Modern Boston History Exam

Week 2.1 History 385 - !1

Week 2.1 The Civil War and the Reconstruction History 385

Julie de Chantal

March to the Civil War The armed conflict began with the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Prior to the attack on the fort, seven states had declared their secession from the United States and had formed the Confederate States of America. They acted along the same principle the colonies did during the war of Independence. The Southern States declared their independence from an oppressive nation, here the United States instead of England.

There were 5 major causes for the secession of the Southern states • Slavery -> It is usually the first cause that comes to mind. Indeed, some feared that

slavery would be abolished. However, slavery, in and of itself was not the sole cause of the conflict.

• Sectionalism -> the country was divided by different economies, social structures, and political values. Those divisions were profound enough for the Southern states to feel like they were not part of the same country as the Northern states.

• Protectionism -> The South did not want to have tariffs imposed on their exports. The North wanted to protect its industrial economy from the outside. Tariffs would reduce competition from England for example but also reduce England’s incentives to import American cotton.

• States’ Rights -> this is a big one. States in the South felt that the North was infringing on their rights to self-govern.

• Finally, some Southern politicians saw the American Constitution as compact, similar to the contract that the Massachusetts Bay Company had signed in order to create the Massachusetts colony. For that reason, they felt that all of these reasons violated the compact hence that they could secede.

Ambivalence in Boston People in the North did not see the conflict through the same lens, and there was a lot of division among factions of Northerners.

• Opposition to the Secession • Industrialists were opposed to the war. This was somewhat logical. People

who have a lot, and have a lot to lose, seek stability to preserve their fortune. Industrialists established in Boston did not want to lose their access to cotton from the South. They especially did not want the country to go into a recession due to the war

• Some members of the government called for a compromise to avoid the Secession and the War. They gathered 22,313 signatures in a petition favoring a compromise on slavery. They called themselves “The Union- Savers.” Governor Andrew, for example, felt that if he did not go to

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Washington to try to negotiate an agreement, he could later be blamed for not having done enough to save the Union.

• Neutrality • African Americans were afraid that any compromise would tip Boston in

favor of the South. Some feared that either slavery would expand to the North or that their personal liberties (right to vote, etc) would be revoked. They feared that the North would sacrifice African Americans to preserve the Union.

• In favor of the Secession • Some of the abolitionists approved of the secession, but not necessarily of

the war. For example, people like Wendell Phillips, who wanted to get rid of slavery, were happy at first. They believed that finally slavery would be gone and that the country could move forward toward true civilization. Phillips was mainly in line with the idea of self-control, rational mind, although he admired rash activists like Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown.

Historian Gilbert Osofsky argues that Phillips's nationalism was shaped by a religious ideology derived from the European Enlightenment as expressed by Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. To Osofsky, the Puritan ideal of a Godly Commonwealth, through a pursuit of Christian morality and justice, was the main influence on Phillips' nationalism. Phillips favored fragmenting the Republic in order to destroy slavery. He sought to amalgamate all the American races. Thus, it was the moral end which mattered most.

After Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, there was still a question as to what would happen and what Lincoln would do with the Southern states. Would Lincoln simply rule the country and not acknowledge the fact that many states have seceded? Would he try to compromise with them and make them come back?

After the attack on Fort Sumter, many came to the conclusion that the war was eminent and that there was nothing that they could do to avoid the conflict.

Reaction in Boston Because the South fired first, many in Boston jumped to their weapons to defend the cause. Quickly, the governor called for volunteer troops to support the war effort. The abolitionists who were opposed to violence saw the conflict as a rebellion and not a war caused by the North. As a result, they could push their agenda a little more forcefully.

African Americans were less enthusiastic but promised to provide 50,000 troops as soon as the ban on Black troops were to be lifted.

Irish Americans were ambivalent. They were afraid that they would be stuck in integrated regiments (African American and Irish) if the Irish Regiments were allowed again (remember that the Know Nothing abolished Irish regiments during the anti-Catholic period).

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Quickly, the state shifted from an economy of peace to an economy of war, prioritizing manufacturing of weapons, uniforms, etc over civilian goods. However, the shift was a long term one and did not happen quickly enough to provide for soldiers who enrolled right away. Ten days after the attack, a group of 100 Bostonians organized the “Massachusetts’ Soldiers’ Fund” to solicit contributions to support the families of men recruited in the military.

Troops Most people thought that the war would be a short military confrontation. Since the recruitment slogan was “Peace in 90 days,” a number of men volunteered. Students left colleges and universities to enlist in the military. Those who could not enlist for reason of age or disability gave money to support the troops. Women hasten to help the sick and the wounded. Within days, the state sent troops to Washington, D.C., by water to avoid having to deal with possible sabotage of rail between Boston and the nation’s capital.

After the first 90 days, Americans had a weird impression that the war would last a wee bit longer. The battles were much bloodier and more soldiers were wounded than expected.

In Massachusetts, the question of pay became a point of contention. The state had to pay soldiers from the time that they reported to the service until the day that they were mustered into federal service. Since the State government was not in session at that time, the governor expended the money to pay, expecting the legislature to ratify the expenditure once back in session. Realizing that the governor was pledging state credit, Boston banks advanced voluntary loans to meet the state’s obligations. A few weeks later, the Governor convened a brief session to approve the acts.

