Category Archives: Abolitionism

March 26, 1863: Irish won’t fight for slaves

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Allen Gathman

I always take reports of Northern disunity from the Richmond Daily Dispatch with a grain of salt. Still, there’s considerable evidence of enmity between recent Irish immigrants and freed blacks at the time. The Yankee Irish soldiers. –An Irish Legion … Continue reading →

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February 19, 1863: Fighting for the negro.

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Allen Gathman

The Richmond Daily Dispatch ridicules the North for fighting to free African-Americans. After all, they’re better off as slaves, right? Fighting for the negro. One of the few indications of reason and common sense which has been given by any … Continue reading →

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January 21, 1863: Enlisting black troops

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Allen Gathman

The Richmond Daily Dispatch reports Thaddeus Stevens’ plan to enlist black troops, and outlines the South’s policy toward them. The editor was convinced that former slaves would enlist only under duress, and that they would be unsuitable as soldiers in … Continue reading →

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December 14, 1862: “Abolitionists” reach the Yocknapatawpha River

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Allen Gathman

Turns out that the original name of the Yocona River, which flows by Water Valley, MS, a town midway between Holly Springs and Grenada, was the Yocknapatawpha. Or, as this item in the Richmond Daily Dispatch calls it, the “Yockmapatapa”. … Continue reading →

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November 15, 1862: “Abolitionists” captured

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Allen Gathman

I notice that starting about this time, after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Richmond Daily Dispatch always refers to captured Union soldiers as “abolitionists”. Arrival of Abolitionists. –Eleven Yankee soldiers, belonging to a New York regiment, who were captured at Gaines’s … Continue reading →

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November 14, 1862: Contrabands were better off slaves?

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Allen Gathman

The Richmond Daily Dispatch indulges in a little schadenfreude over the condition of the poor contrabands, who of course were better off as slaves. The correspondent in Cairo seems to find it perverse that the freedmen he talks to don’t … Continue reading →

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November 12, 1862: Democrats, get over it.

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Allen Gathman

The New York Times editor gives a very cogent argument for the Emancipation Proclamation, and in particular for the view that the Democrats shouldn’t get all excited calling it abolitionism, because it’s purely a war measure. a) If the Republicans … Continue reading →

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October 31, 1862: Nothing scares the South like emancipation

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Allen Gathman

A letter to the editor of the New York Times says that it’s just politicians complaining about the Emancipation Proclamation; in the field, the army says it’s about time we used all our weapons to win the war. The letter … Continue reading →

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October 17, 1862: Democrats can’t preserve the Union

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Allen Gathman

The New York Times editor describes a conversation with a captured rebel, calling for the Democrats to win — but concludes that it’s all a ruse. The Democrats will wind up letting the South secede because they’re not unconditionally unionist. … Continue reading →

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October 15, 1862: An overview of the Western situation

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Allen Gathman

Buell. Would he be faster in 3D? A correspondent for the New York Times gives a pretty rosy view of the outcome of the summer and fall campaigns in the west. Bragg is routed, Van Dorn and Price are beaten, … Continue reading →

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