1861_ The Civil War Awakening Part 6

That was the unofficial name-or one of them-given to the fugitive slaves who had taken refuge at the fort. "I wish you could see some of their clothes," a New England soldier wrote home. "They are all patches, sewed together, and patches on that, sewed with cotton strings, and a hat that would be too poor for a hen's nest." Soon this was supplemented with bits and bobs of Union uniforms: cast-off caps, s.h.i.+rts, and trousers, and even the odd sc.r.a.p of Confederate attire plucked nimbly from a master's knapsack before departure. Almost all the Negroes came barefoot, and most remained that way. Yet each morning, dozens of the aptly named Volunteers lined up to pitch in with manual labor around the fort. Moreover, as the garrison's medical chief remarked, "they are the pleasantest faces to be seen at the post." A Northern visitor wrote: I have watched them with deep interest, as they filed off to their work, or labored steadily through the long, hot day; a quiet, respectable, industrious...folk, with far more agreeable expressions than one could ever see in a low white laboring cla.s.s. Somehow there was to my eye a weird, solemn aspect to them, as they walked slowly along, as if they, the victims, had become the judges in this awful contest, or as if they were the black Parcae Parcae disguised among us, and spinning, unknown to all, the destinies of the great Republic. I think every one likes them. disguised among us, and spinning, unknown to all, the destinies of the great Republic. I think every one likes them.81 There was another nickname that caught on much more widely, one that evolved out of General Butler's renowned legalism. Journalists across the country quipped relentlessly about the Negro "s.h.i.+pments of contraband goods" or, in the words of The New York Times, The New York Times, "contraband property having legs to run away with, and intelligence to guide its flight"-until, within a week or two, the fugitives had a new name: "contraband property having legs to run away with, and intelligence to guide its flight"-until, within a week or two, the fugitives had a new name: contrabands. contrabands. It was a perfectly crafted bit of slang, a minor triumph of Yankee ingenuity. Were these blacks people, or property? Free, or slave? Such questions were, as yet, unanswerable, for answering them would have raised a whole host of other questions that few white Americans were ready to address. It was a perfectly crafted bit of slang, a minor triumph of Yankee ingenuity. Were these blacks people, or property? Free, or slave? Such questions were, as yet, unanswerable, for answering them would have raised a whole host of other questions that few white Americans were ready to address. Contrabands Contrabands let the speaker or writer off the hook, by allowing the escaped Negroes to be all of those things at once. "Never was a word so speedily adopted by so many people in so short a time," one Union officer wrote. Within a few weeks, the average Northern newspaper reader could scan, without blinking, a sentence like this one: let the speaker or writer off the hook, by allowing the escaped Negroes to be all of those things at once. "Never was a word so speedily adopted by so many people in so short a time," one Union officer wrote. Within a few weeks, the average Northern newspaper reader could scan, without blinking, a sentence like this one: Several contrabands came into the camp of the First Connecticut Regiment to-day. Several contrabands came into the camp of the First Connecticut Regiment to-day. As routine as the usage soon became, however, a hint of Butler's joke remained, a slight edge of nervous laughter. A touch of racist derision as well, perhaps: William Lloyd Garrison's As routine as the usage soon became, however, a hint of Butler's joke remained, a slight edge of nervous laughter. A touch of racist derision as well, perhaps: William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator Liberator carped, justly enough, that it was offensive to speak of human beings that way. Yet in its very absurdity, reflecting the Alice-in-Wonderland legal reasoning behind Butler's decision, the term also mocked the absurdity of slavery-and the willful stupidity of federal laws that, for nearly a century, had refused to concede any meaningful difference between a bushel of corn and a human being with black skin. Eventually, even many Negro leaders adopted it. carped, justly enough, that it was offensive to speak of human beings that way. Yet in its very absurdity, reflecting the Alice-in-Wonderland legal reasoning behind Butler's decision, the term also mocked the absurdity of slavery-and the willful stupidity of federal laws that, for nearly a century, had refused to concede any meaningful difference between a bushel of corn and a human being with black skin. Eventually, even many Negro leaders adopted it.82 To a few people, the strange inscrutability of the word suggested somehow the uncertainty of the moment. "Where we are drifting, I cannot see," wrote the abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, "but we are drifting we are drifting, I cannot see," wrote the abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, "but we are drifting some somewhere; and our fate, whatever it may be, is bound up with these...'contrabands.'"83 In all events, the contrabands kept coming to Fortress Monroe, their numbers multiplying as the perimeter of the Union lines expanded. Only a couple of days after the first three fugitives' flight, nearly all of Hampton's white residents fled in turn as federal troops occupied the town. Some slaveholders simply left their Negroes behind, especially those too elderly or infirm to be of much use or value. Most tried to coax them to follow; some warned that the Yankees would eat them, or send them north to be processed into fertilizer, or sell them to a Cuban sugar plantation. But the blacks, not surprisingly, made themselves scarce, slipping off into the woods and fields until their masters were safely away. For some whites, who had considered their house servants almost (there was always an almost almost) like family, that day was a rude awakening. One white Hamptonian would later recall how his aunt and uncle "were particularly fond of a boy now perhaps 16 or 18 who had been in the house since he was a little child. He was a bright boy and very fond and considerate of them. This mulatto, though he had been raised almost like a son, was so ungrateful as not long after to break into the house with others and take all the money that this old couple had. The young rascal went off, and neither I nor anyone about here ever knew what became of him."84 By early June, some four or five hundred such "rascals" were within the Union lines. stampede among the negroes in virginia, proclaimed Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper, Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper, with a double-page spread of dramatic woodcuts showing black men, women, and children crossing a creek under a full moon, then being welcomed heartily into the fort by General Butler himself (or rather, by the artist's trimmer, handsomer version of him). One correspondent estimated that "this species of property under Gen. Butler's protection [is] worth $500,000, at a fair average of $1,000 apiece in the Southern human flesh market." with a double-page spread of dramatic woodcuts showing black men, women, and children crossing a creek under a full moon, then being welcomed heartily into the fort by General Butler himself (or rather, by the artist's trimmer, handsomer version of him). One correspondent estimated that "this species of property under Gen. Butler's protection [is] worth $500,000, at a fair average of $1,000 apiece in the Southern human flesh market."85 Despite the stern counsels of the postmaster general, Butler was not turning away the "non working cla.s.ses" of fugitives. Perhaps stretching the strict definition of militarily valuable contraband, he wrote to Blair, "If I take the able bodied only, the young must die. If I take the mother must I not take the child?" In a letter to General Scott, he added: "Of the humanitarian aspect I have no doubt. Of the political one, I have no right to judge." Scott, judging both, let this enlargement of the original doctrine stand.86 Abolitionists among the Union troops watched these developments with delight. Major Winthrop was at his desk in Butler's office one evening when a local civilian, perhaps unaware of the latest permutations in contraband law, arrived seeking an audience with the general. He was an elderly, grave, pious-looking Virginian who, until extremely recently, had been the master of some forty slaves. He came bearing a tale of woe. By good fortune, he had managed to get half his slaves away to be sold in Alabama before they could run off to the Yankees. But then he had come home from church that Sunday to find that nearly all of the rest were gone. "Now, Colonel," the man addressed General Butler, "I'm an invalid, and you have got two of my boys, young boys, sir, not over twelve-no use to you except perhaps to black a gentleman's boots. I would like them very much, sir, if you would spare them. In fact, Colonel, sir, I ought to have my property back."

