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Abolitionists Or Volunteers? Abolitionists or Volunteers? Historical Memory and Oneida County during the American Civil War By: Barry J. Fitzgerald Barry J. Fitzgerald HIS 456 Final Draft April 26, 2011 In April 1861, following the shots fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion in the dissenting Southern states that now referred to themselves as the Confederacy. After the Union lost the first major battle in August of the same year, Lincoln issued two more calls for troops. The initial and subsequent calls for volunteers were heard in all corners of the Union states. Oneida County, New York, answered the chief executive’s call without delay. By the end of the war, this upstate county had contributed a great deal to the Union cause, including five infantry regiments that bore the name of their home county. Thousands of Oneida County men enlisted to fight in a war that would decide the fate of their country. Oneida County men fought for a variety of reasons. Their motives for enlisting however are not significantly different from other Union volunteers. Some enlisted to fight for the Union and for its preservation. Others fought to establish and/or retain their manhood and ego.1 Still, others fought with the wish to end the institution of slavery. Throughout the nation, citizens were beginning to grasp the scope of the war, but few it seemed were willing to see what was necessary to ensure that when the war ended, America would not be thrust into such turmoil again. Some knew that the institution of slavery would need to end if peace was to be achieved and maintained. Abolitionists and many Republicans with anti-slavery beliefs knew that it was at the heart of the problem. Yet this issue, which is so clear in retrospect, was all but obvious in the eyes of the foot soldier. 1 James McPherson examines soldiers’ motives for enlisting in the American Civil War in his book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). He details the two most common forms of manhood in Victorian America: a dutiful son or husband, and “the hard-drinking, gambling, whoring two-fisted man among men.” McPherson also writes of another motive for enlistment that he connects with manhood: “the quest for adventure, for excitement, for the glory to be won by ‘whipping’ the enemy and returning home as heroes to an adoring populace.” He is able to connect these motives by looking at the letters of soldiers who “linked the themes of adventure and glory to concepts of manhood and honor” (pp. 26-27). 2 Barry J. Fitzgerald HIS 456 Final Draft April 26, 2011 Prior to the election of 1860, Oneida County had been known as a hotbed of anti-slavery activities.2 Parts of the Underground Railroad ran through towns and cities in Oneida County, and Utica, New York, was also a stop for Lincoln on his journey to Washington for his inauguration. The county was also the birthplace of abolitionist Gerrit Smith. The area’s reputation lasted well beyond the end of the Civil War and continues even to this day.3 Even though Oneida County had a reputation of voting along party lines that tended to be anti-slavery, the average Oneida County soldier did not fight to free the slaves. In fact, some were adamant that they would not fight to free them, and others failed to mention or even allude to the issue at all. Of course, there were some men who fought to preserve the Union and also wished to end the institution of slavery, but their numbers are fewer. Through the letters of some of Oneida County’s soldiers, it becomes clear that, despite the area’s reputation as a center of abolitionism, the majority of Oneida County men did not fight to end slavery. By looking at collections of letters and diaries of several Oneida County soldiers, this paper seeks to demonstrate the conflict between memory and history. The letters and diaries of these soldiers show that many men from Oneida County did not have any feelings at all that one could call abolitionist or anti-slavery. While the elections of 1860 show popular backing for local Republican politicians, it is clear that they were not elected solely because the area was heavily anti-slavery.4 The writings of these men show that. They went to war to preserve the Union, or 2 It is important to note the difference between abolitionist and anti-slavery men. Abolitionists were proposing to end slavery, while those with anti-slavery beliefs felt that the spread of slavery should be stopped, not necessarily the institution. An article that deals with this issue is: William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, “Antislavery Ambivalence: Immediatism, Expediency, Race,” American Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 682-695. 3 The county’s historical reputation today is regarded as an area of abolitionism. In reality, Oneida County was a hotbed for anti-slavery sentiments, not abolitionism. 4 The Republican Party was founded by a combination of smaller political factions like the Free Soil Party and others. One of the goals of the party was to stop the spread of slavery into the West. Eric Foner provides an in-depth look at the foundation and politics of the Republican Party prior to the Civil War in Free Soil, Free Labor, and Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War, (New York: Oxford University Press: 1995). 3 Barry J. Fitzgerald HIS 456 Final Draft April 26, 2011 for reasons of pride and masculinity, but not typically to fight for the emancipation of slaves. In truth, some men chose not to reenlist after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted in January 1863. Not only had these volunteers had enough of their commanders, in both Washington and on the field of battle, they also refused to risk their lives for the slaves’ freedom. These men would not seem to fit the historical memory of Oneida County as a hotbed of abolitionist feelings.5 Certainly, this is not meant to be a paper that shows that men from Oneida County were the only men in the United States who did not want to fight to free the slaves. Rather, the purpose is to show that even though there is an existing reputation of this area as anti- slavery and/or abolitionist, many soldiers from the county were not representative of this political feeling. The Historical Memory of Oneida County Oneida County’s reputation as a hotbed of abolitionism has some basis in fact. As history has progressed however, the facts have become somewhat exaggerated and combined. Yet even as the historical memory might be somewhat misleading, there was a faction of abolitionists in Oneida County. “The overriding memory, at least among historians, is that Utica and Oneida 5 David W. Blight’s book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), covers the issue of historical memory and the Civil War in detail. Blight’s main discussion focuses on three different types of Civil War memory, (reconciliationist memory, the white supremacist vision, and the emancipationist vision), which clashed, and continue to clash to this day. His argument is that the reconciliationist vision overpowered the vision of the emancipationists, and the issues of slavery and emancipation were pushed aside in the interest of healing the wounds of the divided nation (p. 2). Though this discussion does not focus on the argument that I am making, Blight’s discussion is nonetheless significant because it addresses a disconnect between the history and the historical memory of the Civil War. In this case, the memory of Oneida County as a hotbed of abolitionism conflicts with the writings of the soldiers who fought for the Union. 4 Barry J. Fitzgerald HIS 456 Final Draft April 26, 2011 County made a significant contribution to the great debate on slavery.”6 The author who wrote this was making the case for the significance of the county in the abolitionist movement. Religion had long been an influential part of Oneida County during this time period. Presbyterians had founded the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro which was to become the first institution of higher education in the country to admit African Americans. Its critics referred to it as the “Negro School,” because it educated so many black students, including an influential member of the abolitionist movement, Henry Highland Garnet.7 The Oneida Institute also founded the first Abolition Society in the state and was an underground railway stop. Other graduates from the Oneida Institute, like Theodore Weld, lectured to local communities on the abolitionist movement and the horrors of slavery.8 In 1844, when the Oneida Institute fell on hard times, the property and school were sold to a religious group known as the Freewill Baptists. The Baptists opened the school to even greater numbers of students than had been enrolled before. It was renamed the Whitestown Seminary, and it would remain open until 1884. An alumnus remarked, “Whitestown Seminary is the only school of a high order in this state, that is conducted upon the anti-slavery principle.”9 Many writers stress the importance of Oneida County for the abolitionist cause. Richard Manzelmann, for example, wrote, “Ultimately, the impulse for this important movement can be traced back to Oneida County and this strange wedding between revivalism and reform.”10 6 Richard L. Manzelmann, “Revivalism and Reform,” in The History of Oneida County: Commemorating the Bicentennial of our National Independence, ed.
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