150 years ago, LIers rallied to the Union

Almost 150 years ago, on April 12, 1861, four years of Civil War erupted when Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. On Long Island, the news prompted rallies in support of preserving the Union. And as some men enlisted in the Union Army, others paid bounties to substitutes to take their place.

This story is based on accounts in Long Island's weekly newspapers from that time and interviews with historians.

At the end of April 1861, posters addressed "TO THE LOVERS OF THE UNION, CONSTITUTION AND OUR NATION'S FLAG" were nailed up around Northport.

The poster, or "broadside," as it was called then, exclaimed that "our Union is in danger, our Constitution disregarded, and our National Flag being trampled under foot by rebels and traitors." Forty residents added their names at the bottom to "pledge ourselves not to aid, assist, or patronize any merchant, hotel keeper, mechanic, or any treasonably disposed person . . . We are determined to put down secession and traitors."

The residents were incensed that the new Confederate States of America had opened fire on Fort Sumter two weeks earlier, igniting four bloody years of the Civil War.

Their sentiment to punish Southern sympathizers had begun to grow across Long Island as the attack seemed inevitable -- and became almost universal, historians say, after the shells were fired. Since most of the Island's voters were Democrats -- who had tended to be tolerant of the South and slavery and opposed to holding the Union together by force -- and were unhappy with the prospect of Republican Abraham Lincoln as president, the change of heart represented a major shift.

The onset of the conflict brought patriotic editorials in most of the Island's local weekly newspapers; rallies in support of preserving the Union; denunciation, harassment and even jailing of Confederate sympathizers; and recruitment parades and enlistment by men in groups as large as 100 to fight for the cause.

"I enlisted to help save our country, Henry Prince of Southold wrote home to Long Island, "and I believe that the President has done what he thought is right . . . I believe that the North will Conquer."

Before the war, the more than dozen weekly newspapers published in Suffolk and Queens -- which included what is now Nassau -- had been divided, based on their party leanings. The Long-Islander of Huntington took the Republican position in an editorial on April 12, before news of the attack on Sumter reached the Island, saying that "the government . . . must stand to its duty and put down the enemies of our civil and social order."

A week later, after news of the war had arrived, the paper wrote that "the shameless rebels against the Union and the Constitution have begun the conflict . . . These miscreants deserve all the plagues they have invoked . . . Whatever the cost in blood or treasure the loyal people will cheerfully bear it."

But the Corrector of Sag Harbor editorialized April 13 that "we are opposed to civil war . . . We say, do not dismember this noble Republic; but, if we can't agree, if we must part, let us do it peacefully."

April's furor was in striking contrast to months earlier on the Island, where 24,500 lived in what is now Nassau and 43,000 in Suffolk. There were no war rallies or rush to arms as in some Northern cities after Lincoln's election and the secession of 11 Southern states, according to Civil War historian Harrison Hunt, of Port Washington. Until the cannons roared in Charleston, the backwater that was Long Island went about its business.

Long Island in 1861
That business was primarily farming, followed by nautical occupations -- baymen, fishermen, sailors or whalers -- plus tradesmen such as shoemakers and blacksmiths. Many communities were served by the growing Long Island Rail Road, which, with coastal schooners, carried produce from farms to New York City markets.

Most of the Island's residents had little interest in elimination of slavery, historians note. "When the war broke out, most men felt it was their patriotic duty to support the Union and keep this nation together," Hunt said. Within a month of the Sumter attack, pro-Union rallies were held in several communities, including Oyster Bay, Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Northport and Riverhead.

By summer, opposing the war could prove dangerous.

"A farmer by the name of Lodell who lived in what's now Plainview after the Union defeat at First Bull Run put up what was variously described as a peace flag or secessionist flag on his flagpole," Hunt said. "His neighbors got pretty upset and asked him to take it down. He didn't, so they got a mob together, and they pulled down the flag and chopped down his flagpole and told him not to do it again. He moved to Connecticut."

In October, Henry Reeves, editor of the Republican-Watchman on the North Fork, was arrested for his vitriolic editorials opposing the war and criticizing Lincoln's conduct of it. He was released from Fort Lafayette in Brooklyn the following month and resumed writing editorials, but they now bashed secessionists and abolitionists.