The supplicant seemed so consumed with honest self-pity that Butler, Winthrop, and the other officers burst into uncontrollable guffaws. They sent him away empty-handed. Winthrop exulted that night in a letter to his sister. "By Liberty! but it is worth something to be here at this moment, in the center of the center! Here we scheme the schemes! Here we take the secession flags, the arms, the prisoners! Here we liberate the slaves-virtually."87 Winthrop, like most men at Fortress Monroe, had been a soldier for hardly over a month. (And the only secession flag captured so far had been one sad piece of flannel needlework that Colonel Duryee's Zouaves had found at ex-President Tyler's house.) In ordinary life, the slight, fair-haired thirty-two-year-old was a rising author with two travel books to his name-The Canoe and the Saddle and and Life in the Open Air- Life in the Open Air-and a drawerful of unpublished poems and novels. His two closest friends were the writer George W. Curtis and the painter Frederic Church, who was also a hiking companion on rambles through the Adirondacks and along the coast of Maine (where the two had gone, improbably enough, to drum up votes for Fremont in the summer of 1856). Fresh out of Yale, Winthrop had been a tourist in Europe in 1848, and the revolutions there had left a lasting impression, a determination to find a life that would combine poetics and politics. Just after Sumter's surrender, he marched down Broadway in the ranks of the dandyfied Seventh Regiment, whose members had pledged themselves to the defense of Was.h.i.+ngton for a not terribly generous thirty-day enlistment term. But Winthrop was under no illusion that the war would be a frolic. "I see no present end of this business," he wrote Curtis shortly after his arrival in the capital. "We must conquer the South. Afterward we must be prepared to do its polic[ing] in its own behalf, and in behalf of its black population, whom this war must, without precipitation, emanc.i.p.ate. We must hold the South as the metropolitan police holds New York. All this is inevitable. Now I wish to enroll myself at once in the 'Police of the Nation,' and for life, if the nation will take me."88 At the close of a brief and wholly bloodless campaign, the men of the Seventh had dispersed, leaving behind as their only casualties a thousand velvet-covered camp stools that had somehow gotten misplaced in transit. Winthrop remained, joining Butler's staff. At Fortress Monroe, he was already witnessing the emanc.i.p.ation of the blacks, a bit more precipitately than he had envisioned. Appalled at the ragged condition of the fugitives, he began sending urgent appeals for decent clothing to his friends in the North.89 He was also determined to write down what he saw happening around him. The Sunday that news came of Sumter's surrender, he and Curtis had sat together late into the night on the porch of Curtis's house on Staten Island, talking about the present and the future. Winthrop told his friend that he thought someone should keep a careful record of the quickly unspooling events: "for we are making our history hand over hand."

While in Was.h.i.+ngton with the Seventh, he had written those brilliant accounts for The The Atlantic- Atlantic-full of sly wit and vivid detail-of the troops bunking in the House chamber and the army's march by moonlight over the Long Bridge into Virginia. Now, at Fortress Monroe, Winthrop began a new essay: "Voices of the Contraband," he would call it.90 Indeed, there were new voices, and new stories, to be heard every day at the fort. Some of the contrabands had led extraordinary lives.

One of the first fugitives to arrive was George Scott. He had originally been the field hand of a man in Hampton, but then through a complicated family transaction became the property of his original owner's son-in-law, who planned to take him to his plantation in a different county, on the far side of the James. Worse yet, the new master, one A. M. Graves, was widely known as a brute who abused both his wife and his Negroes. Before Graves could gain possession of him, Scott slipped off into the woods outside town. For about two years he hid out in a cave, where a sympathetic and courageous young girl regularly brought him food. Many of the local whites sympathized, in fact, to the extent that they paid him to help with farmwork, even while he was on the lam: they, too, knew what Graves was made of. Still, Scott had plenty of tales about hairsbreadth escapes from the slave patrols. Once Graves himself had managed to corner him, brandis.h.i.+ng a pistol and bowie knife. The agile, powerfully built Scott wrenched both weapons out of his hands before disappearing again into the woods. Now he was well armed, and his master, as well as the constables, became perceptibly less zealous in their attempts to recover him.

Scott came out of hiding almost as soon as the Union troops arrived. He quickly attached himself to the Zouave regiment. After two years as a fugitive, he knew every inch of the marshes, fields, and country lanes around Hampton, and became a valuable scout for the commanders at Fortress Monroe.91 In fact, rare was the group of contrabands that did not include at least one person with useful military intelligence, and it became standard practice to debrief them upon arrival at the Union lines. Montgomery Blair, who had grown up in a slaveholding Maryland family, advised Butler early on: "I have no doubt you will get your best spies from among them, because they are accustomed to travel in the night time and can go where no one not accustomed to the sly tricks they practice from infancy to old age could penetrate." His prediction was already coming true.92 Just after dawn on May 31, a young black man named Waddy Smith showed up at the Zouaves' camp, having risked his life to get there and bringing some highly detailed information. Smith told the officers that he had escaped two days before from a Confederate camp near Yorktown, where he and 150 other slaves had been put to work building fortifications. He was ready to offer the Northerners a precise account of the enemy forces: how many men and cannons they had, where their camps were located, and what he had overheard the Southern commander telling another officer about plans for an attack. Smith's owner had suspected that he might try to slip away; the officer who debriefed him wrote that "his master...told him 'you're mine and I'll keep you or kill you' and [Smith] said he thinks he would do so if he had a chance." Colonel Duryee forwarded this report immediately to General Butler.93 Even the contrabands with less dramatic stories than Scott's and Smith's shared tales that fascinated-and in some cases shocked-the Union soldiers. Many of the Northerners had never really spoken with a Negro before; some of the Vermont farm boys had perhaps never even seen one before leaving home, unless you counted the blackface performers in a traveling minstrel show.

