Massachusetts in the American Civil War
Union states in the American Civil War |
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Dual governments |
Territories and D.C. |
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The
Once hostilities began, Massachusetts supported the war effort in several significant ways, sending 159,165 men to serve in the
In terms of war materiel, Massachusetts, as a leading center of industry and manufacturing, was poised to become a major producer of munitions and supplies. The most important source of armaments in Massachusetts was the Springfield Armory of the United States Department of War.
The state also made important contributions to relief efforts. Many leaders of nursing and soldiers' aid organizations hailed from Massachusetts, including Dorothea Dix, founder of the Army Nurses Bureau, the Rev. Henry Whitney Bellows, founder of the United States Sanitary Commission, and independent nurse Clara Barton, future founder of the American Red Cross.
Antebellum and wartime politics
Massachusetts played a major role in the causes of the
By the late 1850s, the antislavery
By 1860, the Republicans controlled the
The dominant political figure in Massachusetts during the war was Governor John Albion Andrew, a staunch Republican who energetically supported the war effort.[9] Massachusetts annually re-elected him by large margins for the duration of the war—his smallest margin of victory occurred in 1860 for his first election, with 61 percent of the popular vote, and his largest in 1863, with 71 percent.[10]
Recruitment
Massachusetts sent a total of 159,165 men to serve in the war. Of these, 133,002 served in the
Minutemen of '61
Governor Andrew took office in January 1861, just two weeks after the secession of South Carolina. Convinced that war was imminent, Andrew took rapid measures to prepare the state militia for active duty.[9] On April 15, 1861, Andrew received a telegraph from Washington calling for 1,500 men from Massachusetts to serve for ninety days. The next day, several companies of the 8th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia from Marblehead, Massachusetts were the first to report in Boston;[12] by the end of the day, three regiments were ready to start for Washington.
While passing through
Given that the 6th Massachusetts reached Washington on April 19 (the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which commenced the American Revolutionary War) and other Massachusetts regiments were en route to Washington and Virginia on that date, the first militia units to leave Massachusetts were dubbed, "The Minutemen of '61".[15]
Recruiting the three-year regiments
As the initial rush of enthusiasm subsided, the state government faced the ongoing task of recruiting tens of thousands of soldiers to fill federal quotas. The great majority of these troops were required to serve for three years. Recruiting offices were opened in virtually every town and, over the course of 1861, recruits from Massachusetts surpassed the quotas.[16] However, by the summer of 1862, recruiting had slowed considerably. On July 7, 1862, Andrew instituted a system whereby recruitment quotas were issued to every city and town in proportion to their population. This motivated local leaders, increasing enlistment.[17]
28th Massachusetts Infantry
The
54th Massachusetts Infantry
One of the best-known regiments formed in Massachusetts was the
The 54th, because it was the first such regiment, attracted tremendous publicity during its formation.[18] To ensure the success of the experiment, Andrew solicited donations and political support from many of Boston's elite families. He gained the endorsement of Boston's elite by offering the regiment's command to Robert Gould Shaw, son of prominent Bostonians. The 54th Massachusetts won fame in their assault on Battery Wagner on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor, during which Col. Shaw was killed.[18] The story of the 54th Massachusetts was the basis for the 1989 film Glory.
General officers
Generals from Massachusetts commanded several army departments, and included a commander of the Army of the Potomac as well as a number of army corps commanders.
One of the most prominent generals from Massachusetts was Maj. Gen.
Maj. Gen.
Another significant general from Massachusetts, Maj. Gen.
Other important generals from Massachusetts included Maj. Gen.
War materiel
The advanced state of industrialization in the North, as compared with the Confederate states, was a major factor in the victory of Union armies.[27] Massachusetts, and the Springfield Armory in particular, played a pivotal role as a supplier of weapons and equipment for the Union army.[28]
At the start of the war, the Springfield Armory was one of only two federal armories in the country, the other being the Harpers Ferry Armory. After the attack on Fort Sumter and the commencement of hostilities, Governor Andrew wrote Secretary of War Simon Cameron, urging him to discontinue the Harpers Ferry Armory (which was at that time on Confederate soil) and to channel all available federal funds towards enhancing production at the Springfield Armory.[29] The armory produced the primary weapon of the Union infantry during the war—the Springfield rifled musket. By the end of the war, nearly 1.5 million had been produced by the armory and its numerous contractors across the country.[28]
Another key source of war materiel was the Watertown Arsenal, which produced ammunition, gun carriages and leather military accouterments. Private companies such as Smith & Wesson enjoyed significant U.S. government contracts. The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee became one of the nation's leading suppliers of swords, side arms, and cannons, and the third largest supplier of heavy ordnance.[30]
Although Massachusetts was a major center of shipbuilding prior to the war, many of the established shipbuilding firms were slow to adapt to new technology. The few Massachusetts shipbuilders who received government contracts for the construction of iron-clad, steam powered warships were those who had invested in iron and machine technology before the war.