However, recruitment also became more difficult than in the first few months, and the governor had to create incentives for Boston men to volunteer. The legislature passed an act “in aid of families of volunteers, and for other purposes,” that allowed towns to use tax money to help the wife and children of volunteers. (Remember that women are not expected to work outside of the home at the time). The state also pledged to reimburse up to $12 a month to towns for each volunteers who received such allotment. Towns were still forbidden to pay a bounty to the volunteers themselves. (An enrollment bonus if you will)

At a personal level, Bostonians created organizations to support families. They formed the Soldiers’ Relief Society to hold communication between the families and the soldiers, and to provide them with sympathy, counsel, and aid. Because there was no systematic distribution of uniforms, women began to create packages for the soldiers. (See in particular the image of the “Soldiers face their First Christmas in the field.” Imagine getting a care package for Christmas when you are on the battlefield). Soldiers receive packages from home with socks, mittens, food, etc

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Military of Massachusetts The state of Massachusetts troops at the beginning of the war was much better than in any other Northern states. Militia units were well trained and well equipped, and were the first to respond to the call to arms. As soon as he could, Governor Andrew asked for 4 regiments or about 3,000 men to report for active duty. The response of the troops was speedy and efficient, and spoke to the commitment of both the Governor and the people of Massachusetts to the cause. It is important to remember, though, that the militia, when there is no real peril and no war, had few soldiers and that they did not get a lot of public support. (The militia at that time was almost what we consider the National Guard today. It was a reserve force at the service of the state).

If you remember when we talked about the vote, men had militia obligations in the state. However, as I mentioned, some men refused to fulfill their obligations. They found ways to skip on their duty to the state. Some were opposed to violence on a religious basis—the Quakers for example refused and still refuse active military service—or because of moral principles—some abolitionists for example. Both groups refused to enlist despite the call to arms. They were conscientious objectors.

Others, however, took their job very seriously and made the job of the governor much easier. In 1851, Governor George Boutwell appointed Ebenezer W. Stone as the State’s adjutant general. Stone was a 50 year old clothing merchant who was well established in the city. He had served in the militia prior to becoming its commander. Stone was determined to upgrade the militia to a first class reserve force. He traveled around the state, inspected local militia companies, certified muster rolls, upgraded regulations and training manuals, and replaced old flintlock muskets with the new percussion rifles.

When John Andrew came to power, he appointed William Schouler, a former whig newspaper editor, turned politician, and the two (Boutwell and Schouler) continued to upgrade the militia. As the war became eminent, they stimulated recruitment, inspected the armories, let out contracts for uniforms and blankets. Then they planned the logistics of how they would transport of troops to the capital. By the time that the war was declared, the governor responded immediately with a well-trained, well equipped, and well organized militia.

When the order to report to Boston went out to the commanders of the different regiments, all regiments responded quickly. In the following days, General Benjamin Butler, one of the commanders, contacted his friends and worked his connections in Washington to “let them know” that a general should accompany the troops to the capital. (He was hoping to be that General hence he was nudging them in the “right direction”).

Benjamin Butler will become more important as we progress in the class. He was originally from Deerfield, New Hampshire. His father served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He went to school at the Phillips Exeter Academy in 1827. His mother moved to Lowell in 1828 where she operated a boarding house for the workers of the textile mills. He followed her and attended the public schools in Lowell. As an adult, he went to Waterville College. He applied to

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join West Point Military Academy but was not accepted. He returned to Lowell where he clerked to learn law. He was admitted to the Bar in 1840. He was a successful lawyer and became a politician in 1850.

Despite being of Yankee origins, he was a Democrat. He was elected at the state legislature in 1852. In 1855, the Know Nothing had disbanded his militia hence why he did not have a military position anymore. In 1857, he was appointed by Jefferson Davis (who would be the president of the Confederacy) to the board of visitors of West Point. He supported Davis in his nomination for the Democratic party in 1860, but the nomination went to John C. Breckinridge. Ultimately, Governor Andrew signed the proper paperwork, and sent Butler to Washington with his soldiers.

Making their way to Washington As mentioned earlier, there was a lot of discussion as to how troops should be sent to D.C. Some proposed to send them by train which was risky considering that Confederacy supporters could break the rails to slow down the troops. Troops could also be sent by ship to avoid the land altogether. Massachusetts chose to do both ways.

The 6th Regiment from Boston was sent by railroad to the capital on April 17th. The regiment stopped in NYC and stayed overnight, letting the soldiers have breakfast at the hotel on the 18th. They then paraded down Broadway street that day. The next day, April 19th, shortly before noon, the regiment arrived at the President Street station Baltimore. They boarded some horse drawn railroad cars which took them in town to the Camden Street station. Maryland was one of the Border states (neutral state in the war), and was equally divided between loyalties of the South and of the North. One minute, people would sing “Dixie” in the Street, the next they would sing the national anthem.