Now they were conversing with actual men and women who had been (and perhaps still were) slaves: people who had previously figured only as an abstraction in speeches on Election Day. Mothers told of trying somehow to care for their children while laboring in the fields from sunup to sundown-and at harvesttime, sometimes even longer, husking corn well past midnight so that it could go early to market. They spoke of being left to forage somehow for themselves and their families, at times living on whatever roots and berries they could find. Some Negroes had been so ill supplied with clothing that they worked in the fields almost naked-and as for the children, certain masters routinely did not provide a st.i.tch of clothing until they were old enough to work. Relatively few reported having been whipped, but those who did had some horrific accounts; one man described "bucking," a practice in which a slave, before being beaten, had his wrists and ankles tied and slipped over a wooden stake. Most stories, though, were of the sorts of routine cruelties born of masters' stinginess or carelessness, hards.h.i.+p or avarice. Almost all the Hampton fugitives spoke of loved ones sold away; indeed, the most chilling thing was that they said it matter-of-factly, as though their wives or children had simply died of some natural cause.

Perhaps most impressive of all-for Northerners accustomed to Southern tales of contentedly dependent slaves-was this, in the words of one soldier: "There is a universal desire of the slaves to be free.... Even old men and women, with crooked backs, who could hardly walk or see, shared the same feeling." They all wanted to learn to read, too (a few had been taught on the sly, as children, by their elders or white playmates), and before long, part of the Tyler villa was converted into a schoolroom for black youths.94 Although no detailed account written by a black person of those early days at Fortress Monroe survives, the reports of white soldiers and journalists-and freedmen's stories from later in the war-allow us to imagine both the exhilaration and the disorientation of the fugitives. The world that they had known their entire lives had vanished almost literally overnight. Their masters' houses stood eerily empty; most of Hampton, one Northern visitor wrote in June, resembled "an above-ground Pompeii." Nearly all the town's whites had disappeared. In their place were seemingly boundless fields full of strangers, more and more of them each day: white men with harsh, uncouth accents (some did not even speak English), who stared at you curiously, often rudely, breaking into snorting guffaws at the oddest things. Some were kind; others, bored and restless after weeks in camp, tried to turn blacks into pets and playthings, making children scramble for pennies in the dust or playing practical jokes, sometimes cruel ones-and occasionally worse, as when one "particular favorite" Negro companion of a Zouave captain was beaten up when he imprudently ventured into the camp of the rival First New York.95 They made you feel self-conscious in ways that Southern whites did not. And yet the most ordinary gestures became revolutionary: you could look these white men straight in the eye; you could shake their hand. ("Attended a prayer meeting," a New York private wrote in his diary one day in July. "Got a good many heart[y] shake of the hand by the colored brothers.") Even the obnoxious ones were often curious to learn your life story, whereas the Virginia whites never were; in fact, they seemed actively to avoid realizing that you had one. But now every visiting dignitary, every Northern newspaperman, wanted to meet General Butler's famous contrabands. Whatever else they did, these Yankees never looked through you as if you were a table or a chair.96 Far more important: you were free. free. Not officially, of course. But you were free of the past-and perhaps even free, more startlingly, of what had been your future. Free to decide when to come and go, and where; when to work; when to sleep; when to be with your family; when to be alone. Some of the contrabands chose not to remain in the fort, preferring to live more independently, despite the risk, in encampments of their own just beyond the Union lines. At least one tried to enlist as a Union soldier: an intrepid young man named Harry Jarvis, who had come from the Chesapeake's Eastern Sh.o.r.e, crossing thirty-five miles of open water alone in a canoe to reach Monroe. "I went to [Butler] an' asked him to let me enlist, but he said it warn't a black man's war," he later remembered. "I tol' him it would be a black man's war 'fore dey got fru." Jarvis and many others stayed on to work as manual laborers for the garrison; they got army rations for themselves and their families in return. (Two years later he would get his wish, joining one of the Union's first black regiments, the Fifty-fifth Ma.s.sachusetts-and would lose a leg in the Battle of Folly Island.) Not officially, of course. But you were free of the past-and perhaps even free, more startlingly, of what had been your future. Free to decide when to come and go, and where; when to work; when to sleep; when to be with your family; when to be alone. Some of the contrabands chose not to remain in the fort, preferring to live more independently, despite the risk, in encampments of their own just beyond the Union lines. At least one tried to enlist as a Union soldier: an intrepid young man named Harry Jarvis, who had come from the Chesapeake's Eastern Sh.o.r.e, crossing thirty-five miles of open water alone in a canoe to reach Monroe. "I went to [Butler] an' asked him to let me enlist, but he said it warn't a black man's war," he later remembered. "I tol' him it would be a black man's war 'fore dey got fru." Jarvis and many others stayed on to work as manual laborers for the garrison; they got army rations for themselves and their families in return. (Two years later he would get his wish, joining one of the Union's first black regiments, the Fifty-fifth Ma.s.sachusetts-and would lose a leg in the Battle of Folly Island.)97 Back in April, as the military transport of the Third Ma.s.sachusetts had lain at anchor off Boston, a small boat had unexpectedly come alongside, and a well-dressed young man, perched in its bow, hailed the officer on watch. Did the Third have room for one more volunteer? The Third did, and the stranger hopped aboard, satchel in hand. He was Edward L. Pierce, a thirty-two-year-old attorney with degrees from Brown and Harvard, highly placed connections in the Republican Party, and strong abolitionist convictions-who, by his own admission, had not handled a gun since he was a boy hunting squirrels in the woods near Milton. This was the man whom Butler appointed to superintend the black laborers at Fortress Monroe.98 Each morning, Pierce rang the bell of the old courthouse, and several dozen of the Virginia Union Volunteers gathered in the front yard to be issued picks and shovels and sent off for a day's work on the federal entrenchments. Soon these men felt almost like members of the garrison. A New York Times New York Times correspondent wrote: correspondent wrote: Their shovels and their other implements of labor, they handle and carry as soldiers do their guns-the result of the native talent of imitation peculiar to the race. Going to and from their work, they do not straggle along in promiscuous crowds, but fall into regular files and columns, and with a step and regularity that would do credit to enlisted men, march with clearly defined pride, and sometimes to the tune whistled by one of their number who, while he has caught a chance-sight of the morning parade, has at the same time learned the music of the band. I have no doubt they would make fair or even excellent soldiers.99 Pierce was a man of scholarly bent, and in his free time he sometimes wandered curiously among the empty streets of Hampton or paged through the records in the courthouse, which dated back deep into the seventeenth century. He explored the overgrown gardens and abandoned mansions-coming across, in one vacant house, a fine early edition of Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost. But it was the contrabands themselves, he felt, who best repaid his attention and study. "Broken as their language is, and limited as is their knowledge, they reason abstractly on their right to freedom as well as any white man," Pierce wrote. "Indeed, Locke or Channing might have strengthened the argument for universal liberty by studying their simple talk." But it was the contrabands themselves, he felt, who best repaid his attention and study. "Broken as their language is, and limited as is their knowledge, they reason abstractly on their right to freedom as well as any white man," Pierce wrote. "Indeed, Locke or Channing might have strengthened the argument for universal liberty by studying their simple talk."100 Locke and Channing aside, some of the black fugitives were working more directly to secure their people's freedom. About two weeks after his arrival at Fortress Monroe, George Scott went on a dangerous mission to reconnoitre the enemy positions north of Hampton. "I can smell a rebel furderer dan I ken a skunk," he promised before departing. He was right: near Big Bethel Church, about eight miles from town, Scott discovered several Confederate companies, defended by an artillery battery. He concealed himself in the bushes for a full twenty-four hours, observing what he could. A sentry finally caught sight of Scott, but he managed to escape, a rebel bullet grazing the sleeve of his jacket as he scrambled away, and reported to Butler's staff on what he had seen.