Relief organizations
Several instrumental leaders of soldiers' aid and relief organizations came from Massachusetts. These included Dorothea Dix, who had traveled across the nation working to promote proper care for the poor and insane before the war. After the outbreak of the war, she convinced the U.S. Army to establish a Women's Nursing Bureau on April 23, 1861, and became the first woman to head a federal government bureau.[32] Although army officials were dubious about the use of female nurses, Dix proceeded to recruit many women who had previously been serving as unorganized volunteers. One of her greatest challenges, given the biases of the era, was to demonstrate that women could serve as competently as men in army hospitals. Dix had a reputation for rejecting nurses who were too young or attractive, believing that patients and surgeons alike would not take them seriously.[33] U.S. Army surgeons often resented the nurses of Dix's bureau, claiming that they were obstinate and did not follow military protocol.[34] Despite such obstacles, Dix was successful at placing female nurses in hospitals throughout the North.
Henry Whitney Bellows determined to take a different approach, establishing a civilian organization of nurses separate from the U.S. Army. Bellows was the founder of the United States Sanitary Commission and served as its only president. An influential minister, born and raised in Boston, Bellows went to Washington in May 1861 as head of a delegation of physicians representing the Women's Central Relief Association of New York and other organizations. Bellows's aim was to convince the government to establish a civilian auxiliary branch of the Army Medical Bureau. The Sanitary Commission, established by President Lincoln on June 13, 1861, provided nurses (mostly female) with medical supplies and organized hospital ships and soldiers' homes.[35]
Clara Barton, a former teacher from Oxford, Massachusetts and clerk in the U.S. Patent Office, created a one-woman relief effort. In the summer of 1861, in response to a shortage of food and medicine in the growing Union army, she began personally purchasing and distributing supplies to wounded soldiers in Washington.[36] Growing dissatisfied with bringing supplies to hospitals, Barton eventually moved her efforts to the battlefield itself. She was granted access through army lines and helped the wounded in numerous campaigns, soon becoming known as the "Angel of the Battlefield". She achieved national prominence, and high-ranking army surgeons requested her assistance in managing their field hospitals.[37]
Aftermath and Reconstruction era
In all, 12,976 servicemen from Massachusetts died during the war, about eight percent of those who enlisted and about one percent of the state's population (the population of Massachusetts in 1860 was 1,231,066).[38] Official statistics are not available for the number of wounded. Across the nation, organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) were established to provide aid to veterans, widows and orphans. Massachusetts was the first state to organize a statewide Woman's Relief Corps, a female auxiliary organization of the GAR, in 1879.[39]
With the war over and his primary goal completed, Governor Andrew declared in September 1865 that he would not seek re-election.[40] Despite this loss, the Republican Party in Massachusetts would become stronger than ever in the post-war years.[41] The Democratic party would be all but non-existent in the Bay State for roughly ten years due to their earlier anti-war platform.[42] The group most affected by this political shift was the growing Boston Irish community, who had backed the Democratic Party and were without significant political voice for decades.[43]
After the war, senators Sumner and Wilson would transform their pre-war antislavery views into vehement support for so-called "Radical
For a time, the Radical Republicans made progress on their agenda of dramatic reform measures. According to historian Eric Foner, Massachusetts state legislators passed the first comprehensive integration law in the nation's history in 1865.[45] On the national level, Sumner joined with Representative Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania and others to achieve Congressional approval of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, outlawing slavery and granting increased citizenship rights to former slaves.
As early as 1867, however, a national backlash against Radical Republicans and their sweeping civil rights programs made them increasingly unpopular, even in Massachusetts.[46] When Sumner attempted in 1867 to propose dramatic reforms, including integrated schools in the South and re-distribution of land to former slaves, even Wilson refused to support him.[47] By the 1870s, Radical Republicans had diminished in power and Reconstruction proceeded along more moderate lines.[48]
Culturally speaking, post-Civil War Massachusetts ceased to be a national center of idealistic reform movements (such as evangelicalism, temperance and antislavery) as it had been before the war. Growing industrialism, partly spurred on by the war, created a new culture of competition and materialism.[49]
In 1869, Boston was the site of the National Peace Jubilee, a massive gala to honor veterans and to celebrate the return of peace. Conceived by composer Patrick Gilmore, who had served in an army band, the celebration was held in a colossal arena in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood designed to hold 100,000 attendees and specifically built for the occasion. A new hymn was commissioned for the occasion, written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and set to American Hymn by Matthais Keller. Spanning five days, the event featured a chorus of nearly 11,000 and an orchestra of more than 500 musicians. It was the largest musical gathering on the continent up to that time.[50]
See also
- List of Massachusetts Civil War units
- List of Massachusetts generals in the American Civil War
- Dedham, Massachusetts, in the American Civil War
Footnotes
Citations
- ^ Foner (1970), p. 196.
