CHAPTER XII

THE PERIOD OF THE CIVIL WAR

1861-1865

Election of Mayor Kalbfleisch. The Call for Troops. The Militia. Filling the Regiments. Money for Equipment. Rebuking Disloyalty. War Meeting at Fort Greene. Work of Women. The County sends 10,000 Men in 1861. Launching of the Monitor at Greenpoint. The Draft Riots. Colonel Wood elected Mayor. Return of the "Brooklyn Phalanx." The Sanitary Fair. Its Features and Successes. The Calico Ball. Significance of the Fair. The Christian Commission. Action of the Supervisors of the County. The Oceanus Excursion. Storrs and Beecher at Sumter. News of Lincoln's Death. Service of the National Guard. The "Fighting Fourteenth." The Newspapers. Court House finished.

The sense of impending and imminent danger, which made itself felt throughout the country in the winter of 1860-61, was strongly apparent in Brooklyn, and when the crash came the city was not unprepared in any sense.

It was only a few days after the election of Martin Kalbfleisch as Mayor[29] that Brooklyn was startled by the news that Fort Sumter had surrendered.

The announcement occasioned intense excitement throughout the city. In a remarkably short space of time the strength of the city's loyalty to the Union cause made itself felt. Those who sympathized with the South, or who were wavering in their allegiance, were made to feel the necessity for modifying their views, or for avoiding any sign of disloyalty. The national flag appeared in every quarter of the city. Its absence was noted wherever that absence could be construed into a sign of unpatriotic feeling. Crowds threatened violence to Southern sympathizers. The Mayor urged moderation, and the early excesses of patriotism soon passed.

Meanwhile, volunteers flocked to the flag. The four militia regiments in the Fifth Brigade were the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Twenty-eighth, and Seventieth. At the time of the alarm the regiments were not numerically strong. Less than 300 men were in the Thirteenth; less than 200 in the Fourteenth; the Twenty-eighth and Seventieth were somewhat stronger.

At the call of the President the regiments rapidly filled. Captain W. H. Hogan organized an artillery company. In the Eastern District, the Forty-seventh Regiment was organized, with Colonel J. V. Meserole in command. Amid enthusiastic demonstrations the Fourteenth left for the front in May, 1861.

The scenes during the first hours of the war period were those characteristic of every community in which the Union sentiment was strong and unquestionable. Every class in the community made response. Plymouth Church, from whose pulpit had come the loyal and stirring oratory of Henry Ward Beecher, subscribed $1000 toward the equipment of the local regiments. A sum equally generous came from the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church. The Union Ferry Company offered to continue the salaries of any of its employees who might volunteer, thus assuring the safety of their families. Local business men and corporations gave similar demonstrations of patriotism. The appropriations of the Common Council began with a provision for the disbursement of $75,000 for the relief of the families of those who should volunteer. The Kings County Medical Society resolved that its members should attend gratuitously the families of volunteers.

There were signs of lukewarmness in certain quarters, and definite manifestations of sympathy with the South; but these met with decisive rebuke whenever they appeared. The Navy Yard was threatened, or was supposed to be threatened, by incendiary rebel sympathizers, but prompt action prevented the possibility of any form of attack.

A war meeting at Fort Greene drew out 50,000 people, and elicited demonstrations of hearty patriotism. A corps of Brooklyn women volunteered as nurses, and lint societies were organized by energetic women who undertook to supply equipment for the nurses. Women in the Clinton Avenue Congregational Church supplied over fifteen hundred yards of bandaging to the Twenty-eighth Regiment, which, amid great enthusiasm, followed the Thirteenth to the front. Brooklyn was largely represented in the organizing of the Twenty-first New York Volunteers. The organization of the Forty-eighth New York, under Colonel Perry, the First Long Island Regiment, the Nineteenth New York Volunteers (East New York), and the Fifth Independent Battery followed.

In 1861 the city and county sent out 10,000 men. The draft of 1862 rather staggered the city at its first coming, but the rally was enthusiastic, and the patriotic work proceeded. The armories of the city became centres of loyal activity.

The new fighting engine, the Monitor, was launched at Greenpoint in January, 1862. In March the novel iron craft had her struggle with the rebel Merrimac in Hampton Roads.

Greenpoint sent over a company to the Thirty-first New York Volunteers.

