A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY (Part 3)

Henry Chadwick's grave, Green-Wood Cemetery

After I found one of the families at the center of my current book project, I sauntered over to the final resting place of Henry Chadwick. An engraved plaque affixed to the monument that the National League dedicated to Chadwick at Green-Wood grandiosely declared him "Father of Base Ball." But Chadwick, an Englishman whose skill lay in his pen rather than a bat, was known as the preeminent writer on baseball. The English born player of ball games such as rounders and cricket arrived in the United States in 1837 and later took a job as a cricket reporter for the New York Times. He first observed the American game of "base ball" in 1856 when he happened upon a spirited match played by two New York clubs on the Elysian Fields that reflected an aggressive, high-energized characteristic of mid-nineteenth century Americans: “Americans do not care to dawdle over a sleep-inspiring game, all through the heat of a June or July day,” Chadwick wrote. “What they do they want to do in a hurry. In baseball all is lightning; every action is as swift as a seabird’s flight.”


Henry Chadwick, 1874

Thus the title of "father of base ball" bestowed upon Chadwick at the time of his death in 1908 must be a mistake if the game and rules of base ball had already been developed by the time Chadwick observed his match. Recent research seems to indicate that others, such as Daniel "Doc" Lucius  Adams, are perhaps more fitting of that title due to their part in developing the rules of the national game. At the very least, Adams and those who developed the rules in the 1840s, are among the "founding fathers of baseball." Chadwick, however, popularized baseball among working-class Americans by translating his passion for the sport into regular columns that he contributed to the New York Clipper and Sunday Mercury. According to baseball historian John Thorn, Chadwick was baseball's greatest booster, who pioneered the box-score with copious statistics that aided his reporting. Chadwick later wrote in his 1868 Game of Base Ball:

"I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans . . . as much so as cricket is for England. . . . I began to invent a method of giving detailed reports of leading contests at base ball, and, seeing that every thing connected with the game, almost, was new, its rules crude and hastily prepared, with no systematized plan of recording the details of a game, and, in fact, no fixed method of either playing or scoring it, as soon as I became earnestly interested in the subject I began to submit amendments to the rules of the game to the consideration of the fraternity, generally in the form of suggestions through the press, my first improvement introduced being an innovation on the simple method of scoring then in vogue. Step by step, little by little, either directly or indirectly, did I succeed in assisting to change the game from the almost simple field exercise it was . . . to the manly, scientific game of ball it is now."

For more on Chadwick and his role in scoring the national game, see this 2009 NPR piece.

Chadwick biographer, Andrew Schiff contributed the following brief biography for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

A diamond complete with bases surrounds Chadwick's monument at Green-Wood Cemetery.

 

 

Henry Chadwick's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame

A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY (Part 2)

Before I got on the subway for the ride back into Manhattan, I made one last stop in Green-Wood to see the final resting place of George Catlin, American painter, author, and traveler who specialized in portraits of American Indians in the Old West (more on Catlin's life and artwork below). Apparently, Catlin's in-laws did not think much of him. Instead of being buried next to his wife, who his in-laws made the centerpiece of their family lot, Catlin and his son were placed in the back of the lot.



George Catlin, by William Fisk 1849

However, in 2012, sculptor John Coleman honored Catlin by donating "The Greeter," a depiction of Black Moccasin, a Hidasta chief who met Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in council on the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota during their expedition of the Louisiana Territory and the West.

 

 

Catlin journeyed to meet Black Moccasin in 1832 and painted the elder chief for his Indian gallery. Here is Catlin's 1832 portrait of Black Moccasin:

George Catlin, Eh-toh'k-pah-she-pée-shah, Black Moccasin, aged Chief (1832)
“The chief sachem of this tribe [Hidatsa/Minitari] is a very ancient and patriarchal looking man . . . and counts, undoubtedly, more than a hundred snows. I have been for some days an inmate of his hospitable lodge, where he sits tottering with age, and silently reigns sole monarch of his little community around him, who are continually dropping in to cheer his sinking energies, and render him their homage. His voice and his sight are nearly gone; but the gestures of his hands are yet energetic and youthful, and freely speak the language of his kind heart . . . I have . . . painted his portrait as he was seated on the floor of his wigwam, smoking his pipe, whilst he was recounting over to me some of the extraordinary feats of his life, with a beautiful Crow robe wrapped around him, and his hair wound up in a conical form upon his head, and fastened with a small wooden pin, to keep it in its place . . . This man has many distinct recollections of Lewis and Clark, who were the first explorers of this country, and who crossed the Rocky Mountains thirty years ago.” According to George Catlin, Black Moccasin’s long-stemmed pipe was a calumet, or peace pipe, “mutually smoked by the chiefs, after the terms of the treaty are agreed upon.” Black Moccasin had been a chief when Lewis and Clark visited the Hidatsa village in the winter of 1804-05; Catlin reckoned he was 105 years old in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, nos. 23, 29, 1841; reprint 1973)

