Massachusetts Civil War History and the Heroes of Boston

Massachusetts Civil War History: Contributions from recruiting Union Army Soldiers to Military Battles to Statistics

Heard about the movie GLORY? Starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick. Fact-based movie about an initial all black Massachusetts Civil War unit raised in Boston. Backed by Governor Andrew as well as Boston's elite, the regiment's contributions are immense: the regiment was led by all white officers, the first black soldier to be awarded the medal of honor hailed from the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, Frederick Douglass' two sons served in the regiment, and Frederick Douglass recruited for the regiment. President Abraham Lincoln even stated that the unit was instrumental in his decision to recruit 180,000 African-Americans (called colored troops at the time, aka USCT for United States Colored Troops). Lincoln subsequently stated that the recruitment of 180,000 blacks turned the tide of the war! Read about Boston, the unit, Massachusetts, and the numerous contributions from this historic, iconic film based on fact, not fiction. Denzel earned his first Oscar in this movie. Must read and a must see. Learn more about our nation's heroes, and thanks for reading this and hopefully you will learn more from this page...Massachusetts Civil War History: Military, Army, and Union Soldiers

Massachusetts Civil War History and Military Contributions

Massachusetts Civil War History

Massachusetts, Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Civil War contributions, and the All-American State.

Introduction

Massachusetts was one of the 13 colonies that participated in the American Revolution and it became the sixth U.S. state on February 6, 1788. It was the first state to abolish slavery and according to the 1790 Federal census, no slaves were recorded in the state. Massachusetts was host to the Mayflower and the Plymouth Colony; the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party; and the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Sentiment

Massachusetts played a major role in Civil War causation, particularly with regard to the political ramifications of the anti-slavery movement. Anti-slavery activists in Massachusetts sought to influence public opinion and applied moral and political pressure on Congress to abolish slavery. William Lloyd Garrison of Boston began publishing the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator and founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831, becoming one of the nation’s most influential abolitionists. Garrison and his uncompromising rhetoric provoked a backlash both in the North and South and escalated regional tension prior to the war.

Civil War

According to the 1860 U.S. census, Massachusetts had a population of 1,231,066. Although Massachusetts did not fight any battles on its soil, its soldiers fought in practically every major battle and campaign during the Civil War.

Massachusetts sent a total of 159,165* men to serve in the war. Of these, 133,002 served in the Union Army and 26,163 (includes nearly 6,000 reenlistments) served in the U.S. Navy. The army units raised in Massachusetts consisted of 68 regiments and 47 companies of infantry, 5 regiments and 4 companies of cavalry, 8 companies and 19 batteries of light artillery, 4 regiments of heavy artillery, 2 companies of sharpshooters, a handful of unattached battalions and 26 unattached companies. According to the official statement from the adjutant-general's office, July 15, 1885, the total number of sailors and marines furnished by the various states to the U.S. Navy was 101,207. Of this large number, Massachusetts, being a seaside state, contributed nearly 20,000, or one-fifth, of the nation's total; second only to New York.

According to The Union Army (1908), the total losses from all causes among Massachusetts troops was 13,498. Schouler (1868), however, states that 12,976 Massachusites died during the war, which equates to approximately eight percent of those who enlisted and about one percent of the state's population (the population of Massachusetts in 1860 was 1,231,066). Lastly, Dyer (1908) states Massachusetts sustained a total of 13,942 servicemen in killed: 6,115 killed & mortally wounded; 5,530 died of disease; 1,483 died as prisoner; 257 died from accidents; 557 died from causes other than battle. Dyer's grand total is 13,942 total deaths. Nevertheless, there are no official statistics available for the number of wounded. Continue to website for an exhaustive history of Massachusetts Civil War History

American Civil War HOMEPAGE: Includes Civil War history for every US state

American Civil War HOMEPAGE

THE American Civil War HOMEPAGE covers from causes of the Civil War, each US state's involvement, to battles and battlefields, casualties and killed, aftermath and Reconstruction, and much more. See American Civil War HOMEPAGE.

President Lincoln on Secession and States' Rights

President Lincoln on Secession

Lincoln, alone, opposed secession for these reasons:

 

1. Physically the states cannot separate.

2. Secession is unlawful.

3. A government that allows secession will disintegrate into anarchy.

4. That Americans are not enemies, but friends.

5. Secession would destroy the world's only existing democracy, and prove for all time, to future Americans and to the world, that a government of the people cannot survive.

Lincoln would not allow secession, regardless. The South viewed Lincoln as purporting a strong centralized Federal government that favored Northern interests. Many Southern states, which viewed Lincoln as a despot, now believed their suspicions of Lincoln had been confirmed. 

The Supreme Court, furthermore, not the President, was the final lawful arbiter regarding secession. Lincoln had opinions for the Constitution, while the Supreme Court possessed the legal right to interpret the Constitution. Lincoln thought otherwise. See also: President Lincoln, Secession, South Secedes, President Abraham Lincoln in his own words from Civil Rights to Secession, and Lincoln, Secession of Southern States, and Causes of the Civil War.

Listed below are some of the comments that Lincoln made against secession.

 

Physically We Can Not Separate

First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this.

Secession is Unlawful
 

First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the union of these States is perpetual....It follows....that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken.

 

First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861

We find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

 

Message to Congress in Special Session July 4, 1861

The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this they can only do so against law and by revolution.

Secession Equals Anarchy

 

First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

 

Message to Congress in Special Session July 4, 1861

The principle [secession] itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure.

We Are Friends

First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861

Friends. I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must no break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, 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.

Secession Will Destroy Democracy

Indianapolis, Indiana February 11, 1861

In all trying positions in which I shall be placed, and doubtless I shall be placed in many such, my reliance will be upon...the people of the United States; and I wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, and not mine, that if the union of these States and the liberties of these people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.

Indianapolis, Indiana February 11, 1861

I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with you, is the question, Shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generations?

 

Message to Congress in Special Session July 4, 1861

The distinct issue, "Immediate dissolution or blood"...embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question of whether a constitutional republic or democracy -- a government of the people, by the same people -- can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether the discontented individuals -- too few in numbers to control the administration, according to organic law, in any case -- can always, upon the pretenses made in this case or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up the government and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?"
 

Annual Message to Congress December 1, 1862

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Lincoln's Thoughts and Opinions

Lincoln may have thought the fifth point was the most important. If you traveled the earth in 1860, and visited every continent and every nation, you would have found many examples of monarchies, dictatorships, and other examples of authoritarian rule. But in the all the world, you would have found only one major democracy: The United States of America. Democracy had been attempted in one other nation in the eighteenth century - France. Unfortunately, that experiment in self-government deteriorated rapidly, as the citizens resorted more to the guillotine than to the ballot box. From the ashes of that experiment in self-government, rose a dictator who, after seizing control in France, attempted to conquer the continent of Europe.

 

Those who supported monarchies felt vindicated by the French disaster, but the United States experiment in self-government remained a thorn in their side. Those wishing for democracy could always point across the ocean and say, "It works there. Why can't we try it here"? In 1860 however, it appeared that the thorn had been removed. The monarchists were thrilled with the dissolution of the United States, and many even held parties celebrating the end of democracy.

 

Lincoln understood this well, and when he described his nation as "the world's last best hope," these were not idle words. Lincoln truly believed that if the war were lost, it would not only have been the end of his political career, or that of his party, or even the end of his nation. He believed that if the war were lost, it would have forever ended the hope of people everywhere for a democratic form of government. See also: What Caused the Civil War: President Lincoln, War Powers, States' Rights and Secession and President Abraham Lincoln: History Homepage.