Politics
& Government The State of
Things
.
. Special
Report
Jeffords Leaves Republican Party
.. The
State of Things: Remembering The Civil War ED.
NOTE: With the legislative session drawing near its end, we
originally thought to pay closer attention to what's going on under the
Golden Dome. But the fact is, we felt a greater obligation to
history than the present this month. So, instead, we chose to
present some material concerning Vermont, Politics and Government that
goes back to the Civil War. We do so in memory, not only of those
who died in that war, but for all those who have died -- military or
civilian -- in every war. ....
no Northern State was less prepared for war than Vermont.
Rowland
Evans Robinson, at Rokeby, Ferrisburgh, in
Vermont: A Study
of Independence
 | Fold-Out
Map from
Vermont: A Study
of Independence |
The
Civil War was the last time a war had been fought on U.S. soil. And
a bloody soil it had made of it. ... According to
Rowland Evans Robinson {1833-1900} -- the author, painter, and historian
who lived at the homestead known as Rokeby
out in Ferrisburgh, and whose book, Vermont: A Study of
Independence, has become a widely referenced source on the
subject: "... no Northern
State was less prepared for war than Vermont. ..."
Robinson
goes on to tell how the militia was "unorganized," without even
so much as useful rosters of those who were to serve. More critical,
however, particularly for those who were to face the battles, was the
paltry state of their equipment. "At
the outbreak of the Rebellion ... Some of the uniformed companies were
without guns, others drilled with ancient flint-locks; and the State
possessed but five hundred serviceable percussion muskets, and no tents
nor camp equipage."
Of course, this
did not prevent Vermont and its units from entering the war.
Starting out with nothing more than what Robinson characterized as a
"feeble" four regiments, Vermont managed to muster two brigades
with seventeen infantry units, as well as three light and one heavy
artillery units. In the first battle at Mills
Spring {January 19th, 1862}, 795 soldiers of the Union and the Confederacy
lost their lives in a single day. But that number quickly became
dwarfed by subsequent battles. The very next -- at Fort Donelson
{February 12th, 1862} -- saw more than 17,000 deaths, the vast majority
being Confederate losses of nearly three-quarters of the the 21,000 men
who went into battle under general Floyd against the Union Army led by
general Grant. It was the worst percentage of
casualties taken during the war, but numerous other battles resulted in
astonishingly high rates, as well. At Gettysburg, where more than
50,000 lay dead afterward, Lee lost more than one-in-three of the 75,000
troops he led; and General Meade, more than one-in-four of his 83,000
men. Such numbers were not uncommon. In the 30 or so major
battles of the war, at least one side sustained casualty rates of at least
20%. As gruesome and painful as all that may be,
the fact is, many of the dead were not technically "battle
deaths," but rather, were lives lost to disease or other
causes. While the records prior to WW I are incomplete, Defense
Department statistics note, nonetheless, that of the nearly 365,000 Union
soldiers who lost their lives, more than 60% were actually considered
non-battle deaths. On the Confederate side, which conducted most of
the war closer to home and which sustained relatively fewer casualties
overall, still, of the nearly 135,000 deaths, almost 45% were non-battle
deaths. Whatever the causes, though, by the time all
was said and done ... ... more
than a half-million men -- North & South -- had lost their lives.
...
According to Fox in his Regimental
Losses In The American Civil War 1861-1865, published in 1889, Vermont
units lost more than 5,000 men during the war. The greatest
casualties were suffered by the 1st Heavy Artillery, which lost some 576
men, while the 2nd through 10th Infantry units sustained losses in excess
of 300 men each. {For a complete list of unit casualties, see "Combat
Losses" at the Vermont Civil War web site, an excellent resource;
for a list of individuals who died during the war from each of the towns
in our DownStreet readership area, see this month's Living
Together. For links to lists of those who served from each of
the towns, as well as several photos of Vermont Civil War veterans, see
this month's Community
Service.} The war did find its way North at times,
but no listed battles were ever fought on Vermont soil, or even on New
York soil. ... Several days before Gettysburg, Maj. Gen. J.E.B.
Stuart’s cavalry was riding north to get around the Union army. En
route, he attacked a Union cavalry regiment at Hanover. The Union
troops were reinforced by the arrival of a brigade under Brig. Gen.