As the last three companies were brought across the city, they were attacked by a pro-secession mob. They were pelted with rocks and stones. Some people fired their pistols at them. The troops fired back into the crowd and cleared a path with their bayonets. As a response a number of Confederate sympathizer shut down the President Street Station, destroyed the railroad bridges into the capital and cut down all of the telegraph lines. From that point on, all troops had to be taken to the capital by sea. Around 5 pm, officials in Washington began to worry about the 6th Regiment but a train arrived in the Washington station with the soldiers in it. Some residents rushed to take care of the wounded soldiers. They hosted the Regiment in the Senate Chambers where the soldiers took in as much rest and food as they could before finally being mustered into federal service. The rest of the regiments arrived in Philadelphia on the 20th of April

Learning that the road between Philly and Washington through Baltimore had been closed, Butler took the troops on a railroad to the Chesapeake Bay, and them put them on a ship to Annapolis. In Annapolis, his troops repaired the railroad tracks, and made sure that the locomotives were working properly. They were ultimately welcomed in the capital and quartered in the rotunda in the Capitol building.

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Medical care One of the first things that the people on the homefront realized was that the government was woefully unprepared for the number of casualties of the war. The government had recruited doctors and surgeons, but at the time it only required the people who applied to have “evidence of a regular medical education.” They also required these applicants have “strict temperance habits and good moral character.” (You can see the priorities here, little concern about performance in education but an emphasis on good character). A number of the doctors recruited were incompetent butchers who only wanted to perform surgery.

In order to improve the conditions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston opened a full wing to treat soldiers and constructed a new section to take care of them when the troops came back home. Individual physicians in the city promised their services to soldiers and their families left back home free of charge. The Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society and the Boston Obstetric Society pledged the same.

A side note is important here. The entirety of the medical corps of the U.S. and Confederate armies was composed of men only at first. All of the doctors, nurses, and orderlies were men. The argument in favor of an all-men corps was that the war was too violent for women’s sensitivities. Officials felt that the gore, blood, and wounds of the soldiers would be offensive to women. Furthermore, having women in the medical field would put wounded soldiers in a vulnerable position. As the war went and the number of injured soldiers increased, women were progressively included in the medical professions. They fulfilled the duties of orderlies, but were called nurses.

A Black Regiment Massachusetts had more soldiers than it could send to the front at first. Within two weeks of the call for troops, the state had reached the quota required by the federal government. The Secretary of War reminded Governor Andrew not to send too many, as they wanted to stagger the entry of soldiers in the war. A few weeks after the entry into the war, Boston’s Black leaders lobbied to create a Black regiment in the city. In 1859, Governor Banks had vetoed a bill to allow Black residents of the state to serve in the military. (They opposed the idea of Black men carrying weapons.)

Starting in Spring 1861, members of the Black community lobbied more intensively to repeal the law. With John Andrew, as the new governor, they hoped that the state would finally repeal it and allow Black men to enlist. While waiting for the decision of the state, other members of the community organized the Black drill society in Boston, and they petitioned the government to remove the word white from the militia laws.

In September 1861, Black men were finally able to enroll in the Navy but only for menial tasks. They were not considered to be soldiers nor sailors, nor were allowed in combat. This position, as non-military personnel, justified their low pay and their inability to receive any promotions. The War Department also refuses to allow Black men to enlist at a national level. Based on the

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biases against Black men (return to David Walker’s Appeal), they feared that Black men would not follow orders, that they would turn against their commanders, etc.

In Summer 1862, Black Bostonians proposed to create a Regiment at the state level which would be commanded by Black officers. Andrew refuses, as he could only conceive of troops being led by white men. However, he convinced George Luther Sterns to create a committee to collect money and to recruit Black soldiers. The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves (I will come back to this in a few minutes), authorized the formation of a Black regiment in 1863. Sterns was a merchant, an industrialist, and an abolitionist. He was put in charge of recruiting two infantry regiments the 54th and the 55th.

What is important to remember is that since it was the first Black regiment, the 54th Regiment was seen as a social experiment. It was the ultimate test to show if African Americans could be soldiers, let alone great soldiers. A large number of people wanted the regiment to fail since, if it succeeded, it would prove that Black people were not savages nor required white guidance. If you push this logic further, it would also challenge racial hierarchy, and mean that slavery was based on prejudice, instead of a civilizing mission.

In February, Governor Andrew contacted Francis G. Shaw, an abolitionist who was a descendant of one of Boston’s important families, to ask if he would allow his son, Robert Gould Shaw, to take the command of the regiment

Robert Gould Shaw Robert Gould Shaw was born in Boston on October 10, 1837. He was part of a prominent family in the city. During his teen years, he travelled to Europe where he studied. From 1856 to 1859, he attended Harvard University and joined the Porcellian Club (really really really elite Brahmin club) but withdrew from the University before graduating. Prior to taking the command of the 54th regiment, he was a captain with the 2nd Regiment. When he came back to Boston to take on the regiment, he met with his second in command Colonel Norwood Hallowell, who was the son of Philadelphia Quaker. (In the movie Glory, released in 1989, Matthew Broderick plays Robert Gould Shaw).

