of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 123-125
PRESIDENT LINCOLN CALLS FOR SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND MEN TO PUT DOWN REBELLION. John Brown, who declared and honestly believed himself chosen of the Lord to strike the shackles from the southern slave, was hanged on the gallows at Charlestown, near Harper's Ferry, Virginia, on the 2d day of December, 1859, as a penalty for his misguided attempt to cause an uprising of the blacks in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, where he and his small band of followers had forcibly taken possession of the United States arsenal. This event caused a furor of excitement in the south, and events that made for internecine strife and the bloodiest civil war on record were hastened at a furious speed toward Fort Sumter, where the shot was fired that echoed its baleful significance throughout the hills and vales of Christendom. The walls of Fort Sumter were battered by the rebel guns at Charleston, South Carolina, by the would-be assassins of the Union on the morning of April 12, 1861, and in twenty-four hours thereafter news of the world momentous action had reached every accessible corner of the United States. In the south the portentous message was generally received with boisterous demonstrations of joy and the belief on the part of the masses that the day would soon come for their deliverance from the "northern yoke" and that their "peculiar institution" was to be perpetuated under the constitution and laws of a new confederacy of states. In the north a different feeling possessed the people. The firing on Fort Sumter was looked upon with anger and sadness, and the determination was at once formed to uphold the integrity of the Union and the perpetuity of its institutions. It was then that Abraham Lincoln began his great work of preserving the Union.
THE CALL FOR TROOPS. On the 16th of April, four days following the assault on Fort Sumter, Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa, received the following telegram from Simon Cameron, secretary of war:
"Call made on you by tonight's mail for one regiment of militia for immediate service."
That very day the Governor proclaimed to the people of Iowa that the nation was imperiled and invoked the aid of every loyal citizen in the state. The telegram above alluded to was received at Davenport. The governor was then residing at Iowa City but there was no telegraphic communication in those days between the two cities.
It was important that the dispatch should reach the eyes of the governor at once, and General Vandever, then a civilian, volunteered to take the message to Iowa City. The governor was found on his farm outside the city by the self-appointed messenger, dressed in homespun and working in the field. Reading the dispatch, Governor Kirkwood expressed extreme surprise and exclaimed: "Why, the president wants a whole regiment of men! Do you suppose I can raise so many as that, Mr. Vandever?" When ten Iowa regiments were offered a few days later the question was answered.
THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION. President Lincoln announced, April 15, 1861, that the execution of the laws of the Union had been obstructed in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas by "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law." He called out the militia to the number of 75,000. Seeing that the insurgents had not dispersed in the states named and that the inhabitants of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee had joined them, he issued this proclamation, August 16, 1861:
"Whereas, on the 15th day of April, 1861, the president of the United States, in view of an insurrection against laws, constitution and government of the United States, which has broken out within the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and in pursuance of the provisions of the act entitled, 'An act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and to repeal the act now in force for that purpose,' approved February 28, 1795, did call forth the militia to suppress said insurrection and cause the laws of the Union to be duly executed and the insurgents having failed to disperse by the time directed by the president; and whereas, such insurrection has since broken out and yet exists within the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas; and whereas, the insurgents in all the said states claim to act under the authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated by the persons exercising the functions of government in such state or states, or in the part or parts thereof in which combinations exist, nor has any such insurrection been suppressed by said states:
"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, in pursuance of an act of congress approved July 13, 1861, do hereby declare that the inhabitants of the said states of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida (except the inhabitants of that part of Virginia lying west of the Alleghany mountains, and of such other parts of that state and the other states hereinbefore named as may maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union and the constitution or may be from time to time occupied and controlled by the forces of the United States engaged in the dispersion of said insurgents), are in a state of insurrection against the United States; and that all commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the exceptions aforesaid, and the citizens of other states and other parts of the United States, is unlawful, and will remain unlawful until such insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that all goods and chattels, wares and merchandise, coming from any of said states with the exception aforesaid, into other parts of the United States, without the special license and permission of the president, through the secretary of the treasury, or proceeding to any said states, with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with the vessel or vehicle conveying the same or conveying persons to or from said states, with said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United States; and that from and after fifteen days from the issuing of this proclamation, all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to any citizen or inhabitant of any of said states with said exceptions found at sea or in any port of the United States will be forfeited to the United States, and I hereby enjoin upon all district attorneys, marshals and officers of the revenue and of the military and naval forces of the United States to be vigilant in the execution of said act, and in the enforcement of the penalties and forfeitures imposed or declared by it; leaving any party who may think himself aggrieved thereby to his application to the secretary of the treasury for the remission of any penalty of forfeiture, which the said secretary is authorized by law to grant if, in his judgment, the special circumstances in any case shall require such remission.
"In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
"Done at the city of Washington, this sixteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-sixth year.
"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
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