- ^ a b Brown & Tager (2000), p. 194.
- ^ Schouler (1868), p. 667.
- ^ Foner (1970), p. 104.
- ^ Foner (1970), p. 109.
- ^ Brown & Tager (2000), pp. 185–186.
- ^ McPherson (1988), p. 150.
- ^ a b Leip (1999).
- ^ a b Bowen (1889), p. 4.
- ^ a b Schouler (1868), pp. 3, 501.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. iii.
- ^ Austin (1876), p. 490.
- ^ Austin (1876), p. 491.
- ^ McPherson (1988), p. 286.
- ^ Austin (1876), p. 492.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 24.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 48.
- ^ a b c Brown & Tager (2000), p. 196.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 940.
- ^ Hebert (1944), p. 248.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 941.
- ^ Heidler & Heidler (2000), p. 591.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 880.
- ^ Bowen (1889), pp. 879–882.
- ^ Bowen (1889), p. 992.
- ^ Bowen (1889), pp. 882, 903, 985.
- ^ Current (1996), p. 21.
- ^ a b Heidler & Heidler (2000), p. 1184.
- ^ Department of War (1880), p. 71.
- ^ Lynch (2009).
- ^ a b Roberts (2002), p. 189.
- ^ Oates (1994), p. 349.
- ^ Freemon (1998), pp. 52–53.
- ^ Freemon (1998), p. 54.
- ^ McPherson (1988), p. 481.
- ^ Oates (1994), p. 17.
- ^ Oates (1994), p. 269.
- ^ Schouler (1868), pp. 2, 613.
- ^ Beath (1889), p. 659.
- ^ Austin (1876), p. 524.
- ^ Brown & Tager (2000), p. 222.
- ^ Brown & Tager (2000), p. 217.
- ^ Brown & Tager (2000), p. 199.
- ^ Foner (1990), p. 104.
- ^ Foner (1970), p. 12.
- ^ Foner (1990), p. 136.
- ^ Foner (1990), p. 134.
- ^ Foner (1990), p. 223.
- ^ Brown & Tager (2000), p. 200.
- ^ Austin (1876), p. 538.
References
- Austin, George Lowell (1876). The History of Massachusetts from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Present Time. Boston: B.B. Russell, Estes & Lauriat. OCLC 156826018.
- Beath, Robert B. (1889). History of the Grand Army of the Republic. New York: Bryan, Taylor & Co. OCLC 9511481.
- Bowen, James L. (1889). Massachusetts in the War, 1861–1865. Springfield, Massachusetts: Clark W. Bryan & Co. OCLC 1986476.
- Brown, Richard D.; Tager, Jack (2000). Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-248-8.
- Current, Richard N. (1996). "God and the Strongest Battalions". Why the North Won the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780684825069.
- ISBN 0195094972.
- ISBN 0060551828.
- Freemon, Frank R. (1998). Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care During the American Civil War (2001 ed.). Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses. ISBN 0252070100.
- Hebert, Walter H. (1944). Fighting Joe Hooker (1999 ed.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803273231.
- Heidler, David S.; Heidler, Jeanne T. (2000). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social and Military History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 039304758X.
- Leip, David (1999). "Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". David Leip. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
- Lynch, Jacqueline T. (March 3, 2009). "The Ames Manufacturing Company: Civil War and the New England Mill Town". New England Travels.
- ISBN 0195038630.
- ISBN 0-02-923405-0.
- Roberts, William H. (2002). Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6830-0.
- OCLC 2662693.
- Smith, John David (2002). Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 080782741X.
- Department of War (1880). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Vol. II. Government Printing Office.
Further reading
- Frank, Stephen M. "'Rendering Aid and Comfort': Images of Fatherhood in the Letters of Civil War Soldiers from Massachusetts and Michigan". Journal of Social History (1992): 5-31. online
- Rorabaugh, William J. "Who Fought for the North in the Civil War? Concord, Massachusetts, Enlistments", Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 695–701 online
- Ware, Edith E. Political Opinion in Massachusetts during the Civil War and Reconstruction, (1916). full text online