Buttons, Lovers, Oaths, War Lords, and Prayers for Presidents

Some military orders were very irritating.

The “Button Order” prohibited our men from wearing Confederate buttons. Many possessed no others and had not money wherewith to buy. “Buttons were scarce as hens’ teeth.” The Confederacy had been reduced to all sorts of makeshifts for buttons. Thorns from thornbushes had furnished country folks with such fastenings as pins usually supply, and served convenience on milady’s toilette-table when she went to do up her hair.

One clause in that monstrous order delighted feminine hearts! It provided as thoughtful concession to all too glaring poverty that: “When plain buttons cannot be procured, those formerly used can be covered with cloth.” Richmond ladies looked up all the bits of crape and bombazine they had, and next morning their men appeared on the streets with buttons in mourning! “I would never have gotten Uncle out of the front door if he had realized what I was up to,” Matoaca relates. “Not that he was not mournful enough, but he did not want to mourn that way.”

Somehow, nobody thought about Sam’s button; he was a boy, only fifteen. He happened to go out near Camp Grant in his old gray jacket, the only coat he had; one of his brothers had given it to him months before. It was held together over his breast by a single button, his only button. A Yankee sergeant cut it off with his sword. The jacket fell apart, exposing bepatched and thread-bare underwear. His mother and sisters could not help crying when the boy came in, holding his jacket together with his hand, his face suffused, his eyes full of tears of rage and mortification.

The “Button Trouble” pervaded the entire South. The Tennessee Legislature, Brownlow’s machine, discussed a bill imposing a fine of $5 to $25 upon privates, and $25 to $50 upon officers for wearing the “rebel uniform.” The gaunt, destitute creatures who were trudging, stumping, limping, through that State on their way from distant battlefields and Northern prisons to their homes, had rarely so much as fifty cents in their pockets. Had that bill become a law enforced, Tennessee prisons must have overflowed with recaptured Confederates, or roads and woods with men in undress.

Many a distinguished soldier, home-returning, ignorant that such an order existed, has been held up at the entrance to his native town by a saucy negro sergeant who would shear him of buttons with a sabre, or march him through the streets to the Provost’s office to answer for the crime of having buttons on his clothes.

The provision about covering buttons has always struck me as the unkindest cut of all. How was a man who had no feminine relatives to obey the law? Granted that as a soldier, he had acquired the art of being his own seamstress, how, when he was in the woods or the roads, could he get scraps of cloth and cover buttons?

But of all commands ever issued, the “Marriage Order” was the most extraordinary! That order said people should not get married unless they took the Oath of Allegiance. If they did, they would be arrested. I have forgotten the exact wording, but if you will look up General Order No. 4,[7] April 29, and signed by General Halleck, you can satisfy any curiosity you may feel. It was a long ukase, saying what-all people should not do unless they took the oath (some felt like taking a good many daily!). Naturally, young people were greatly upset. Many had been engaged a weary while, to be married soon as the war should be over.

Among those affected was Captain Sloan, whose marriage to Miss Wortham was due the Tuesday following. The paper containing the order, heavily ringed with black, darkened the roseate world upon which the bride-elect opened her lovely eyes Saturday morning. The same hand that had put the order in mourning had scribbled on the margin: “If Captain Sloan is not ready to take that oath, I am.”

Her maid informed her that Mr. Carrington, an elderly friend, fond of a joke, was awaiting her. Descending to the drawing-room, she found it full of sympathising neighbours, her betrothed in the midst, all debating a way out of the difficulty. Not even sharp-witted lawyers could see one. In times so out of joint law did not count.

