1863 - Political Events

Political Events

Confederate forces under General Bragg move south January 3 after defeating a Union Army under General Rosecrans at Stones River (Murfreesboro), Tennessee, as Federal reinforcements pour in from Nashville. Union spy Pauline Cushman, 29, obtains a room at the Evans House, a hotel in Shelbyville, where she quickly makes friends with a Confederate captain of engineers. Posing as an actress in search of her older brother in the Confederate Army, she steals plans and drawings for defense fortifications, smuggles some out in the handles of butcher knives and others inside the craw of a chicken that a woman farmer carries across the lines. Discovered and court-martialed, Cushman is found guilty, but Federal troops arrive and release her before she can be hanged, and she is commissioned a major in the Union Army.

A court martial finds General Fitz-John Porter guilty January 21 of misconduct in last year's (second) Battle of Bull run (see 1862). Porter has claimed that General Pope's orders were vague, contradictory, and impossible to execute, but he was relieved of his command in November and is now discharged from the army. He promptly undertakes efforts to clear his name. His case will finally be reviewed in 1879, the review will support his claim, and he will be reappointed in 1886.

President Lincoln relieves General Burnside of command January 25 and puts General Hooker in charge of the Army of the Potomac.

Mosby's Rangers led by Confederate cavalry officer John Singleton Mosby, 29, operate behind Union lines in Virginia and capture Union Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton, 25, with 100 of his men March 9 at Fairfax Court House. The exploit wins Mosby a promotion to captain and gains recruits for his nine-man force of irregulars, but Union counterintelligence director LaFayette C. Curry raises a battalion of cavalry that will serve chiefly as a counter-guerrilla force (see 1862; "Northwest Conspiracy," "greenback raid," 1864).

Union forces suffer defeat at Chancellorsville, Virginia, from May 1 to May 5. The incompetent General Hooker has 130,000 men to General Lee's 60,000 and crosses the Rappahannock River upstream from Fredericksburg with the intention of advancing on Richmond, and although Lee divides his army while still in contact with the enemy he prevails; Union casualties total 16,792 (General Thomas F. Meagher's Irish Brigade is decimated and he resigns his commission), Confederate casualties 12,754, but the South loses one of its best generals. "Stonewall" Jackson is wounded by one of his own sentries May 2. His arm is amputated May 3, and he receives a letter from Robert E. Lee a few days later saying, "You are better off than I am, for while you have lost your left, I have lost my right arm." Jackson dies of pneumonia May 10 saying, "Let us cross the river and rest in the shade." He is replaced as commander of the 2nd Corps by Jeb Stuart.

Former congressman Clement L. (Larid) Vallandigham, 42, makes speeches accusing Republicans of wanting to end slavery only to further their aim of establishing a dictatorship; he thereby violates an order issued April 13 by General Ambrose E. Burnside, and a company of Ohio Volunteer Infantry dispatched by special train to Dayton, Ohio, May 5 breaks into Vallandigham's home, arrests him at 3 o'clock in the morning, and takes him in his nightshirt to Burnside's headquarters at Cincinnati for trial by a military commission on charges of "treasonable utterances." Riots break out at Dayton, fires destroy an entire city block, troops brought in from Columbus and Cincinnati restore order, and President Lincoln gives orders to Secretary of War Stanton May 19 that the "Copperhead" Vallandigham is to be taken "beyond the military lines of the United States and not . . . permitted to return under threat of arrest." Federal troops in Tennessee turn Vallandigham over to the Confederate Army May 25, President Davis gives orders in June that he is to be guarded as an "alien enemy" and incarcerated at Wilmington, North Carolina, but "Peace Democrats" in Ohio that month nominate him for governor (see 1864).

The Battle of Champion's Hill in Mississippi May 16 ends in victory for Union forces under General Grant over the Confederate forces of Philadelphia-born General John C. (Clifford) Pemberton, 48, who leaves 5,000 troops to make a stand on the Big Black River while he withdraws the main body of his troops to Vicksburg. Some 10,000 Union troops under the command of General Grant win the Battle of the Big Black River May 17, inflicting severe losses and taking 1,700 prisoners of war. The survivors fall back in disorder to Vicksburg, and Grant lays siege to that city, which Jefferson Davis has ordered Pemberton to hold at all costs.

News of Stonewall Jackson's death reaches Belle Boyd at Mobile, Alabama. She hurries back to Martinsburg, Virginia, and when Union forces attack Winchester June 14 she is only four miles away (see 1862). An order for her arrest is issued July 23, and she is held under house arrest owing to the grave illness of her mother, but when her mother improves she is taken to Carroll Prison at Washington and then to the Old Capitol Prison. After engineering the escape of three other prisoners in October, she is removed December 1 to Fortress Monroe, where she meets with General Benjamin F. Butler, known in the South as "Beast" Butler (see 1862).

