Democratic Party Poster for the 1864 election supporting McClellan and Pendleton (Image via Wikipedia)

THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST

We issue our paper this week in advance of the ordinary time, in order that we may be able once more to urge upon all our readers whom it may reach before the election, the paramount duty that devolves on them to do all that lies in their power, as citizens, exercising the privileges of the franchise to save their country from the dangers with which it is menaced, should the present Administration, unfortunately succeed, through force or fraud, in securing a second term of office. The party now in power have set the example of disregarding all written law, and every constitutional restriction that stood in the way of their fanatical schemes. The effect of such a policy upon society in all its relations is already becoming manifest, and we see around us, everywhere, unprincipled men ready to take advantage of a state of things that must inevitably end in the overthrow of all our institutions. So far has this gone, that we find Abolition partizans- unable to deny the wholesale swindling practiced upon the votes of the army and navy by the agents of the Administration- defending the expediency of a course so opposed to every Republican idea, and exulting in the prospect that, even by such nefarious means, their party may, in defiance of popular sentiment, secure four years more of the public plunder. Hitherto the laws of the Republic have been administered and obeyed, less from the consciousness that the government had the power necessary to enforce them, than from the spontaneous consent of the people, who as the masters of those who made the laws, felt that they had a controlling voice in the matter, and that in respecting their own enactments they were doing homage only to themselves. Mr. Lincoln’s administration has endeavored to substitute a government of force for that of right, and to replace the voluntary obedience of love by the subjection of fear. These are the first of the insidious approaches by which despotism ever seeks to win its way to absolute authority. If the American people, in this election, through default or weakness, entrust the management of their affairs to Mr. Lincoln, they place their liberties at the mercy of a party who have proved themselves already faithless to every trust reposed in them, and who can from their past policy, give no guaranty, that the immunity offered by a new term of office will not induce them to push their invasion of the rights of the people to the utmost extremes.

In voting for General McClellan, on the contrary, the American people are giving their suffrages for one whose whole record indicates his devotion to the old traditions of the Republic- to the unity of the States, and the stability of those institutions, left us as constitutional guides and landmarks by the wise and patriotic men who laid the foundation of our national greatness. Let all, therefore, labor energetically to this end; and with the election of George B. McClellan we shall see fulfilled the promise of the restoration of peace and Union, and the re-establishment of that prosperity for the development of which the country is so admirably calculated by nature, and of which she can only be deprived by the perversity and malignant passions of unprincipled men.  

The majority of the northern Irish-American community were loyal Democrats, supporting the party that had accepted them in the face of widespread discrimination during the 1850s. Short shrift was given to any former community leader, such as Thomas Francis Meagher, who advocated Lincoln’s re-election. Issues such as emancipation and the enforcement of the draft remained emotive for many in November of 1864, particularly in New York. Election day finally arrived on 8th November, with Abraham Lincoln sweeping to a second term in office. The majority of Irish-Americans in the north had voted for what proved to be the losing side, a fact not easily forgotten by many of their fellow citizens in the years that followed Lincoln’s assassination and the successful conclusion of the war.

References

New York Irish-American 5th November 1864. The Presidential Contest

President Abraham Lincoln- the man who secured Private Hugh McLaughlin his pay in 1864 (Image via Wikipedia)

American Civil War soldiers would often have to go months without receiving their pay, a state of affairs they could do little about while away at the front. The 26th December 1895 issue of The National Tribune relates the story of one Irishman who took extraordinary steps to secure what he was owed. Finding himself in Washington following rehabilitation, and low on funds, his attempts to get his backpay fell on deaf ears. Deciding not to take no for answer, he marched straight out of the Army Paymaster’s office and set off for Pennsylvania Avenue. He had resolved to take his grievance to the one man he felt could resolve the situation; President Abraham Lincoln.

LINCOLN’S KINDNESS

W.C. Reiff, Eddy, N.M., sends a story of an Irish soldier’s visit to Lincoln. He says: “Hugh McLaughlin, a genial and brave Irishman hailing from Boston, after having served a three months’ term in the 69th N.Y., and being also wounded in the First Bull Run battle, later on found his way into my company and regiment. Hugh was several times wounded while with us, which, as a matter of course, compelled his going North to hospitals.

“An acquired desire to spree at times caused Mac, or Hughey, as we called him, to leave the different hospitals and have what he considered a ‘good time’ of it before going to the front. One day, in 1864, Hugh brought up in Washington City and applied to a certain Army Paymaster whose office was, I understood, opposite the Treasury Department. He asked for his pay, but the Dispenser of Greenbacks said he could not accommodate him on account of his hospital record. Hughey volunteered the information that he would have his pay even if he had to see President Lincoln about it. He turned his back upon the Paymaster’s office and started for the White House. Right here I must add by the way of explanation that our Hughey was a polite and intelligent man when free from drink, and not at all forward. Just now he was not exactly himself.