 

George Catlin was born July 26, 1796 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His interest in Native Americans may have begun at an early age with tales of his mother’s capture (and safe return) when she was seven by Iroquois Indians and his family’s friendly contact with an Oneida family. Many details about him remain a mystery, but he was determined to paint and document as many American Indians as possible, afraid westward expansion would destroy them and their ways of life. Catlin started his professional life as a lawyer, studying in Litchfield, Connecticut, being admitted to the Bar in 1818 and working with his brother Charles. George began trying his hand at being a miniature painter and portraitist soon after. In 1820 he moved to Philadelphia, living and working as an artist becoming close friends with portraitist Thomas Sully’s future son-in-law, John Neagle. Catlin began exhibiting artwork at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts being elected an academician in 1824. In 1826 Catlin moved to New York and became a member of the National Academy of Design. During this time he painted his first Indian portrait, the Seneca Chief, Red Jacket.

George married Clara Bartlett Gregory in Albany, New York in 1828, with George continuing to work as a portraitist on the East Coast. Wanting to travel west George went to St. Louis in 1830 to meet with Gen. William Clark, commissioner of the new Missouri Territory, hoping to travel with Clark and other military expeditions. In 1832 George began what was to become his most famous era of travel, first traveling up the Missouri River to Fort Union. During this trip Catlin painted a number of Indian tribes, including Sioux, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Mandan. George exhibited his growing collection in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and New Orleans. Catlin continued to travel including with an 1834 expedition led by General Leavenworth and Colonel Dodge to Fort Gibson, near Pawnee and Comanche territories in today’s southern Oklahoma. George and Clara traveled up the Mississippi River to Fort Snelling where he was able to paint Sioux, Chippewa, Saux, and Fox. Catlin opened his Indian Gallery in New York City in 1837 with shows in D.C., Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia. During this time George tried unsuccessfully many times to have the U.S. Government buy his collection.

With declining interest in his exhibit and the failure to have his collection bought by Congress, George set off for England in 1839. The Indian Gallery opened at the Egyptian Hall in London in 1840. With great personal expense, George self-published Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians in 1841. Catlin exhibited his collection in England and elsewhere in Europe, eventually storing the paintings and traveling with performers while he told of his encounters in the American West with artifacts and props. In 1843, he hired nine Ojibwa Indians to travel with the show throughout the U.K. He then hired and toured with 14 Iowa Indians. In 1845, Catlin moved his family and the Iowa to Paris. He toured with the Iowa in Europe while also enjoying the patronage of the French King, Louis-Phillippe. During this period Catlin also painted a series of works depicting the LaSalle Expedition. Unfortunately, the French monarchy fell and George fled to England with his children. Having incurred massive debts throughout his life and now in England, he was forced to put his Indian Gallery up for auction. Railroad tycoon Joseph Harrison agreed to buy the collection in its entirety in exchange for paying off most of Catlin’s debt. Catlin spent much of the rest of his life trying to replicate his Gallery from notes, sketches, and memory making up his Cartoon Collection, which was exhibited at the Smithsonian (1872) after returning to America in 1870, having spent 31 years abroad. Catlin died in New Jersey surrounded by remaining family December 23, 1872.

For more on George Catlin and many of his works, see the Smithsonian American Art Museum's George Catlin webpage.

Battle between Sioux and Sauk and Fox by George Catlin (painted in Paris 1846-48)
George Catlin prized the authenticity of his depictions of Native Americans, and cited the “historical fact” that the Sioux warrior “killed and scalped on his horse’s back.” Catlin painted this work in Paris between 1846 and 1848, when he was creating dramatic, more highly finished paintings for a European clientele hungry for the romance of the American West.

