Civil War 150th

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The Confiscation Act of 1862 was authorized by the U.S. Congress. For those interested in the legalese, the full text is available at http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/conact2.htm

In principle, the Second Confiscation Act allowed the Union government to seize all the property of those taking up arms against the US government, or anyone aiding the rebellion. However, only a small amount of such property was ever truly confiscated (though there was of course considerable looting as the war went on). Most of all, the Confiscation Act provided few details on enforcement. It simply stated, "it shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause the seizure of all the estate and property, money, stocks, credits and effects." Reluctant enforcement of the Act by Attorney General Bates didn't help.

On the slavery question especially, the new law seemed to “straddle the fence”. Section 9 provided for the freedom of all slaves who escaping to the lines of the Union army – if they belonged to persons engaged in rebellion. This allowed pro-slavery Union commanders to still hold runaway slaves for fear that they might have owners loyal to the Union. More, it could be interpreted to mean that slaves were still “property” under the law. Interestingly, it also proposed emigration for freed slaves to "some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States". Lincoln signed the act into law, but privately continued to work on his rough draft of a proclamation of emancipation.

[Capt. Harlock]

(Deleted because of image failure.)

[Capt. Harlock]

150 years Ago Today:

By this time, John Hunt Morgan and his raiders had ridden almost across the breadth of Kentucky. He now attacked a small town named Cynthiana in the northern part of the state, hoping to convince the Union forces that he meant to go all the way across Kentucky and raid Cincinnati. The result, oddly enough for a Civil War battle, does not seem to have a generally accepted name. (The Battle of Cynthiana refers to an action in 1864.)

The Union had a garrison of about 340 men, less than half the size of Morgan's force. The Rebels quickly surrounded the town, but the Yankees put up a stout resistance at first, at one point firing grapeshot from their single cannon down the main street. After some determined house-to-house fighting, the Union soldiers began to run low on ammunition. many scattered, while a small group of about forty fell back to the railroad depot. There was a lull, and then the Northern commander decided to cut his way out. Only he and a handful of his men escaped, however.

The Confederates did not even hold the town until sundown. Hearing rumors that a large force of Union cavalry was on the way, Morgan headed south -- but he would be back in two years.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In Washington, messengers were sent out to summon a special meeting of Lincoln's Cabinet. Everyone assembled at the White House except for Postmaster Montgomery Blair, who was in Maryland. Lincoln announced that he was "profoundly concerned at the present state of affairs, and had determined to take some definitive step in respect to military action and slavery." He read several measures he was considering, including requesting troops in Confederate territory to live off the land, and formally paying wages to blacks employed by the Army. This lead to a discussion about possibly arming them, and everyone knew the prospect of "runaway" slaves with weapons would inflame the South. The debate ran for quite some time, and Lincoln scheduled another meeting the next day, where he would make a more definite announcement.


Morgan's first raid came to a successful conclusion as his troopers crossed back into Tennessee and arrived in the town of Livingston. In twenty-four days they had ridden about a thousand miles and overrun seventeen towns, burned immense amounts of Union supplies, and captured and "paroled" more Northern soldiers than the size of their entire force. They had sustained only ninety casualties.

Northern spirits, which had been high as recently as May, drooped. McClellan seemed to be stuck in Virginia, Grant was stalled in the West, the Arkansas seemed safe at Vicksburg and blocking the Mississippi, and now Union territory could be overrun with near impunity.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The Union navy made another attempt to destroy the Arkansas. The plan was that, around 3:00 am, Farragut's fleet would shell the Vicksburg batteries from downriver and the ironclads would do likewise from upriver. During the engagement, the Yankee ironclad Essex and the ram Queen of the West would sneak in close to shore and then ram Arkansas. Unknown to the Northerners, the Arkansas had only six officers and twenty-eight crew on board, enough to man only two or three of her guns.

But the attack started late, and was not truly coordinated. Essex came in first, but could not manage a direct blow, and caromed off to ground on the river bank. Sharpshooters from the town plinked away at the Union ironclad for ten minutes until captain William Porter manged to back her off and sail south to join Farragut's fleet. In doing so, Porter missed a rich opportunity. Just before impact, two of his cannons had penetrated Arkansas' plating, killing eight and wounding six on the gundeck. That was nearly half the crew, and had Essex's men grappled and boarded, they might well have captured the Arkansas.

