“AN UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE”: MILITARY RECRUITMENT IN NEW YORK STATE DURING THE CIVIL WAR By © 2017 William D. Hickox Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________________________ Chair: Sheyda Jahanbani ____________________________________ Co-Chair: Jennifer L. Weber ____________________________________ Theodore A. Wilson ____________________________________ Peter H. Welsh ____________________________________ Laura L. Mielke Date Defended: 1 September 2017 The dissertation committee for William D. Hickox certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: “An Uprising of the People”: Military Recruitment in New York State During the Civil War ____________________________________ Chair: Sheyda Jahanbani ____________________________________ Co-Chair: Jennifer L. Weber Date Approved: 1 September 2017 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the experiences of New Yorkers during the American Civil War as they participated in mobilization while striving to preserve their own autonomy and that of their state and communities. At the war’s beginning in 1861, New York State was preeminent for having the largest population and strongest economy of the United States, and Governor Edwin D. Morgan had an influential role in the Republican Party. The federal government assigned manpower quotas and other directives but relied on—and often deferred to—state governments and their citizens in military recruitment. In a society of small government infrastructure, Morgan and other leaders depended on the support of ordinary citizens, their communities, and associational culture to raise manpower. New Yorkers saw the war effort as voluntary—even after the advent of conscription in late 1862—and tried to mitigate the conflict’s drastic social and economic effects by securing enough volunteers to avoid drafting, opening the military’s ranks to nearly anyone willing to serve, and debating the terms of their obligations to the cause. The second half of the war saw widespread recruitment fraud and conflicts over quotas as New Yorkers sought to preserve traditions of voluntarism and personal choice. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Scholarship is not and can never be a solitary endeavor, no matter how many times we wish for one more quiet night to read a source or finish writing a chapter. Behind each page of this dissertation are librarians, archivists, fellow historians, and friends, all of them willing and even eager to lend assistance. Together, they form an amazing group. My fellow graduate students in the KU History Department provided wisdom, inspiration, and comedy from day one. My advisor, the rest of my defense committee, and all my instructors at KU have been models of teaching, scholarship, and patience. An undergraduate advisor, Dr. Greg Downs, took the time to meet and discuss my research despite his own pressing work. This project would have been impossible without the help of numerous librarians and archivists at institutions up and down the East Coast. I extend a hearty thanks to my friend and ally at the New-York Historical Society, collections librarian Tammy Kiter, and her endless supply of sources, wit, and classic rock trivia. I am also grateful for the help of Joanna Lomaida at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Jim Gandy at the New York State Military Museum, Jim Folts at the New York State Archives, and numerous other unsung heroes of the archival world. The NYSA and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History honored me with research grants. My coworkers at the Spencer Museum of Art and the Watkins Museum of History have expressed interest and encouragement every daunting step of the way. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my family, especially my grandparents. They instilled in me a love of history, books, and storytelling. I thank my grandparents with all my heart and dedicate this dissertation to them. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………….. iii Acknowledgments ...…………………………………………………………………………... iv Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter One “Interests the Most Varied and Hopes the Most Exalted”: New Yorkers on the Eve of the Civil War …………………………………………………… 35 Chapter Two “The Enthusiastic Uprising of the People in Our Cause, is Our Great Reliance”: The Rush to Arms in 1861 ……………………………………………………………………. 75 Chapter Three “We Were for Going to the War in Our Own Way”: New Yorkers Battle for their Rights …………………………………………………………. 126 Chapter Four “Pouring in Like the Waters Over Niagara”: The Great Volunteer Drive of 1862 ………………………………………………………….. 165 Chapter Five “The Men Will Do Anything Rather than Go to War”: Conscription and Evolving Wartime Commitment ………………………………………….. 211 Chapter Six “If the People of New York Want the War to Close, They Must Fill Up the Ranks of Our Regiment”: Bitterness and Relief, 1863-1865 …………………………………………………………….. 258 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………. 302 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………….. 