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Emmitsburg Area In the Civil War
Wayde
Chrismer Part
4 of 4
Emmitsburg’s Attitude
as Expressed at the Polls
Understanding the
significance of Emmitsburg’s voting record in prewar
years demands some knowledge of the national political
issues involved. 1850 through 1860 were among the most
important years in the nations history. Political step
by political step, the country was led to ‘‘the
irrepressible conflict.’’ Some of these issues were:
the Compromise of 1830. the Fugitive Slave Act of the
same year, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1834 and the
consequent Kansas struggle; the Lecompton Constitution,
the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown’s Harper’s
Ferry raid, the Crittenden Compromise and the
penultimate Peace Convention, more commonly referred to
as "The Old Gentlemen’s Convention." This,
when it failed, led to the final and irrevocable breach
the secession of the first six southern states (most
people think there were seven) which, on Feb. 4, 1861,
formed the Confederacy. Meantime, political parties of
all sorts dying, others being formed to live briefly,
such as the Americans (the "Know-Nothings’) and
the Liberty Party. Others were to exist throughout the
war under one title or another. The latter included Free
Soilers, the Northern Democrats, the Southern Democrats,
the Constitutional Unionists (later the Republicans),
the Unconditional Unionists, the Constitutional
Unionists (the Democrats) etc. When war broke out,
various shades of these groups battled within themselves
and against all others. These events and parties have
been the subject of thousands of books, but interested
readers can find them well summarized in The Concise
Dictionary of American History. edited by Cochran and
Andrews (N.Y. 1962), or is Welcome to consult the writer’s
5,000 volumes of Civil War books, pamphlets, original
manuscripts and letters.
Emmitsburg’s prewar
and wartime voting record is the best barometer (If its
vacillating North-South feelings. An Emmitsburgian could
talk or write one way or another, his opinions changing
daily, but the chips were down when election day came,
for he bad no recall from his ballot. It can be said now
that from 1850 through 1865, the town was mostly
Democrats one name or another, though not always free to
vote its true feelings. This is equivalent to saying
that it favored the south, for the Democratic Parts’
was the unquestioned champion of that region. In the
first election to be covered here (that of Nov. 5, 1831)
Emmitsburg preferred Southern minded Democrats to Union
minded Whigs. It gave majorities to six Democrats for
the legislature and to five county commissioners, and
preferred Democrats for all state-wide offices then
contested. Balloting averaged about 300 to 185. Two
Whigs, Thomas G. Pratt of Annapolis and James A. Pearce
of Chestertown, were representing the State in the U. S.
Senate at that time, but the district’s congressman
was Democrat Win. T. Hamilton of Hagerstown. Enoch Louis
Lowe, a
Frederick Democrat who
later defected to the Confederacy, was governor. Millard
Fillmore, a Whig, was the president.
In the presidential
election of 1852, Emmitsburg again preferred Democrat
Franklin Pierce over Whig Winfield Scott, 280 to 211,
but also cast a surprising six votes for John P. Hale,
the Free Soiler precursor of the later-day Republicans.
The county also went narrowly for Pierce, as did
Maryland.59 Voting for governor and other state offices
in 1853, Emmitsburg preferred Democrats to a man. In a
purely Emmitsburg contest, it voted as follows: for its
three Justices of the Peace, James Knoff, 293; George W.
Troxell, 245; William Mooney, 241; Andrew Eyster (sic)
187; and M. Adelsburger, 161. For Constable : J.
Adelsburger, 310; David Agnew, 282; John Martin, 221,
and John F. Hughes, 124.60 This election was almost the
final one for the dying Whigs. The Examiner was still
ardently championing them, though probably realizing it
was whipping a dead horse, proclaiming that "A
party founded upon principle cannot die.
The paper berated the
embryonic "Americans’ (or Know Nothings) little
realizing that a bit later its beloved Fillmore would be
that party’s presidential standard bearer. It must
certainly have never guessed that it would itself
unleash an incident that assumed national proportions
involving the Know Nothings with all Catholics in the
area and the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de
Paul, particularly their Mother House at Emmitsburg.