“Upon reaching the main entrance of the White House, there was an attempt made by the white-gloved sentry at the door to prevent his entry. Hughey just pushed this guardian of the National Chief aside and stepped into the home of the President, and soon found himself in the presence of that good man and his wife.

“The President was seated at a table, writing. Hughey made his errand known at once with the eloquence of a Burke. The soldiers’ best and truest friend listened attentively, and so did his companion. They asked Hughey a good many questions about his long army service and his home. Then the President took up a pen and wrote a few lines to the Paymaster. He instructed Hugh to take the note to him and get his pay. When Hugh got the funds he sent them almost all to his wife and family in Boston.”

The story was related to the paper by a W.C. Reiff of Eddy, New Mexico. A review of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System identifies a 1st Sergeant William C. Reiff in Company H of the 91st Pennsylvania Infantry, a unit which served in the Army of the Potomac from 1862 through to the end of the war. Sure enough, also found on the rolls of the 91st Pennsylvania, and in the very same Company as Reiff, is Private Hugh McLaughlin, the man who went to the White House to ask President Lincoln for his pay. 

References

The National Tribune Online

Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System

Wanted Poster for Surratt, Booth and Herold (Image via Wikipedia)

The night of 14th April 1865 was one that Major James Rowan O’Beirne, Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia, would never forget. President Abraham Lincoln lay dying in William Petersen’s Boarding House, having been shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. Secretary of State William Seward had been stabbed in his own home, and Vice President Andrew Johnson had only escaped assault due to the loss of nerve of his would be assassin. O’Beirne was now given the responsibility of escorting the Vice President from his lodgings at the Kirkwood House to President Lincoln’s deathbed; this unenviable duty would prove to be only the first of many tasks he would undertake in the coming weeks.

Major James O’Beirne had seen his fair share of the war. As a Captain in the 37th New York Rifles, the Ballagh, Co. Roscommon native had been grievously wounded in the chest, head and right leg at the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. He somehow survived the ordeal and had risen to become a Major and the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia.  Although no longer in the front line it was to be at this moment, with the war all but over, that he would receive his most important orders. On the 16th April, with the President dead, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton instructed O’Beirne that he was ‘relieved from all other duty at this time and directed to employ yourself and your detective force in the detection and arrest of the murderers of the President and the assassins who attempted to murder Mr. Seward’.

O’Beirne did not need to be asked twice. Indeed, he had already begun the work shortly after the President’s death. He returned to the Kirkwood House where he discovered the room of George Atzerodt, the man who had failed to attack the Vice President. There he discovered a revolver and ammunition, a bowie knife, a handkerchief belonging to David Herold (who had guided one of the conspirators to William Seward’s house) and a bank book belonging to one John Wilkes Booth. One of the key finds in the room was a map of lower Maryland- the hunt was on. O’Beirne kept a diary of events throughout the investigation.

Booth and Herold had escaped Washington together, and were now in Maryland. So was O’Beirne. He and his team went to the Surratt Tavern in Surrattsville where a lodger, John M. Lloyd, was arrested. Under questioning he revealed that Booth and Herold had stopped there on the night of the assassination. O’Beirne’s next stop was at the house of Dr. Samuel T. Mudd, where Booth, who had broken his leg during his escape was treated. O’Beirne recorded in his diary that Mudd had ‘Served more than two years in the rebel army. Is a black hearted man and possibly was a conspirator. See after him.’ The Irishman knew the assassins would attempt to cross the Potomac and enter Virginia. His diary records ‘Cob Neck is the whole section of land between the Potomac and Wicomico River. Pope’s Creek has been a crossing. The conspirators are there if they have not crossed over to the Virginia side, which examine into and follow up.‘ As the information mounted, he added ‘A boat passed over the river Sunday evening. Young Claggett can tell all about it…Mr. Wills tells me that old man Claggett had a conversation with the two men who went over the river on Sunday and that they said they were refugees from Virginia and had been working for two weeks for Mr. Dent. That they went over once and came back before they went away.’ Further details emerged that a man called Samuel Cox had been cooking provisions and taking them to people hiding in the nearby swamp; this was Booth and Herold. Cox’s foster brother, Thomas Jones, took the assassins to the river so they could row across to Virginia. They effected the crossing on Saturday 22nd April. O’Beirne was close- he wrote ‘send the men over to Mattox Creek and to work their way up and arrest Jones’. A further report recorded in his diary seemed to confirm that the crossing had now taken place: ‘Boy at Mrs. Lewis’s states to the detectives that the two men landing at White Point started off in the direction of King George’s Court House on Sunday after landing’.

