Civil war in the United States--Large bounties paid Canadian
recruits--Prices of produce go up--More than two million men under
arms--I make a trip to Washington--Visiting the military
hospitals--I am offered $800 to enlist--Brief interview with
President Lincoln--A pass secured--I visit the Army of the
Potomac--90,000 men under canvas--Washington threatened by the
Confederates--Military prison at Elmira, N.Y.--Cheap greenbacks--A
chance to become a multi-millionaire.
“I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When o’er earth’s continents and isles between
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions, crouching in the dust to one,
No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun
The o’er labor’d captive toil, and wish his life were done.”
The civil war in the United States broke out in April, 1861, and
indirectly exerted much influence on Canada. From 80,000 to 100,000 of
our young men, who were sympathizers with the North, went from Ontario
and Quebec to join the Northern army. These Canadian recruits all
received bounties--at first, usually $800 on enlisting, and then, as the
struggle went on, receiving as high as $1,600.
The war created a large demand for produce of all kinds, and the
Northern States bought everything we had to sell, giving high prices;
the farmer and other producers became wealthy, and, to quote the usual
expression, “the times were good.”
This fratricidal war had more men engaged in it, more horses, more
ships, more mules, and more money than any war the world had yet ever
known. As to numbers, Xerxes is allowed to have had the greatest army
hitherto known, his force numbering one million of men when he crossed
the Hellespont to conquer Greece. But when the North disbanded its
armies at the termination of the war, in 1865, they had 1,250,000 men of
all kinds under arms or on the roll. The South had 800,000 men.
We do not compare their navies of that day, of course, with the peerless
navy of Her Majesty. By their fight of ironclads at Hampton Roads,
Virginia, in 1864, however, they revolutionized the naval architecture
of the world.
When the war was at its height I visited the armies. Gold had been
bounding upwards week by week as the protracted struggle went on. Its
daily rise whetted the edge of our appetites, keen to the main chance
of money-making. I was then just a young man fresh from college, but I
felt that a truly “golden” opportunity was passing by us.
Day after day we read of the advance of the Federal army, and of its
repulse by the Confederates (more especially in Virginia) and then again
of its successes, and likewise the talk of Louis Napoleon being about to
recognize the belligerency of the South.
We who were that day upon the scene, as it were, even if not in the
actual conflict, felt the blows as they were struck with all the
terrible force of war’s ravages, and honestly did not know how to make
up our minds as to the final success of either side. I resolved to see
for myself the contending armies, and then judge as well as I could from
a ramble among both parties as to the ultimate result.
Well, about June 18th, 1864, having secured my father’s consent, I set
out to inspect for myself. Down to New York I made my way, and looked
about the great metropolis of America to find some signs of the
depression of war upon the North; but I saw nothing to lead me to
suppose for an instant that the drain upon the country was at all
severe. In those days there was no Coney Island as we now know it.
Indeed, I recollect going down there upon the sand dunes and finding
only a board shanty of a restaurant where they served baked clams. And
these were only forty cents per plate in those days of inflations. That
price was no kind of bar to me, with plenty of British and American gold
in my pockets, for even then, before the premium had got to bounding up,
my greenbacks only cost me about thirty-eight cents on the dollar. So,
you see, even baked clams and the best hotels in New York of that day
were at my command for a very small outlay.
At Philadelphia I encountered no sign of war, but the great city on the
Schuylkill was booming on its way. Baltimore seemed just a little off,
and many of the people appeared to be rather sulky. Still, there were no
signs of reverses or oppressions, and so far war had not, to outward
appearances, seriously hurt the North.
Washington I found during the last days of June the gayest of the gay.
What struck me most forcibly was the extreme freedom in and about the
city. Go anywhere I could and did, and no one seemed disposed to say me
nay. In and out of Congress I went at will, as well as into the
departments of the Secretaries. More than that, I rode on horseback some
three or four miles south-easterly from the city to the great military
hospitals.
Some of these were mere structures of boards; others large field tents;
others, again, had board tops and tent sides. I walked at will among the
rows of cots, and there saw suffering in its acutest forms. Soften the
heart? Aye, the quest of gold upon which I first set out from my
Canadian home was forgotten for the time in the presence of this
suffering. Young fellows many of them were lying there by the hundreds,
so pallid and wan, and scarcely lifting eyes to look at the passer-by.