The response to recruitment for the 54th Regiment was not as enthusiastic as officials had imagined. Several Black Bostonians felt that the whole thing was a publicity stunt. African Americans had already been humiliated when they attempted to enlist and did not want to face the same humiliation again. Many were determined to stay out of the war. They were especially concerned with how the Black soldiers would be treated once out of Boston (and especially in the South). They could be captured and treated as runaway slaves.

The Regiment used all sorts of tactics to recruit but especially, they promised a bounty of $100 for recruitment. It was a large sum of money at the time! (Remember that wives of soldiers received $12 a month from the town to support their entire families). By Spring 1863, the community was finally behind the Regiment and the soldiers were enlisting more easily. Shaw

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trained them at Readville, a few miles south of the city. In May, the regiment paraded in the city, looking sharp and crisp.

There were a few issues though. • They did not receive uniforms at first. Shaw pressured the state to receive the

appropriate material and weapons necessary for their soldiers. • Then Black soldiers received a lower pay than white soldiers from the federal

government. • white privates were paid $13 a month + $3.50 for clothing allowance • Black soldiers were paid $10 a month minus $3 deducted in advance for

their uniform.

Governor Andrew was behind Shaw to fight against the injustice, writing to Charles Sumner: “For God’s sake, how long is the injustice of the Government to be continued toward these men.”

President Lincoln even tried to explain to Frederick Douglass (major Black leader at the time) that the low pay was a concession that the federal government made so that there could even be a Black regiment. This obviously did not resolve the situation.

For the most part the Black soldiers were given menial tasks (justifying their low pay grade), or stationed where white soldiers had been decimated by typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, or malaria. The unhealthy garrison duty, in combination with the inadequate medical care, contributed to the soldiers’ greater mortality rate which was about 40% higher than white soldiers in the Union Army. That gave even more ammunition to the Governor who continued to fight against the discriminatory practices of the Army.

On July 18, 1863, the regiment participated in the assault against Charleston, South Carolina. Their objective was to capture Fort Wagner on Morris Island. They attacked the fort, and after 2 hours of fruitless attack, they retreated. Nearly half of their men and ⅓ of their officers, including Shaw, died in combat. Shaw is commemorated in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

General Butler took some of the regiments men under his command. In the following months, the regiment was reformed and the Governor lobbied to be able to form a cavalry regiment with the elite of the different regiments already existing. By December 1863, the 5th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry, the only Black cavalry of Massachusetts, was formed in Boston.

More on the military The attacks on the Massachusetts regiments and the attacks on Fort Sumter galvanized the support in the city. You have to remember that people in Massachusetts expected some 90 days of conflict at the most. People on the home front jumped into action to help support the troops. Throughout New England, the number of men enrolled in college declined substantially.

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• Harvard University 443 to 385 enrolled -> with a drop of 56% of those set to graduate in Spring 1861 were sent to the war

• Yale University 521 to 438 enrolled • Willams College 238 to 182 enrolled • Amherst College 220 to 212 enrolled • Dartmouth College -> 35% of their students sent to the war • Brown University -> 50% sent to the war • More than 24% of all Harvard graduates from between 1841 to 1861, and 23% of

Yale’s graduates fought in Lincoln Armies.

The Brahmins, in particular, encouraged their young men to apply for commissions as officers. Men from different origins applied for commissions and enlisted as soldiers. The army overall was a great equalizer for the city’s population. (Remember the highly divided social structure where people did not mingle outside of their class). At war, men fraternized, notwithstanding their class. Women, notwithstanding their class, felt grief in the same way. The war allowed for more interclass mixing than ever before.

While many Bostonians were convinced that the Union would win a clear victory, the news of the first defeats destroys the morale at home. Fortunately, though, Massachusetts regiments saw little action in the first months of the war. In August, the governor received another call for troops.

Among those troops were some Irish soldiers. When the Massachusetts Regiment was attacked in Baltimore, Irish Americans leaders sponsored a meeting in which they pledged allegiance to the government and offered their service to preserve the Union. If you remember well, the Irish regiments had been abolished in 1855 during the Know Nothing movement. At the time Thomas Cass, who was the former commander of the Columbian Artillery, one of the dismantled regiments, proposed his regiment be reactivated.

Cass was born in 1821 in Queen’s County Ireland. He was brought to the United States by his parents at 9 months. At age 21, he married and became the owner of vessels trading with the Azores Island and held stocks in a towboat company based in Boston. He became active in city politics and was a School Committee member when the war broke.

He was appointed Colonel by the Governor, and began to recruit for the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the Glorious 9th. He started with the old regiment’s base and continued to recruit at the Columbian Association armory on Sudbury Street. Companies from Boston took in Irishmen from Salem, Milford, Marlboro, and Stoughton. After training for part of the summer on Long Island, the regiment returned to Boston to get its flag from the governor. Toward the end of 1861, the governor allowed for the formation of a second Irish regiment.

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The heroism, patriotism, and the backing that the soldiers received from the public led to a wave of tolerance in the city. The tolerance went so far as to see Harvard confer an honorary degree upon Bishop John Fitzpatrick.

If you remember, following the election of the Know Nothing, the city instituted a policy which required children to read the Protestant Bible on a daily basis. During this wave of tolerance, the city changed the policy and came to a compromise. Children would still be required the reading of the Bible however, they could also read from any Bible that was accepted by their clergy (i.e. the Catholic Bible). The Irish elite also convinced the state to allow Irish soldiers to practice their religion and allowed for Catholic priests to be commissioned as chaplains in the 9th and 28th Regiments.