Across the Island, "there was a good amount of support for the Union cause but not over the issue of slavery," Hunt said.

Before Fort Sumter, opposition to the abolition movement could be seen in North Fork newspaper accounts, such as one in February about the Union Club of Greenport's effort to rally opposition to Lincoln and the Republicans' interest in ending slavery. A few months earlier, a letter in the Republican-Watchman accused East Marion's residents of being radical abolitionists and urged local groups to "commence a war of extermination upon them."

Abolitionist fervor existed in the Quaker communities of Jericho and Westbury as well as among black residents.

Volunteer enlistments
New York State offered Lincoln the use of the state militia to suppress the rebellion. Militia units in Suffolk did not swell with new volunteers, according to research by the Southold Historical Society, but men from Suffolk and Queens did travel into Brooklyn and Manhattan to join militia units there.

After Fort Sumter, Long Island men began to enlist in groups or even in companies of 100, primarily in regiments in which most hailed from Brooklyn or Manhattan. One group of Sag Harbor men went to Oswego to join a company of the 81st New York Infantry because the colonel of the regiment was from Sag Harbor.

The Suffolk Times on the North Fork ran a recruitment ad for the 127th New York Volunteer Infantry on Aug. 21, 1862, and its editor, John Riddell, enlisted and became a sergeant.

It is not known how many Long Islanders ultimately served, Hunt said, but he puts the estimate at 3,500 to 4,000 based on rosters compiled by towns at the end of the war. More than 600 African-Americans from Long Island served in either the Navy, from the start of the war, or the Army, which began accepting them in 1863.

To meet federal quotas for recruiting, Long Island towns paid men bounties to sign up, even if they came from New York City. During the war, a man could pay a substitute -- usually $300 -- to take his place in the Army, an arrangement that took on importance when the federal government began moving toward a draft (which began in 1863) as volunteer enlistments could not keep up with the bloodshed.

"It was apparent that to fulfill Lincoln's request for 300,000 troops, men would have to be drafted," Smithtown historian Brad Harris said. So town Supervisor Joel L.G. Smith named two draft commissioners to prepare a roster of eligible men and, after medical and other exemptions, the list had 187 names.

And because no one wanted to draft men to serve in a war against their will, Harris said, Smith convened a special town meeting to consider options.

On Aug. 16, 1862, in a field on Middle Country Road, the town voted to raise $8,000 in taxes to pay each volunteer "a bounty of a hundred dollars," Harris said. "This way, the problem was resolved, and no one had to be drafted because the town found volunteers to serve as substitutes for town residents."

Residents continued to approve such appropriations, "but as the war dragged on and the killing continued, it became harder and more expensive to find volunteers," he said. By the beginning of 1865, the town was paying $1,000 to each enlistee -- more than $14,000 now.

Training camps, hospitals
Several training camps were established on the Island, as far east as Camp Winfield Scott in what is now Garden City, and most were used by units from New England.

Some local manufacturing supported the war effort, Hunt said. A Flushing company, A. Rogers, manufactured drums for the Union Army. A factory in Woodbury made drumheads. Ads in local newspapers sought women to sew Army jackets, and woolen mills in Suffolk made clothing for the Army.

As casualties mounted, military hospitals were set up in Queens at Willets Point and on Davids Island north of Kings Point and off the shores of New Rochelle in Long Island Sound, where Island residents, including a contingent from Glen Cove, volunteered.

The hospitals also treated wounded Confederate soldiers, some of whom escaped, Hunt said, including one who made it to a Port Washington basement, prompting the resident to flee. Nearby Hart Island was a prisoner of war camp for four months in 1865, holding 3,413 captured Confederate soldiers, of whom 235 died.

At war's end, the returning soldiers were received warmly by neighbors. "They were the saviors of the Union," Hunt said. "Their sacrifice was greatly appreciated and recognized very early on."

A Civil War monument was erected in Flushing in 1866. Huntington Town, which then included what is now Babylon, started fundraising for the soldiers memorial it built before the war had even ended. By the 1920s, there were Civil War monuments in at least 16 Long Island communities from Freeport to Sag Harbor to Orient. The newest one will be dedicated on the Farmingdale village green on Memorial Day.