George Catlin, Ball-play of the Women, Prairie du Chien (1835-1836)
George Catlin witnessed Choctaw lacrosse in Indian Territory in 1834, but a year later, at Prairie du Chien in today’s Wisconsin, Catlin saw and recorded the Eastern Sioux/Dakota version of ball-play. He later described the game: “In the ball-play of the women, they have two balls attached to the ends of a string, about a foot and a half long; and each woman has a short stick in each hand, on which she catches the string with the two balls, and throws them, endeavoring to force them over the goal of her own party.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 52, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)

Note: Catlin biographical information courtesy of the Sid Richardson Museum

A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn NY (Part 1)

During my recent trip to New York City, while visiting Col. Frank McNulty and his family, who I have written about in Knoxville's Million Dollar Fire, I just had to stop in and see a couple folks that I teach about in my American history survey courses. 

In Part 1, I will be sharing some pictures that I took of the final resting places of Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley. But first, a little history on the place that they call home--Green-Wood Cemetery.

Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. By the early 1860s, it had earned an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the prestigious place to be buried in New York, attracting 500,000 visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked there to enjoy family outings, carriage rides, and sculpture viewing in the finest of first generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks.

Green-Wood is 478 acres of hills (lots of hills!), valleys, glacial ponds and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. Four seasons of beauty from century-and-a-half-old trees offer a peaceful oasis to visitors, as well as its 560,000 permanent residents. A magnet for history buffs and bird watchers, Green-Wood is a Revolutionary War historic site (the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776 across what is now its grounds), a designated site on the Civil War Discovery Trail and a registered member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System.
  

The Statue of Liberty can be seen from the gates of Green-Wood at 25th Street & 5th Avenue. 

Before the trees bloom, Greenwood's west side includes some beautiful views of Manhattan.

 

The highest portion of the cemetery is also the highest elevation of Brooklyn. It also the point that honors New Yorkers in the military. The monument on top of the hill honors New York's Union soldiers.

First up, Henry Ward Beecher, whose recent biographer labeled him "the most famous man in America." Beecher, a brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, found fame when he shed his father's Old Testament style fire-and-brimstone theology for a New Testament based gospel of unconditional love and healing. By the 1850s, his sermons in Brooklyn Heights became a large draw and he soon immersed himself into nearly every important drama of the era, most notably the anti-slavery and women's suffrage movements.

 

Second, is Horace Greeley, who possibly sported the coolest neck-beard of the 19th century. Founder and editor of the New York Tribune, Greeley was an eccentric social reformer, an ardent opponent of slavery, and erratic political strategist and failed presidential aspirant. Greeley continuously pressed Lincoln to emancipate the South's four million slaves during the Civil War. After a powerful mid-August 1862 editorial, Lincoln responded in an August 22 letter (perhaps the most significant letter written during by Lincoln as president) addressed to Greeley that was intended to both prepare and shape northern public opinion as he waited patiently for a Union victory to announce what only a few insiders knew at the time--that the president intended to use his broad executive powers as Commander-in-Chief to emancipate all slaves behind Confederate lines.

 

 

 

Attorney General Sessions, a Scalawag?

Although I try to avoid modern politics on this blog, the comments by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a proud Alabamian who has waxed fondly about the Ku Klux Klan, opposed civil rights legislation, and someone who has long since favored and promoted a white supremacist view of American history, is certainly worthy of being included here. Today, the Attorney General spoke as the keynote speaker before the Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia on the 16th president's 209th birthday and proceeded to finally dismiss the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War that he and so many Southerners have been raised to believe.    

"The thing was brewing from the beginning of the Republic," Sessions said. "Though many Southerners try to say otherwise--and I love my people--slavery was the cause of the war. It was not states' rights or tariffs or agrarian versus industrial economies. Those issues were all solvable and would have been solved. The cloud, the stain of human bondage--the buying and selling of human beings--was the unsolvable problem and was omnipresent from the beginning of the country. And the failure, the refusal of the South to come to grips with it, really to actually change this immoral system of enslavement led to the explosion," Sessions said. "As to slavery, it had to end. The nation could stand the disgrace no longer."

Although I know my neo-Confederate friends and I would like to see video proof of these comments, for now, I can only assume that either Sessions has at long last finally accepted real facts or else he's lost his bonkers and will be shortly on his way out of the administration once the SCV raises hell about this Scalawag!  