Butler and Winthrop sat down almost immediately to draw up a plan of attack: "part made up from the General's notes, part from my own fancies," the major boasted that night in a letter to his mother. But Scott's information was, a newspaper reported afterward, "the main spring of the operation." It would be the garrison's first significant advance against the enemy-indeed, the first real land battle anywhere in America between Union and Confederate troops. In the orders that Butler approved was a line of nearly as much historic significance: "George Scott is to have a revolver." This was almost certainly the first time in the war that a federal officer put a gun into the hands of a black man.101 The Union force of some five thousand New York, Vermont, and Ma.s.sachusetts men left on its mission at midnight, with Butler staying behind at the fort as Winthrop rode off near the head of the column, Scott riding at his side. Part of the attack's objective was to drive off roving bands of Confederates that had been terrorizing some of the Negroes who were making their way toward the fort, rounding up the able-bodied men for hard labor in the trenches and in some cases sending the rest to the Richmond slave market.102 As the soldiers left Fortress Monroe, contrabands thronged around to wish them well. "Oh," one woman said, as tears streamed down her cheeks, "I hope and pray de Lord for dese sojers, and dat dey may go on from conquer to conquer!"103 The Union troops did not conquer at Big Bethel. The Confederates, forewarned by a watchful civilian, were dug in behind their st.u.r.dy earthworks with cannons and rifles loaded and aimed. One of their officers was Colonel Mallory-posted, by coincidence, near the very spot where his Revolutionary forebear had fallen with the eleven (or was it nineteen?) bayonet wounds. The colonel fared better than his grandfather: the entire rebel force lost only one man, a teenage private from North Carolina. The Union troops were not so lucky. Panicking under fire, they never got near the first line of Confederate earthworks; the debacle became worse when one New York regiment mistakenly fired at another, whose men happened to be wearing gray militia uniforms. (Duryee's brightly plumed Zouaves, meanwhile, proved easy targets for the rebel guns.) Eighteen were killed and dozens more wounded before the Yankees retreated through the woods in confusion back toward Fortress Monroe.104 Among the fallen was Theodore Winthrop, killed while trying vainly to rally the New England troops. A Carolina rifleman had put a bullet through his chest. Back in his quarters at the fort, the young soldier-author had left a half-filled sheet of ma.n.u.script: the first few sentences of "Voices of the Contraband."*

FOR THE REST OF THE SUMMER, Butler's men would fight only occasional small skirmishes with the enemy. But the most significant victory at Fortress Monroe had already been won, back in May, when three black men crossed the James River in the darkness. On the night the Union troops marched on Big Bethel, the soldiers would encounter another group of fugitives, who asked them for directions to "the freedom fort." Butler's men would fight only occasional small skirmishes with the enemy. But the most significant victory at Fortress Monroe had already been won, back in May, when three black men crossed the James River in the darkness. On the night the Union troops marched on Big Bethel, the soldiers would encounter another group of fugitives, who asked them for directions to "the freedom fort."105 The general from Ma.s.sachusetts grew ever more steadfast in the defense of "his" contrabands, to a degree that must have shocked his old political a.s.sociates. In July, when the Lincoln administration asked General Irvin McDowell to issue orders barring all fugitive Negroes from the Union lines in northern Virginia, Butler immediately fired off a letter to Was.h.i.+ngton, making it known that he planned to enforce no such rule around Hampton Roads. (By now there were a thousand contrabands in the fortress.) In a long missive to the secretary of war, Simon Cameron, Butler also took the opportunity to argue that the contrabands were not really contraband: that they had become free. Indeed, that they were-in a legal sense-no longer things, but people. He wrote: Have they not by their master's acts, and the state of war, a.s.sumed the condition, which we hold to be the normal one, of those made in G.o.d's image? Is not every const.i.tutional, legal, and normal requirement, [both] to the runaway master [and to his] relinquished slaves, thus answered? I confess that my own mind is compelled by this reasoning to look upon them as men and women.In a loyal state, I would put down a servile insurrection. In a state of rebellion I would confiscate that which was used to oppose my arms...and if, in so doing, it should be objected that human beings were brought to the free enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, such objection might not require much consideration.106 This time, however, Butler's lawyerly arguments proved less effective. It would take another fourteen months, and tens of thousands more Union casualties, before the Lincoln administration was ready to espouse such a view.*

"Shall we now end the war and not eradicate the cause?" the general wrote to Edward Pierce in August. "Will not G.o.d demand this of us now [that] he has taken away all excuse for not pursuing the right[?]... All these matters run through my head as I see the negro."107 True, Butler's newfound zeal was not entirely selfless. Since the arrival of those first three contrabands, a steady stream of mail had come in-from old friends and total strangers-extolling him for having struck the first blow to free the Negro of his shackles. Butler had quickly warmed to this train of thought, especially now that he was no longer a state legislator from cotton-addicted Lowell. Emanc.i.p.ator of an entire race...why not?108 Pierce, his three-month enlistment expired, left Fortress Monroe in mid-July. On his last evening, he a.s.sembled the Virginia Union Volunteers at the courthouse yard in Hampton to bid them good-bye. As the men and women gathered around him, he thanked them for their work and complimented them on their "industry and morals." Then something further occurred to him: never before in American history had a Northern abolitionist found himself in a situation where he could speak freely before an audience of Southern slaves.

