As The 150th Anniversary Commemoration Of The American Civil War Passes-In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln-Led Union Side-In The Beginning-The Massachusetts Sixth Volunteers
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
I would not expect any average
American citizen today to be familiar with the positions of the communist
intellectuals and international working-class party organizers (First
International) Karl Mark and Friedrich Engels on the events of the American
Civil War. There is only so much one can expect of people to know off the top
of their heads about what for several generations now has been ancient
history. I am, however, always amazed
when I run into some younger leftists and socialists, or even older radicals
who may have not read much Marx and Engels, and find that they are surprised,
very surprised to see that Marx and Engels were avid partisans of the Abraham
Lincoln-led Union side in the American Civil War. I, in the past, have placed a
number of the Marx-Engels newspaper articles from the period in this space to
show the avidity of their interest and partisanship in order to refresh some
memories and enlighten others. As is my wont I like to supplement such efforts
with little fictional sketches to illustrate points that I try to make and do
so below with my take on a Union soldier from Boston, a rank and file soldier,Wilhelm
Sorge.
Since Marx and Engels have always
been identified with a strong anti-capitalist bias for the unknowing it may
seem counter-intuitive that the two men would have such a positive position on
events that had as one of its outcomes an expanding unified American capitalist
state. A unified capitalist state which ultimately led the vanguard political
and military actions against the followers of Marx and Engels in the 20th
century in such places as Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. The pair were
however driven in their views on revolutionary politics by a theory of
historical materialism which placed support of any particular actions in the
context of whether they drove the class struggle toward human emancipation
forward. So while the task of a unified capitalist state was supportable alone
on historical grounds in the United States of the 1860s (as was their qualified
support for German unification later in the decade) the key to their support
was the overthrow of the more backward slave labor system in one part of the
country (aided by those who thrived on the results of that system like the
Cotton Whigs in the North) in order to allow the new then progressive
capitalist system to thrive.
In the age of advanced imperialist
society today, of which the United States is currently the prime example, and
villain, we find that we are, unlike Marx and Engels, almost always negative
about capitalism’s role in world politics. And we are always harping on the
need to overthrow the system in order to bring forth a new socialist
reconstruction of society. Thus one could be excused for forgetting that at
earlier points in history capitalism played a progressive role. A role that
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and other leading Marxists, if not applauded, then
at least understood represented human progress. Of course, one does not expect
everyone to be a historical materialist and therefore know that in the Marxist
scheme of things both the struggle to bring America under a unitary state that
would create a national capitalist market by virtue of a Union victory and the
historically more important struggle to abolish slavery that turned out to be a
necessary outcome of that Union struggle were progressive in the eyes of our
forebears, and our eyes too.
Furthermore few know about the fact
that the small number of Marxist supporters in the United States during that
Civil period, and the greater German immigrant communities here that where
spawned when radicals were force to flee Europe with the failure of the German
revolutions of 1848 were mostly fervent supporters of the Union side in the
conflict. Some of them called the “Red Republicans” and “Red 48ers” formed an
early experienced military cadre in the then fledgling Union armies. Below is a
short sketch drawn on the effect that these hardened foreign –born
abolitionists had on some of the raw recruits who showed up in their regiments
and brigades during those hard four years of fighting, the third year of which
we are commemorating this month.
*************
I have spilled no little ink extolling the exploits of the now well-known Massachusetts 54th (and later the 55th) Volunteers-The first black regiment organized as such in the American Civil War commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and commemorated to this day by a famous frieze by Augustus Saint-Gauden across from the State House in Boston. Less well-known and also worthy of note was activity of the Massachusetts Sixth Volunteers who when summoned to defend the capital moved out in mid- April 1861. Here is a capsule summary of that story-
The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers...