East Tenn. marble stone depicts Knoxvillian's "Last Lap" at Indy

We shall push this one a bit in terms of 19th century; however, the subject, A.J. "Pete" Kreis, was indeed born in 1900. Although I have lived in Knoxville nearly 14 years, I never knew until the other day that Knoxville has a connection, albeit a tragic one, with the Indianapolis 500. For a brief account of Kreis and his tragic racing accident at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as he prepared for the 1934 running of the Indy 500, please see the stories of my good friend, Mark Aubrey and Bill Dockery. I am, however, more fascinated with the beautiful 9-ton slab of East Tennessee marble quarried at the Appalachian Marble Quarry Company near the Forks of the River, a quarry owned by Pete's own father, John Kreis, and his family.

Kreis' 9-ton marble headstone shines on a sunny East TN afternoon. Courtesy of Find A Grave's website

Thompson Digital Collection

The Thompson photographic collection held at the McClung Historical Collection includes a photograph of the Kreis monument ordered in August 1935 and carved by Knoxville sculptor Albert Milani, who included the driver and the race starter, surrounded by the "Brickyard," a time when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was paved completely in bricks. Kreis's race car, carved also out of the slab of marble, is seen topping the wall in turn 1, where he and Bob Hahn, his ride-along mechanic, left the track at nearly 100 mph and was cut into two when it hit a tree. Kreis died instantly, his mechanic succumbed to his injuries moments after being removed from the wreckage.



So on this dreary day, after "base ball" practice in a driving downpour, one of my Holstons' teammates and I ventured over to Asbury Cemetery to see Kreis and his last lap at Indy. With some minor exceptions, notably the car itself, the marble stone has been maintained in excellent shape.

 

 

Sadly, a couple of the car's tires and its occupants show damage over the years

Tragically, both brothers died in car accidents 2 years a part.

 

 

The "Southern Rights" Flag

Yesterday, while out running errands, I spotted a striking, bright red flag flowing in the brisk wind from the back of a pickup truck parked at a local restaurant. I could easily see a large white star and something written above it also in white, but that was it. I thought the flag looked familiar; however, I could not put my finger on where I had seen it before. So I drove over to get a closer look. From a distance of twenty or so feet I could finally see "Southern Rights" clearly written above the star. Only then, did I recall the flag and its historical significance.

 

Interestingly, it is the first time I have ever seen such a flag flown in public, let alone that it was either hand made or available for purchase. I had only seen this flag before in a textbook and an image on the internet. It is a curious flag, but in light of the criticisms of the Confederate flag and political sentiments in the South, odd that perhaps it is not flown more regularly (perhaps this has something more to do with the company I keep).

Before I discuss the historical significance of the flag, why not get a quick definition and historical context for "Southern Rights," eh? I will take the easy route here and simply reference a portion of Christopher Owen's encyclopedia entry for "southern rights movement" online to suffice.  

 

"For the greater part of American history, a disposition to resist federal authority has flourished in the South. Regional leaders have frequently expressed concern that national majorities would overwhelm southern institutions through control of the federal government. Consequently, southern politicians and intellectuals developed theories designed to prevent such interference. Frequently, linked to the defense of slavery, these notions evolved over the first half of the nineteenth century, culminating in the secession of eleven southern states in 1860 and 1860. Yet defense of southern rights continued well into the twentieth century, often aiding white political supremacy and the Jim Crow system of state-mandated racial segregation."

 

Fairly straightforward, eh? One can read the brief entry in its entirety at the link above, which traces the evolution from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson's Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, respectively, which established the core foundation for the southern rights case in contesting broad federal authority in the early Republic through the Civil War and Jim Crow eras to modern times. Essentially, Madison and Jefferson, as the southern rights movement's "founding fathers," argued that the Constitution, as it was written in 1798 with its then 11 amendments (Jefferson and his party would oversee the addition of a 12th Amendment), established the boundaries of federal power, and that the federal government should not trample on powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.  

 

Now, what about that "Southern Rights" flag? To the lay person, this bright, flashy flag may sum up their political sentiments. Perhaps they may even have an inkling that it is an actual historical flag, much as the "Don't Tread on Me" flags that seem to be in vogue again to express one's political beliefs. However, the gentleman who has chosen to fly the "Southern Rights" that I spotted yesterday may be best served to know that by flying this flag, he is doing exactly what the designers behind this flag in 1856 intended--to link the "southern rights" cause to slavery and its expansion across the nation.

