Battle of Pea Ridge, March 6, 7, 8, 1862

The Battle of Pea Ridge (also known as Elkhorn Tavern) was a land battle of the Civil War, fought on March 6–8, 1862, at Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas.

Union forces led by General Samuel Curtis moved south from central Missouri, driving Confederate forces into northwestern Arkansas.  Confederate General Earl Van Dorn reorganized the Confederate army and launched a counter-offensive, hoping that a victory would enable the Confederates to recapture northern Arkansas and Missouri. In a two–day battle, Curtis held off the Confederate attack on the first day and drove Van Dorn's force off the field on the second day.

The outcome of the battle essentially cemented Union control of Missouri and northern Arkansas. The battle was one of the few during the war in which a Confederate army outnumbered its Union opponent.

The battlefield at Pea Ridge is now Pea Ridge National Military Park, founded in 1956. The park is known as one of the best preserved Civil War battlefields. The park also includes a 2.5-mile (4-km) section of the Trail of Tears.  

Battle of Natural Bridge, March 6, 1865

Natural Bridge Monument, erected in 1921
"LEST WE FORGET"

The Battle of Natural Bridge was a battle during the American Civil War, fought in what is now Woodville, Florida, near Tallahassee March 6, 1865. 

A small band of Confederate troops and volunteers, mostly composed of teenagers from the nearby Florida Military and Collegiate Institute, and the elderly, protected by breastworks, prevented Union forces (consisting of African-American soldiers of the United States Colored Troops) from crossing the Natural Bridge on the St. Marks River. This action prevented the Union from capturing the Florida capital and made Tallahassee the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to be captured by Union forces during the war.

Secretary of State Tom Adams showing battle flag of Natural Bridge (1961)

A ceremony honoring the combatants on both sides of the Battle of Natural Bridge, followed by a reenactment of the battle featuring authentically-costumed Confederate and Union military and civilian re-enactors, is held at the park the first weekend of March every year. The site is now called Natural Bridge Battlefield Historic State Park.

First official national flag of the Confederacy, 

the Stars and Bars, flown Monday, March 4, 1861

The Confederate Stars and Bars

The first official national flag of the Confederacy, called the Stars and Bars, was flown from March 4, 1861, to May 1, 1863. Inspired by Austria's national flag, it was designed by Prussian artist Nicola Marschall in Marion, Alabama. The Stars and Bars flag was adopted March 4, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama and raised over the dome of that first Confederate Capitol. 

One of the first acts of the Provisional Confederate Congress was to create the Committee on the Flag and Seal, chaired by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina. The committee asked the public to submit thoughts and ideas on the topic and was, as historian John M. Coski puts it, "overwhelmed by requests not to abandon the 'old flag' of the United States". 

Miles had already designed a flag that would later become the Confederate battle flag, and he favored his flag over the "Stars and Bars" proposal. But given the popular support for a flag similar to the U.S. flag ("the Stars and Stripes"), the Stars and Bars design was approved by the committee. 

When war broke out, the Stars and Bars caused confusion on the battlefield because of its similarity to the U.S. flag of the U.S. Army (as well as some Confederate units which still wore dark blue coats early in the war prior to the adoption of gray uniforms).

Eventually, a total of 13 stars would be shown on the flag, reflecting the Confederacy's claims to have admitted Kentucky and Missouri into their union.

First, second, and third national flags, along with "Bonnie Blue"flag

During the solicitation for the second national flag, there were many different types of designs that were proposed, nearly all making use of the battle flag, which by 1863 had become well-known and popular. The new design was specified by the Confederate Congress to be a white field "with the union (now used as the battle flag) to be a square of two-thirds the width of the flag, having the ground red; thereupon a broad saltier of blue, bordered with white, and emblazoned with mullets or five-pointed stars, corresponding in number to that of the Confederate States"

The flag is also known as "the Stainless Banner". The nickname "stainless" referred to the pure white field. The flag act of 1864 did not state what the white symbolized and advocates offered various interpretations. The Confederate Congress debated whether the white field should have a blue stripe and whether it should be bordered in red. William Miles delivered a speech for the simple white design that was eventually approved. He argued that the battle flag must be used, but for a national flag it was necessary to emblazon it, but as simply as possible, with a plain white field.