306 v INTRODUCTION Six weeks after the outbreak of the American Civil War, John J. Peck—an Onondaga County, New York, native destined for high rank in the Union Army—passionately defended his state’s right to appoint generals to command its own troops. The issue had become a sticking point for New Yorkers as they wrestled commitment to the national cause with their own local and state interests. Peck’s argument rested on the sacrifices New Yorkers had made and would continue making for the Union. “Now we are told that the Empire State is to have but one general,” Peck complained to the superintendent of the state’s Banking Department. “New York is to bear the brunt of this mighty conflict of arms,” he continued. “Her trade and commerce will be paralyzed, and her citizens made bankrupt. She will keep up national credit by taking the government loans. Already more than 25,000 of her best sons are in the field,” and three million dollars of state funds pledged for their needs. Residents of Onondaga, he continued, urged Governor Edwin D. Morgan to fight for their state’s sovereignty in the matter of the generals. New York deserved nothing less, given its current and future commitment. “When further calls are made,” Peck maintained, “she will respond with the same alacrity, and the same spirit of patriotism, already evinced by her people.”1 New Yorkers would indeed answer every call made upon them for troops, money, and other vital resources. But Peck’s state pride and the war’s massive scale led him into some faulty predictions. The war’s financial costs would indeed skyrocket, but most New Yorkers would not be bankrupted. Furthermore, they were not destined to feel the “brunt” of the war’s effects despite the sacrifices of many individuals. A good many of them, in fact, would experience 1 John J. Peck to H. H. Van Dyck, May 27, 1861, box 10, Edwin D. Morgan Papers, New York State Library (hereafter EDM Papers, NYSL). 1 America’s deadliest conflict as only a distraction from local and personal concerns.2 But Peck’s letter to an important financial official demonstrates how the war for the Union provoked smaller conflicts of autonomy between Lincoln’s administration and the states. Stemming from localism and small federal infrastructure, squabbles over states’ rights hindered mobilization at a time when the Union desperately relied on support from the loyal states. That state-level assistance itself grew out of patriotic efforts by communities and individuals across New York and the North. Peck’s words summarized New Yorkers’ belief that their monumental efforts on behalf of the Union earned them more respect and consideration from federal authorities—this, in fact, was one of few notions having virtually total support among residents of the deeply divided Empire State. Peck’s prediction of enormous economic hardship and additional calls for men also echoed a common refrain: The conflict engulfing America would likely be sustained and dreadful, requiring near-total commitment from Union loyalists. This idealistic concept of common sacrifice, never universally popular, would fade as the war ground on. By its third year, many New Yorkers looked to their leaders and communities to save them from having to sacrifice for the cause. The question of state authority in appointing generals that so captivated Peck was short-lived—the War Department soon cemented its right to select generals for federal forces—but the larger issues of state mobilization he connected to it did not. From first to last, recruitment of manpower formed a particularly inescapable and defining aspect of the war years. Arguments This dissertation looks at military recruitment—how legislators and officers planned it, how it happened at town rallies and provost marshal offices, and how it guided northern efforts 2 Thomas Summerhill, Harvest of Dissent: Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New York (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 4; J. Matthew Gallman, Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 128. 2 to win the war—through the prism of the Union’s richest, most populous state. Recruitment is considered here as the most vital component in wartime mobilization. During the Civil War era, “mobilization” almost always referred to preparing and moving forces on campaign.3 I use the term in its most common current definition as a nation’s process of gathering resources, especially troops, for war. I examine recruitment in New York State to argue that northerners saw the war effort as a voluntary endeavor from beginning to end. Raising manpower depended on the support of citizens and state leaders who jealously guarded their rights of democracy and choice; greater federal direction during the war reflected this reality. To a large extent, mobilization rested on popular support and non-governmental associations. My dissertation employs New Yorkers’ war experiences as a means and an end, presenting both a case study and a specific history of the state’s mobilization during the war years.