Briefly and bluntly put, the "Americans"
opposed what they called "Papism", as well as
all those who were not native born Americans, and
Abolitionists of every shade. It tried at first not to
offend such famous onetime countians as Archbishop
Hughes of New York, the ex-Mountaineer who was the best
known and most influential Catholic of the times; nor
Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, the former
Frederick lawyer and county native, Roger Brooke Taney,
also an ardent Catholic. There must have been hundreds
of Catholic readers of its paper whom it would not wish
to offend, plus many other friends of those Catholics
who professed Protestant faiths. Not till Nov. 29, 1854,
did it bring local Catholics directly into the picture.
It printed then for the first time anywhere a story that
the Know Nothings were quick to spread all over the
country. This was a wild tale about Miss Josephine M.
Bunkley, a novice at St. Joseph’s, who claimed that
she had been held captive at the convent and been forced
to escape by leaping a high wall behind which she had
been imprisoned, fleeing to the protection of a
Presbyterian clergyman in Ernmitsburg, one Rev. Mr.
Greer. The story was denied instantly by, among others,
Sister S. NI. Etienne Hall, Mother Superior at the
convent. Later, however, Miss Bunkley published it in a
Know Nothing subsidized book, The Testimony of An
Escaped Novice from the Sisterhood of St. Joseph’s.
Emmitsburg, Md., the Mother House of the Sisters of
Charity in the United States.’
However, according to
Williams in his History of Frederick County, ‘The
Mother Superior correctly described the reason why Miss
Bunkley left St. Joseph’s as she did." He adds
that the lurid details of forced detention,
ill-treatment, beatings and exorcisms that The Examiner
had described were nothing but malicious fabrications of
the Know Nothings. He says that: "In May 1859, she
[the Bunkley Woman] made a recantation, that is to sax’
she admitted that the narration of events at St. Joseph
in her book and the charges she had made against the
Priests were false."
Many persons throughout
the country believed every word of the Bunkley woman’s
story. Not so with most Emmitsburgians, apparently
Catholic’s and Protestant friends alike as was fairly
well proven by the community s vote in the next
election. Though the county gave Know Nothing majorities
to all state and county candidates as opposed to their
Democratic rivals (whom The Examiner was disdainfully
calling "The Foreigners’ (the vote in Emmitsburg
was precisely opposite. Every Know Nothing candidate was
here defeated by majorities averaging 300 to 175, or
there about, in all cases. Whether this was just another
expression of the town s naturally strong pro-Democratic
feeling or was evidence that the towns Protestants were
sticking by their Catholic friends and neighbors cannot
be said with certainty. There were of course many
Catholics in the area who would naturally have opposed
the Know Nothings, but a nearly two-to-one majority
could never have been achieved without lavish Protestant
support.
The Examiner gave as
its excuse for its political chicanery that it was
"defending the State and the Country against the
spread of Slavery which the Democrats of the State were
seeking." In this, it conveniently overlooked the
fact that the Americanisms it so loved were just as
bitterly opposed to Blacks as they were to all
non-native-born citizens and those who professed
Catholicism.
No better descriptions
of the Know Nothings can probably be given than to quote
Lincoln and one other. The president-to-be wrote:
"We began by declaring that all men are created
equal. We now practically read it: ‘all men are
created equal except Negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings
obtain control, it will read, ‘All men are created
equal except Negroes, foreigners and Catholics’."
Rufus Choate, a Massachusetts lawyer-politician, wrote
this as their belated epitaph: "Anything more low,
obscene, feculent, the manifold heavings of history have
not cast up!"
The tide was ebbing for
the Know Nothings in 1856 when the Presidential election
was held, but The Examiner was still championing
Fillmore, the Know Nothing standard bearer. Other
candidates were James Buchanan, Democrat, and John C.