...in 1861,
the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. With war
approaching, men who worked in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence joined
this new infantry regiment. They were issued uniforms and rifles; they learned
to drill. They waited for the call. It came on April 15th, three days after the
attack on Fort Sumter. They were needed to defend Washington, D.C.. The mood
when they left Boston was almost festive. When they arrived in the border state
of Maryland three days later, everything changed. An angry mob awaited them. In
the riot that followed, 16 people lost their lives. Four were soldiers from
Massachusetts. These men were the first combat fatalities of the Civil War.
In early January 1861, as civil
war approached, the men of Massachusetts began to form volunteer militia units.
Many workers in the textile cities of Lowell
and Lawrence
were among the first to join a new infantry regiment, the Sixth
Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, when it was formally organized on January 21,
1861.
All through the winter and early
spring, the men met regularly to drill. In March, they were issued uniforms and
Springfield rifles and told to be ready to assemble at any time. When Fort
Sumter was attacked on April 12th, the men of the Massachusetts Sixth knew
their days of drilling were over.
Three days later, President Lincoln
issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months. They were
ordered to Washington, D.C. to protect the capital and lead the effort to quash
the "rebellion."
Years later the men from Lawrence
and Lowell remembered their hurried visits to say good-bye to loved ones and
gather supplies before meeting their regiment in Boston. One man from Lowell
recalled, "I was working in the machine shop at the time . . . I got my
notice at the armory that we were going in the morning. I hired a horse and
buggy at a livery stable and drove to Pelham, N.H. where I bade farewell to my
sister. I then drove to Tingsboro, as I wanted to see my brother who. . . came
with me to Lowell. The mill bells were ringing as we reached Merrimack
St."
The Sixth Massachusetts gathered
with other regiments in Boston on April 16th. The Lowell Daily Courier published
one soldier's letter home: "We have been quartered since our arrival in
this city at Faneuil Hall and the old cradle of liberty rocked to its
foundation from the shouting patriotism of the gallant sixth. During all the
heavy rain the streets, windows, and house tops have been filled with
enthusiastic spectators, who loudly cheered our regiment . . . The city is
completely filled with enthusiasm; gray-haired old men, young boys, old women
and young, are alike wild with patriotism."
Not everyone was celebrating. A
corporal from Lowell was more subdued. He wrote to his wife at home, "My
heart is full for you, and I hope we may meet again. I shall believe that we
shall. You must hope for the best and be as cheerful as you can. But I know
your feelings and can judge what they will be when you get this. . . ."
The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers
boarded trains the next day. One soldier reported, "Cheers upon cheers
rent the air as we left Boston . . . at every station we passed anxious
multitudes were waiting to cheer us on our way." In Springfield, Hartford,
New York, Trenton, and Philadelphia, bells, fireworks, bonfires, bands, booming
cannon, and thousands of supporters greeted the Massachusetts men as their
train passed through.
The mood changed dramatically when
the train arrived in Baltimore on the morning of April 19th. Although the state
had not seceded from the Union, many Baltimoreans were sympathetic to the
Confederate cause and objected strenuously to the presence of northern
soldiers.
Steam engines were not allowed to
operate in the city limits, so the regiment crossed the city in train cars
drawn by horses. Most of the men made it before a growing mob threw sand and
ship anchors onto the tracks. At that point, the soldiers had no choice but to
disembark and begin marching.
The commanding officer ordered the
men to load their weapons but not to use them unless fired upon. An anxious
corporal sent a note to a friend, "We shall have trouble to-day and I
shall not get out of it alive. Promise me if I fall that my body shall be sent
home."
Four companies of men from Lowell
and Lawrence were separated by the crowd from the rest of the regiment. As they
attempted to make their way through the city, angry citizens began to shout
insults. As one soldier later told a reporter, we "were immediately
assailed with stones, clubs and missiles, which we bore according to orders.
Orders came . . . for double quick march, but the streets had been torn up by
the mob and piles of stones and every other obstacle had been laid in the
streets to impede our progress. . . . Pistols began to be discharged at us, . .
. Shots and missiles were fired from windows and house tops. . . . The crowd
followed us to the depot, keeping up an irregular shooting, even after we
entered the [railroad] cars."
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