Initial reaction to the second national flag was favorable, but over time it became criticized for being "too white". The Columbia Daily South Carolinian observed that it was essentially a battle flag upon a flag of truce and might send a mixed message. Military officers voiced complaints about the flag being too white, for various reasons, including the danger of being mistaken for a flag of truce, especially on naval ships, and that it was too easily soiled.

The third national flag (also called "the Blood Stained Banner") was adopted March 4, 1865. The red vertical bar was proposed by Major Arthur L. Rogers, who argued that the pure white field of the Second National flag could be mistaken as a flag of truce. When hanging limp in no wind, the flag's Southern Cross canton could accidentally stay hidden, so the flag could mistakenly appear all white.  Rogers lobbied successfully to have this alteration introduced in the Confederate Senate. He defended his redesign as having "as little as possible of the Yankee blue", and described it as symbolizing the primary origins of the people of the South, with the cross of England and the red bar from the flag of France.

Despite the passage of the Flag Act of 1865, very few third national flags were actually manufactured and used in the field; the Confederacy surrendered two weeks after the Act's passage.

In addition to the national flags, a wide variety of flags and banners were flown by Southerners during the War. Most famously, the "Bonnie Blue Flag" was used as an unofficial flag during the early months of 1861. It was flying above the Confederate batteries that first opened fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War. 

Flag based on battle flag, along with first national flag

The Army of Northern Virginia battle flag was usually square, of various sizes for the different branches of the service: 52 inches (130 cm) square for the infantry, 38 inches (97 cm) for the artillery, and 32 inches (81 cm) for the cavalry. It was used in battle beginning in December 1861 until the fall of the Confederacy. The blue color on the saltire in the battle flag was navy blue, as opposed to the much lighter blue of the Naval Jack.

The flag's stars represented the number of states in the Confederacy. The distance between the stars decreased as the number of states increased, reaching thirteen when the secessionist factions of Kentucky andMissouri joined in late 1861.

The flag that Miles had favored when he was chair of the Committee on the Flag and Seal eventually became the battle flag and, ultimately, the most popular flag of the Confederacy.  Miles' flag, and all the flag designs up to that point, were rectangular ("oblong") in shape. General Johnston suggested making it square instead to conserve material. Johnston also specified the various sizes to be used by different types of military units.

During the first half of the 20th century, the Confederate flag enjoyed renewed popularity. During World War II some U.S. military units with Southern nicknames, or made up largely of Southerners, made the flag their unofficial emblem. The USS Columbia flew a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag throughout combat in the South Pacific in World War II. This was done in honor of Columbia, the ship's namesake and the capital city of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union. Some soldiers carried Confederate flags into battle. After the Battle of Okinawa a Confederate flag was raised overShuri Castle by a Marine from the self-styled "Rebel Company" (Company A of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines). It was visible for miles and was taken down after three days on the orders of General Simon B. Buckner, Jr. (son of Confederate general Simon Buckner), who stated that it was inappropriate as "Americans from all over are involved in this battle". It was replaced with the flag of the United States.

The display of the Confederate flag is a highly controversial topic, generally because of disagreement over its symbolism.

Supporters of the flag view it as a symbol of southern heritage and the independence of the distinct cultural tradition of the South from the North. 

Some groups use the Southern Cross as one of the symbols associated with their organizations, including racist groups such as the Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, whose own Nazi-inspired symbology is largely banned in modern Germany.

Some historical societies such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy also use the flag as part of their symbols. Some rockabilly fans hold the Confederate flag as their emblem as well.

As a result of these varying perceptions, there have been a number of political controversies surrounding the use of the Confederate flag in Southern state flags, at sporting events, at Southern universities, and on public buildings. According to Civil War historian and native Southerner Shelby Foote, the flag traditionally represented the South's resistance to Northern political dominance; it became racially charged during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when fighting against desegregation suddenly became the focal point of that resistance.