Fremont, Free Soiler. Buchanan beat Fremont by a
majority so slender it scared the Deomcrat’s half to
death. Maryland was the only state that went for
Fillmore—an embarrassing fact that still causes
conscientious Marylanders to wince. He carried the
county by a scant 3,724 to Buchanan’s 3,304 and
Fremont 21— seven of which last surprisingly came from
Emmitsburg. The town gave a thumping 307 to Buchanan but
could still cast 179 for Fillmore.
Though its death rattle
was being heard all over the nation, the Know Nothing
party was fully conscious in Maryland when, on Nov. 5,
1857, it elected Thomas Holliday Hicks as governor over
the Democrat John C. Groome. The County went Know
Nothing but Emmitsburg backed Groome 326 to 164, a
nearly two to one plurality. It also gave Democratic
majorities averaging about 327 to 163 to all other State
and County Democrats.
Now serious national
political party disintegration began—much too
complicated to go into here. The Examiner quickly became
disenchanted with Hicks "for having seen proper to
pass over Frederick County without giving her a single
state-wide appointment." Certain local political
offices were required by law to go to men of that
particular community, and in Emmitsburg Hicks named
apparently Know Nothing Emmitsburgians to these offices:
Solomon Krise, Coroner; and Jacob Motter, Samuel Maxwell
and Joseph Martin of John, Judges of Election.
Maryland Know Nothings
fought over political spoils and split wide open on both
slavery and state rights. A local Baltimore party, The
Reformists, started their downfall. Though losing an
election in 1858, they later sent George William Brown
into the mayor’s seat in the bloodiest of the bloody
elections which made Baltimore world famous. Hicks was
still in Annapolis, where scores of Know Nothings were
riding shotgun for him in the legislature. Because of
the abuses of the present state constitution, a new one
was badly needed, but when a state convention to rewrite
it was called for, the measure was defeated. Most people
believed the Know Nothings in the legislature would only
make it worse. Emmitsburg was soundly opposed to a
convention, 248 to 91. The Examiner, which had supported
the calling, said that "apathy is the manifest
cause of the defeat and the amazingly small statewide
turnout (of only 36,339) lends credence to the claim.
The paper was still so
deeply committed to the Know Nothings in State and
County elections of 1859 that it was "with much
chagrin" that it told its readers on Nov. 9 that
the Democratic "Foreigners" had won out
overwhelmingly, though not totally. Emmitsburg went
Democratic in all eases by about 350 to 180, even voting
against the Know Nothing Emmitsburgian, Dr. Robert L.
Annan, for the House of Delegates. Annan wound up ninth
among the twelve who sought the six offices.
It was on May 16, 1860,
that The Examiner finally threw its support behind the
organizing Constitutional Unionists as mongrelize a
party as was ever created. Now came the political Super
Bowl the presidential election of 1860, That contest
pitted these parties: the Constitutional Unionists, led
by John Bell of Tennessee; the Republicans, headed by
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois; and two slates of
Democrats. The Southern Democrats had for their standard
bearer John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The Northern
Democrats, formed after convention splits at Charleston
and Baltimore, were led by Stephen A. Douglas, also of
Illinois, whose strong Unionist and lukewarm pro-Slavery
sentiments the Southerners could not stomach.
This was the national
outcome: the winner, Lincoln, with 1,865,593 popular and
180 electoral votes; Bell 592,906 and 39; Breckinridge,
848,356 and 72; and Douglas 1,382,713 and 12.71 Maryland
voted as follows: for Breckinridge 42,497; for Bell
41,777; for Douglas 5,873; and for Lincoln 2,294.
Frederick County went for Bell 3,617; for Breckinridge
3,170; for Douglas 439; and for Lincoln 103. Emmitsburg’s
plurality went to Breckinridge by 323 to Bell’s 152—a
better than two-to-one majority for the Southern
Democrat, his Northern counterpart, Douglas, getting a
mere 18 and Lincoln a pathetic seven.
