The Other Side of Lincoln

By Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

Lech Lenahan came from a warring family...though the last of the clan had long since left Ireland; he inherited the family loss of land, its income and a way of life... taken by Cromwell, England’s bloodiest, most cruel soldier, given to others because they were Protestant.

His grand-father and father had taught him the value of freedom from the time he was old enough to know...his choice to fight for it in the great Civil War was a natural reaction, waiting to happen.

It mattered not that Leck Lenahan had never seen the Emerald Isle, neither had he seen the flu but he knew well the pain of it.

The Other Side of Lincoln, is the heartwarming story of the love and determination of Leck Lenahan...to strike a blow for freedom...though he had no slaves, he knew well the pain of being forced from family, from land handed down from generation, and made to migrate to a country belonging to Native Americans.

The Other Side of Lincoln takes you on the soldier’s journey as a member of a crack unit, guarding a presidential candidate to becoming a spy collecting valuable information for the Union Army, including the capture of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. Follow Lenahan after the war as he is mistakenly sought by the military as a member of Quantrill’s Raiders only to become a lawman and help settle the west, build a railhead town, marry a beautiful widow, and live to an old age to tell stories into the 20th century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Dec 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781925880397

Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

I was born a bastard, and over the next sixty-five years I lived up to the reputation. I found it best to do so as a writer by telling the truth and letting the chips fall were they may. Was this a reputation earned, or was it a red badge of courage for being honest to the person I had become. This book is about honesty and there is no hiding from the hideous truth about what the United States Government did to the great Indian nations.

Book preview

Chapter 1: South Carolina Secedes

Will you be slaves or independent 

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America

The elegant Charleston Hotel was surely the place to be...a veritable who’s who of politicians, lawyers, wealthy planters, businessmen and other assembled would bees loitering in the lobby and the overflowing bar which was the place to be seen.

There was a festive air, only a few days to Christmas of 1860, and all those assembled seemed in a hospitable and expectant mood. Oscar Matterly, a wealthy Planter from Central Kentucky was the first to notice the elderly South Carolinian, Edmund Ruffin enter the bar area.

Edmund! Matterly stood and waved to his old friend.

Come have a drink...we’re toasting tomorrow and the future. He beamed as Ruffin approached the table. The others stood to greet the wealthy and well-known slaver and secessionist.

Oscar, you old reprobate...you still alive? Ruffin smiled in a good natured manner as he grasped the hand of the richest Planter in Kentucky, and a leading advocate for his state to follow the lead expected of South Carolina to secede from the union.

Tomorrow we’re going to get a five day jump on St. Nick. Matterly said, as the others roared their approval.

1860 will prove to be a watershed year in the history of this country and South Carolina will lead the choir...sending a resolute message to our neighbors to the North. We refuse to give up our freedom and the right to run our states Bill Pollard said as he hugged the old man.

And you have always been the choir master, Mr. Ruffin. Robert Stone said extending his hand in friendship.

Mr. Ruffin, permit me to introduce a friend from California, Glenn Swindler. Bill Pollard said.

My pleasure indeed, to one who has traveled so far, to observe the delegation and the historical process...welcomes Mr. Swindler. Ruffin said In no official capacity sir, but an honor to meet the man known across the country with the clarity of conscience and fortitude to stand against those who would thwart freedom, and the rights of the states to self-determination. Swindler said.

Yes, I anticipate South Carolina will fire a loud and effective message that every state in the union has the right to self-determination, on issues greater than slavery...we kicked George’s ass when he tried to impose his burdensome levy...we refuse to be held hostage to a federal government intent on bankrupting the states through its aggressive taxation to aid the northern manufacturing element. Ruffin said to the obvious delight of the other choir members. Most of this country does not understand that a most salient fact gentleman...the coming war is not over the Negro but the enslavement of the nation while hooked to the engines of progress!

A roar went up as Edmund Ruffin completed what sounded like a stump speech with a message as clear as any which might have been written by Abe Lincoln, himself.

You got that right Edmund...we’re too damn smart to become the Niger’s of the north. Shane Seller said. The question is who will do the bidding in the west...will California come in as a Free or Slave State Mr. Swindler?

Of course, we are new to statehood but my guess is that we are equally divided at this time and as you know we may be looking to South Carolina and perhaps even Kentucky to move our process. Swindler said turning from Oscar Matterly hoping that the older man would not recognize him for there was work to be done and undercover activity was the order of the day.