Abraham Lincoln's First Inauguration as President, Monday, March 4, 1861

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

~ Abraham Lincoln, first Inaugual Address

Since Lincoln's election in November 1860, seven states had left the Union. Worried that the election of a Republican would threaten their rights, especially slavery, the lower South seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. In the process, some of those states seized federal properties such as armories and forts. By the time Lincoln arrived in Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, the threat of war hung heavy in the air. Lincoln took a cautious approach in his remarks, and made no specific threats against the Southern states. As a result, he had some flexibility in trying to keep the states of the upper South--North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware--in the Union.
Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated as the President of the Confederacy two weeks earlier.  
Chief Justice Roger Taney administered the executive oath for the seventh time. The Capitol itself was sheathed in scaffolding because the copper and wood "Bulfinch" dome was being replaced with a cast iron dome designed by Thomas U. Walter.

Lincoln in carriage en route to Capitol Building

The burden of Lincoln's safety fell on the aged shoulders of Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, celebrated war hero and head of the U.S. Army. He wrote of this duty as "the most critical and hazardous event with which I have ever been connected." Not only was Lincoln's life endangered by Southern secessionists, but Scott himself received many death threats if he "dared to protect the ceremony by military force." Scott rounded up as many soldiers as possible from his scant forces, so when Lincoln rode to the Capitol, a reporter noted, "His carriage was closely surrounded on all sides by marshals and cavalry, so as almost to hide it from view."   Sixteen-year-old Julia Taft and her mother watched the procession from a hardware store because the Capitol might prove too dangerous. "As we took our places a file of green-coated sharpshooters went through up to the roof. The whisper went round that they had received orders to shoot at any one crowding toward the President's carriage."  She noticed the crowd seemed hostile toward Lincoln and heard a woman remark, "There goes that Illinois ape, the cursed Abolitionist. But he will never come back alive."

The President-elect rode with President Buchanan in an open carriage to the Capitol, where he took the oath of office on the East Portico. This was the first time Lincoln appeared in public with his beard as president, which he had grown in between being elected and his inauguration. 

Senator Edward D. Baker, a longtime friend of the Lincolns, introduced the president-elect to a crowd of about 25,000 people. Carl Schurz, another political friend, watched the proceedings intently. "I saw Lincoln step forward to the desk upon which the Bible lay -- his rugged face, appearing above all those surrounding him, calm and sad."

Lincoln pulled out a pair of reading glasses, secured his manuscript with a gold-headed cane, and tried to lay down his new silk hat. Schurz said, "I witnessed the remarkable scene when Lincoln, about to deliver his inaugural address, could not at once find a convenient place for his hat, and Douglas took that hat and held it like an attendant, while Lincoln was speaking."

As for 83-year-old Roger Taney, he said, "I saw the withered form of Chief Justice Taney, the author of the famous Dred Scott decision, that judicial compend of the doctrine of slavery, administer the oath of office to the first President elected on a distinct anti-slavery platform." Taney died in office three years later, and Lincoln filled the position with abolitionist Salmon Chase.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed, and pledged to suspend the activities of the federal government temporarily in areas of hostility. However, he also took a firm stance against secession and the seizure of federal property. The government, insisted Lincoln, would "hold, occupy, and possess" its property and collect its taxes. 

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, sat behind Lincoln during the speech,  "expecting to hear its delivery arrested by the crack of a rifle aimed at his heart, but it pleased God to postpone the deed, though there was forty times the reason for shooting him in 1860 that there was in '65, and at least forty times as many intent on killing or having him killed. No shot was then fired, however; for his hour had not yet come."

Six weeks later, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Civil War began.

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_First_Inaugural_Address

Garrett Morgan, born March 4, 1877

Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky, 12 years after the end of the Civil War to Sydney, a former slave and son of Confederate Col. John Hunt Morgan, and Eliza Reed, also a former slave.