The situation was saved by the fact that General Halleck had a namesake in Captain Sloan’s family. The Captain’s “Uncle Jerry” (otherwise General Jerry Gilmer, of South Carolina) had called a son “Henry Halleck” in honour of his one-time class-mate at West Point. When the idea of the namesake as basis of appeal dawned on Captain Sloan, day was passing. Miss Wortham’s father, who, before the Federal Government had interfered with his dominion as a parent, had been anxious that his very youthful daughter and her betrothed should defer their union, was now quite determined that the rights of the lovers should not be abrogated by Uncle Sam. As member of the Confederate Ambulance Committee, he had been in close touch with Colonel Mulford, Federal Commissioner of Exchange; Judge Ould, Confederate Commissioner, was his personal friend; in combination with these gentlemen, he arranged a meeting twixt lover and war lord.

General Halleck received Hymen’s ambassador with courtesy. The story of the namesake won his sympathetic ear. When told what consternation his order was causing—Captain Sloan plead other cases besides his own—the war lord laughed, scribbled something on a slip of official paper and handed it to Captain Sloan, saying: “Let this be known and I suppose there will be a good many weddings before Monday.” The slip read like this: “Order No. 4 will not go into effect until Monday morning. H. W. Halleck, General Commanding.”

Alas! there were no Sunday papers. The news was disseminated as widely as possible; and three weddings, at least, in high society, happened Sunday in consequence. Mrs. Sloan, a prominent member of Baltimore society, gave her own account of the whole matter in Mrs. Daniel’s “Confederate Scrap-Book,” which any one may see at the Confederate Museum.

“The gown I wore the day after my marriage,” she relates, “was a buff calico with tiny dots in it, and as it was prettily and becomingly made, I looked as well, and I know I was as happy, as if it had been one of Worth’s or Redfern’s most bewildering conceits—and I am sure it was as expensive, as it cost $30 a yard.”

General Halleck’s order was not unique. Restrictions on marriage had been incorporated in the State Constitution of Missouri, 1864, a section prescribing that “No person shall practice law, be competent as bishop, priest, deacon, minister, elder, or other clergyman of any religious persuasion, sect, or denomination, teach, preach, or solemnise marriage until such person shall have first taken the oath required as to voters.” “Under these provisions,” commented Senator Vest, from whom I borrow, “the parent who had given a piece of bread or a cup of water to a son in the Confederate service, or who had in any way expressed sympathy for such son, was prohibited from registering as voter, serving as juror, or holding any office or acting as trustee, or practicing law, or teaching in any school, or preaching the Gospel, or solemnising the marriage rite.”[8]

Strictly construed, the test-oath imposed by Congress in 1867, like that of Missouri, excluded from franchise and office, the parent who had given a piece of bread or a cup of water or his sympathy to a son in the Confederate service; and the negro who had made wheat and corn for his master’s family, as the applicant must swear that he had not “given aid or comfort to” Confederates.

The Missouri test-oath was one that prominent Union men, among them General Francis P. Blair, leader of the Union Party in his State, a man who had taken part in the siege of Vicksburg and marched with Sherman to the sea, were unable to take. Americans beholding his statue in Statuary Hall, Washington, as that of one of the two sons Missouri most delights to honour, will find food for curious reflection in the fact that General Blair, going in full Federal uniform to register as a voter, was not allowed to do so. Visitors to Blair Hall at the St. Louis Exposition may have been reminded of this little incident of reconstruction. In 1867, Father John A. Cummings was arrested and tried for performing parochial duties without taking the oath. A bill forbidding women to marry until they took the oath was passed by Tennessee’s Senate, but the House rejected it. This bill, like Missouri’s law, discriminated against ministers of the Gospel; those who had sympathised with “rebels” or in any way aided them, were condemned to work on the public roads and other degrading forms of expiation.

There was no appreciable reluctance on the part of the people to take the oath of allegiance. They could honestly swear for the future to sustain the Government of the United States, but few, or no decent people, even Unionists, living among Confederates, could vow they had given no “aid or comfort” to one. The test-oath cultivated hypocrisy in natives and invited carpet-baggers. A native who would take it was eligible to office, while the honest man who would not lie, was denied a right to vote.