I said to them that there was one more word for me to add, and that was, that every one of them was as much ent.i.tled to his freedom as I was to mine, and I hoped they would all now secure it. "Believe you, boss," was the general response, and each one with his rough gravelly hand clasped mine, and with tearful eyes and broken utterances said, "G.o.d bless you!" "May we meet in Heaven!" "My name is Jack Allen, don't forget me!" "Remember me, Kent Anderson!" and so on.

"No," Pierce wrote afterward, "I may forget the playfellows of my childhood, my college cla.s.smates, my professional a.s.sociates, my comrades in arms, but I will remember you and your benedictions until I cease to breathe! Farewell, honest hearts, longing to be free!"109 ON THE EVENING OF November 9, 1989, a tumultuous throng of East Germans pressed against the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. They had come to cross over into freedom. But this epochal moment had begun with a bureaucratic snafu: that afternoon, a spokesman for the Communist regime, a.s.signed to read a press release describing a gradual, orderly process by which the government planned to ease travel restrictions, misread the doc.u.ment and accidentally announced that the ban on travel to the West would be lifted immediately. November 9, 1989, a tumultuous throng of East Germans pressed against the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. They had come to cross over into freedom. But this epochal moment had begun with a bureaucratic snafu: that afternoon, a spokesman for the Communist regime, a.s.signed to read a press release describing a gradual, orderly process by which the government planned to ease travel restrictions, misread the doc.u.ment and accidentally announced that the ban on travel to the West would be lifted immediately.

An American reporter at the checkpoint that night watched as befuddled East German border guards surveyed the vast crowd from their command post. The captain in charge dialed and redialed his telephone, trying to find some higher-up who could give him definitive orders. None could. Then he put the phone down and stood still for a moment, pondering. "Perhaps he came to his own decision," the journalist would write. "Maybe he was simply fed up. Whatever the case, at 11:17 p.m. precisely, he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, 'Why not?'... 'Alles auf!' 'Alles auf!' he ordered. 'Open up,' and the gates swung wide." he ordered. 'Open up,' and the gates swung wide."110 The Iron Curtain did not unravel at that moment, with the breach of a small segment of border in a single city. Many more walls would have to come down in the weeks and months ahead; there would be setbacks as well as advances in the years to come. But that night, watched by the world, was the moment when the possibility of cautious, incremental change in the old Soviet bloc-perestroika, glasnost, a slow and partial transition toward democracy-ceased to exist, if it had ever really existed at all. The Wall fell that night because of those thousands of pressing bodies, and because of that border guard's shrug.

In the very first months of the Civil War-after Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend had breached their own wall, and Benjamin Butler shrugged-slavery's iron curtain began falling, all across the South. John Hay and John Nicolay, in their biography of Lincoln, would say of the three slaves' escape and Butler's decision: "Out of this incident seems to have grown one of the most sudden and important revolutions in popular thought which took place during the whole war."111 Within weeks after the first contrabands' arrival at Fortress Monroe, slaves were reported flocking to the Union lines just about anywhere there were were Union lines: in northern Virginia, along the James, on the Mississippi, in Florida. A veritable "exodus" even from loyal slave states such as Maryland was said to be taking place. In southern Pennsylvania, until recently an area that fugitives had traversed with great caution, a couple of obvious runaways were observed strolling up Harrisburg's Market Street at twilight, and according to a local newspaper, "they trudged along with their heavy bundles unmolested, and, in fact, almost unnoticed." It is unclear how many of these escapees knew of Butler's decision, but probably quite a few did. Edward Pierce marveled at "the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs through the slave population," though he was probably exaggerating just a bit when he continued: "Proclaim an edict of emanc.i.p.ation in the hearing of a single slave on the Potomac, and in a few days it will be heard by his brethren on the Gulf." Union lines: in northern Virginia, along the James, on the Mississippi, in Florida. A veritable "exodus" even from loyal slave states such as Maryland was said to be taking place. In southern Pennsylvania, until recently an area that fugitives had traversed with great caution, a couple of obvious runaways were observed strolling up Harrisburg's Market Street at twilight, and according to a local newspaper, "they trudged along with their heavy bundles unmolested, and, in fact, almost unnoticed." It is unclear how many of these escapees knew of Butler's decision, but probably quite a few did. Edward Pierce marveled at "the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs through the slave population," though he was probably exaggerating just a bit when he continued: "Proclaim an edict of emanc.i.p.ation in the hearing of a single slave on the Potomac, and in a few days it will be heard by his brethren on the Gulf."112 Union officers in all these areas wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton, asking for instructions. The administration, punting once again, told them that decisions about sheltering runaways should be based on military necessity, but that they were left entirely to their own discretion how to determine this. (Congress endorsed this position in August in the Confiscation Act.) The result was that each commander ended up with his own policy. General George McClellan, entering western Virginia, proclaimed that his troops would interfere with slavery in no way whatsoever. Meanwhile, Colonel Harvey Brown, the new commandant at Fort Pickens, announced flatly, "I shall not send the negroes back as I will never be voluntarily instrumental in returning a poor wretch to slavery."113 The confusion was compounded by the fact that no matter what the individual commander's decree, his junior officers and enlisted men, having ideas of their own, might be unwilling to enforce it. In July 1861, a New York soldier wrote from northern Virginia: A slight case of rebellion occurred in one of our camps a few evenings ago, when a young man on guard was ordered to arrest any slaves who undertook to pa.s.s. He promptly answered: "I can obey no such order; it was not to put down [Negro] insurrection that I enlisted but to defend my country's flag! I am ready to bear the consequences, but never to have a hand in arresting slaves."

The man's superior decided to back off; "it was deemed politic not to try the temper of the men too hard."

Sometimes the refusals were even more peremptory. In Missouri-where, since it was Union territory, all all fugitives were supposed to be returned to their masters-a brigadier wrote to his commanding general, who had just ordered him to send back some runaways: "In answer to your note of this day I have this to say that I don't give a fig about rank.... The inst.i.tution of slavery must take care of itself." And he added, even more bitterly: "I had a man cowardly shot in the woods to-day within sight of camp by the very men I have no doubt whose property you are so anxious to protect." fugitives were supposed to be returned to their masters-a brigadier wrote to his commanding general, who had just ordered him to send back some runaways: "In answer to your note of this day I have this to say that I don't give a fig about rank.... The inst.i.tution of slavery must take care of itself." And he added, even more bitterly: "I had a man cowardly shot in the woods to-day within sight of camp by the very men I have no doubt whose property you are so anxious to protect."114 In August, Secretary Cameron tried to bring some clarity to the chaos by asking that Butler and other commanders collect detailed information on each fugitive: not just name and physical description but "the name and character, whether loyal or disloyal, of the master," since, this, of course, was essential to determining whether the particular Negro counted as legitimate contraband. Such a system, Cameron said, would let the federal government a.s.sure that slaveholders'"rights" were protected, and possibly return the slaves to their proper owners once the rebel states had rejoined the Union. But how were officers supposed to tell whether a master whom they had never laid eyes on was loyal or disloyal-even a.s.suming that the slave was telling the truth in identifying him? Besides, didn't the military have more pressing business at the moment, such as fighting the war?