Morgan moved at the age of fourteen to Cincinnati, Ohio in search of employment. Most of his teenage years were spent working as a handyman for a wealthy Cincinnati landowner. Like many African Americans of his day, he had to quit school at a young age in order to work. However, the teen-aged Morgan was able to hire his own tutor and continued his studies while living in Cincinnati.

Cleveland, Ohio

In 1895, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. He married his first wife, Madge Nelson, in 1896, but that marriage ended in divorce.

In 1907, the Prince-Wolf Company hired him to be their first black machinist. There he met an immigrant seamstress from Bavaria, Mary Anne Hasek. “They would engage in innocent conversations, until Morgan was warned by his supervisor that black men were not allowed to talk to white women in the company. Incensed at being told who he could and could not speak to because of his color, Morgan went to the Personnel Office and quit,” according to Renaissance magazine.  Morgan opened his own sewing machine and shoe repair shop. It was the first of several businesses he would own. In 1908, he married his second wife, Mary Anne Hassek, and together they had three sons. 

In 1909, he expanded his business to include a tailoring shop. The company made coats, suits, dresses, and other clothing. Morgan experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish and prevented the needle from scorching fabric as it sewed. Accidentally, Morgan discovered that this liquid not only straightened fabric but also hair. He made the liquid into a cream and began the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company. He also made a black hair oil dye and a curved-tooth iron comb in 1910, to straighten hair.

His business was profitable enough to allow him to build a home at 5204 Harlem Ave. in Cleveland, where he later brought his mother to live, after his father died.

In 1916 he helped to found the Cleveland Call newspaper, and subsequently participated in a 1928 merger that created the Call and Post newspaper. 

Granddaughter Sandra Morgan remembers fondly the beautiful velvet coats with matching muffs that she wore as a little girl, all handmade by Mary. “My party coats, my summer clothes – my grandmother made everything.”

Garrett and Mary’s marriage lasted more than 50 years, until their deaths in the 1960s. Mary came from a big family, but she had little contact with her relatives after she married a black man. She was even excommunicated from her Catholic faith. Sandra Morgan, who still keeps Mary’s rosary and her Bible written in German, believes it hurt her grandmother deeply.

Garrett Morgan patented a safety hood and smoke protector after seeing firefighters struggling from the smoke they encountered in the line of duty and hearing about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  His device used a wet sponge to filter out smoke and cool the air. 

He was able to sell his invention around the country, sometimes using the tactic of having a hired white actor take credit rather than revealing himself as its inventor. For demonstrations of the device, he sometimes adopted the disguise of "Big Chief Mason", a purported full-blooded Indian from the Walpole Island Indian Reserve in Canada.  

His invention became known nationally when he and three other men used it to save several men after a 1916 tunnel explosion under Lake Erie. Cleveland's newspapers and city officials initially ignored Morgan's personal acts of heroism as the first to rush into the tunnel for the rescue, and it took years for the city to recognize his contributions. Eventually, Morgan was awarded a gold Medal of Bravery by prominent citizens  of Cleveland and a gold medal for bravery from the International Association of Fire Chiefs. 

In 1923, he used some proceeds from sale to purchase a large piece of property near Wakeman, Ohio. There he created Ohio’s first black country club – a place where middle-class blacks could enjoy recreation like horseback riding, fishing and horseshoes. “The all-black facility, however, was not wanted in the area by local whites,” reported Renaissance magazine, which said that Klan members rode onto the property one night and burned a cross.  Morgan and his brothers ran them off with guns. The KKK never returned, and the club enjoyed uninterrupted success until Morgan lost the bulk of his money in the 1929 stock market crash. With a freeze on his savings account, Morgan sold 200 acres of the Wakeman land to pay the taxes on the remaining 200.

Morgan died on July 27, 1963, at the age of 86, and was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.  His headstone at Lakeview Cemetery reads simply: “By his deeds, he shall be remembered.”

The Enrollment Act, enacted March 3, 1863

The Enrollment Act, enacted March 3, 1863, also known as the Civil War Military Draft Act, was legislation passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War to provide fresh manpower for the Union Army. 