Casualties of the first half of the war During the first years of the war, and especially during the second year, the North suffered many casualties. Already in 1862, Lincoln felt that the Union might be forced to draft soldiers. All of the troops so far were volunteer troops recruited either for a period of one or three years. When the idea of the draft was discussed, many opposed it.

Governor Andrew rejected the idea of the conscription. He felt that the men from Massachusetts would enlist voluntarily, and he felt that the draft would be against the spirit of the Constitution. Instead, he asked Bostonians to organize rallies to recruit more men. Every day in August 1862, shops closed at 2:00 pm, the church bells rang, and people went into the street to work on recruiting. Within three months, the state had fulfilled its quota again.

On September 17, 1862, several Massachusetts Regiments participated in the Battle of Antietam, one of the major battles of the Maryland Campaign. They suffered massive casualties. Across the Union, nearly 23,000 men died and 12,000 were wounded. It took a long while for the reports to reach the Northern public, as military record keeping was neither accurate, nor efficient. Military commanders did not keep an official record of casualties. They had no proper hospital lists, no methodical burial records, or grave registrations. Parents and wives tried to get news from their sons, but they hit a brick wall. It is only when the trains brought back the wounded and the dead, or when the local newspapers printed the names of those who died, were wounded or missing that the news reached the families.

Draft Riots From that point on, Bostonians’ opinion about the war darkened. In March 1863, the federal government passed a conscription law which required all male citizens to be drafted according to the need of the state. Some could avoid the draft

• Black men were dispensed from the draft since they could not enlist until the creation of the 54th Regiment

• Rich people could pay $300 to get find a substitute. People paid a total of $1.085,800 to avoid the draft.

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The exemptions sent the message that the white working class was canon fodder and that the government did not care about them. There were riots all over the country, including in Boston, especially opposing Yankee and Irish. Because of the segregation of the neighborhoods within the city, very few African Americans were involved in the riots. The riots mostly involved Irish and Yankee. They sometimes included women and children who wanted to protect their men from being drafted. The Boston riots did not cause as much trouble the NYC riots, but reflected the issues already in place in the city in terms of class and ethnicity.

Home front Now that we have talked about the different regiments and the ways in which recruitment was done; how did the war change the life on the home front?

Women’s Role If you remember, we spoke about women’s roles prior to the war. Women were supposed to stay in the private sphere, and rule over the domestic realm. At the beginning of the war, this was still possible. The number of men recruited was relatively small and women could remain in the home and support themselves with any savings that the family had. Working-class women were not restricted to the private sphere, due to their need to work.

At the beginning of the war, women took on tasks reserved to women, for example in creating care packages, tailoring uniforms, or knitting socks. Those were usually individual initiatives or initiatives done through aid societies. As the war progressed and more men enlisted, however, the need to fill the jobs that men left behind emerged.

For example, some women took on jobs at the Watertown arsenal, where they worked at filling ammo cartridges on an assembly line. You can see by the way that they are depicted that they were well dressed, possibly even middle-class women. Women took on positions as school teachers, secretaries in government offices, book keepers in commercial venues, clerks in stores. Those were all positions which were still considered men’s positions at the time.

In 1861, government officials created the US Sanitary Commission to help with the distribution of clothing, food, and medicine to the crops. The sanitary Commission sent women to act as nurses, as I mentioned earlier. Women like Dorothea Dix and Louisa May Alcott took on those positions.

Dorothea Dix Born in Hampden Maine (April 4, 1802), she grew up in Worcester MA. At age 12, she took refuge at her grandmother’s home in Boston to escape from an abusive and alcoholic father. As a young woman, she opened a school in Boston which was patronized by wealthy families. She established another school in 1831, but had a mental breakdown in 1836. She traveled to Europe to recuperate (women were often sent abroad when they suffered mental illnesses, thinking that isolation would help them!). After coming back, she pioneered the reform of treatment, and

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lobbied for more funding for mental illness treatment (psychology and psychiatry). During the Civil War, she was appointed Super intendant of the Army nurses by the Union Army.

She set guidelines for the candidate nurses: • 35 to 50 years of age • plain looking • They were required to wear unhooped black or brown dresses, with no jewelry or

cosmetics.

She wanted to avoid sending vulnerable, attractive young women into the hospitals, where she feared that they would be exploited by the men (doctors as well as patients). She cared for both Union and Confederate soldiers without regards of their allegiance. Her program recruited close to 3,000 women to work as nurses under her supervision

Louisa May Alcott Born in Germantown PA, Nov 29, 1832. Her father Amos Bronson Alcott was a transcendentalist in Boston. He was part of the circles which included Emerson and Thoreau. In 1843-44, her family moved to a utopian commune in Concord, MA, called Fruitlands. They attempted to survive in the commune but failed due to poor planning (did not plant the crops in time). They moved to a new family estate in 1845. Throughout her youth, she received education from people like Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller (all transcendentalists).

