed to a place in the army of the nation. Should you refuse to enlist now, you will justify the past contempt of the Government towards you and lead it to regret having honored you with a call to take up arms in its defense. You cannot but see that here is a good reason why you should promptly enlist.  Third. A third reason why a colored man should enlist is found in the fact that every Negro-hater and slavery-lover in the land regards the arming of Negroes as a calamity and is doing his best to prevent it. Even now all the weapons of malice, in the shape of slander and ridicule, are used to defeat the filling up of the 54th Massachusetts (colored) regiment. In nine cases out of ten, you will find it safe to do just what your enemy would gladly have you leave undone. What helps you hurts him. Find out what he does not want and give him a plenty of it.  Fourth. You should enlist to learn the use of arms, to become familiar with the means of securing, protecting and defending your own liberty. A day may come when men shall learn war no more, when justice shall be so clearly apprehended, so universally practiced, and humanity shall be so profoundly loved and respected, that war and bloodshed shall be confined only to beasts of prey. Manifestly however, that time has not yet come, and while all men should labor to hasten its coming, by the cultivation of all the elements conducive to peace, it is plain that for the present no race of men can depend wholly upon moral means for the maintenance of their rights. Men must either be governed by love or by fear. They must love to do right or fear to do wrong. The only way open to any race to make their rights respected is to learn how to defend them. When it is seen that black men no more than white men can be enslaved with impunity, men will be less inclined to enslave and oppress them. Enlist therefore, that you may learn the art and assert the ability to defend yourself and your race.  Fifth. You are a member of a long enslaved and despised race. Men have set down your submission to Slavery and insult, to a lack of manly courage. They point to this fact as demonstrating your fitness only to be a servile class. You should enlist and disprove the slander, and wipe out the reproach. When you shall be seen nobly defending the liberties of your own country against rebels and traitors— brass itself will blush to use such arguments imputing cowardice against you.  Sixth. Whether you are or are not, entitled to all the rights of citizenship in this country has long been a matter of dispute to your prejudice. By enlisting in the service of your country at this trial hour, and upholding the National Flag, you stop the mouths of traducers and win applause even from the iron lips of ingratitude. Enlist and you make this your country in common with all other men born in the country or out of it.  Seventh. Enlist for your own sake. Decried and derided as you have been and still are, you need an act of this kind by which to recover your own self-respect. You have to some extent rated your value by the estimate of your enemies and hence have counted yourself less than you are. You owe it to yourself and your race to rise from your social debasement and take your place among the soldiers of your country, a man among men. Depend upon it, the subjective effect of this one act of enlisting will be immense and highly beneficial. You will stand more erect, walk more assured, feel more at ease, and be less liable to insult than you ever were before. He who fights the battles of America may claim America as his country—and have that claim respected. Thus in defending your country now against rebels and traitors you are defending your own liberty, honor, manhood and self-respect.  Eighth. You should enlist because your doing so will be one of the most certain means of preventing the country from drifting back into the whirlpool of Pro-Slavery Compromise at the end of the war, which is now our greatest danger. He who shall witness another Compromise with Slavery in this country will see the free colored man of the North more than ever a victim of the pride, lust, scorn and violence of all classes of white men. The whole North will be but another Detroit, where every white fiend may with impunity revel in unrestrained beastliness towards people of color; they may burn their houses, insult their wives and daughters, and kill indiscriminately. If you mean to live in this country now is the time for you to do your full share in making it a country where you and your children after you can live in comparative safety. Prevent a compromise with the traitors, compel them to come back to the Union whipped and humbled into obedience and all will be well. But let them come back as masters and all their hate and hellish ingenuity will be exerted to stir up the ignorant masses of the North to hate, hinder and persecute the free colored people of the North. That most inhuman of all modern enactments, with its bribed judges, and summary process, the Fugitive Slave Law, with all its infernal train of canting divines, preaching the gospel of kidnapping, as twelve years ago, will be revived against the free colored people of the North. One or two black brigades will do much to prevent all this.  Ninth. You should enlist because the war for the Union, whether men so call it or not, is a war for Emancipation. The salvation of the country, by the inexorable relation of cause and effect, can be secured only by the complete abolition of Slavery. The President has already proclaimed emancipation to the Slaves in the rebel States which is tantamount to declaring Emancipation in all the States, for Slavery must exist everywhere in the South in order to exist anywhere in the South. Can you ask for a more inviting, ennobling and soul enlarging work, than that of making one of the glorious Band who shall carry Liberty to your enslaved people? Remember that identified with the Slave in color, you will have a power that white soldiers have not, to attract them to your lines and induce them to take up arms in a common cause. One black Brigade will, for this work, be worth more than two white ones. Enlist, therefore, enlist without delay, enlist now, and forever put an end to the human barter and butchery which have stained the whole South with the warm blood of your people, and loaded its air with their groans. Enlist, and deserve not only well of your country, and win for yourselves, a name and a place among men, but secure to yourself what is infinitely more precious, the fast dropping tears of gratitude of your kith and kin marked out for destruction, and who are but now ready to perish.  When time's ample curtain shall fall upon our national tragedy, and our hillsides and valleys shall neither redden with the blood nor whiten with the bones of kinsmen and countrymen who have fallen in the sanguinary and wicked strife; when grim visaged war has smoothed his wrinkled front and our country shall have regained its normal condition as a leader of nations in the occupation and blessings of peace—and history shall record the names of heroes and martyrs who bravely answered the call of patriotism and Liberty—against traitors, thieves and assassins—let it not be said that in the long list of glory, composed of men of all nations—there appears the name of no colored man.

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