In readiness to take the oath of allegiance, people rushed so promptly to tribunals of administration that the sincerity of the South was questioned at the North, where it could not be understood how sharp was our need to have formalities of submission over and done with, that we might get to work. One striking cartoon pictured Columbia upon a throne gloomily regarding a procession that came bending, bowing, kneeling, creeping, crawling, to her feet, General Lee leader and most abject, with Howell Cobb, Wade Hampton, and other distinguished Southerners around him. Beneath was this: “Can I trust these men?” On the opposite page, a one-legged negro soldier held out his hand; beneath was: “Franchise? And not this man?”

MRS. HENRY L. POPE

(Sarah Moore Ewing)

First Kentucky State Regent D. A. R.

From a portrait by de Franca, photographed by Doerr. Louisville, Ky.

A few people had serious scruples of conscience against taking the oath. I know of two or three whose attitude, considering their personalities, was amusing and pathetic. There was one good lady, Mrs. Wellington, who walked all the way from Petersburg to Richmond, a distance of twenty miles, for fear the oath might be required if she boarded a car!

I turn to Matoaca’s journal:

“I have been visiting Cousin Mary in Powhatan. Of course they have military government there, too. Soldiers ride up, enter without invitation, walk through the house, seat themselves at the piano and play; promenade to the rear, go into the kitchen, sit down and talk with the darkeys.

“At church, I saw officers wearing side-arms. They come regularly to watch if we pray for the President of the United States. I hope they were edified; a number stood straight up during that prayer. Among the most erect were the M. girls, who have very retroussÉ noses. The Yankees reported: ‘Not only do they stand up when the President is prayed for, but they turn up their noses.’ They sent word back: ‘A mightier power than the Yankee Army turned up our noses.’

“I hear they have dealt severely with Rev. Mr. Wingfield because he would not read that prayer for the President. When brought up for it, he told the examining officer he could not—it was a matter of conscience. They put a ball and chain on him and made him sweep the streets. And these people are the exponents of ‘freedom,’ and ‘liberty of conscience.’ They come from a land whose slogan is these words! They have no right to force us to pray according to their views. For myself, I kneel during the prayer, I try to pray it; I seek to feel it, since to pray without feeling is mockery. But I don’t feel it.

“Uncle advised: ‘My daughter, no man needs your prayers more than the President of the United States. He has great and grave responsibilities. We must desire that a higher power shall direct him. The President is surrounded by advisers bent on revenge, so bent on it that they seem to care nothing whatever for the Union—the real union of the North and South.’ So I bow my head, and I try—God knows I try! But thoughts of all the blood that has been shed, of the homes that have been burned, the suffering and starvation endured, will rush into my mind as I kneel. Dear Christ! did you know how hard a command you laid upon us when you said, ‘Pray for your enemies?’”

An entry after Mr. Lincoln’s death says: “How can I pray that prayer in the face of this?” Below is pasted Johnson’s proclamation charging the assassination to Mr. Davis and other Southern leaders. This follows: “How can I pray for the President of the United States? That proclamation is an insult flung in the face of the whole South! And we have to take it.”

They had as much trouble at Washington over our prayers as over our few buttons and clothes.

The Sunday after the evacuation—one week from the day on which the messenger came from General Lee to Mr. Davis—the Federals were represented in St. Paul’s by distinguished and respectful worshippers. Nearly all women present were in black. When the moment came for the petition for “the President of the Confederate States and all others in authority,” you could have heard a pin fall. The congregation had kinsmen in armies still under the authority of the President of the Confederacy; they were full of anxiety; their hearts were torn and troubled. Were they here before God to abjure their own? Were they to utter prayer that was mockery? To require them to pray for the President of the United States was like calling upon the martyrs of old to burn incense to strange gods. Dr. Minnegerode read the prayer, omitting the words “for the President of the Confederate States,” simply saying “for all in authority.” Generals Weitzel, Shepley and Ripley had consented that it was to be thus.

Assistant Secretary of War Dana writes to Secretary of War Stanton: “On Friday, I asked Weitzel about what he was going to do in regard to opening the churches on Sunday. He said ministers would be warned against treasonable utterances and be told they must put up loyal prayers.”