West Virginia enters the Union June 20 as the 35th state, having seceded from Virginia in 1861. The new state's constitution calls for gradual emancipation of slaves.

The Territory of Idaho is formed from parts of the Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, and Washington territories.

Arizona is created as a separate territory cut from the New Mexico Territory (see 1912).

President Lincoln replaces Hooker June 28 with Spanish-born General George (Gordon) Meade, 46, who triumphs a few days later at Gettysburg. The Battle of Gettysburg in eastern Pennsylvania July 1 to 3 marks the turning point of the war as Southern troops are routed after the heroic Pickett's Charge of July 3. Richmond-born General George E. (Edward) Pickett, 38, leads his 4,500 muskets plus 10,000 men from General A. P. Hill's command from Seminary Ridge across an open plain raked by Union musket and artillery fire from three sides and ascends the slant of Cemetery Hill. Some 6,000 Southerners fall, and the Confederate advance into the North is doomed. General Daniel E. Sickles disobeys Meade's orders, loses most of the officers and one-third of the men in his Third Corps, and suffers a wound that requires amputation of his right leg below the knee. Some Southerners blame Jeb Stuart for going off on a raid instead of deploying his cavalry to gather intelligence and act as a screen for the advancing Confederate forces. Meade's 95,000-man army loses 3,155 killed, 14,529 wounded, 5,365 missing; Lee's 75,000 man army 3,903 killed, 18,735 wounded, 5,425 missing.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, falls to Grant July 4 after a short siege in which Grant's 75,000-man army has suffered 9,362 casualties (Confederate losses are about 1,000 killed, 29,000 captured [and paroled]). General Pemberton accepts Grant's terms of surrender, Union forces capture 172 Confederate guns and gain control of the Mississippi, cutting Confederate supply lines. President Lincoln announces, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

Conscription for the Union Army begins July 11 under legislation passed March 3 giving exemption to any man who pays $300 to hire a substitute. Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg earlier in July have sealed the fate of the Confederacy, many Northerners see no point in joining the army, only the rich can afford $300 for a substitute, and many working men resent having to fight for the emancipation of slaves who may come north and take away the unskilled jobs on which their families depend. Draft riots break out in several cities, and the worst riot in U.S. history begins at New York on Sunday, July 12, when an angry crowd mills about the door of the recruiting office on Third Avenue. Before more than 40 or 50 names have been drawn, a paving stone crashes through the window, and Irishmen pour out of the infamous Sixth Ward east of Broadway shouting, "Kill the rich!", "Kill the niggers!", and "Down with the Black Republican nigger lovers!" Mobs attack various targets, notably the 27-year-old Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue between 43rd and 44th streets. The 200 orphans are evacuated by courageous neighbors through the back doors before they can be harmed, but the building is burned and blacks throughout the city are set upon and killed. Mayor Opdyke refuses to make any deals with the rioters, who come out of the Five Points bent on violence; he abandons City Hall to the mob and takes refuge in the St. Nicholas Hotel as the city verges on anarchy. Police Superintendent John Kennedy tries to stop the mob single-handedly and is lucky to escape with no worse than a severe beating. Rioters tear up railroad tracks and burn 43 buildings, including hotels, between 46th Street and the Cooper Union in Astor Place; the Dead Rabbits from the Five Points join with their traditional rivals, the Bowery B'hoys, to prevent firemen from reaching the blazes. They sack stores such as Brooks Brothers, and create general chaos in their battles with police before the secretary of war orders the Seventh Regiment home to protect the city (recalled from Gettysburg, the troops march down Third Avenue, scattering the rioters). By the time the disturbance is suppressed July 17 at least 18 blacks (and possibly 24) have been lynched, many more are reported missing, and a total of at least 100 (and possibly as many as 1,200) people have been killed and thousands injured (the Bowery toughs take care of their own dead and wounded, so the official counts may be understated). Archbishop Hughes, now 66, addresses the riot participants July 17 at the request of Governor Seymour, who helps put down the disorders but is widely (if falsely) suspected of having encouraged them. Now a city of 800,000 with some 200,000 of its inhabitants Irish, New York suffers more than $2 million in property damage.

Federal troops attack Battery Wagner in South Carolina at dusk July 18, sustaining 1,515 casualties including Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, 25, whose 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry gains the parapet and holds it for an hour before falling back, losing nearly half its number.

Congressman John J. Crittenden dies at Frankfort, Kentucky, July 26 at age 75. His son Thomas is a major general in the Union Army, another son is a major general in the Confederate Army; Confederate Senator William L. Yancey dies at Montgomery, Alabama, July 27 at age 48.