Next came Queen of the West. But again, the blow was not direct, due to an eddy in the river current, and again, the Northern vessel grounded near shore. Still, this impact did some damage, tearing plating off the rebel ironclad's beam. The Southerners tried to take their revenge on Queen of the West. As Captain Ellet later reported, "I had the undivided attention of all the enemy's batteries and sharpshooters, and the consequences were that the Queen was completely riddled with balls and very much damaged." Miraculously, the Queen backed off the bank and steamed back upriver with no serious injuries to her crew.

Confederate commander Earl Van Dorn wired Jefferson Davis, "An attempt was made this morning by two ironclad rams to sink the Arkansas. The failure so complete it was almost ridiculous." But had the Arkansas' engines been carefully inspected, Van Dorn would not have been so cheerful. The connecting rods had been jarred out of alignment.


At the White House, having gathered the Cabinet in his office, President Lincoln took two sheets of paper from his pocket, adjusted his glasses, and read aloud his draft proclamation. It set New Year's Day 1863 as a deadline, after which all slaves in states still in rebellion would be declared free, "thenceforward, and forever". Lincoln proposed to use his authority as Commander in Chief during a time of war, thus bypassing the protection given slavery in the Constitution. For this reason, those slaves in the border states still in the Union would not be freed. But for three and a half million people, their freedom would come as soon as they could escape, or Union troops occupied wherever they happened to be. Since the great majority of the South's wealth was in slaves and the land they farmed, this meant tearing the Southern economy up by the roots.

The Cabinet listened in silence until the President was finished. Then, they spoke in favor or against. Secretary of War Stanton and Attorney General Bates were in favor of enacting the proposal immediately. Secretary of the Navy Welles and Secretary of the Interior Caleb Smith kept silent, daunted by the magnitude of the proposal. Postmaster Blair gave a vigorous dissent, and asked to file his objections in writing. Surprisingly, Secretary of the Treasury Chase, who was a staunch abolitionist, argued that it was "a measure of great danger" and might lead to "depredation and massacre on the one hand, and support to the insurrection on the other." Nonetheless, he was willing to support it if the alternative was doing nothing.

Lastly, Secretary of State Seward gave his opinion. He worried that the proclamation would lead to racial war in the South, and give Britain and France grounds for intervening. However, he was now steadfast in loyalty to Lincoln, and would approve -- except for the timing. "The depression of the public mind, consequent on our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear . . . it may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help . . . our last shriek, on the retreat." It would have far more effect if Lincoln waited "until the eagle of victory takes his flight."

As Lincoln would later say, "The wisdom of the view of the Secretary of State struck me with very great force. It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was that I put the draft of the proclamation aside . . . waiting for a victory."

But matters would get much worse for the Union before they got better. For one thing, a rested Stonewall Jackson was on his way back to the Shenandoah Valley.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Encouraged by the success of John Hunt Morgan's raid into Kentucky, General Braxton Bragg had decided to follow up with a full-scale invasion. His Army of Tennessee had been somewhat out of position for this move, being at Tupelo, Mississippi. Bragg partially solved the problem by commandeering railroad transport and bringing his 30,000 infantry to Chattanooga by rail. Because of the loss of Corinth, the route had to through Mobile and Montgomery, Alabama, a distance of 770 miles. It was the largest movement of Confederate troops by rail during the war. However, Bragg's cavalry and artillery moved by horse-on-road transport, and would take some time to catch up.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:


The Confederacy had decided to do something about the Yankees in Louisiana. The first step was to recapture the state Capital, Baton Rouge. 5,000 Confederate troops, led by Gen. John Breckinridge, marched out of Vicksburg for Camp Moore in upper Louisiana. There they joined up with a further, though smaller, group of Southern infantry. For once, the Rebels had a goodly amount of equipment and supplies, and were well fed. They would need every advantage to disloge entrenched troops in a city, supported by Union gunboats.