 

What are the origins of the Southern Rights flag? The flag belonged to the Palmetto Guards, a group of armed South Carolinians who brought this flag (it also featured the words "South Carolina" on the other side) with them to Kansas in 1856 to establish the then federal territory as a slave state in the Union. Stop. Let that sink in for a minute. The flag of the Palmetto Guards is a reminder that southerners came to settle Kansas as a slave state, thus directly linking the southern rights movement to the expansion of slavery in the United States on the eve of the Civil War, which had been an ongoing vigorous contest waged between abolitionists (mostly Northerners) and Southern pro-slavery advocates ever since the Missouri Crisis of 1820.

 

Compromise, or rather, appeasement, had kept a tight lid on the dangerous tensions that had been brewing since before the signing of the United States Constitution. But everyone knew that Kansas, without another state to balance the number of free and slave states, would alter the power between North and South. But first, Kansas required a constitution--a constitution that the United States Congress approved before it could gain admittance to the Union. Only those residing in the territory would be eligible to cast a ballot to decide Kansas' status as either free or unfree. Thus anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces made a mad dash west to Kansas. All of these factors ensured that the admission of Kansas, wrapped up in the political struggle over slavery, would not occur without a fight.

 

The Palmetto Guards came armed for that fight (just as militant abolitionists such as John Brown did ushering in a period known as Bleeding Kansas). The Guards' goal was clear--to drive the abolitionists or free-staters from the Kansas territory. They carried the "Southern Rights" flag into battle when they drove a town of free-staters from Lawrence, Kansas, sacking the town on May 21, 1856. Prior to burning the town to the ground, they flew their flag proudly over both the Herald of Freedom (an abolitionist newspaper and symbol of the movement) and the Free State Hotel (the headquarters of the free-state movement). It is said that after the sacking of Lawrence, that the flag was prominently displayed at a banquet in Atchison, Kansas where "the most ultra slavery toasts were given, and the subjugation of Kansas by the victors of Lawrence, was spoken of by the Southerners as a thing achieved."

Palmetto Guards' "Southern Rights" flag (Kansas Museum of History)

 

But on September 11, 1856, the Palmetto Guards' luck ran out when a company of free-state men led by Captain James Harvey caught up with them, catching them by surprise as they camped along the Slough Creek. The Guards were overwhelmed and the flag was taken as a trophy. Harvey later presented it to Colonel E.B. Whitman of Lawrence who subsequently donated it to the Kansas Historical Society, which has preserved it and it currently sits on display inside the Kansas Museum of History.  

 

If you want to purchase a shirt with the "Southern Rights" flag proudly displayed on an appropriate gray background, for a modest $17.95-$19.95, you can visit Dixie Republic's website. But please carefully note the description underneath the flag on the shirt:

 

"This banner signifies The South's struggle for independence." 

 

Of course, now you know the historical context behind that flag, a flag that proudly boasts "southern rights" and which continues to be  appropriated for the southern rights movement was one originally taken into battle to establish a slave state for the South and to expand the cancerous tentacles of the institution of slavery into the western reaches of the Union.  

Source: Kansas Historical Society, "Southern Rights Flag"

Savannah: 1864's Must Have Christmas Gift

Christmas 1864 would be the last Christmas of the United States Civil War. The war had taken an ominous turn for the so-called Confederacy long before the winter solstice. President Abraham Lincoln's Triumvirate, Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip Sheridan, and their armies were unleashing total war, demonstrating to Southerners that Johnny Reb could not protect them and their property from Billy Yank as he rolled through Northern Virginia, coastal Georgia, and the Shenandoah Valley employing a "scorched earth policy" to inflict maximum psychological, economic, and tactical damage. Moreover, the Republicans triumphed in the 1864 elections with Lincoln securing four more years in the White House. Lincoln's reelection doomed Southern hopes of establishing an independent slave republic rooted in white supremacy. A Republican triumph at the ballot box and the trail of destruction left in the wake of advancing Union armies devastated Southern morale.



