July 25, 1864---The Knights of The Golden Circle

JULY 25, 1864:         

 As the dark summer of 1864 continued, Lincoln’s popularity continued to plummet and the idea that he would occupy the White House after March 4^th next was nearing the inner bounds of outlandishness. Knowing that Lincoln’s defeat in November would mean the ascent of the Peace Democrats to power and likely Southern independence, the Confederate government was naturally motivated to create discord in the North on the scale of the New York City Draft Riots of the previous summer.

Jefferson Davis’ Cabinet devised a grandiose plan to infiltrate Confederate agents into northern cities, including Chicago and New York, and commit widespread acts of arson. Fifteen million dollars was set aside for this purpose. Confederate agents were instructed to ally themselves with, and help arm, Copperhead organizations like the Knights of The Golden Circle (K.G.C.), the Sons of Liberty, the Order of the Lone Star, and the Order of American Knights (O.A.K.), who would seize control of important buildings in major Union cities.

The history and membership of these groups is murky at best. Some sources hold that men as disparate as the actor John Wilkes Booth and former U.S. President Franklin Pierce belonged to these secret societies. The purpose of these groups was to overthrow the Lincoln Administration in a violent coup d’etat and restore slavery with the help of the South. With slavery restored, reunification would follow.

The signal for the advent of this staged “revolution” was to have been the arrest of the exiled Copperhead leader Clement Vallandigham, who had returned to the United States illegally in June 1864. However, the Lincoln Administration simply ignored Vallandigham’s return. Also, the pro-Southern secret societies in the North were far smaller and far more disorganized than the men in Richmond had imagined. Additionally, unlike the Copperheads (many of whom had been radicalized), the mainstream Peace Democrats were seeking peace, not additional armed rebellions. They not only refused to work with the Copperheads and their Southern agents provocateurs, but turned on them. Many ended up in Union jails. Lastly, most of the radical groups had been infiltrated by pro-Northern agents either working for the government or for pro-Union secret societies such as The Brotherhood of The Union.  

The most organized of the pro-Southern secret societies was the Knights of The Golden Circle. Founded in Ohio on July 4, 1854 as a group dedicated to the expansion of slavery into Latin America, K.G.C.s called “filibusters” led insurrectos in revolt in Nicaragua and in the Caribbean. Ultimately, the U.S. Federal Government disavowed the filibusters, most of whom were hanged. Regardless, the Knights of The Golden Circle endured, and after his return from exile, the Ohio-born Vallandigham was named Supreme Commander of the K.G.C. even though he publicly made a show of refusing the honor. After the war ended, the K.G.C. became a White Supremacist group that still exists today.

The "Golden Circle" of 1858 was centered on Havana. Cuba was considered prime territory ripe for annexation and slavery, though every place within the Circle and wherever its circumference lay was anticipated to be slave territory under U.S. control. No one asked the natives what they thought, much less the Africans expected to be forcibly settled there.

Regardless of the chaotic character of these secret societies, individual members (some thoroughly dedicated to their cause, others mentally unstable, and some both) did manage to organize and carry out smaller scale acts of terror, aided and abetted by the benign neglect of pro-Confederates in high places.

The original plot for New York City, as unlikely as it seems, was to occupy federal buildings, obtain weapons from arsenals, and arm a crowd of supporters. The insurgents would then raise a Confederate flag over City Hall and declare that New York City had left the Union and had aligned itself with the Confederate government in Richmond. This plan was said to be developed enough that Union agents heard about it and informed the pro-Southern Governor of New York State, Horatio Seymour, who refused to take any action.

July 24, 1864---The Private War of "Ole Man" Presley Jones

JULY 24, 1864:         

The Second Battle of Kernstown. After skirmishing with Union forces the day before near Kernstown, Jubal Early’s suddenly no-longer exhausted troops, surprisingly fresh from their retreat from Washington, fall in force upon Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley, routing them. As before, the Federals in the Valley retreat all the way northward across the Potomac, leaving the road open to Maryland. Soon enough, Early again moves north, cutting the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  

The usually phlegmatic President Lincoln is enraged at David Hunter, whom he orders to be immediately relieved of command. General George Crook becomes temporary commander of Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley this day.