Conscription at New York resumes quietly August 19, with a blind man drawing names out of a wooden box at the office of the provost marshal, Sixth District, at 185 Sixth Avenue, and although men of means find it easy to avoid the draft by paying for substitutes, and many New Yorkers oppose President Lincoln (telegraph pioneer Samuel F. B. Morse supports slavery and calls Lincoln "imbecile & bloodthirsty"), New York State will have contributed 475,000 men to the Union Army by 1865—more than any other state (New Yorkers constitute one sixth of the army), and New York City alone will have contributed 116,000 at a cost of $14.5 million.

Quantrill's Raiders burn Lawrence, Kansas, August 21. Led by former schoolteacher and professional gambler Captain William C. Quantrill, 26, who helped capture Independence, Missouri, last year and was mustered into the Confederate Army with his men, the 450 raiders include Jesse (Woodson) James, 15, his brother Frank, and Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger, 19, who ride into Lawrence at dawn, kill 180 men, women, and children, sack the town, and burn most of its buildings, but Kansas contributes a greater percentage of its male population to the Union Army than does any other state (see crime, 1876).

The Battle of Gettysburg and fall of Vicksburg seem to doom the Confederacy's chances, but Rose Greenhow sails for Europe in August to raise money for the Southern cause (see 1862). Her book My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule in Washington enjoys brisk sales abroad, and she is presented at court both at London and Paris (where she is given a private audience with Napoleon III) (see 1864).

Former secretary of war and governor of Virginia John B. Floyd dies at his adopted daughter's house outside Abingdon, Virginia, August 26 at age 57, having served as a major general in the Confederate Army but come to grief from exposure to the elements on Big Sandy River.

"Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet," writes President Lincoln August 26 in a letter to James C. Conkling.

President Lincoln dispatches former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad president John Murray Forbes to England on an unofficial mission to make an offer for ships known as Laird rams being built for the Confederacy. Now 50, Forbes will soon join with some others to build a cruiser larger than the Confederate ship Alabama with a view to selling it to the Union at cost.

The Battle of Chicamauga in northern Georgia September 19 and 20 pits 62,000 Union soldiers against 65,000 Southerners and ends in an empty victory for Confederate troops under General Bragg. While North Carolina-born General Leonidas Polk, 57, fails to support them, James Longstreet and Tennessee-born Nathan Bedford Forrest, 42, send Union forces under General Rosecrans retreating headlong to Chattanooga (Forrest will gain fame for his statement that he got there "fastest with the mostest"). Virginia-born Union general George H. Thomas, 47, stands firm (earning the sobriquet "Rock of Chicamauga"), Bragg fails to follow up, and his costly success serves little purpose. Confederate losses total 2,132 dead, 14,674 wounded versus 1,656 Union dead, 9,756 wounded. Bragg takes thousands of prisoners.

President Lincoln dedicates a national cemetery at Gettysburg November 19 and makes an eloquent 272-word address that will be memorized by generations of schoolchildren:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Clergyman-orator (and former Massachusetts governor) Edward Everett, now 68, has delivered the main address but writes to Lincoln the next day, saying, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

The Battle of Chattanooga November 23 to 25 ends with the Confederates fleeing in disorder toward Chickamauga. Bragg has withdrawn from Lookout Mountain to Missionary Ridge, Grant has sent Union troops under Generals Hooker, Ohio-born William Tecumseh Sherman, 43, and General Philip H. (Henry) Sheridan, 32, to drive the rebels from the ridge. Union losses (dead and wounded): 5,824 out of 56,359 effectives; Confederate losses 6,667 out of 64,165.

Gen. Thomas F. Meagher returns to duty in December and is given command of the military district of Etowah, with headquarters at Chattanooga.

The Greek Assembly chooses Britain's Prince Alfred to succeed the deposed Otto I (see 1861), London rejects the election, statesman Dimitríos Kallérgis participates in negotiations that lead to the choice of a 17-year-old Danish prince as Otto's successor, and he will reign until 1913 as George I. Politician Aléxandros Koumoundhouros, 49, has played a prominent role in the negotiations and will serve as prime minister nine times between 1865 and 1882.

Polish patriot Marian (Melchior) Langiewicz, 35, leads an insurrection against Russian rule (see 1815; Czartoryski, 1861). His ill-clad, ill-equipped army moves into the Sandomierz region of southern Poland early in the year and defeats some Russian units, right-wing elements among the rebel forces set him up as dictator in March in order to check the more radical elements at Warsaw, he accepts the position, but the Russians soon counterattack. Langiewicz is driven back, his troops fall into factional disputes, and Langiewicz flees to Austria March 21 after just 10 days as dictator. The Austrians will hold him prisoner until 1865, whereupon he will move to Switzerland and thence to Constantinople, where he will serve in the Ottoman Army (see 1864).

Italian revolutionary and historian Giuseppe La Farina dies at Turin September 5 at age 48.