Farnsworth, which almost resulted in Stuart's capture. But after a
counterattack, the battle came to a standoff and Stuart was forced north
and east. On July 8th, 1863, Brig. Gen. John Morgan led
Confederate forces across the river from Kentucky into Indiana where local
militia organized an unsuccessful defence. He managed several small
victories before he and his troops were cut off by Union forces and
prevented from returning to Kentucky. Later that month, on the 13th,
Morgan's Raiders crossed into Ohio at Harrison with Union forces in hot
pursuit. Six days later, Morgan & his 1,700 men were captured at
Buffington Island, but he himself escaped along with about 400 of his
men. For about a week, Morgan and his band wreaked havoc on Union
encampments, having captured and paroled about 6,000 Union soldiers and
militia, and destroying 34 bridges and more than 60 places along the
railroads, while, at the same time, diverting tens of thousands of Union
troops to come and deal with him. Finally, on the 26th, at
Salineville, Morgan and his troops faced off with the Union. Of his
400 men, 364 were casualties of that engagement. There
were also several battles fought in Kansas, including Baxter Springs,
Lawrence, Marais des Cygnes, and the largest, Mine Creek, where, at the
Battle of Osage on October 25th, 1864, which resulted in some 1,300
casualties, 1,200 of them for the Confederate forces under Brig. Gen. John
S. Marmaduke and Maj. Gen. James F. Fagan, whose superior numbers got
bogged down in a ford in Mine Creek and were captured by the advancing
troops of Union Gen. Alfred Pleasonton. Beyond
these, if we discount the battles along the most hotly contested portion
of the Mason-Dixon between Virginia and West Virginia, the only battles of
the Civil War fought north of that line were actually against Native
Americans. These included those against Sioux up-risings in
Minnesota, North Dakota, and Idaho, as well as a number of
"operations in the Indian territory" in Oklahoma, waged by both
the North and the South, although one battle there -- at Old Fort Wayne --
was fought between Union and Confederate forces. What
did Vermont fight for? ... If one reads some of
the correspondence or diaries from the period -- there are collections all
over, but among the more notable locally are those at the Sheldon
Museum in Middlebury -- the simplest answer may be to paraphrase what
one young volunteer said: "... because Mr. Lincoln
called." And while there's been much made to correct the
sometimes too facile idea that it was all about "freeing the
slaves," there is no doubt that the abolitionist cause had pretty
deep roots in Vermont. The Rokeby historian cited at
the beginning of this little piece -- Rowland Evans Robinson -- was the
son of one of the more vocal abolitionists in the area, Rowland Thomas,
himself the son of abolitionist parents. Rokeby is now on the
National Register, so it may be fitting to let the Park Service provide
the historical background here: Rokeby was
constructed by Thomas (1761-1851) and Jemima (1761-1846) Robinson,
Quakers who were active members of the Vermont and Ferrisburg [sic]
Anti-Slavery Societies. Their son Rowland Thomas Robinson
(1796-1879) made abolition the cause of his life and sheltered fugitive
slaves at Rokeby. Hundreds of letters written to Rowland Thomas
between 1830 and 1865 ... [w]ith abolition as the most common theme ...
were written by local and regional antislavery activists, as well as
national figures such as Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, and
Issac T. Hopper. These letters show Rowland Thomas' involvement in
the Underground Railroad and are proof that he harbored fugitive slaves
at Rokeby, negotiated freedom papers for former slaves from their
masters in the South, and helped freedmen find employment. ["Aboard
the Underground Railroad: Rokeby," Vt1, ParkNet, U.S. National Park
Service.]
Whether to fight slavery,
then, or simply because they were called, Vermont and her soldiers
managed to muster up both the strength and the courage to join the Federal
cause in the Civil War. Unfortunately, it would not be the last time
Vermont or the nation would see battle. ... The
Spanish-American War came less than 40 years later, and The Great War --
which was to be the one to end all wars -- less than 20 years after
that. ... And as those who have served, or those who have lost
friends, neighbors, or loved ones know all too well, we don't seem to have
found a way to put an end to it yet. WW II ...
Korea ... Viet Nam ... The Gulf War
... the list continues to grow, as do the casualties.
Nonetheless, for their service, and especially for those who made the
ultimate sacrifice, whether in the War of the Rebellion or elsewhere, we
should all pray ... and perhaps some day, see to it that these dead shall
not have died "in vain." SOURCES:
Vermont:
A Study of Independence, Rowland E. Robinson.
Vermont
in the Civil War web site; http://vermontcivilwar.org/.
Regimental
Losses In The American Civil War 1861-1865, Fox.
"Aboard
the Underground Railroad: Rokeby," Vt1, ParkNet, U.S. National
Park Service. . *******
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