Even after this lapse of time, I vividly remember thinking of the
mothers of these young lads in far-off homes in the north, waiting so
hopefully and wistfully for their sons’ return.
In addition to the wounded in battle, many of the poor fellows were
suffering from fevers. But to me it was all suffering. And this at last
was war! Such scenes as these, harrowing though they are, mark the great
distinction between the savage and the civilized. Civilized, we care for
our wounded and sick; savage, the infirm and helpless are left to die.
Board shanties, and with board roofs, mean as they were architecturally:
“I know they were holy things
That from a roof so sacred shine,
Where sounds the beat of angels’ wings,
And footsteps echo all divine.
Their mysteries I never sought,
Nor hearken to what science tells;
For, oh, in childhood I was taught
That God amid them dwells.”
Naturally, serviceable material for army recruits was looked after most
keenly in Washington at this time. Walking along the new asphalt
sidewalk, in heat so great as to melt the asphalt so that it left the
print of my footsteps upon it, an officer wanted to know if I would like
to enlist. His first offer was $800 in money down, and I have no doubt
the offer would have gone up to $1,600 quite if I had been so disposed,
but my quest was gold and not military glory, and consequently I
declined the offer.
I made, too, a visit to Lincoln, at the White House, during the last
days of June, 1864. No one for a moment questioned my right to enter. A
challenge I did not hear. Within the doors of the White House, at the
foot of the main stair, sat an attendant upon a plebeian three-legged
stool reading a novel. Not a soldier nor a policeman in sight, and I was
free, apparently, to go where I chose.
“In which room is the President?” I asked of the novel-reading
attendant.
“First room upstairs to the right.”
I went up, and saw the great man in the room indicated. Feeling that I
had no kind of right to intrude upon a man so weighted down with cares
as President Lincoln was at that period of the war, I remained long
enough to allow his image, as he sat facing me, to be imprinted on my
memory, never to be obliterated. My first thought was, “What a tall,
awkward man and how badly his clothes fit.” One arm lay upon the table
beside which he sat, and the other upon the arm of his chair.
I could not, however, bring myself to leave without an interview with
the President. On my card being handed him he ceased talking for a
moment with his visitor, some man from Missouri, and through the open
door asked me in and told me to be seated, and he would soon be through
with the business on hand. Thus involuntarily I learned the nature of
the business of the gentleman from Missouri, which seemed to be to
importune the President to order the release of a number of guerillas
who had been committing depredations in the south-west.
After a lot of words from the Missourian, Mr. Lincoln said if he would
give him “any real good reason why these men should be liberated” it
would be done. The conversation continuing, I thought it my part to
retire. As I left the room, the President sat with fixed gaze,
apparently absorbed in thought, and so preoccupied as not to notice my
departure. While disappointed of my interview, I had seen and spoken
with the man whose figure stands out in clear and massive outline on the
canvas of American history, and I remember this with pardonable pride
and satisfaction.
A pass was granted me to go wherever I chose in Virginia or about the
vicinity of Washington. How I got this pass I cannot even now, after
thirty-two years, tell. Some of the persons who assisted me to obtain
this great favor are yet alive--not all of them, it is true, but I would
be manifestly unwise to tell any more on this point. Being a Canadian, I
may freely say, gained me the coveted pass when backed up with some
seals of officialdom from our own Canada. More I cannot, dare not say,
only that this pass lies on my writing desk beside me as I write these
lines.
Without delay I set out to cross the Potomac, mounted upon a horse hired
from a Washington livery stable. It was when entering the Long Bridge,
as the wooden structure of two miles in length over the Potomac then was
called, that I first showed my pass. My first thought upon gaining the
Virginia shore was of the terrible barrenness and bleakness of the
country about. There were no roads, no fences, no buildings, no woods,
but just a mass of the lightest and meanest red dust one ever could
conceive of--dust quite four inches deep, so that of necessity I rode
[Illustration: WORLD TO COME TO AN END. STARS FALLING, 1833.]
in a perfect cloud and had to canter sharply to get away from it.