Emmitsburg’s
overwhelming 323 for Breckinridge as opposed to Douglas’s
18, proves beyond question that the town was not merely
Democratic but that it was overwhelmingly Southern
Democratic. It can be reasoned that, had it wished to
express neutrality in the coming military conflict, it
could have given greater support to Bell, but the
Constitutional Unionists bore on their feathers (rightly
or not) much of the tar that had besmeared the Know
Nothings, many of whom were its members. It should also
he known that many misguided souls believed that a vote
for a Southern Democrat was not necessarily a vote for
secession. It can he supposed that Emmitsburg for once
agreed with The Examiner when it wrote that
"Secession is neither a right or a remedy for any
of the evils complained of hy the Southern States."
Later, when Maryland was seemingly on the verge of
leaving the Union, it stated that "Secession is
treason" and that "divested of pretexts, which
feign a patriotic purpose, its criminality would he
palpable."
Its significance is
dubious, hut a large delegation of countians, called to
attend a January convention designed to "drag
Maryland into Secession con tamed no Ernmitsburgians.
Its purpose was to persuade the reluctant Hicks to call
a special session of the legislature, which Hicks
refused. As he later put it, he feared such an assembly
would pass an Ordinance of Secession. When ultimately he
did call the group into special session, it met in
Frederick (not Annapolis) and Federal troops were
present to keep peace in the legislative family.
What one would not give
to know the majority reaction of Emmitsburg to an
Examiner editorial on April 10 (two days before Sumter)
stating: "We are ‘Unconditional Union’ men and
will not submit to the tyranny and usurpation of
Secession (which means) Abolition, Anarchy and
Ruin." This, it claimed, its opponent The
Republican (actually Democratic) Citizen was loudly
advocating. All we know is that Joseph Culbertson of
Emmitsburg was a Vice President at a "Union
Committee Convention" in Frederick March 26,
designed to "stand by the Union ... and to oppose
Secession for any past or present cause.’ ‘ Two
groups of Emmitsburg men, one to serve as delegates, the
other on a Union Central Committee attended a Union
State Convention in Baltimore May 23. The first
contained Joshua Motter, James Dween, Joshua Stokes,
William Gardner and Joseph Culhertson. The latter was
made up of Solomon Krise, Joseph Byns, Samuel Maxwell,
David Agnew and William Hockensmith.
A week later "One
of the largest assemblages of persons known in
Emmitsburg for a long time" met at a Union Meeting
at the hotel of Henry Hoffman. "On motion of Samuel
Maxwell, Colonel Robert Annan was called to the chair;
Samuel Maxwell and Jacob Motter were appointed Assistant
Chairmen, and J. Stewart Annan Secretary." Then,
"The object of the meeting being stated, Martin
Sweeney, Joseph Troxell, Solomon Krise and Alexander
Homer were appointed a Committee which drafted
resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting. They
resolved that this meeting recommend to the serious
consideration of the people the evils and horrors that
must be entailed upon them by secession without the most
remote hope of securing to them any good or increased
benefits, but to gratify a hidden purpose not intended
for the masses. Therefore we recommend a firm and
conciliatory exercise of the powers of Government so far
as is consistent with the enforcement of the laws. The
meeting has anxiously taxed its utmost ability to find
some reason, excuse, or superior plan of government in
contemplation of the seceders, to justify them in
plunging our country into war, deluging the land with
the blood of its citizens; hut we find none." It
was, it further stated "of the opinion that any
separation of the United States, even in the most
peaceful manner, will be detrimental to the interest of
the inhabitants of this vast country, because it will
burden and lessen the internal commerce of the country.
And further, "This meeting looks upon Secession as
the work of mad men and not justified by the evils
complained of, the effects of which would be in part to
destroy all stability of government, because you cannot
fix a point at which it must stop. If a State can secede
at pleasure from a country, what will prevent a County
seceding from a State, or district from a County? The
principle is identical." As to the slaveholders of
the community, it pointed out that it was "struck
with astonishment when it learns that many of the
slaveholders of Maryland [carefully avoiding mentioning
Emmitsburgians who held slaves in bondage!] advocate
secession, because a more effectual mode could not be
adopted, if they desire the abolition of slavery."