Denmark's Frederik VII dies at Glücksberg Castle November 15 at age 55 after a 15-year reign and is succeeded by his cousin, 45, who will reign until 1906 as Kristian IX. The duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, 34, denies Danish sovereignty and proclaims himself Frederik VIII (see 1864).

Egypt's Ottoman viceroy (khedive) Mohammed Said (Said Pasha) dies at Alexandria January 18 at age 40 after an 8½-year reign in which he has granted a concession for construction of the Suez Canal, decreased the influence of village headmen (sheikhs), encouraged the development of individual land ownership, and tried without success to bar importation of slaves from Sudan. He is succeeded by his 33-year-old cousin, who will reign until 1879 as Ismail Pasha. The new khedive makes a speech about the need for economy but sets out to complete the modernization of Egypt; by year's end he is hopelessly in debt and will go further into debt as he bribes newspapers to favor his vanity and buys jewels to adorn the wives in his harem (see Suez Canal, 1875).

Afghan forces under the command of Dost Mohammed Khan's son-in-law capture Herat in early June, but Dost Mohammed dies at the city June 9 at age 69 (approximate) after a 37-year reign that was interrupted from 1839 to 1841 (see 1857). Having maintained his country's independence during a period when Britain and Russia were competing avidly for control of Central Asia, he is succeeded by his son Afzal, but other members of the family will drive Afzal and his son Abdor Rahman, now 19, into exile in 1869. Abdor Rahman will remain at Samarkand until 1880, when he will return following the death in 1879 of his cousin Shir Ali.

Timbuktu falls to the Islamic army of the West African Tukolor leader Umar Tal (see 1860), but nomadic Tuareg warriors defeat the Tukolors and force them to retreat. Helped by Fulani and Moorish troops, the Tuaregs proceed to destroy Umar Tal's army and lay siege to the city of Hamdalahi, where he has taken refuge (see 1864).

Madagascar's Radama II is assassinated after a 2-year reign in which he has alarmed members of the nobility by favoring French interests. His widow will reign until 1868 under the name Rashoherina.

Cambodia's uncrowned king Norodom accepts French protection early in the year, having been induced to do so by naval officer Ernest Doudart de Lagrée, 39, and Roman Catholic missionary Jean-Claude Miche, who have gained his confidence (see Vietnam, 1862), but Norodom signs a secret treaty with Siam August 11 before the agreement with the French is ratified at Paris; the treaty makes Norodom Siam's viceroy and governor of Cambodia, Siam acquires the Cambodian provinces of Batdâmbâng and Siemréab, but the French will try to stop Siam from asserting further claims (see 1864).

Vietnamese diplomat Phan Thanh Gian proposes another treaty with the French, promising an annual tribute, recognizing southern Vietnam as a French protectorate, and offering commercial settlements and land around Saigon in return for a cessation of further French colonization efforts and a return of the three southern provinces that were ceded last year. Paris gives approval to the treaty (see 1864).

Xenophobic Japanese nationalist revolutionaries headed by Koshaku Yamagata Aritomo, 24, open fire May 10 on Western ships moving through the strait that separates Honshu from Kyushu (see Hisamitsu, 1862). Enraged at the growth of foreign influence under the Tokugawa shōgunate, they shout, "Revere the emperor!" "Drive out the barbarians" ("Sonnō jōi"). The feudal head of Chōshu Province closes the strait, and the shōgunal regent Keiki Tokugawa agrees to expel all foreigners June 25, but he does not make good on his promise and criticism of the shōgunate increases. The feudal head of Satsuma Province in Kyushu effects a coup d'état at the imperial court in Kyoto and forces the regent to reverse his policy. Koshaku Sanjo Sanetomi finds sanctuary in Chōshu (see 1864).

China's Taiping rebels lose Suzhou (Soochow) to Qing (Manchu) forces led by Zeng Kuofan and the British general Charles G. Gordon, 30 (see 1862; 1864).

General Sir Colin Campbell, Baron Clyde, dies at Chatham, Kent, August 14 at age 70 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

New Zealand's Maori chieftain Wiremu Kingi leads his people in a new conflict with British colonial authorities (see Land Act, 1862). He gains recognition of the legitimacy of his claims to Waitara lands, but hostilities in the Waikato War will continue until next year, and Kingi will not submit to colonial authority until 1872.

French forces occupy Mexico City June 7, and a group of exiled Mexican leaders meet under French auspices in July to adopt an imperial form of government for their country (see 1862). They offer the Mexican throne to Austria's 31-year-old Archduke Maximilian von Hapsburg, brother of the emperor Franz Josef (see 1864).

New Granada changes its name to the United States of Colombia under terms of a new Liberal constitution which calls for 2-year presidential terms (see 1861), but the Liberals fear that President Mosquera may try to regain his dictatorial powers and limit his first term to just 1 year (see 1865).