Butler's contraband doctrine was utterly impossible almost from the moment it was devised, but it became hugely influential precisely because because it was so impossible: it did not open the floodgates in theory, but it did so in practice, and with very little political risk to the Lincoln administration. Indeed, preposterous as the contraband doctrine was as a piece of law, it was also, albeit inadvertently, a political masterstroke; it satisfied nearly every potential theoretical and political objection at the same time as being completely unworkable in real life. "There is often great virtue in such technical phrases in shaping public opinion," Pierce noted. "The venerable gentleman, who wears gold spectacles and reads a conservative daily, prefers confiscation to emanc.i.p.ation. He is reluctant to have slaves declared freemen, but has no objection to their being declared contrabands." it was so impossible: it did not open the floodgates in theory, but it did so in practice, and with very little political risk to the Lincoln administration. Indeed, preposterous as the contraband doctrine was as a piece of law, it was also, albeit inadvertently, a political masterstroke; it satisfied nearly every potential theoretical and political objection at the same time as being completely unworkable in real life. "There is often great virtue in such technical phrases in shaping public opinion," Pierce noted. "The venerable gentleman, who wears gold spectacles and reads a conservative daily, prefers confiscation to emanc.i.p.ation. He is reluctant to have slaves declared freemen, but has no objection to their being declared contrabands."115 Though an impractical way to adjudicate the fate of fugitives per se, the system was eminently practical in other terms. Not all the Union troops who harbored runaways were doing so out of the kindness of their hearts-most were not. Regiments needed labor: extra hands to cook meals, wash clothes, and dig latrines. ("Half the Federal officers now have negro servants," a journalist reported from Monroe on June 12.) When Negro men and women were willing to do these things, whites were happy not to ask any inconvenient questions-not the first or the last time that the allure of cheap labor would trump political principles in America.116 Blacks were contributing to the Union cause in larger ways. Not just at Fortress Monroe but throughout the South, it was they who provided the Northerners with valuable intelligence and expert guidance. When Lincoln's master spy, Allan Pinkerton, traveled undercover through the Confederacy, he wrote, "in many...places, I found that my best source of information was the colored men.... I mingled freely with them, and found them ever ready to answer questions and to furnish me with every fact which I desired to possess." In a broader sense, they were often the only friends-indeed, the only Unionists-that the Yankees encountered as they groped their way anxiously through hostile territory. "No where did we find any sign of kindly recognition," one Northern soldier wrote from Virginia in August 1861, "except from the poor slaves, who are rapidly learning, through the insane hatred of their masters, to look upon our troops as [their] great Army of Deliverance."117 The "enemy of my enemy" principle operated on whites, too, and not only on those at the front lines. Barely six weeks after Sumter, the Democratic New York World New York World reported: "Whether it be deemed a good thing or not, the fact is unmistakable that the northern people are fast learning to hate slavery in a way unfelt before.... It comes home to every loyal man, with a force not to be resisted, that the sole cause of this most wicked treason the world ever saw, is SLAVERY; and, just in proportion as the treason itself is abhorred, in just that proportion do hatred and detestation attach to its cause." reported: "Whether it be deemed a good thing or not, the fact is unmistakable that the northern people are fast learning to hate slavery in a way unfelt before.... It comes home to every loyal man, with a force not to be resisted, that the sole cause of this most wicked treason the world ever saw, is SLAVERY; and, just in proportion as the treason itself is abhorred, in just that proportion do hatred and detestation attach to its cause."118 Slaves were coming to seem not just players in the drama of the war but also, in a way, heroes. In July, New York's Winter Garden theater staged a "new drama of the times," a production laden with special effects, called "America's Dream; or, the Rebellion of '61." The show opened with Sumter burning, the flames reportedly so realistic it seemed the theater might catch fire. There was a thrilling battle between the Baltimore street toughs and the brave boys of the Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts-while poor Colonel Ellsworth was being vividly murdered at the other end of the stage. But the most unexpected and certainly most fanciful scene was a tableau in which, while "real bombsh.e.l.ls" burst around them, a "small but resolute band of Northern contrabands" helpfully launched provisions out of a mortar into a besieged Union fort.119 Meanwhile, within the rebel South, the erosion of the peculiar inst.i.tution was ever more palpable-even hundreds of miles away from where slaves were becoming contrabands. Union and Confederate newspapers alike reported an astonis.h.i.+ng number of alleged insurrections. They were mostly very small scale. In Louisiana, Negroes were supposed to have torched a Confederate general's house the night after Sumter was attacked. In Arkansas, a black preacher was hanged after using threatening language to his mistress. In Tennessee, at least five alarms were sounded in April and May alone. Whether these had any basis in fact almost does not matter; the panic was real. As Pinkerton observed after one of his reconnaissance missions, "The very inst.i.tution for which these misguided men were periling their lives, and sacrificing their fortunes, was threatened with demolition; and the slaves who had so long and so often felt the lash of their masters, were now becoming a source of fear to the very men who had heretofore held them in such utter subjection."120 A telling fact: the price of slaves was already dropping precipitously. Numerous reports attest that by mid-1861 it had fallen to half or even a third of what it had been the year before. The "property" that slaveholders were fighting for was now not only less reliable (you never knew when it might run off in the night) but less valuable-perhaps, in a sense, less worth fighting for.121 Just as important was what did not not happen: the long-expected and long-feared Negro uprising-the apocalypse when slaves would rise up, rape their mistresses, and slaughter their masters-never occurred. Indeed, even now it is remarkable to consider, given what the slaves had suffered and the turmoil in the South over the next four years, that they ended up committing so little violence against their masters. It soon became apparent from the behavior of the contrabands that the vast majority of blacks did not want vengeance; they simply wanted to be free, and to enjoy the same rights and opportunities as other Americans. Many were even ready to share in the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of the war. happen: the long-expected and long-feared Negro uprising-the apocalypse when slaves would rise up, rape their mistresses, and slaughter their masters-never occurred. Indeed, even now it is remarkable to consider, given what the slaves had suffered and the turmoil in the South over the next four years, that they ended up committing so little violence against their masters. It soon became apparent from the behavior of the contrabands that the vast majority of blacks did not want vengeance; they simply wanted to be free, and to enjoy the same rights and opportunities as other Americans. Many were even ready to share in the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of the war.