A form of conscription, the controversial act required the enrollment of every male citizen and those immigrants who had filed for citizenship between ages twenty and forty-five. 

Federal agents established a quota of new troops due from each congressional district. 

In some cities, particularly New York City, enforcement of the act sparked civil unrest as the war dragged on, leading to the New York Draft Riots on July 13–16. 

The policies of substitution and commutation were controversial practices that allowed drafted citizens to opt out of service by either furnishing a suitable substitute to take the place of the drafted, or paying $300. Both of these provisions were created with the intention of softening the effect of the draft on pacifists, the anti-draft movement, and the propertied classes. The result however was general public resentment of both policies. These two practices were major points of contention among the general public and led directly to the slogan "rich man's war, poor man's fight."

The problem with substitution was that it provided substitutes with powerful incentives to desert soon after enlisting. Career "jumpers" made a living off of enlisting as a substitute, collecting their compensation, deserting before their units were dispatched to the front, and repeating the process. This problem was well known to the military commanders who regularly saw the same recruits repeatedly. In addition, troops furnished through substitution were considered to be of an inferior quality in comparison to regulars and volunteers.

Commutation (paying $300 to escape the draft) was created in an effort to keep substitution prices low. If commutation were not instated, the price of a substitute would have quickly soared past $300. In addition to suppressing substitution prices, commutation was intended to raise money for the war effort. While commutation did raise war funds, it was often a criticism of the draft that it was better at raising money than troops. The rationalization for commutation was that unwilling troops were ineffective, so the government may as well extract funds from the unwilling if it couldn't get proficient service. Despite the good intentions behind commutation, it was one of the most hated policies of the war.

Henry Adams, born March 16, 1843

Born a slave in Newton County, Georgia on March 16, 1843, Henry Adams was originally named Henry Houston but his name was changed at the age of seven when he and his family became the property of the teen-aged Nancy Emily Adams.  His enslaved family was relocated to Louisiana in 1850 and lived there until 1861. They were hired out to a planter named Ferguson.

He was 18 years old when the Civil War began.

Adams married a woman named Malinda during his enslavement and the couple had four children. His wife, however, belonged to another owner, who took her and their children to Texas.

Unlike most enslaved people, Adams was able to acquire property. He started a successful peddling business.  

In 1866 at the age of 23 he enlisted in the U.S. Army.  Adams was discharged in September 1869 after rising to the rank of quartermaster sergeant.  Adams learned to read and write in the Army, providing him a measure of self-confidence that encouraged his leadership of other ex-slaves once he returned to civilian life.

In 1870 Adams organized black Louisiana veterans in the Shreveport area into a group known as “the Committee.”  Numbering about 500 men -- including 150 who traveled across northwest Louisiana working with Republican politicians and encouraged black men to vote -- the Committee worked for full political rights for African Americans. Adams lost jobs because of his involvment with the organization but he continued to press for political reforms. 

In the summer of 1874, the Louisiana Governor William Pitt Kellogg, a Republican, and the Committee made a request for federal troops to intervene in areas of northwest Louisiana where the White League, a terrorist organization, had taken control.  President Ulysses S. Grant responded by sending the U.S. Seventh Cavalry to Shreveport.  While the Seventh Cavalry operated in Shreveport, Adams gained employment as an undercover scout in 1875.

During this period Adams also traveled to New Orleans to meet with black delegates who advocated emigration from the United States to Liberia.  These leaders, who called themselves the Colonization Council, were convinced that African Americans would never have full citizenship rights.  Persuaded by their ideas, Adams joined the organization.

The end of Reconstruction in Louisiana, following the Presidential Election compromise of 1876, brought the Democrats back into power in the state.  It also presented the Colonization Council with a new political environment that made their goals more attractive to Louisiana blacks.