New York Times, Dec. 26, 1864

By mid-December, Sherman's army reached the outskirts of Savannah, completing his "March to the Sea," a 285-mile trek across Georgia that had begun in Atlanta on November 15. He prepared for a siege of the city; however, Southern forces managed to escape Savannah on December 21, thus forcing the city's residents to surrender one of the last major ports that remained open to the Rebels. Sherman wired Lincoln the next day with a message notifying him that he had captured Savannah. Sherman's message was published in the December 26 edition of the New York Times. It read:

 

“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty (150) heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand (25000) bales of cotton.”

Telegram from Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman to Abraham Lincoln, December 22, 1864.(National Archives Identifier: 301637 ); Series: Telegrams Sent by the Field Office of the Military Telegraph and Collected by the Office of the Secretary of War., 1860 - 1870; Records of the Office of the Secretary of War; Record Group 107; National Archives.

 

President Lincoln replied to Sherman in a letter dated December 24: “Many, many thanks for your Christmas-gift—the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours.” The end of the Southern rebellion was in sight.

But first, Sherman, Lincoln, and the Republican Congress moved against slavery by taking the first steps towards making emancipation a reality. On January 16, 1865, Sherman issued his Special Orders No. 15, which seized a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina to the St. John's River, Florida, including Georgia's Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. The order redistributed some 400,000 acres of land to approximately 40,000 newly freed black families in an effort to break the Southern slaveholders' power. From Sherman's perspective, the policy, dividing southern lands into forty acre segments, was intended primarily for military expediency, to free his army from the problem of black refugees. But the policy, long advocated by the more radical, racial egalitarian elements of the Republican party, was also favored by most Republicans who viewed it as a solution to sustaining the freed people's newly won liberty by providing them with forty-acre tracts of land as they prepared for the transition from the cradle of slavery to freedom. Meanwhile, Lincoln, working hand-in-hand with the Republican Congress, pushed for the 13th Amendment, thereby making emancipation of slavery law of the land when Georgia ratified the amendment on December 6, 1865, becoming the 27th of 36 states (then in the Union) to ratify the amendment thus meeting the three-fourths constitutional requirement. With the federal government beginning to take the first steps towards safeguarding the freedom of the South's nearly four million slaves, the Rebels faced two options: either continue the war under the risk of total annihilation or accept peace under the laws of the United States. A divided Union with slavery was no longer an option.

rrender Your Arms to us and Obey the Laws of the United States." Following Lincoln's reelection, the Rebels faced two options, either continue the war under the risk of total annihilation or accept peace under the laws of the United States. A divided Union with slavery was no longer an option.
President Lincoln replied to Sherman in a letter dated December 24: “Many, many thanks for your Christmas-gift—the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours.” The end of the Southern rebellion was in sight. But first, Sherman, Lincoln, and the Republican Congress moved against slavery by making emancipation a reality. On January 16, 1865, Sherman issued his Special Orders No. 15, which seized a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina to the St. John's River, Florida, including Georgia's Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. The order redistributed some 400,000 acres of land to approximately 40,000 newly freed black families in an effort to break the Southern slaveholders' power. From Sherman's perspective, the policy, dividing southern lands into forty acre segments, was intended primarily for military expediency, to free his army from the problem of black refugees. But the policy, long advocated by the more radical, racial egalitarian elements of the Republican party, was also favored by most Republicans who viewed it as a solution to sustaining the freedpeople's newly won liberty by providing them with forty acre tracts of land as they prepared for the transition from the cradle of slavery to freedom. Meanwhile, Lincoln, working hand-in-hand with the Republican Congress, pushed for the 13th Amendment, thereby making the abolition of slavery law of the land. The Rebels faced two options: either continue the war under the risk of total annihilation or accept peace under the laws of the United States. A divided Union with slavery was no longer an option.

It was here at the Green-Meldrim Mansion that General William Sherman set up headquarters and offered Savannah as a Christmas gift to President Lincoln. It was also that the site that Sherman, after meeting with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and twenty leaders of South Carolina's African American community, issued Special Field Orders No. 15 at this location.

 

 "Lincoln's Christmas Box to Jeff Davis" (Phunny Phellow, 1864)

Abraham Lincoln gestures toward two boxes, offering Jefferson Davis a choice. One box reads, "Four Years More War. Extermination. Confiscation. U.S. Soldiers to Have Your Lands. Death to All Traitors. No Armistice. Slavery and Rebellion Will Fill the Same Grave."

The other box reads, "Peace and Union. No Slavery. Surrender Your Arms to us and Obey the Laws of the United States."