To deal with that last point, the Southerners wanted the CSS Arkansas. Her skipper, Isaac Brown, had been working his men night and day to get his ship battle-ready again. But on a trip to secure spare parts, he had fallen ill. From his sick-bed, Brown wired the exec, Henry Stevens, not to move the Arkansas until he returned. But the overall theater commander, General Earl Van Dorn, ordered Stevens to get under way as soon as Arkansas' leaks were repaired, for the attack on Baton Rouge was set for August 5. Stevens was caught between two incompatible orders.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

George McClellan was far from alone in opposing the waging of "total war", the destruction of the Southern economy and social system rather than merely the bringing down of the Confederate government. In the eyes of many Republicans such people, who were almost always Democrats, secretly sympathized with the South and did not actually want the Union to succeed. Before the war, Northern supporters of slavery had been called "dough-faces". But now a stronger term was wanted, and some radical Republicans compared the Democrats who fought the war measures such as confiscation of Rebel slaves and other property to poisonous snakes. On this date, the Cincinnati Gazette used the term "copperheads" for the first known time in print. It would rapidly catch on.

[Capt. Harlock]

End of July, 1862:

In the Virginia Peninsula, McClellan's Army of the Potomac was showing few signs of activity. President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton both urged McClellan to resume his advance on Richmond, but he was still convinced he was badly outnumbered. His incessant demands for more troops were now wearying almost everyone in Washington. and if he wasn't going to do anything in the Virginia Peninsula, the men could definitely be used in the Shenandoah Valley, where Stonewall Jackson was showing signs of activity.

In Chattanooga, Generals Braxton Bragg and Kirby Smith conferred over the situation in Kentucky and Tennessee. Bragg was the senior, but Smith was not in his formal chain of command. For once, a general ignored his ego: Smith volunteered himself and his men to do whatever Bragg thought best. Since Bragg's artillery and supply wagons were still making their way to Chattanooga, Bragg decided to send Smith's force into eastern Tennessee, wheel around to the north, and trap Union general Don Carlos Buell and his army between Smith's army and Bragg's.

At Vicksburg, Lieutenant Henry Stevens, the acting commander of the CSS Arkansas, needed clarification. There happened to be a Captain in the Confederate Navy in the area, and Stevens applied to him to decide whether his should disobey his skipper and move the Arkansas, or disobey theater commander Earl Van Dorn and stay put. The Captain instructed Stevens to sail to the aid of the Confederate force marching on Baton Rouge. (It probably helped that this force was commanded by John Breckinridge, a former Vice-President of the United States.) Ready or not, the Arkansas would sail.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In the Shenandoah Valley, great things had been expected of Union General John Pope and his Army of Virginia. (For once a Northern army was not named after a river.) But Pope had committed the classic error of dividing his forces in the face of the enemy. Although he had over 60,000 men, his largest concentration was only 16,000 (under Nathaniel Banks). This was not nearly enough to take on the 24,000 Rebels under Stonewall Jackson entrenched at the key junction of Gordonsville.

The quick solution was to bring back McClellan's Army of the Potomac, which was apparently immobilized on the Virginia Peninsula. But first, General-in-Chief Henry Halleck had decided to give McClellan one more chance, and an advance to retake Malvern Hill was ordered. But although the Northerners had defended the position admirably just a month previously, they had apparently forgotten the way. After hours of choosing the wrong roads, the division commander Joseph Hooker marched his bluecoats back to camp in disgust.

Although he had a working telegraph, McClellan failed to report this to Halleck for several hours more. By that time Halleck had decided. “It is determined to withdraw your army from the Peninsula" came the order. Interestingly, Halleck also instructed that the movement “should be concealed even from your own officers” until the time came to march.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In Virginia, the Union army tried again to re-take Malvern Hill. This time their guides found the correct route, and "Fighting Joe" Hooker's men brushed aside light Confederate opposition and overran the top of the hill. But because it had been decided in Washington to evacuate the army from the Virginia Peninsula, they would leave the next day.


In Louisiana, the Confederate ironclad Arkansas was trying to get to Baton Rouge to support the Southerners' attempt to re-capture the city. But her engines kept breaking down, and eventually she had to anchor for the night just four miles (6 km) away to make repairs. The crew could hear the sound of the guns from the Rebel assault, but there was nothing they could do.