In 1863 the local militia, or National Guard, included the Thirteenth Regiment, under Colonel Woodward; the Twenty-third, Colonel Everdell; the Twenty-eighth, Colonel Bennett; the Forty-seventh, Colonel Meserole; the Fifty-second, Colonel Cole; the Fifty-sixth, Colonel Adams. In the Southern trips, such as those made by the Twenty-third and the Forty-seventh regiments, the National Guard performed excellent service aside from the heavier duty in action.

The New York draft riots of 1863 naturally affected Brooklyn very closely, not only in such instances of mob violence as the firing of the grain elevators in the Atlantic Basin, but in the menacing and really dangerous movements incident to the reign of terror. Brooklyn volunteers lent important aid in the defense of the State Arsenal in New York.

To facilitate recruiting in the county, the Supervisors, in November, 1863, resolved upon acquiring a loan of $250,000, and $300 bounty was afterward paid to each recruit.

Mayor Kalbfleisch was succeeded as Mayor in 1864 by Colonel Wood, who had organized the Fourteenth Regiment, was wounded and captured at the first Bull Run, and was released by exchange in 1862.

The return of the "Brooklyn Phalanx," the First Long Island Regiment, under Colonel Cross, in January, 1864, was the occasion for an immense demonstration. The regiment had taken part in fourteen battles, and came home with 234 men out of 1000.

An event of the war period that is to be regarded as of the highest significance, not only for the relation it bore to the necessities of the war, but to the progress of the city, was what is known as the great Sanitary fair.

This Brooklyn and Long Island fair was instituted by the War Fund Committee of Brooklyn and Kings County, and the Woman's Relief Association of Brooklyn, which was known as the Brooklyn Auxiliary of the United States Sanitary Commission. The fair committee was organized with A. A. Low as president. Arrangements for coöperation between all the churches and private and public societies in the city were efficiently perfected, and a public meeting was held at the Academy of Music in January, 1864. Meetings to promote the same object were held at Flatbush, Greenpoint, and elsewhere. Buildings were erected adjacent to the Academy to give shelter to the Museum of Arts, a restaurant, a department of relics and curiosities, and quarters for the "Drum Beat," a journal published during the fair, under the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Storrs and Francis Williams.

The fair opened on Washington's Birthday with a great military parade. The Academy presented a brilliant spectacle. The art display in the Assembly rooms was a triumph in the art annals of the city; the New England Kitchen ingeniously duplicated the features of a colonial New England domestic scene.

On March 11 the fair closed with a memorable calico ball. In the hall of manufactures was a huge broom, sent from Cincinnati, and bearing this inscription: "Sent by the managers of the Cincinnati Fair, Greeting: We have swept up $240,000; Brooklyn, beat this if you can." Brooklyn's reply, in the words of an individual respondent, was: "Brooklyn sees the $240,000, and goes $150,000 better." Such, indeed, were the superb figures of profit from this remarkable enterprise.

The fair has been much extolled for its influence on the city itself. "The first great act of self-assertion ever made by the city of Brooklyn," is a typical comment on the event. However the fair may be regarded in this light, it was a brilliantly successful effort. The service of the Women's Relief Association, of which Mrs. J. S. T. Stranahan was the distinguished leader, was in the highest degree admirable.

The Christian Commission for Brooklyn and Long Island, to act in concert with the United States Christian Commission, was organized in March. Before the close of the war this commission had sent out 1210 Bibles and parts of the Scriptures; 4033 psalm books and hymn books; 50,544 magazines and pamphlets; 177,520 newspapers and periodicals, and other printing, making up a total of 1,078,304.

The Supervisors of the county repeatedly took measures to stimulate volunteers. In July (1864) the Board directed its bounty committee "to pay to any person furnishing an accepted volunteer or recruit for three years' United States service, the sum not exceeding $300, the same as paid to any drafted man furnishing a substitute, and to be paid upon the like certificate of the United States officer, and without regard to the person furnishing such recruit being liable to be drafted into the United States service."

In July, shortly after the laying of the corner-stone of an armory in the Eastern District, the committee began paying "hand-money" prizes of $175 and upward to persons bringing recruits. In September the news that Kings County was "out of the draft" was hailed with great satisfaction.

Early in 1865 the evidences that the war was drawing to a close clearly appeared. A party of excursionists which left Brooklyn, in April, on the steamer Oceanus, learned at Charleston of Lee's surrender, and witnessed the restoration of the flag on Sumter. The Rev. Dr. Storrs and Henry Ward Beecher were present and spoke. The party heard of Lincoln's assassination before reaching home.