In 1877, during one of the Council’s meetings, Adams made his first public speech advocating the emigration of African Americans from the South.  The Colonization Council then drew up a petition and circulated it at their subsequent meetings.  According to Adams, over 98,000 men, women, and children signed the petitions.  In September 1877, Adams sent the petition to President Hayes, but was denied federal funds to help the migration.  Support for the movement began to wane as members of the Colonization Council lost interest, fell into deeper poverty, and returned to their farming jobs. 

In the Spring of 1879 the Kansas Exodus swept across Louisiana and Mississippi.  Adams quickly shifted the focus of the Colonization Council to Kansas and encouraged blacks to migrate there.  

Adams never visited Kansas.  However, in 1880 he traveled to Washington, D.C. to give testimony before a U.S. Senate Committee on the migration and continuing emigration sentiment, both of which he blamed on anti-black terror in the South. 

Henry Adams dropped out of sight in 1884. The efforts of Adams and the Colonization Council were not unrewarded.  Over the next three decades, more than 11,000 southern blacks settled in Liberia.  It is unclear if Henry Adams was among them. 

Testimony of Henry Adams regarding the Negro Exodus

In 1870, I believe it was, or about that year, after I had left the Army—I went into the Army in 1866 and came out the last of 1869—and went right back home again where I went from, Shreveport; I enlisted there, and went back there. I enlisted in the Regular Army, and then I went back after I came out of the Army. After we had come out a parcel of we men that was in the Army and other men thought that the way our people had been treated during the time we was in service—we heard so much talk of how they had been treated and opposed so much and there was no help for it—that caused me to go into the Army at first, the way our people was opposed. There was so much going on that I went off and left it; when I came back it was still going on, part of it, not quite so bad as at first. So a parcel of us got together and said that we would organize ourselves into a committee and look into affairs and see the true condition of our race, to see whether it was possible we could stay under a people who had held us under bondage or not. Then we did so and organized a committee.

. . . We just wanted to see whether there was any State in the South where we could get a living and enjoy our rights. . . 

The people was still being whipped, some of them, by the old owners, the men that had owned them as slaves, and some of them was being cheated out of their crops just the same as they was there.  

 . . . Sometime in 1874, after the white league sprung up, they organized and said this is a white man's government, and the colored men should not hold any offices; they were no good but to work in the fields. . . 

We first organized and adopted a plan to appeal to the President of the United States and to Congress to help us out of our distress, or protect us in our rights and privileges.   And if that failed our idea was then to, ask them to set apart a territory in the United States for us, somewhere, where we could go and live with our families.  If that failed, our other object was to ask for an appropriation of money to ship us all to Liberia, in Africa; somewhere where we could live in peace and quiet.  When that failed then our idea was to appeal to other governments outside of the United States to help us to get away from the United States and go there and live under their flag. 

After the appeal in 1874, we appealed when the time got so hot down there they stopped our churches from having meetings after nine o'clock at night. They stopped them from sitting up and singing over the dead, and so forth, right in the little town where we lived, in Shreveport. I know that to be a fact; and after they did all this, and we saw it was getting so warm—killing our people all over the whole country—there was several of them killed right down in our parish—we appealed . . . 

We had much rather staid there [South] if we could have had our rights . . . 

In 1877 we lost all hopes . . . we found ourselves in such condition that we looked around and we seed that there was no way on earth, it seemed, that we could better our condition there, and we discussed that thoroughly in our organization along in May. 

We said that the whole South—every State in the South—had got into the hands of the very men that held us slaves—from one thing to another and we thought that the men that held us slaves was holding the reins of government over our heads in every respect almost, even the constable up to the governor. 

We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men. 

In regard to the whole matter that was discussed, it came up in every council. Then we said there was no hope for us and we had better go . . . Then, in 1877 we appealed to President Hayes and to Congress, to both Houses.  . . . . Mighty few ministers would allow us to have their churches [for meetings]; some few would in some of the parishes . . . 

The largest majority of the people, of the white people, that held us as slaves treats our people so bad in many respects that it is impossible for them to stand it. Now, in a great many parts of that country there our people most as well be slaves as to be free. . . There ain't nothing too mean for them to do to prevent it; nothing I can make mention of is too mean for them to do . . .

 .