She was poor, but of the middle class due to her and her family’s education and background. She worked as a teacher, a seamstress, a governess, and a domestic servant before she became a writer. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse. However, she caught typhoid fever and was treated with a compound which contained mercury (as many compounds did at the time). She was sent back home to recuperate, and was not longer able to serve the Union. In 1868, she published the book “Little Women” which depicts the story of the March sisters whose father was a chaplain in the war. She published several sequels to the series in subsequent years. She died at age 55 of a stroke.

More changes on the Home front Merchants continued to make money throughout the war. However, they prioritized war production over civilian goods. Since civilians still needed clothing and shoes, merchants turned to the production of ready-made clothing and shoe. Due to the large volume of clothing made at once (requiring less work), the prices dropped. With lower prices, the working-class bought ready-made clothing in larger quantity.

Photography went through a lot of improvement during the Civil War, especially in Boston. Daguerreotype were introduced in 1839. They were a silver-plated copper sheet which was treated with fumes to make its surface sensitive to light. The sheets were then placed in a camera, exposed, and then developed with chemicals. The time of exposure was really long, and forced

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people to stand in really stiff positions and not smile. By the beginning of the war, photography was already less expensive and took less time to process.

In the 1860s, soldiers and their loved ones created such a demand that the “carte de visite,” a small photo of about 2.5 inches x 4 inches, became really popular. Soldiers could leave photos behind and bring photos of their loved ones with them (Hence why we have a lot of photographs of Union soldiers, in particular).

Growth of Boston as a city Despite the war, the city officials still pushed for the expansion and growth of the city. During the War, Bostonians develop a taste for all things French. Second Empire architecture was favored in the construction of new buildings. (As the Second Empire style evolved from its 17th century Renaissance foundations, it acquired an eclectic mix of earlier European styles, most notably the Baroque, often combined with mansard roofs and/or low, square based domes.)

The South End was finally completely filled and became the up-and-coming neighborhood. For years, the tide had left the sewage dumped into a basin exposed to sun and open air. People at the time described it as “nothing less than a great cesspool.” For that reason, the city decided to fill the Back Bay, eliminating part of the diseases with the elimination of the pooling of sewage. (epidemics due to poor sanitation were still extremely common at the time).

Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Another push for development came from the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. The idea of federal land grants to the states to build agricultural schools had been on the mind of many politicians prior to the Civil War. During the war, the conditions came together to allow the act to go through. Most opposing states had left the Union to form the Confederacy, and since the federal government faced a dire need of money, the Morrill Land Grant Act came to the rescue.

Under the grant, each eligible state received a total of 30,000 acres (120 km2) of federal land, either within or contiguous to its boundaries, for each member of congress that the state had as of the census of 1860. (Massachusetts had 11 seats in the House + 2 senators)

The land or the proceeds from the sale of the land were to be used to establish and fund educational institutions which taught the following fields:

• Military tactics (ROTC) • Agriculture • mechanical arts (engineering) • liberal arts

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Massachusetts used the land as follows: • Creation of UMass - Amherst (as the Massachusetts Agricultural College) • It used the money selling land from Back Bay to create the Back Bay Lands fund

where • ½ of the money was used for construction • the other half was used for education

• 50% put in Massachusetts School Fund • 20% given to Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology • 12% for the construction of Tufts • 18% to Amherst College, Williams College, and Wesleyan Academy

• to receive money, all of these schools had to provide scholarships to students

• The state also granted a block of land to the Boston Society of Natural History for the creation of a museum and a block to create the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Following the state initiative with the grants, private institutions also participated in the construction. The Boston Water Power Company, for example, invested in a plot for the Museum of Fine Arts.

The end of the Civil War Toward the end of the war, 1864-1865, there was an increased sense of dissatisfaction among people living in the city. The war had claimed a number of lives, and no one knew when it would end. Throughout the war, Boston’s population increased substantially (especially during the two last years). Since Massachusetts was a huge industrial center for the Union, industries required a large number of workers who flocked to the state. Cities around Boston boomed during the war (for example with the production of ammunition in Watertown, uniforms in Lowell, navy ships on the North shore, etc). Skilled workers’ salaries increased due to the demand. As a consequence, there was a steep rise in inflation on essential goods.

Black Bostonians were dissatisfied with the hypocrisy of the city. Racism and discrimination increased overall in Boston. Tensions between working-class Irish and working-class Black workers increased as well.

In 1864, the presidential election opposed two Northerner candidates, Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan, who was from Philadelphia, and had been a general for the Union Army. He had failed to garner Lincoln’s trust, was insubordinate, and was deriding of him. Although he ran as a Democrat, he lost his support when he decided to repudiate the party’s platform. As you can imagine, Bostonians were divided on the election. If you remember, Yankees voted mainly for the Republican party and Irish voters for the Democratic party.