To describe the ride to the Army of the Potomac would take too long, and
there is really nothing worthy of much note until I got to the army
itself. At the camp every courtesy was shown me, and then I saw what few
persons now alive at this time ever saw, and that was 90,000 men
encamped in tents and under arms. It would be useless for me to try to
describe this vast army. Its very magnitude was too great for the mind
to grasp.
Men I saw, and men, and still men, everywhere and all about. There
literally seemed to be no end of them, and the idea then formed itself
in my mind that this great armed mass of humanity must and would conquer
the South.
I prize my visit to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant as one
of the greatest and most interesting experiences in my life. As to the
army, I cannot well speak from the knowledge I then had, but I certainly
got the impression when walking along the miles and miles of streets
with canvas houses at the sides that there was no want, that everything
needful was served to these men in the fullest extent and of the best.
The cavalry, I remember lay off some little distance from the infantry,
and such a mass of horse and mule flesh it has been the lot of but few
to see. Some 12,000 horses, I think, were in the camp.
Not the least restraint was placed upon me, but I was free to go where
and when I listed, while at almost every officer’s mess I was a welcome
guest. Great good-nature was the order of the day, and it was indeed a
gay scene, with the regimental bands and bright colors and the pomp and
panoply of war.
As to visiting the Confederates, I was assured that a flag of truce
would easily put me over, but I began to think I had seen as much of the
military as my brain, uneducated in military matters, could take in, and
consequently not wishing to stay my welcome out too far, and fearing a
movement on the part of the army, I began the ride back to Washington.
When within a few miles of Long Bridge, and in plain sight of the
Capitol and Washington itself, on looking back, a great cloud of dust
seemed to be coming up, as if trying to overtake me, from the direction
I had come. I was startled, of course, but I halted, and before half an
hour had elapsed along came the most confused mass of humanity one could
think of--men on foot, on cannons, on mules, on horses, some with guns,
some without, but all bowling along for Washington in the fastest
possible time.
I found they were going into Washington to defend it, having heard that
General Jubal Early, of the Confederates, had crossed the Potomac at
Williamsburg, above the city, and was about to make an effort to cut off
communication with the north. It would perhaps be superfluous to add
that after this information my horse sped as fast as any of them, and
over Long Bridge the rescuers and I went pell mell into Washington. This
was on the 6th of July, 1864. The city naturally was all excitement; men
and cannon, horses and ambulances, seemed to be moving along all the
streets. Washington at this turn of affairs had the appearance of a huge
military camp.
On returning my horse to the livery stable my first thought was for food
and a bath. Both of these I obtained at the hotel, the landlord of which
informed me that I could not get out of the city by the trains, they
being closely guarded. At four o’clock I came with my grip to the
Baltimore Depot, and did indeed find it guarded by bluecoats. Stepping
up to one of the men I asked for the captain of the guard. He came. When
I asked him to let me get on the Baltimore train, he quietly shook his
head and turned away. Then, and not till then, I called him back to look
at my pass. A wonderful change instantly followed. His hand came to the
salute, the necessary order was given the guard, their bayonets were
raised to the salute, and I walked through a row of glittering steel to
the railway platform.
This, as I have said, was at four in the afternoon. The next train left
at six for Baltimore. General Franklin was on the latter train, when
General Early’s scouts stopped it and took him off. On my train there
was no trouble. I easily got to Baltimore, and for these thirty-two
years I have been curious to know what the Confederates would have done
with me had they caught me on the train with General Franklin. The
conclusion I have arrived at is that they would have taken my money if
they had had time (for the Union cavalry was after them hot), and then
let me go.
To pursue this narrative a little further, I at length arrived at
Elmira, N.Y., and saw the Confederate prisoners in a camp about a couple
of miles south of the town. Their prison was only a field of some ten
acres, surrounded by a tight board fence about ten feet high, on which
guards were placed at intervals. Within were houses for the prisoners.
Without any difficulty I was allowed to walk upon the platforms at the
fence top and see the prisoners as long as I would. The same freedom was
given me here as I had enjoyed in the White House, in the army, in the
great hospitals, and in fact, everywhere--and this, too, during one of
the most terrible wars the world has ever seen.