Stating firmly that "We have been nurtured under
the Stars and Stripes, and we mean to live and die under
them" it added that "this meeting condemns the
action of the Legislature in their efforts to deprive
the Governor of any portion of his constitutional
authority, as in violation of that instrument and
consequently of their oath of office, traitorous in its
object and meriting the punishment due to the
crime." It then named these delegates to the county
convention to meet in Frederick May 25th: Joseph
Troxell, John Close, J. Stewart Annan, Jacob Motter,
Col. Robert Annan, William Gilleran (probably Gillelan),
William P. Gardiner, Solomon Krise and Thomas Clabaugh.
Another meeting was
held here early in August "to select five members
of the Union Central Committee for Frederick County and
five delegates to the County Convention". It picked
this committee: William G. Gardner, Colonel Robert
Annan, Martin Sweeney, Henry Stokes and Dr. Robert L.
Annan and these five for the Convention: Joshua Rowe,
Jacob Motter, Samuel Maxwell, Sr., Joseph Hays and J.
Stewart Annan. The session "Resolved to support the
(state) administration in all legitimate efforts to
sustain the government of the United States." It
also said it wanted the restoration of peace and
harmony, but cannot see our approach to that much to be
desired object by putting down the administration by
resorting to arms, or by destroying the government.
This was only another
of the hopeless efforts of almost all Maryland
communities to maintain good relations with the Federal
government without at the same time being called upon to
fight openly with neighbors who they knew were either
definitely committed to the Confederacy through service
in its armies or who were supporting southern policies
as well as possible by membership in so-called peace
parties. These latter had various names, usually
Conditional Unionist, but were being lumped by opponents
under the epithet Copperheads. That such groups existed
here is certain. However, issues of the two county
papers, The Citizen and The Un ion, which might have
named the individuals and reported party arguments are
unavailable. That they were being denounced in
Emmitsburg, however, is definitely known.
One such denunciation
occurred here September 14, when these resolutions were
adopted: "That this meeting regards the ‘Peace
Party’ as identically the same party defeated . . . in
their effort to draw Maryland out of the Union and
plunge the State into Civil War . . . The change of name
from ‘Southern Rights and Advocates of Secession’ to
that of ‘Peace Party’ is a hypocritical effort to
deceive the people . . . (we hold) the ‘Peace Party’
to be a grand delusion, for how can sympathizers with
the Southern Rebellion be for peace? To put down the
Government by force and war, will that be Peace? No; for
every succeeding government may be put down in the same
way and the legitimate consequence will be strife and
interminable war, and not
The state-wide election
of November 6, 1861, was highly important and most
significant. There were then in Maryland two
recognizable parties: the Unconditional Unionists (or
Republicans) and the Conditional Unionists (the
so-called Peace Party almost solely composed of former
Democrats) which The Examiner unequivocally called the
Southern Party. The Unconditional candidate for Governor
was Augustus W. Bradford; General Benjamin (I Howard
opposed him. Only for Governor did Emmitsburg vote an
Unconditional Union plurality; it gave Bradford 236
votes to Howard’s 89. For every other office its vote
was in favor of the Conditional (or Democratic)
candidate. And in almost every case the vote was about
260 for the Democrats to about 237 for the Unconditional
candidates. This means that, while 497 votes were cast
for all other offices, only 325 Emmitsburgians balloted
for Governor. There are several possibilities: it is
possible, but highly unlikely, that. of the 497 who cast
votes, only 89 of them liked Howard well enough to vote
for him while casting 260 for his running mates. The
alternative is that those who voted Democratic for other
offices were somehow restrainer1 from voting for Howard.