By the end of 1863, Abolitionists in Boston and around the nation pressed for an amendment to abolish slavery. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he did so as a measure of

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war. Captured slaves were seen as contraband of war. (Don’t forget that people in the U.S. see slaves as property, not as people!) The Union Army could seize the contraband and prevent it from being returned to its owner. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to a small portion of the slaves in the Southern states (which were technically part of another nation). Since the Abolitionists knew that the Proclamation was a war measure, they continued to push for the abolition through a constitutional amendment

In April 1865, it became clear that the war was coming to an end. Lincoln had made Ulysses Grant the military commander of all Union armies. Sherman’s March and his policy of scorched earth had annihilated the South. The Union had won several decisive battles. On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and his other generals surrendered in the following days. On April 14th, John Wilkes Booth killed President Lincoln in the Ford Theater. He died on April 15 and his Vice president Andrew Johnson became president.

Reconstruction Even prior to the end of the war Lincoln had planned for the Reconstruction of the nation through different policies. Before we bring this back to Boston, I would like to give you an overview of what happened during the Reconstruction.

There are three phases to the Reconstruction which lasted from 1865 to 1877. • The Presidential Reconstruction, led by Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Both

presidents wanted to bring the nation back to normal as quickly as possible. • The Congressional Reconstruction began in 1866 when Congress took control of the

Reconstruction. This period is a tug-of-war between Johnson and members of Congress where each branch overturned decisions made the other branch of government.

• The Radical Reconstruction began when a large number of Racial Republicans took control of Congress in 1868. The Radical Reconstruction spanned from 1868 to 1877. (Most Radicals came from Massachusetts, while the moderate Republicans came from other states). This was the period where most Bostonians were active in the Reconstruction.

Context of the Reconstruction Nationwide When facing the Reconstruction, both Presidents and the Congress had to address four major questions:

• What should they do with the slaves? • What should they do with the seceding states? • What should they do with the intelligentsia and politicians of the South who rebelled

against the Union? • How could they rebuild the nation?

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Presidential Reconstruction As I mentioned, Lincoln had already made a plan for when the war would be over. Considering that the Southern states had seceded, he hoped to reintegrate them quickly in the Union. For that reason, he drafted what he considered to be fair conditions for their readmission. He required that 10% of the voters in the states pledge allegiance to the Union and that they ratify the 13th Amendment.

13th Amendment On April 8, 1864, a year before the end of the war, the Senate approved the Thirteenth Amendment, and on January 31, 1865, the House of Representatives approved it. Charles Sumner (Boston) and Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania), wanted the bill to be even more radical than the version that was ultimately approved.

Here is the text of the Amendment: Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The following section enforces the law.

As States surrendered, they ratified the Amendment. For example, Virginia Feb 9, 1865, Louisiana Feb 17, 1865, Tennessee — April 7, 1865, ratified it before the war was over. Other states followed. The last state to ratify the 13th Amendment was Mississippi. March 16, 1995, Certified on February 7, 2013. (Not a mistake!)

After Lincoln’s death, Andrew Johnson devised his own plan. Johnson never acknowledged that the Southern states had seceded. He kept Lincoln’s conditions for readmission, but with the caveat that he would not allow for high ranking Confederates to pledge an oath of loyalty to the Union. Without the oath, most high ranking Confederates would be stripped of their political power and rights (no right to vote). He had hoped that this political power would go from the hands of the planters to the plebeians who he always represented.

Because he wanted to favor the white working class and small farmers, Johnson also opposed any type of aid to or even voting rights for African Americans offered by the North. He feared that African Americans would side with their former masters against the white working-class (which usually worked for the planters as overseers or in menial jobs, just above those of slaves). He also feared that, if they received help from the government, former slaves would become richer than the white working-class, hence would break the racial hierarchy.

Reaction of the South As you can imagine the reaction of the South to the abolition of slavery was rather violent. On one hand, ex-confederate officers formed what became known as the Ku Klux Klan as a secret society. The organization became a terrorist organization, intimidating or committing violence against Black communities in the South. On the other, Southern governments passed the Black codes in order to limit movement, work, families, etc of former African American slaves.

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Freedmen’s Bureau As a response, the North put in place the Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1863, Bostonian Samuel Gridley Howe was the guiding force behind the Freedmen’s bureau. He was born in Boston 1801, his father was a ship owner. He attended Boston Latin School. His father was a Democrat who refused to let his son study at Harvard University. He felt that the university was “a den of Federalists.” In 1818, he had him enroll at Brown University in Providence, RI. Howe was a trouble maker but managed to graduate in 1821. He went to Harvard Medical School, and graduated in 1824.

After graduation, he sailed to Greece and joined the Greek Army as a surgeon (he was fascinated by the Greek Revolution). He returned to the States in 1831, and began to work for the blind. He founded what became the Perkins institution in 1832. In 1848, he worked with Dorothea Dix to found the Massachusetts School for Idiot and Feeble-Minded Youth.

In 1863, he was appointed to the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. He traveled to the Deep South and to Canada to investigate the condition of emancipated slaves. (He went to Canada because of the number of former slaves who established themselves in the British Dominion through the Underground Railroad.) With his data in hand, he worked to establish the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865 to help freed slaves.

What kind of work did the Freedmen’s bureau do? • It solved daily problems (getting clothes, food, water, health care, jobs) • It helped reunite families, perform marriages to officiate non-official ones (slaves

could not enter contracts hence could not marry) • at first, the Bureau tried to force Black women to work before they realized

that ex-slaves attempted to reproduce gender roles seen in the North and in the South, with the husband as the primary breadwinner and the wife remaining in the private sphere. After realizing that the former slaves wanted to conform to this ideal of femininity, the Bureau allowed for exceptions, if the woman was married and if she had children to take care of. Otherwise, she was at risk under the Black codes of being arrested as a vagrant if she was unemployed.