This realization had enormous repercussions, not just in the South but in the North. For decades, abolitionist "agitators" had been vilified as traitors to their race for trying to bring about "another St. Domingo." As the Democrats had sung in the 1860 presidential campaign: They love the n.i.g.g.e.r better than the red, white, and blue. They love the n.i.g.g.e.r better than the red, white, and blue. Even as stalwart a Unionist as Jessie Fremont sometimes felt torn between her loyalty to her country and her loyalty to her race and her s.e.x. A few weeks after the attack on Sumter, she wrote to a friend, "When I think of the hideous [danger] the Southern states hold in themselves, I don't know to which women the most sympathy belongs. Our side is great & n.o.ble & to die for it...is a great duty. But they have no such comfort & at their hearths is the black slave Even as stalwart a Unionist as Jessie Fremont sometimes felt torn between her loyalty to her country and her loyalty to her race and her s.e.x. A few weeks after the attack on Sumter, she wrote to a friend, "When I think of the hideous [danger] the Southern states hold in themselves, I don't know to which women the most sympathy belongs. Our side is great & n.o.ble & to die for it...is a great duty. But they have no such comfort & at their hearths is the black slave Sepoy Sepoy element." element."122 When it turned out that the South's Negroes were not like St. Domingo's revolutionaries or India's Sepoy mutineers, Jessie Fremont's dilemma vanished. She and millions of other white Americans realized they did not actually have to fear a bloodbath if the slaves were suddenly set free. This awareness in itself was a revolution in Northern politics. When it turned out that the South's Negroes were not like St. Domingo's revolutionaries or India's Sepoy mutineers, Jessie Fremont's dilemma vanished. She and millions of other white Americans realized they did not actually have to fear a bloodbath if the slaves were suddenly set free. This awareness in itself was a revolution in Northern politics.

Most important, though, was the revolution in the minds of the enslaved Negroes themselves. Though they may not have known about the production at the Winter Garden, they knew that they had become actors on the stage of American history in a way that they had never been before. The bolder the blacks grew, the more fearful the whites grew-and when the whites grew more fearful, the blacks grew bolder yet. At first this typically took the form of blacks simply refusing to work as hard as they had before-easy enough with so many masters and overseers away in the rebel armies. But in time this would amount to a significant act of sabotage against the Confederate cause, especially after Southern troops began experiencing shortages of food, which happened as early as the autumn of 1861. And soon more and more Negroes were taking the boldest step of all, from slavery into freedom. Even before Lincoln finally unveiled the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, in the fall of 1862, the stream of a few hundred contrabands at Fortress Monroe had become a river of many thousands. "The Negroes," a Union chaplain wrote, "flocked in vast numbers-an army in themselves-to the camps of the Yankees.... The arrival among us of these hordes was like the oncoming of cities."123*

On the September day of Lincoln's proclamation, a Union colonel ran into William Seward on the street in Was.h.i.+ngton and took the opportunity to congratulate him on the administration's epochal act.

Seward snorted. "Yes," he said, "we have let off a puff of wind over an established fact."

"What do you mean, Mr. Seward?" the puzzled officer asked.

"I mean," the secretary of state replied, "that the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation was uttered in the first gun fired at Sumter, and we have been the last to hear it."124 ON AUGUST 6, 1861, Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder, commander of Confederate forces in southeastern Virginia, received intelligence-unfounded, as it would turn out-that enemy troops, having withdrawn from Hampton some weeks earlier, were about to reoccupy the town. And not only that: the Yankee Butler planned to house Negroes there. "As their masters had deserted their homes and slaves," Magruder reported back to headquarters in Richmond, "he [would] consider the latter free, and would colonize them at Hampton, the home of most of their owners." This could not be countenanced. Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder, commander of Confederate forces in southeastern Virginia, received intelligence-unfounded, as it would turn out-that enemy troops, having withdrawn from Hampton some weeks earlier, were about to reoccupy the town. And not only that: the Yankee Butler planned to house Negroes there. "As their masters had deserted their homes and slaves," Magruder reported back to headquarters in Richmond, "he [would] consider the latter free, and would colonize them at Hampton, the home of most of their owners." This could not be countenanced.

Although many of the rebel general's troops had been busy on a mission to "scour the [surrounding] country" for fugitive blacks, Magruder immediately summoned his officers to a council of war. Steps must be taken at once to prevent the empty town from becoming once again a "harbor of runaway slaves and traitors." The other Confederates, most of them residents of Hampton and its surrounding farms, agreed. And there was another motivation, too. It was time, some felt, for a grand and splendid gesture of renunciation. It was time to show the Yankees-to show the world-what Southern men would forfeit for their freedom. "A sacrifice," one soldier said, "to the grim G.o.d of war."125 The following night, Union pickets from Colonel Weber's regiment, who were standing watch just across the inlet, were surprised by noises from the direction of the darkened town. First there were shouts of alarm from some of the few civilians, black and white, who had remained in their homes. And then they heard the slow, deliberate tramp of marching feet. Two snakelike lines of yellow flame threaded their way among the houses, then broke apart, b.a.l.l.s of light dancing wildly in every direction as hundreds of Confederates fanned out with torches through the streets. They knew the way; this was their town.

"Many a young man set fire to his own father's house," one Hamptonite would remember.

From their posts across the bridge, the Yankees watched in astonishment as first one building, then another, was engulfed. "The loud roar of the flames, the cries of the terrified negroes as they were being driven from their huts by the enemy and marched off under guard to their lines, all combined to make up a wild scene," a soldier said.

Major Cary's columned academy was the last building to catch fire. At first the federals thought it was being deliberately spared. But finally the youths of Hampton fell with a vengeance upon their former schoolhouse, soaking the desks and chairs with turpentine and camphene, hacking holes in the floors and ceilings so the flames could rise. It lit up, window by window, from within.

And so the old town burned. The ancient church; the Negro shanties; the courthouse with its whipping post and its bell; the fathers' mansions-separate fires at first, then all consumed into one, an inferno reflected on the black waters of the James.