It seems that after this conversation the determination of the Commandant and his Staff to wrest piety and patriotism out of the rebels at one fell swoop, underwent modification, partly, perhaps, as a concession to the Almighty, of whom it was fair to presume that He might not be altogether pleased with prayers offered on the point of a sword.

Scandalised at official laxity in getting just dues from Heaven for the United States, Dana continues: “It shakes my faith a good deal in Weitzel.” In subsequent letters he says it was Shepley’s or Ripley’s fault; Weitzel really thought the people ought to be made to pray right; the crime was somehow fastened finally on Judge Campbell’s back, and Weitzel was informed that he must have no further oral communications with this dangerous and seditious person. Thus Mr. Stanton rounded up Weitzel: “If you have consented that services should be performed in the Episcopal Churches of Richmond without the usual prayer said in loyal churches for the President, your action is strongly condemned by this Department. I am not willing to believe that an officer of the United States commanding in Richmond would consent to such an omission of respect for the President of the United States.” Weitzel: “Do you desire that I should order this form of prayer in Episcopal, Hebrew, Roman Catholic, and other churches where they have a liturgy?” Stanton: “No mark of respect must be omitted to President Lincoln which was rendered to the rebel, Jeff Davis.” Weitzel: “Dispatch received. Order will be issued in accordance therewith.”

Is it any wonder that Grant and Sherman between them finally said to President Johnson: “Mr. President, you should make some order that we of the army are not bound to obey the orders of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War.”

The Episcopal clergy presented the case clearly to General Weitzel and his Staff, who, as reasonable men, appreciated the situation. “The Church and State are not one in this country; we, as men, in all good faith take the oath of allegiance required of us. As priests, we are under ecclesiastical jurisdiction; we cannot add to the liturgy. A convention of the Church must be called. Meanwhile, we, of course, omit words held treasonable, reciting, ‘for all in authority,’ which surely includes the President. Forcing public feeling will be unwise; members will absent themselves, or go to a church which, not using any ritual, is not under compulsion; the order is, in effect, discrimination against the Episcopal Church.”

Our people, they said, “desire by quiet and inoffensive conduct to respond to the liberal policy of those in command; they deeply appreciate the conciliatory measures adopted, and all the more regret to appear as dissenters.” They wrote to President Johnson, asking opportunity for action by heads of the diocese; they said that when the South seceded, standing forms had obtained for months till change was so wrought. That letter went the rounds of the War, State, and Executive Departments, and was returned “disapproved,” and the Episcopal Churches of Richmond were actually closed by military order until they would say that prayer.

Even President Lincoln was moved to write General Weitzel, asking what it meant that he hadn’t made people pray as they ought! “You told me not to insist upon little things,” said Weitzel.

Had we been let alone in the matter of praying for the President, we would all very soon have come to see the subject in the light in which Uncle Randolph presented it. As it was, conscientious prelates were in straitened positions, not wishing to lead their people in petitions which the latter would resent or regard at the best as empty formula. Omission of the prayer altogether was recommended by Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, as the wisest course for the moment; General Woods suspended the Bishop and all clergy of his diocese; they were not to preach or to lead in church service; and, I believe, were not to marry the living, baptise the new-born, or bury the dead. President Johnson set such orders aside as soon as he came to his senses after the shock of Mr. Lincoln’s death.

General McPherson commanded pastors of Vicksburg (1864) to read the prescribed prayer for the President at each and every service; pastors of churches without such prescribed form were instructed to invent one. The Bishop of Natchez, William Henry Elder, was banished because he would not read the prayer. Some young ladies, of Vicksburg, were banished because they rose and left the church, on Christmas morning, when a minister read it. An order signed by General McPherson, served on each, said she was “hereby banished and must leave the Federal lines within forty-eight hours under penalty of imprisonment.” No extension of time for getting “their things ready” was allowed. Permission was given for the mother of one delinquent to chaperon the bevy, which, with due ceremony, was deported under flag of truce, hundreds of Federal soldiers watching.