Education One of the most important pieces of the Freedmen’s Bureau was to create an education system similar to those seen in the North. Prior to the emancipation, slaves were not allowed to read or write by fear that they would challenge the South’s social hierarchy. After the emancipation, Northern missionaries and philanthropists went to the South to found schools. The American Missionary Association was particularly active in founding schools. A number of teachers from Boston went to the South to teach, and a large number of the new Southern schools were modeled after schools in Boston (curriculum, schedule, pedagogy, even down to the furniture).

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The freedmen’s bureau was not only established in the South. There were branches all over the United States. There were several branches in Boston, a branch in Brookline, Cambridge, Concord, Dorchester, Framingham, Jamaica Plains, Newton, Roxbury, West Roxbury to name only those who were in very close proximity. Even Harvard had a Branch.

The reason for their presence is simple, between 1865 and 1877, a considerable number of former slaves migrated to the city seeking better opportunities and better treatment.

Migration After the Civil War, Boston found itself in an interesting position. Except for the War, textile, and leather industries in the suburbs, Boston did not have large industries. At the time, people could not commute daily between Boston and the North or South Shore (for example living in Boston and working in Lowell).

As a result, the competition for low working-class jobs was fierce. When African Americans came to the city, they challenged this already difficult situation. They entered a segregated space where their options were limited. Most found menial and non-specialized jobs, for example domestic work for women, janitorial or dock work for men. Of the 177,840 people living in Boston in 1860, 40,000 people were part of the working class. 11k were domestics, 9k were daily laborers, and 7,9K were clerks. The rest did piece work or odd jobs.

Let’s continue with the Reconstruction. In 1866, during the mid-term election, Radical Republicans take control of Congress. Here, I will be skipping a bit of the action to get the bigger lines of the Reconstruction. Most of what happened took place in the South and did not affect the city. However, what you have to remember is that Bostonians were hardliners against the South. They were the radicals who wanted the South to pay for what it had done. Even the Methodist Ministers Association of Boston, who met two weeks after Lincoln’s assassination, called for a hard line against the confederate leadership. At the meeting, they resolved:

“That no terms should be made with traitors, no compromise with rebels.... That we hold the National authority bound by the most solemn obligation to God and man to bring all the civil and military leaders of the rebellion to trial by due course of law, and when they are clearly convicted, to execute them.”

Let that sink for a second… that piece was resolved by the Methodist Ministers Association!

That being said, due to the rise of the Black Codes, the Radical Republicans knew that the South would never give African Americans the vote if they could help it. To counter this refusal, the federal government had to take measure to ensure equality. In 1866, Radical Republicans proposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Sumner had tried to abolish the word “white”

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from the naturalization laws in place but without success. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to anyone born in the United States (Birthright citizenship, notwithstanding one’s race).

In 1868, the 14th Amendment passed both Senate and the House of Representatives.

Here is the text of the first section of the Amendment: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Finally, they also passed the 15th Amendment, which gave African Americans the vote, in 1870.

Here is the text of the Amendment: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Ultimately, the Reconstruction ended with the election of 1877 and what we know as the Compromise of 1877. Through the Compromise, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected as a Republican candidate under the condition that he appointed a Democrat to his cabinet and fulfilled a few more conditions. Among was to pass a law where the federal government would promote and be an active part of the industrialization of the South

The problem with the 15th Amendment There is a large problem with the 15th Amendment for suffrage associations in the United States. If you remember well, we spoke about how the Abolitionist movement in the 1830s and 1840s had created a space for women to speak about their own rights alongside Black rights. Women had assimilated their condition to that of African Americans in the nation: They were not free, they belonged to their husbands, they had no political rights, and so on and so forth.

When the push for the Black vote began after the Civil War, two factions of the suffrage movement emerge.

• On one side, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pushed to add the term “sex” as a non-discrimination clause in the 15th Amendment. Their understanding was that if they did not seize the opportunity to do so at this specific moment in history, they might not be able to secure the vote for another 100 years (they were almost right). They believed that they should prioritize the white middle-class women’s vote over the Black working-class men’s vote for example. They even disparaged Frederick Douglass who could not believe how racist they were. Douglass highlighted the fact that Black men were lynched in the South and that

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white women were not. He believed that this should be a justification as to why Blacks should get the vote first. In 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony split from the National Suffrage Association to form the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which opposed the 15th Amendment and continued to advocate for a federal amendment to get the vote.

• On the other hand, Bostonians formed a different association. Lucy Stone, her husband Henry Blackwell, Josephine Ruffin, and Julia Ward Howe supported the 15th Amendment. They were fervent abolitionists who believed in equality. They understood the importance of passing the 15th Amendment at this juncture. They also understood that if they wanted to secure women’s right to vote, they could create an alliance with Black men, as a quid pro quo, to secure the vote later. They created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) which opted for a state by state campaign instead of a federal Amendment.