But, if so, why were they free to vote as they pleased
for the others? Maryland’s Confederate sympathizers to
this day contend that Bradford was elected by fraudulent
methods and that the entire election was rigged. This is
given credence in a letter to The Examiner from an
Emmitsburgian signing himself "Union". He
wrote: Union supporters here were most agreeably
surprised to behold about sixty troopers marching up the
street’’ to help maintain order in the town. He
added that "Our judge of Elections required every
man suspected of disloyalty to swear ‘that he would
support the Government of the United States and under no
circumstances take up arms against it.’
Lincoln and many
others, prior to the war, felt that few Southerners and
this must include Emmitsburgians wanted to secede, hut
rather that they hoped the threat on their Northern
opponents would extort concessions to increase waning
southern power in the Federal Government. Now, in 1863.
Conditional Unionists were working for a peace between
the sections. Everyone wanted that, of course, but it
was the Peace Party hope that the Confederacy, by the
peace, would be permitted to exist with slavery intact.
That, of course, the Unconditional Unionists would never
permit. This was the main cause of dispute when the
parties clashed at the polls in November 1863. Then all
Unconditional candidates carried both the county and
Emmitsburg, with the exception of the candidate for
Congress. The county plurality averaged about six to one
Emmitsburg’s being only about two to one.
By 1864, even the
Democrats were ready to admit that slavery in Maryland
was doomed, hut not without a tremendous struggle. First
the State had to go through an election to call for a
Constitutional Convention. It did so, with the Democrats
screaming their "Copper Heads" off that anyone
of even the most limited Southern affection would not he
let vote. When the issue was voted on in April,
Emmitsburg was for the convention by 182 to 80, only 262
votes as against 497 it had cast in 1861. One must again
ask the question: was there election interference? The
measure passed the state, .3 1,593 to 19,524, with The
Maryland Union of Frederick claiming that "the
convention would have been defeated by 20 to 30 thousand
had the election been free and fair."
It took 89 days of
legislative bickering before the Convention agreed on
the phrasing of the new law. Next, it had to he
submitted to the voters. On October 12 and 13 it was
passed by them by a mere 375 votes 30,174 for to 29,799
against. But that slender majority would not have been
possible without the preponderantly heavy for vote cast
by Maryland soldiers in the field, the purely home vote
having been against it. Emmitsburg’s vote was a narrow
177 for to 150 against. But slavery in Maryland was dead
forever
The final war-time
election of Nov. 8, 1864, pitted Lincoln and Andrew
Johnson, a former Tennessee Democrat turned
Unconditional Unionist. against General George B.
McClellan and George H. Pendleton, Conditional
Unionists. This despite McClellan’s refusal to endorse
the Peace Party platform calling for immediate peace
with all rights allowed the Confederacy including both
slavery and peaceful separation from the union, The
Examiner supported Lincoln, with The (Frederick)
Maryland Union backing McClellan. The former Democratic
champion, The Citizen, had been put out of business by
Federal authority for too ardent southern support, and
its editor had been exiled to the Confederacy.
As everyone knows,
Lincoln won handily, but with scant thanks to Emmitsburg
which gave him only 211 votes to McClellan’s 169.
Surprisingly. however, it also backed the Unconditional
Union candidates for governor, state senator and all
Unconditional Union candidates for the House of
Delegates.
This means, however,
that, even as the war was ending and in spite of all the
Federal pressures which must have been brought to bear
upon it in one way or another Emmitsburg still had 35%
of its voters who favored a reluctant southern minded
candidate for President as against Lincoln.
A Summation
No positive conclusion
can be reached as to how the town actually felt about
the war. It is this writer’s guess, inspired it must
be admitted by genuine affection for the place of his
birth, that Emmitsburg from the beginning to the end
would have preferred to stay out of the entire horrible
holocaust not out of physical fear, but from a genuine
love for a nationwide peaceful existence. Instead, like
most of Maryland, it was a beleaguered, bewildered,
misguided, would be neutral of the Civil War southern
out of native sentiment and an innate sympathy for an
underdog, hut northern from political necessity and
military pressure. Thank God, it suffered no more than
it did.
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