And the Arkansas had been badly needed. Confederate general John Breckinridge had only been able to bring about half of his original 5,000 men into position, which almost exactly matched the number of Union defenders. Nonetheless the Southerners attacked vigorously, and one of the fiercest urban combats of the war broke out. (Fighting was especially heavy around one of the city's main cemeteries.) Union commander General Thomas Williams was killed in action, and the defenders fell back.

However, Colonel Thomas Cahill took over command of the Yankees, and led a withdrawal in good order to prepared positions near the Penitentiary, and close to the Mississippi river. Now the Union Navy lent a hand, and the Confederate troops came under fire from the several Northern gunboats. With Arkansas out of action and no further prospect of naval support, Breckinridge knew he could not attack the Union positions successfully, and withdrew his men. Final casualties were 371 total for the Union, 478 total for the Confederacy

As a consolation prize, the Confederates were able to re-occupy Port Hudson, which they held for almost another year. This returned the section of the Mississippi between Port Hudson and Vicksburg to Southern control. The Confederacy was able to ship cotton through Texas and smuggle it into Mexico, and with the proceeds smuggle guns back along the same route.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In Kirksville, Missouri, Confederate Colonel Joseph Porter had been recruiting men for the South, with considerable success given that the town is in the northern part of the state. On this date, Union Colonel John McNeil and about a thousand men finally tracked Porter down. The Southerners are believed to have had twice the number of men, but they were raw recruits and many did not even have muskets yet. The Yankees had all three arms; cavalry, artillery, and infantry. The Rebels managed a stiff fight, but in three hours were overwhelmed.

The aftermath was a grim example of the viciousness that was becoming all too common in Missouri. Fifteen Confederates were quickly court-martialed and shot for violating parole agreements, which was within military law, but rarely done. Lt. Colonel Frisby McCullough was also tried and shot as a "bushwacker" (non-uniformed guerrilla), even though he was wearing a Confederate uniform and carrying letters authorizing him as a Southern recruiter.


A day too late, the CSS Arkansas got her engines working again and headed towards the Union squadron at Baton Rouge. Soon she came in sight of the Northern ironclad Essex, her old opponent from the battles at Vicksburg, plus three other wooden gunboats. Arkansas' officers unanimously agreed to attack. But in moments, both engines failed again, fatally put out of alignment by the ramming at Vicksburg. Arkansas drifted helplessly ashore.

The Essex stayed out of range for the moment, but the men aboard Arkansas knew it was only a matter of time before they were shelled to ruin, or worse still, boarded and captured. They opened the magazine doors, scattered shells around the decks, and as a final touch, loaded and ran out the guns. Then they set her afire, evacuated, and pushed the ship back into the current. Arkansas drifted slowly down the Mississippi, her guns going off one by one as the fire reached them. Just before noon the flames reached the magazine and she blew up, echoing the fate of CSS Virginia and CSS Louisiana.

Arkansas' career had lasted only 23 days, but in that time she had done more fighting than most warships see in a lifetime. And she inflicted one more Union casualty: the career of William "Dirty Bill" Porter, the skipper of the Essex. Porter had wisely kept his ship clear of the burning Arkansas, but then unwisely claimed that it was his ship's guns that had sent the Rebel ironclad to the bottom. (The image below was based on the false story.) There were too many witnesses to what had actually happened however, and he was kicked upstairs to the rank of Commodore but assigned shore duty in New York until he died of heart failure in 1864.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Stonewall Jackson was never the man to simply wait for trouble to find him. He marched his force out of Gordonsville, hoping to defeat the various scattered pieces of Union commander John Pope's Army of Virginia. But Jackson was always a man to keep his plans as secret as possible, and he informed only a handful of his subordinate officers exactly what he intended to do after he made contact.

Just before noon, a brigade under Gneneral Jubal Early encountered Northern cavalry and artillery occupying a ridge to the north-west of Cedar Mountain. The Southerners unlimbered their guns and an artillery duel began. It lasted for five hours, while messengers on both sides ran to bring up more men. A little before 5:00 p.m. Confederate Brig. Gen. Charles Winder was hit by a cannon shell which took off his left arm and left him mortally wounded. As a result, the leader on the spot became William Taliaferro, who had not been privy to Jackson's battle plan. Before the Southern reinforcements could be properly formed up, the Northerners launched an attack of their own.