The Great Comet of 1861, from Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888) ( (1888) (photo credit 8.2)

*Contrary to popular belief, most freedmen did not automatically adopt the surnames of their masters, preferring to distance themselves from the bonds of slavery, and more often choosing the last name of a local family they admired, a famous name (Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Lincoln), a name that they simply liked-or, sometimes, the name of a family to which they claimed kins.h.i.+p.*"The tablets of law are erased with a laugh."*The following month, Confederate general D. H. Hill returned Winthrop's gold pocket watch, taken from his corpse, to Butler, so that the Union commander could forward it to the dead man's mother. The Confederate's accompanying note read: "Sir, I have the honor herewith to send the Watch of Young Winthrop, who fell while gallantly leading a party in the vain attempt to subjugate a free people." (D. H. Hill to Butler, July 5, 1861, Butler Papers.)*George Scott went on a similar mission. He accompanied Colonel Duryee to Was.h.i.+ngton in July, saying that he "was going to plead with Pres. Lincoln for his liberties." It is unclear if he was given a hearing. (Lewis C. Lockwood to "Dear Brethren," April 17, 1862, AMA Papers, Fisk University.)*Exact estimates of the numbers of contrabands are rare. As of early January 1863, a Northern newspaper estimated that 120,000 fugitives had been received into the Union lines. (Utica Morning Herald, Jan. 6, 1863.) However, the means of arriving at this figure are unclear, and it does not account for the large numbers of fugitives who remained outside the Union encampments or continued north to the free states. Certainly by that point there were a number of Union bases (including Port Royal, South Carolina, and Fortress Monroe) that each had at least 5,000 or 10,000 contrabands. Jan. 6, 1863.) However, the means of arriving at this figure are unclear, and it does not account for the large numbers of fugitives who remained outside the Union encampments or continued north to the free states. Certainly by that point there were a number of Union bases (including Port Royal, South Carolina, and Fortress Monroe) that each had at least 5,000 or 10,000 contrabands.

CHAPTER NINE.

Independence Day.

And is this the ground Was.h.i.+ngton trod?

-WALT W WHITMAN, "The Centenarian's Story" (1861)

Was.h.i.+ngton, July 1861.

ONE SUNDAY NIGHT in early summer, James Ferguson, a.s.sistant astronomer of the United States Naval Observatory, was making a routine survey of the skies above Was.h.i.+ngton when he noticed an unusual ray of light pulsating just above the northern horizon. As the night was somewhat overcast, he was unable to determine the exact nature of this phenomenon, and decided that it was probably just a stray beam of the aurora borealis. in early summer, James Ferguson, a.s.sistant astronomer of the United States Naval Observatory, was making a routine survey of the skies above Was.h.i.+ngton when he noticed an unusual ray of light pulsating just above the northern horizon. As the night was somewhat overcast, he was unable to determine the exact nature of this phenomenon, and decided that it was probably just a stray beam of the aurora borealis.1 The following evening, the first night of July, a rainstorm swept the capital. Afterward, when Ferguson returned to the Observatory dome, he saw the same pale streak flickering in a slightly different place, once again half hidden amid drifting banks of heavy cloud. At last, just past midnight, the sky cleared and the mysterious object swam free into his view. Indeed, it soon glowed so bright that Ferguson pushed the telescope aside and simply stared in astonishment at the ball of luminescence that swelled and became more brilliant by the minute, soon outs.h.i.+ning every star and planet. A pale brushstroke of light trailed behind, streaming higher and higher above the horizon, waxing like the flame of a lamp newly lit.

Millions of people across the country saw the comet-indeed, half the world did. By the next night, its head looked as large as a three-quarters moon, and the tail traversed more than half the sky, seeming to one observer as if it were made of "infinitesimal specks of fire" that swayed from side to side. It cast a faint shadow, and reflected on the surface of the sea. Some even claimed they could see it by day.

Scientists were as dazzled as the general public. They were accustomed to watching comets approach earth gradually, from a great distance; none had imagined that such a spectacular celestial body could loom up so unexpectedly. One overstimulated astronomer in Pittsburgh, confessing that the first glimpse made his hair "fairly [stand] up with wonder and excitement," announced to the press: "I think by the cut of her jib she will probably be remembered, and also recorded, as one of the most extraordinary craft that has floated into our horizon in hundreds of years."

At Fortress Monroe, Edward Pierce observed the comet as it burst into full splendor just past dusk on July 2, its tail sweeping across the zenith of the sky like a second Milky Way. Thomas Starr King saw it in San Francisco and was reminded of the fiery dragon in the Book of Revelation. In Manhattan on the night of the 3rd, according to the New York Herald, New York Herald, one enterprising citizen set up a large telescope at the corner of Broadway and Warren Street, the usually jaded city lining up to pay for a quick peep. Perhaps inevitably, the one enterprising citizen set up a large telescope at the corner of Broadway and Warren Street, the usually jaded city lining up to pay for a quick peep. Perhaps inevitably, the Herald, Herald, not fully satisfied with the news value of a mere cosmic event, dubbed the celestial apparition the "War Comet of 1861." not fully satisfied with the news value of a mere cosmic event, dubbed the celestial apparition the "War Comet of 1861."

On the following night, the Fourth of July, the New York Fire Zouaves watched it from their camp in Alexandria. "While a grand pyrotechnic display was taking place throughout the loyal States," one observer there wrote, "a still grander and more beautiful one took place in the heavens."

INDEPENDENCE D DAY WAS CELEBRATED throughout the rebellious states as well as the loyal ones, it so happened. Early that morning, as the garrison at Fortress Monroe was busy preparing for its festivities-which were to include a speech by General Butler, a reading of the Declaration (postponed indefinitely, it would turn out, when no one could locate a copy), and then an opportunity for officers and men to get blind drunk-the Yankees were startled to hear artillery booming on the far side of the James, volley after volley in stately cadence. For a moment everyone thought it might be some sort of surprise attack. But it was only the enemy's salute to the holiday. throughout the rebellious states as well as the loyal ones, it so happened. Early that morning, as the garrison at Fortress Monroe was busy preparing for its festivities-which were to include a speech by General Butler, a reading of the Declaration (postponed indefinitely, it would turn out, when no one could locate a copy), and then an opportunity for officers and men to get blind drunk-the Yankees were startled to hear artillery booming on the far side of the James, volley after volley in stately cadence. For a moment everyone thought it might be some sort of surprise attack. But it was only the enemy's salute to the holiday.2 In the latter years of the Civil War, most of the Confederacy would let the day go un.o.bserved, or even openly scorn it. In 1861, however, the Fourth of July was one of the few things that the two halves of the sundered nation still kept in common-more or less, anyway.

Across the South, editors and orators proclaimed their own region the true heir to the Revolutionary legacy. After all, what had the thirteen colonies done but secede from the mother country? Indeed, the Founding Fathers-led by Virginia's immortal Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, and Henry, slaveholders all-had established the very principles on which the Confederate states based their own claim to independence. Governments, the leaders of 1776 had said, derive their just power from the consent of the governed, and the subjects of a despotic regime have not only the right but a sacred duty to take up arms against it. "The people of the Confederate States of the South," wrote the editor of the New O