 

“Ole Man” Presley Jones, the Avenger on Muleback, singlehandedly defends Covington, Georgia with a squirrel rifle when hundreds of Federal troops come to destroy the rail lines through the town. He kills two Yankees and wounds several more before he is captured and executed. They are the only men lost in the Covington Raid, which destroys the rail lines, the depot, the warehouses, and the new, as-yet unoccupied military hospital which the Confederates had built presuming troops from Atlanta would make use of it.  The cutting of the Covington spur isolates Atlanta from the southwest Confederacy.

July 23, 1864---"Are you able to take care of the enemy . . . ?"

JULY 23, 1864:      

   

General Jubal Early C.S.A. has returned to the Shenandoah Valley, and engages Union troops under General David Hunter near Kernstown. Abraham Lincoln, well aware that Hunter had previously retreated out of the Valley without offering battle to Early, and that Washington, D.C. had been invested as a result, sends Hunter a terse and acerbic telegram:

Are you able to take care of the enemy when he turns back upon you, as he probably will on finding that Wright has left? 

Hunter takes great umbrage at his Commander-in-Chief’s implied criticism of his competence and asks to be relieved of command. But before Lincoln even sees Hunter’s own request, he orders Hunter replaced. Ulysses S. Grant makes him a “desk general.”  Hunter stews in his own juice pushing papers for the rest of the war. 

July 22, 1864---The Battle of Atlanta

JULY 22, 1864:          

The Battle of Atlanta. 

With Union troops within walking distance of Atlanta, General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A. attempted to break the Confederate lines around the city. Although the battle did not end in the fall of Atlanta this very day, it broke the back of Confederate combat resistance around the city. Union troops under the commands of General “Black Jack” John A. Logan, General Francis P. Blair, General Grenville Dodge, and Major General James Birdseye McPherson advanced on the city in a broad arc.

Although Sherman at first believed that the Confederate army had abandoned the city, once Union troops reached the actual environs of Atlanta, General John Bell Hood C.S.A. opened up with artillery and massed attacks against the Union front.  The Ponder House became a nest of Confederate snipers and an especial target of Union troops. 

The battle lines were so close and so confused that General McPherson found himself in the midst of a Confederate squad. Refusing to surrender, he was shot in the back and killed as he tried to reach his own lines. Sherman and Grant both grieved the loss of McPherson, who was well-known as one of the Union’s brightest and most aggressive commanders.

John Bell Hood wrote of McPherson:

I will record the death of my classmate and boyhood friend, General James B. McPherson, the announcement of which caused me sincere sorrow. Since we had graduated in 1853, and had each been ordered off on duty in different directions, it has not been our fortune to meet. Neither the years nor the difference of sentiment that had led us to range ourselves on opposite sides in the war had lessened my friendship; indeed the attachment formed in early youth was strengthened by my admiration and gratitude for his conduct toward our people in the vicinity of Vicksburg. His considerate and kind treatment of them stood in bright contrast to the course pursued by many Federal officers.

Although General Patrick Cleburne C.S.A. was almost able to break McPherson’s fragmented Corps, “Black Jack” Logan began to bombard the city from Bald Hill causing him to withdraw. As darkness fell, the battle ended with Atlanta all but encircled.

This gaslight lamppost survived the shelling of Atlanta despite being hit several times, and now bears memorial plaques listing the names of Confederate dead who were killed defending the city, including freemen, freedmen, and slaves

The Union had lost 3,641 men killed, wounded or missing. Confederate losses were 5,500. John Bell Hood, who had lost three battles in three days of command, was left with less than 35,000 men ages 14 to 70 to hold Atlanta.