The tragedy of Ford's Theatre, by which the strong hand of Lincoln was taken from the government of the nation, threw the city into profound gloom. The War Fund Committee opened subscriptions, which were limited to one dollar from each person, and the result of this prompt, patriotic, and well-managed movement was the statue of Lincoln by Henry K. Brown, which occupies a commanding place in Prospect Park Plaza.[30]

The record of Brooklyn's National Guard organizations is an honorable one. The Thirteenth Regiment (National Guard), the first company of which, known as the Brooklyn Light Guard, was organized as long ago as 1827, had for its first colonel Abel Smith. The call of President Lincoln in 1861 elicited a unanimous offer of service from the Thirteenth, which went farther south than any other New York regiment, save the Eleventh. It formed a part of the left wing of McClellan's army. When the regiment was called into active service for the third time, John B. Woodward was in command.[31]

The Fourteenth Regiment has the distinction of being the only one of the National Guard regiments that served throughout the war. It left for the front under command of Colonel Alfred M. Wood. At Bull Run, at Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, and elsewhere, it performed heavy and prolonged service. In twenty-one battles its mettle was tested, and the record made by the "red-legged devils" is a brilliant and honorable one.

The Twenty-third Regiment was the outgrowth of one of the Home Guard companies of the war period. It was summoned to Harrisburgh, Penn., in 1863, being then in command of Colonel Everdell. The subsequent history of the regiment has been one of steady rise in efficiency and distinction.

The Forty-seventh Regiment, organized, as already stated, under the leadership of J. V. Meserole,[32] was called to Washington, and was recalled after thirty days' service in consequence of the draft riots, in which, with the Forty-third, it performed valuable service.

The Third Battery was organized in 1864, by Major E. O. Hotchkiss.

Brooklyn is estimated to have contributed 30,000 men to the guards and armies of the Union during the war; but this estimate would not represent the highly creditable extent of the city's support to the great cause which saw its triumph in 1865.

During the years of the war the voice of the Brooklyn press gave no uncertain sound. The "Eagle" had become a lusty leader of public opinion. The "Times" on the other side of the city was making for itself a creditable name. The "Daily Union," established in 1863, voiced the ardor of the Union cause with energetic patriotism. German readers found in the "Long Island Anzeiger,"[33] started in 1864, cordial support to every good Northern principle in a strain worthy of the young journal's editor, Colonel Henry E. Roehr, who had been one of the earliest volunteers, and won many honors at the front. In 1872 Colonel Roehr began the publication of a German daily paper, the "Freie Presse."

On the 7th of April, 1863, the Legislature passed another act authorizing the Supervisors to raise a sum not exceeding $125,000, to be used in the erection and furnishing of the Court House building.

The ground on which the Court House stands is 140 feet on Fulton and Joralemon streets, by 351 feet deep. No better location could have been selected. The building was constructed under the direction of the Board of Supervisors, of which body the late General Crook was chairman. The building committee were Samuel Booth, Charles C. Talbot, William H. Hazzard, Charles A. Carnaville, Gilliam Schenck, and George G. Herman. The architects were Gamaliel King and Henry Teckritz.

The ground was broken October, 1861, and the corner-stone was laid May 20, 1862, by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of New York, Daniel T. Walden of Brooklyn officiating as Grand Master. Addresses were made on the occasion by Mayor Kalbfleisch, representing the city; General Crook, president of the Board of Supervisors, representing the county; Judge John A. Lott, for the judiciary; and Dr. Storrs delivered an eloquent address.

Owing to the unsettled condition of the country, during the Rebellion, the work did not advance rapidly. The price of materials increased, and labor commanded war prices. Many of the contractors declined to proceed, and new and less advantageous contracts had to be made. The price of the carpenters' work alone was increased $5000, and the feverish state of the times added more than $100,000 to the expense. The total cost of the building, land, and furniture was $551,757.28.

The building is erected on the site of the old Military Garden. When the land was purchased and the building erected, there were some old buildings between it and Boerum Place. The Court House was placed on a line with the street, in order that it might not be hidden by the adjoining structures. It is a great pity that the Supervisors did not see that in the process of time the adjoining land would be owned by the county. Had they thought of this, they could have placed the edifice twenty feet further back from the street, and thereby greatly improved its appearance.

It is to be noted that the Court House was constructed within the sum appropriated. Its manner of construction is in striking contrast to the methods pursued in New York. It stands to-day a monument to the integrity and capacity of the Board of Supervisors, and all in any wise concerned in its construction.

The building was finished in February, 1865, and thrown open to public inspection on the evenings of February 28 and March 1, 1865.[34]