At first, the Yankees carried all before them. Even the Stonewall Brigade was temporarily swept aside by the Northerners before it had a chance to react. At the crucial moment, however, Jackson personally rallied his men, waving his sword and scabbard in the air when he found it had become too rusted for the blade to be drawn. More Confederate artillery came into action, the Rebels counter-charged, and the Union right promptly collapsed. The Union left wavered, and then was broken by a charge down Cedar Mountain by a fresh Rebel brigade.

By 7 p.m. the Northern troops were in full retreat. In one final attempt to stop the Southern advance, Union General Nathaniel Banks sent 164 cavalrymen charging in. They were met with murderous fire from the Confederate troops, and only 71 returned. The Rebel infantry and cavalry closely pursued the Federals in turn, capturing hundreds and nearly including Banks himself. At last, at 11 p.m., three Union artillery batteries opened up to cover the retreat of their comrades.

The Union had lost 314 killed, 1,445 wounded, and 594 captured or missing, while the Confederates had lost 231 killed and 1,107 wounded. Cold assessment by later historians indicates that Jackson had not fought one of his better battles. But at the time, what North and South both saw was another page in the Stonewall legend.


Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com

[planner 3]

Ah. yes ! The mighty battle cry, " Rally round the sword and scabbard, men".

YEE HAW !

[Capt. Harlock]

Early August, 1862:

The idea of shutting off all exports of cotton so that the European nations would intervene on behalf of the South had so far been a failure. Although the mills in England had fallen on hard times, Her Majesty's Government had discovered that food is even more important than clothing, and Northern wheat and corn was needed even more than Southern cotton. A Yankee named Hiram Merrill had even composed a song about the situation:

[font="Times New Roman"]Up among the Granite mountains,
By the Bay State strand,
Hark! the paean cry is sounding
Thro’ all Yankee land.
Wave the stars and stripes high o’er us,
Every freeman sing,
In a loud and joyful chorus:
Brave young Corn is King!

CHORUS
Join, join, for God and Freedom!
Sing, Northmen, sing:
Old King Cotton’s dead and buried,
Brave young Corn is King![/font]

But Merrill was exaggerating somewhat. Cotton was not being entirely ignored; it was being obtained in different ways. New fields in India and the Nile delta in Egypt had been planted. More importantly, cotton was now being smuggled out of the South in significant quantities. Some went through Texas and Mexico, some went by blockade runners out of the numerous harbors in the Southern coastline -- and some went North with the encouragement of the Union government.

To their intense disgust, Grant and other western commanders received orders to obtain all the cotton they could in the areas they occupied. The Union needed uniforms, tents, and other articles, and the idea was also that cotton could be at least somewhat controlled in Northern hands rather than Southern. Since pro-Union farmers were suspicious of "greenbacks" and pro-Southern farmers rejected them entirely, the Union generals were even authorized to pay in gold. Grant knew perfectly well that a goodly amount of this gold would make its way to the Confederate treasury, but orders were orders.

So the mills in England did not need to shut down entirely. Nonetheless, pro-Southern sentiment in London was rising. The Confederacy had seemed on the verge of being eliminated in May, but now it was coming back. Popular opinion would not tolerate direct of support of slavery, but the Union had declared that it was fighting to put down rebellion, and not to wipe out slavery. And of course, more than one slave slate was fighting on the Union side. Confederate commissioner James Mason now found he was welcome at more upper-class social function, and he lost no opportunity to spread his opinion that the South could never be conquered. The idea of intervention on humanitarian grounds to stop the bloodshed (and incidentally restore commerce and prosperity) began to gain ground.

[Capt. Harlock]

April 14, 1862:

George McClellan had been waging an argument by telegraph with General-in-Chief Halleck to try to keep his Army of the Potomac where it was in the Virginia Peninsula. (McClellan was being ordered to join John Pope's Army of Virginia in the northern part of the state, where McClellan would be a subordinate.) On this date, the debate having been lost, McClellan embarked the first two infantry corps at Harrison's Landing to head north.