O’Beirne was convinced that Booth and Herold had gone into Virginia, and he followed their trail into that State, discovering the boat they crossed in and keeping up the chase as far as Port Royal.  Here, with his men ‘tired out and leg weary’ he returned to Maryland for further orders. In the meantime another report came in that suggested the fugitives had not yet crossed the Potomac. Chief of the National Detective Police La Fayette C. Baker arrived at O’Beirne’s headquarters in Port Tobacco, Maryland where orders were issued for him to follow the lead in Virginia while O’Beirne continued the search in Maryland. It would be Baker and his force who would eventually surround Booth and Herold in Garrett’s Barn on the 26th April, prompting a confrontation in which Herold was captured and Booth mortally wounded. They would be remembered as the men who found Abraham Lincoln’s killer. Having led the chase for so long, it must have been difficult for Major O’Beirne not to be present when Booth was finally run to ground. Recognition in another form was to follow for James O’Beirne; he was breveted Brigadier-General in September 1865, and was later awarded the Medal of Honor for maintaining the line of battle until ordered to fall back at Fair Oaks, Virginia in 1862. However, the Roscommon man should also receive due recognition for the integral role he played in hunting down the most infamous murderer in American history- John Wilkes Booth.

References

Eicher John & Eicher David 2001. Civil War High Commands

New York Times December 7th 1930. A New Version of the Greatest Man Hunt: Major O’Beirne’s Diary, Recently Brought to Light, Describes the Difficulties of the Chase After Lincoln’s Assassination

Oldroyd, Osborn Hamiline & Harris, Thomas Mealey 1901. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln; Flight, Pursuit, Capture, and Punishment of the Conspirators

Ford’s Theatre

General James Shields during the Civil War

The sequence of events that led to the duel began with decisions that Shields, a democrat, took as Illinois State Auditor. A financial crisis termed the ‘Panic of 1837′ had swept across the country, with banks responding by accepting only gold and silver as payment. In turn, Shields felt it necessary in order to maintain state credit to insist that all taxes in Illinois also be paid in gold and silver. This incensed the Whigs, the party of which Lincoln was a member. Lincoln published an anonymous letter dated August 27th 1842 in the Springfield Journal, signed ‘Rebecca of the Lost Townships’ in which the fictitious Rebecca has a conversation with a farmer about the unjustness of Shields’ policy.

The situation escalated when Lincoln’s friends Mary Todd (his future wife) and Julia Jayne became involved in writing further letters from ‘Aunt Rebecca’ in which Shields was compared to ‘cat’s fur’ and was described as being ‘mad as a march hare’ among other insults. Unable to bear the ridicule any longer, Shields demanded that the paper’s editor reveal the author of the letters. Lincoln felt honour-bound not to mention the ladies involvement and so accepted responsibility for all of the correspondence. Shields demanded the retraction of the statements regarding his personal character, though Lincoln refused to do so as he felt the initial request was written in a menacing fashion. Shields the sought satisfaction, and so a duel was arranged.

Lincoln selected broadswords of the same size for the contest, and both parties with their seconds travelled to an island in the Mississippi River claimed by Missouri- duelling was illegal in the state of Illinois. As their friends continued to intercede to try to arrange a peaceful resolution, it was made clear to Shields that Lincoln had not in fact been the author of all of the letters. Lincoln admitted to having written the first letter and also stated that he had no intention of injuring Shields’ personal or private character, and held no personal grudge against him. With this apology and the knowledge that Lincoln had in fact been protecting the reputation of his soon to be wife, Shields withdrew the challenge and the duel was avoided.

It is interesting to consider the consequences of the duel had it proceeded. Although Lincoln had a significant height advantage, Shields had some military training and was accustomed to fighting with swords. The outcome would have been far from certain, and had Lincoln fallen the historical ramifications would have been immeasurable. Happily the duel did not take place, and Lincoln went on to become the 16th President of the United States. James Shields became the only person to represent three different states as a senator (Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri) and served as a Brigadier-General in the Mexican War. During the Civil War, he commanded a division against Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley but resigned his commission in 1863. He died in Iowa in 1879 and is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Carrollton, Missouri.

Further Reading

Condon, William H. 1900. Life of General James Shields, Hero of the Mexican and Civil Wars and United States Senator from Three States