As to the prisoners, there were some two hundred of them standing about
in groups, many of them smoking, listening to some talker in each group
spinning yarns. To my astonishment, they did not all wear the
Confederate grey, but many had butternut-colored jeans, and among the
lot there was scarcely a well-dressed man. So far as I could judge, they
were not feeling their imprisonment very badly, and I noticed that when
the officer of the guard was absent they talked and joked quite freely
with the guards upon the fence. Keen-eyed, sharp-looking fellows they
were, and generally quite young men.
At this time in my life I had not seen Europe with its fuss and
feathers, and could not draw the comparison which I now can; but I can
conscientiously say now, having been under almost every flag in the
world, that America (Canada of course, as well, being the greater part
of America) is pre-eminently a land of freedom, first, last and always.
Going on to Chicago I remember I sold gold to pay my expenses; one
dollar for $2.86 in greenbacks. Think of $2.86 for one of our dollars!
Now was the time, I felt, to buy the bonds, and I was fully alive to the
opportunity. My father and I, on looking over the situation, concluded
we could put $200,000 of our money into United States currency. Now
this sum at the premium of $2.86 would have given me, at a jump,
$572,000. Yes, but again the 7-30’s and 5-20’s, as the bonds of those
days were called, were sold so low and so much depreciated that one
dollar of greenbacks would buy three dollars in bonds, or thereabout, as
I now remember. Thus my $572,000 would have given me in bonds
$1,716,000, which is another jump so big as to almost take one’s breath.
There is yet more to tell, for after the war was done those very same
bonds soon sold at an average of thirty per cent. premium. Of course, I
am justified in adding this premium (that would amount to $515,800) to
my bonds in calculation, which would give me $2,131,800. These are the
millions I had in view all the time I was in Grant’s army when looking
about to form an opinion.
I never wavered for an instant in my faith, and I knew all the time that
the North would conquer, if Louis Napoleon but kept his hands off and
did not aid the South.
Of the pluck of the South and their heroic efforts, which only
Anglo-Saxons can and will make, it is not for me to speak in this
article. Older men, and men educated in military affairs, told me as I
met them in Washington, attached to the embassies, that the North must
and would win, and that the God of battles would be on the side of the
heaviest ordnance. Why I did not buy the bonds it is now necessary for
me to tell to complete this tale.
My paternal great-uncle lived in our family home, he having been born in
Massachusetts in 1786, and, coming away with my own forefathers from
that State to Upper Canada before things got quieted in New England
after the war of the Revolution, he had retained a most vivid
recollection of every turn of that most unfortunate struggle, as told
him at his mother’s knee.
Among the relics which my forefather brought from Massachusetts was a
deerskin-covered saddle-bag, with a brass ring in each end to fasten to
the horse. This old saddle-bag was octagonal in shape, and was made in
London, England, in 1719. It was used as a receptacle for papers from
New England, dating mainly before the Revolution, and as far back as
1720. Within this pile of papers in a roll was a large quantity of
money, paper money of different denominations, and made at the various
periods of the war. First, I remember, were shilling notes, then notes
for pounds, and as the war went on, notes for dollars.
From my earliest boyhood I had fingered these notes, and played with
them, but never until this year (1864) did I realize that at one time
they meant just that much money to my forefather.
To our scheme the paternal uncle listened, and took it all in. Yes, he
understood about buying the bonds just as well as I did, and freely
admitted the opportunity to be a good one. Then, arousing himself as if
from a fright, he asked me to go and get the Continental money, which I
quickly did. Fondly he looked it over, and passed the notes between his
fingers, soliloquizing to himself. “No, boy,” he said presently; “they
didn’t pay these, and they may not pay their bonds now, and better let
well enough alone and not touch them.”
My uncle’s decision settled the matter. The bonds were not bought, and
thus I lost the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire at a bound, a
chance the like of which never may occur again.
[Illustration: DANIEL CONANT.
THE AUTHOR’S FATHER.]
[Illustration: MARY ELIZA CONANT.
THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER.]