But Lee was moving even faster. McClellan's effort to keep his movement secret had failed, partly due to an Englishman who had enlisted in the Union army but deserted to the Confederates. The Army of Northern Virginia was already commencing the march northwards to join Stonewall Jackson. Lee had, of course, thoughtfully left behind two divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry with but one command: "I deem no instructions necessary beyond the necessity of holding Richmond to the very last extremity". As it turned out, they would not be necessary. But the stage was being set for tremendous battles up North, and one of the most extraordinary events in history.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:


The situation in Missouri was now slowly swinging back towards the Confederate side. Repeated murders and arsons by the Jayhawkers, and especially the "Red Legs", was arousing the pro-Southern spirit of many residents. A significant number joined guerilla bands to fight the Unionists, including one William Clarke Quantrill. A mixed force of Confederate soldiers and partisans had captured the town of Independence and its Union garrison of 344 men early in the month.

Attempting to push back against the gathering Rebel strength, Major Emory Foster and his force of 740 attacked a Confederate camp and put the Southerners there to flight. But he had unlimbered his cannon during the skirmish, and there were a rather larger number of Confederates nearby who heard them. The Union troops retired to the town of Lone Jack, Missouri.

At daylight on this date, a force of from 1,500 to 3,000 Southerners attacked the town. The Federals believed that Quantrill's men were present, and that prisoners would be shot or otherwise brutalised, and fought furiously. Especially determined were the attempts to capture the Northern cannon, which changed hands several times. During the final recapture of the guns by the Yankees, Major Foster was badly wounded.

Shortly afterwards, Confederate reinforcements appeared on the other side of the town, and the Northern second-in-command ordered a retreat. The cannon were hastily spiked, and the Union troops managed a withdrawal in good order. They had, however, taken heavy casualties. The official report was 43 killed, 154 wounded, and 75 missing or captured, 34% of the force, and there is reason to believe at least 65 were killed. The Confederates lost 110 men or more, of whom at least 47 were killed.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

For once, the Union cavalry manged to score a point on "Jeb" Stuart. In the company of John Singleton Mosby (who would become famous in his own right) and his staff, Stuart had ridden ahead of the the main body of his cavalry. He had planned to meet with a returning squadron of Confederate troopers led by Fitz Lee. But Lee was late, and Stuart decided to take a nap on the porch of a farmhouse.

When Mosby heard approaching horsemen, he rode out to meet them. But what came out of the morning mists was a group of Union cavalry. Mosby sounded the alarm, and Stuart and his staff just had time time leap into their saddles and ride off into the woods. The Yankees, knowing that more Southern troopers were on the way, grabbed what they could of what had been left behind. This included dispatches and Stuart's by-now-famous plumed hat. The bluecoats quickly departed, and made all speed to report to Union commander John Pope.

The loss of the dispatches was serious enough: they tipped Pope off to a planned attack on his left, and he decided to pull back his forces across the Rappahannock River. But Stuart was absolutely determined to to get payback for his hat.

[nicwb]

The loss of the dispatches was serious enough: they tipped Pope off to a planned attack on his left, and he decided to pull back his forces across the Rappahannock River

That must be one of the few times during the conflict that captured dispatches were thought to be anything but a trick !

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Ratcheting up the already considerable pressure on the issue of slavery, Horace Greely published "The Prayer of Twenty Millions". He was at this time the most influential newspaper publisher in America, and he took full advantage of that with an open letter in his New York Tribune :


[font="Times New Roman"]To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States:

DEAR SIR:

I do not intrude to tell you –for you must know already– that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain.

I. We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE LAWS....

II. We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss in the discharge of your official and imperative duty with regard to the emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation Act....

III. We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border States....

IV. We think the timid counsels of such a crisis calculated to prove perilous and probably disastrous....

V. We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in Slavery by a traitor, we believe that the Rebellion would have received a staggering, if not fatal blow....

VI. We complain that the Confiscation Act which you approved is habitually disregarded by your Generals, and that no word of rebuke for them from you has yet reached the public ear....

VIII. On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union Cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile–that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor–that the army of officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half way loyal to the Union–and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union, I appeal to the testimony of your Ambassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general answer.

IX. I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act....We cannot conquer Ten Millions of People united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by the Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers and choppers from the Blacks of the South, whether we allow them to fight for us or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country, but to the well-being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.

Yours,

HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK, August 19, 1862. [/font]

(Note Greely had written his missive the day before, but the Tribune hit the stands on the 20th.)