One Sunday in New Orleans under Butler’s rule, Major Strong was at Dr. Goodrich’s church; time came for prayer for the Confederacy; there was silence. Major Strong rose and thundered: “Stop, sir! I close this church in ten minutes!” Rev. Dr. Leacock[9] wrote Butler a tender letter begging him not to force people to perjury in taking the oath through fear, prefacing: “No man more desires restoration of the Union than I.” Helen Gray, Dr. Leacock’s granddaughter, tells me: “My grandfather was arrested in church and marched through the city in ecclesiastical robes to answer for not praying as Butler bade; Rev. Dr. Goodrich and Rev. Mr. Fulton (now Editor of the ‘Church Standard’) were also arrested. Butler sent them North to be imprisoned in Fort Lafayette. The levee was thronged with people, many weeping to see them go. They were met at New York by influential citizens, among these Samuel Morse, the inventor, who offered them his purse, carriage and horses. They were paroled and entertained at the Astor House. Some people were bitter and small towards them; many were kind, among these, I think, was Bishop Potter. Hon. Reverdy Johnson took up their case. Grandfather served St. Mark’s, Niagara, Canada, in the rector’s absence; the people presented him, through Mrs. Dr. Marston, with a purse; he served at Chamblee, where the people also presented him with a purse. Mrs. Greenleaf, Henry W. Longfellow’s sister, sent him a purse of $500; she had attended his church during ante-bellum visits to New Orleans, and she loved him dearly. Rev. F. E. Chubbuck, the Yankee Chaplain appointed to succeed my grandfather, called on my grandmother, expressed regrets and sympathies, and offered to do anything he could for her. I tell the tale as it has come to me.” Government reports confirm this in essentials.

MRS. WILLIAM HOWELL (Mary Leacock)MRS. ANDREW GRAY (Lina Leacock)

Daughters of the Rev. Dr. Leacock, of Christ Church, New Orleans.

Of course, denominations not using a liturgy, had an advantage, but they were not exempt. Major B. K. Davis, Lexington, Mo., April 25, 1865, to Major-General Dodge: “On the 7th of April, from the well-known disloyalty of the churches of this place, I issued an order that pastors of all churches return thanks for our late victories. The pastor of the M. E. Church declined to do so, and I took the keys of his church.”

In Huntsville, Alabama, 1862, Rev. F. A. Ross, Presbyterian minister, was arrested and sent north by General Rousseau because, when commanded to pray for the Yankees, he prayed: “We beseech thee, O Lord, to bless our enemies and remove them from our midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy sight!”[10]“The Confederate Veteran” tells this of General Lee. At Communion in St. Paul’s soon after the occupation, the first person to walk up to the altar and kneel was a negro man. Manner and moment made the act sinister, a challenge, not an expression of piety. The congregation sat, stunned and still, not knowing what to do. General Lee rose, walked quietly up the aisle and knelt near the negro. The people followed and service proceeded as if no innovation had been attempted. The custom by which whites preceded negroes to the altar originated, not in contempt for negroes, but in ideas of what was right, orderly and proper. So far were whites from despising negroes in religious fellowship that it was not strange for both races to assemble in plantation chapels and join in worship conducted by the black preacher in the white preacher’s absence. I sometimes think those old Southerners knew the negro better than we ever can. But just after the war, they were not supposed to know anything of value on any subject.

Wherever there was a press, it was muzzled by policy if not by such direct commands as General Sherman’s in Savannah, when he ordained that there should be no more than two newspapers, and forbade “any libelous publication, mischievous matter, premature acts, exaggerated statements, or any comments whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities,” on pain of heavy penalties to editors and proprietors. Some people say we ought, even now, for the family honour, to hush up everything unpleasant and discreditable. Not so! It is not well for men in power to think that their acts are not to be inquired into some day.

CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES