About That John Brown-- Part 2: Becoming More and More Radical

John Brown was unknown nationally until almost five years before Harpers Ferry.  His father was an outspoken opponent of slavery and that carried over to his son, John. 

 A key point in John Brown's move toward radical abolition took place when, at age 12, he went to live in Michigan and stayed with a U.S. Marshal who owned a slave and beat him.  This deeply offended John Brown.

As a young man, Brown moved often and suffered many business failures.  Along the way, he sired twenty children with two different wives (who were sisters).

Throughout the 1830s, he became more and more outspoken against slavery.  Another major turning point was the death of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois, at the hands of a mob.

On 1837, John Brown said, "I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.:  And that he surely did.

--Old Sercesh

Gen. Grant Speaks-- Part 3: Hard Times at 'Hardscrabble and St. Louis, Grant's Slave and a Move to Galena, Illinois

When he got married, Grant's Best Man was his wife's cousin and a good friend at West Point, James Longstreet, later a Confederate general.

In the years at St. Louis, Grant would even go into the city to sell firewood.  He wasn't doing well financially at all.

While living in Missouri, his father-in-law gave him a slave named William Jones.  Even though Grant was not an abolitionist, he also was not a slavery man and in 1859, he gave William his manumission (freedom) even though William was worth at least $1,000, money Grant sorely needed.

However, Grant's father did arrange for him to get a job at his father's leather goods business there that was being run by two of Grant's younger brother:  Simpson and Orvil.  There he was, back in the tanning/leather business.   However, this enabled him to get out of debt.

Then, came the Civil War.  

--Old Secesh

Gen. Grant Speaks at Hainesville-- Part 2: USMA, Military Career, Marriage, Resignation and 'Hardscrabble'

Presentation of Wayne Issleb, playing the role of General U.S. Grant.

But, he loved horses.  He trained them  By the time he was 12 he had quite a horse business going.

Grant went to West Point, even though he really didn't want to and graduated in 1843.  He was sent to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis.  While at the military academy he had become a friend with Frederick Dent from Missouri and James Longstreet from Georgia.

He started going to his friend's home and met his sister Julia and became enamored of her and they eventually married.  However, his father did not attend because the Dents owned slaves and he was a strict abolitionist.

However, soon afterward, he was transferred to Oregon Territory while his family remained elsewhere.  This is when he started drinking.  

It was soon after that that he resigned from the Army and returned home. That trip from the West to home, via New York, took seven months as he went around the tip of South America.  By the time he got to New York City, he had used up all his money.  He had to borrow $70 to get back home to St. Louis.

From 1855 to 1857, he built a small farm at a place he called "Hardscrabble" and had a series of failed jobs.  In 1860, he asked his father for help was turned down because he was living in a slave state.

His Father Hated Anything Slave.  --Old Secesh

December Civil War Dates: 13th Amendment and Stones River

From the American Battlefield Trust 2021 calendar.

December

DECEMBER 6, 1865

The 13th Amendment ratified, officially abolishing slavery.

DECEMBER 7 1862

Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.

DECEMBER 11, 1862

Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. begins.

DECEMBER 12, 1862

USS Cairo sinks in the Yazoo River, Miss.  Hit a torpedo (mine).

DECEMBER 15, 1864

Battle of Nashville, Tn. begins.

DECEMBER 18, 1865

The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery becomes a part of the U.S. Constitution.

DECEMBER 31, 1862

Battle of Stones River(Murfreesboro), Tenn. begins.

--Old Secesh

The Southern Abolitionist Preacher, William Irving Kirk

One of the presenters at the Hainesville re-enactment was Robert Kaplafka who was William Irving Kirk, a Southern abolitionist preacher.

I always thought most abolitionists were of the Northern persuasion, but here was a Southerner preaching against the evils of slavery.  He did not have much luck and was even wounded once and came close to other horrible things during the course of his preaching.

He was from Rowan County, North Carolina, and tried to convince slave owners they were wrong and figures he only got six of them in all his travels to change their mind.  However, he noted that the N.C. vote to secede was just barely passed.

I was unable to find out any more about him.

--Old Secesh

Hainesville Civil War Days-- Part 2

Hainesville, Illinois, will be trying to upset all the Civil War Days setbacks we've been having this summer in the Illinois area.  First, the annual Civil War Days at Lakewood Forest Preserve in Wauconda, Illinois, was cancelled because of the black man who is president of the Lake County Forest Preserve District because he didn't like the sight of Confederate soldiers with the Confederate flag.

Then, the big re-enactment in Naperville, Illinois, was cancelled because of declining attendance, or at least that is what they said, but I kind of doubt it.

Anyway, here is the schedule of events for tomorrow, Saturday, October 19.

10 a.m.--  Public entry
10:15-10:45--    Military drill
10:50-11:20--  Elijah Haines, Hainesville founder speaks

11:25-11:55--  Mary Todd Lincoln--  A day at the Lincolns' White House
11:30-1:00 p.m.--  Guided cooking tour of the Union and Confederate camps
12:00-12:30--  William Irving Kirk--  Southern abolitionist minister

12:40-1:20--  General Grant--  Rise of a general
1:15-2:00--  President Lincoln:  1864 Year of Destiny
2:10-2:40--  Clara Barton, Civil War nurse and founder of the Red Cross

2:10-2:40--  Officers call
2:45-3:15--  Battlefield surgery
3:15-3:30--  Assembly

3:30-4:00--  Narrated Battle  Prelude to Atlanta

4:00--  Event closes

Sunday, October 20 is essentially the same thing, only everything is an hour earlier.

Maybe See You There.  --Old Secesh

Plinny Perkins, Burlington, Wis.-- Part 2: Abolitionist

Plinny Perkins was one of the early residents of Burlington.  He and others were attracted to the area in southeast Wisconsin because of the fertile fields for agriculture and the availability of water power from the Fox and White rivers.

He was a shareholder in the abolitionist newspaper The American Free Man which was published in Milwaukee and later Waukesha.

He died 21 August 1889 and is buried at Burlington Cemetery in section E.

His house still stands at 565 W. State Street.

Quite the Entrepreneur.  --Old Secesh

Henry Beard, One of First Blacks (and Union Veteran) in Sycamore-- Part 2

Continued from April 10, 2018.

Henry Beard was a member of the 105th Illinois Infantry Regiment.

He settled north of Sycamore, Illinois, in an area called the "North Woods" where he purchased five acres from local abolitionist David West. Later, he married Julia (Judy) Jones.  They built a 2-room home and raised 14 children.

Unable to read or write, he wanted his children to get an education so he sent their sons to the only school in the area, a one-room North Grove School where the boys learned to speak Swedish because most of the people in the area were Swedish and had built the school.

The children had to learn to speak Swedish in order to understand the teacher who only spoke Swedish.

--Old Secesh

Would the Confederacy Have Celebrated the Fourth of July?

From the July 3, 2014, Atlantic.

Back in 1861, a reporter for the New York Times, on the first July 4th since the beginning of the war, described it thus:  "It is like the anniversary of a divorced couple's wedding."  I can definitely agree with that.

In a 2009 paper in the Journal of Southern History, historian Paul Quigley wrote that while some Southerners were conflicted with celebrating the holiday, the acknowledgement of the significance of the day continued.

In Charleston, S.C., in 1861, a committee of five decided the "public procession, solemn oration, and political language ought to be omitted on the present occasion," but offices would be closed.

Even before the war, the meaning of the Fourth of July was changing.  In the North, the abolitionists used the declaration's language of freedom to call for an end to slavery.  In the South, secessionists used the language of willful rebellion to call for a new country, insisting that the North had not lived up to the Declaration of Independence's promise.

I'll Shoot Off the Fireworks Anyway.  Maybe Just Aim Them Northward.  --Old Secesh

McHenry County Civil War Round Table-- Part 2: Lincoln and Seward, Seward Becomes Secretary of State

William Seward's wife, Frances refused to leave home in Albany, New York, so they spent most years corresponding.  William was almost always away from home in his career.

At the 1860 Republican Convention, Seward was considered a shoo-in for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.  He was definitely very presidential material.  The Republican party was a fusion of Whigs, Western Democrats, Abolitionists, Free Soil and Know-Nothings.  And Seward had made plenty of enemies.

To most, he was too strong in his anti-slavery stand.  The Abolitionist considered him too moderate.  On the third ballot, Ohio's Salmon Chase was offered a position in a Lincoln administration and Lincoln won.

Lincoln was somewhat of a dark horse, but ended up with the nomination.  Seward, not happy, but he manned up and campaigned heavily for Lincoln.  He spoke on Lincoln's behalf in 15 states and territories and Lincoln carried everyone of those except Missouri.

Abraham Lincoln offered William Seward the job of Secretary of State in his new government.  Seward accepted.

--Old Secesh

"Lorena" Songwriter, Joseph Webster, Lived in Elkhorn, Wisconsin-- Part 3: Abolitionist Views Force a Move

As Joseph Webster was doing business in Kentucky, he saw slavery and didn't like what he saw and became an abolitionist.  Madison, being located on the Ohio River, directly across from Kentucky, also had strong pro-slavery views (as well as abolitionist).

Once Webster's views were known, he began receiving threats on his life.  One incident where Webster was called upon to fix a church's organ on a late Saturday night, he was attacked by a man with a dagger, but able to defend himself.

That was the final straw.  The family moved north to Chicago in 1855 and a short time later to Racine, Wisconsin.  The lake air aggravated Webster's chronic bronchitis and 1859, they moved away from the lake to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, where they settled permanently.

--Old Secesh

Maine's Gen. Neal S. Dow-- Part 1: Abolitionist and "Napoleon of Temperance"

From Wikipedia.

March 20, 1804-October 2, 1897. Nicknamed "Napoleon of Temperance" and "Father of "Prohibition." He was the man Col. Candler of Georgia saved in Montgomery, Alabama, that I wrote about earlier today. Again, I found nothing more about his rescue by Candler.

Dow sponsored the "Maine Law of 1851" prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor. He was heavily criticized for his actions in the Portland Rum Riot of 1855.

Born in Portland, maine, and was very anti-alcohol and an ardent abolitionist with his house being a stop on the Undergraound Railroad.

He was 57 when the Civil War started and volunteered. Appointed colonel of the 13th Maine Infantry Regiment on November 23, 1861. The regiment participated in the capture and occupation of New Orleans under General Benjamin Butler (which may explain some of the Southern hatred of him).

More to Come. --Old Secesh

Confederate Colonel Candler Protected Hated Union Officer: "One Wife, One Baby, One Dollar and One Eye"

From the January 12, 2014, Gainesville (Ga.) Times "Johnny Vardeman Column: 'Col. Candler defied mob to protect Union officer.' "

A.D. Candler of Gainesville, Georgia, was mayor, U.S. representative and Georgia's governor. But before that, he was a Confederate veteran.

At age 26, he enlisted in the Army as a private and one month later had been elected as 1st lieutenat and then captain within a year. Eventually, he rose to the rank of colonel.

He was once put in charge of transporting captured Union General Neal Dow to Richmond to be exchanged. Dow was an ardent abolitionist and much hated in the South. On the way to Richmond from Mississippi, Candler and his prisoner stopped in Montgomery, Alabama, and stayed at the Exchange Hotel (not bad for a prisoner to overnight in a hotel, I guess being a general, even an enemy general, has its privileges.)

Townspeople heard about Dow being there and a mob soon gathered with intentions of killing him. Candler hid him and eventually made a getaway.

Later, Candler lost his left eye at the Battle of Jonesboro. He made a famous statement at the end of the war that all he had was "one wife, one baby, one dollar and one eye."

During his political campaigns, he was referred to as "The One-Eyed Plough Boy From Pigeon Roost."

Old One-Eye. --Old Secesh