That sounds like a copout, you already know where South Carolina is going; but let us face the facts, gentlemen, California is so far west... and out of the mainstream, that they know they are the masters of their own destiny...be it free or be it slave, it’s only a name.

Kentucky is feeling the pressure from Washington as we sit. Lincoln can ill afford to lose his home state...but what the hell, those of us in Kentucky don’t consider him a Kentuckian anymore with his long history in Indiana and Illinois. Matterly said.

Sit down here Edmund...rest your old bones and let me get you a nice hot toddy to warm your countenance. Matterly urged.

What the hell are you campaigning for Oscar...thanks for the offer of the hot toddy but just order me a double Kentucky bourbon with a spring water on the side. Ruffin said.

A black waiter stood nearby...Matterly waved for a round for the group.

Heh boy...did you hear what The Honorable Mr. Ruffin is drinking...make that the best Kentucky bourbon in the house...and make it quick. Matterly said.

Yes su masser. The waiter hurried off, like some whipped dog, as he left the room.

Colonel Matterly...might I have a moment to speak with you privately. Shane Sellers from Virginia whispered.

Why certainly Shane...walk with me to the lobby...excuse us for a moment gentlemen. Matterly said to the group. The wealthy Planter and member of the Kentucky Militia lead the way into the sprawling lobby of the hotel, which was crawling with guest.

As always you’re very gracious with your time Colonel. Sellers said as they settled in the plush wing chairs on the edge of the lobby.

Could I offer you a freshly handmade cigar...just purchased this very morning. Sellers offered.

Chapter 2: The Carnage Comes Early

The passive defense is a form of deferred suicide 

Old military maxim

The early spring morning weather had not come up as Leck Lenahan had hoped. Driving a herd of cattle from Bardstown to Raywick, some thirty-five miles was ornery enough without having to contend with the weather. But it could have been worse, it could be sleeting or snowing or raining bullets and arrows, Lenahan thought as he made his way to the barn to saddle his horse for the trip to Gabe Russell’s farm to pick up his neighbor and former Calvary unit buddy, the man who had been his best friend since childhood.

Lenahan and Russell had originally signed on with the army to earn a living, get three squares a day, uniforms and a place to sleep even if it meant, at times, doing so out of doors. Best of all you could do it on horseback. What more do you need when you’re fifteen, Lenahan remembered his friend saying. They were prepared to shoot a few injuns but Lenahan remembered his friend saying... you know what they say about injuns. That always puzzled Lenahan...he didn’t know what they said about injuns...except they couldn’t hold their liquor! But what the heck Lenahan thought neither could he or Gabe Russell for that matter. Hell half of the federals, except for most of the brass... couldn’t hold its liquor, so what do we have on the injuns. Lenahan meant to ask Russell that question; he hoped that he would remember to do so, on the trip to pick up the hides at Bardstown.

There would be lots of time for other inquiries as well. Major among those would be the issue of Russell’s marriage to the widow Ima Longing. A woman nearly twenty years Russell’s senior. What was going on there...but unlike the rest of the community gossip and saloon talk, Lenahan only had to look at his friends eyes to know the real truth. This was a happy man, and that was all that mattered.

Lenahan knew Russell better than he knew anyone. Leck was the youngest of fourteen children born to James and Bartheney McNair in 1840, an after thought, Ma had told him. The last of the children, she had thought at unlucky thirteen, were twin boys born in 1834. Christian and Thomas had very nearly killed her at age twenty-seven. But she had survived the delivery and six years later...surprise of surprises there was baby Leck for all the family to raise.

Unless you have grown up in a huge Catholic family with a large work ethic, and you are the youngest by six years...you just can’t imagine the horror of it. At once you have five mothers and nine fathers. The mothers are always primping, squeezing, pinching, combing, primping, loving and kissing while the fathers are rolling, pushing, pulling, biting and teasing until you just have to withdraw in order to survive the torture.

That made for a wonderful childhood relationship between Leck and his neighbor Gabriel Caldwell Russell, born in the same year. They had been raised only a field apart, and one or the other of the boys were beating a path across it...on foot or horseback, beginning at age five. Spending most days with each other playing Injuns; hunting, fishing, swimming and trapping the illusive hunter’s mist. They had spoken of all things known and unknown, touched on the spiritual and most of all dreamed of the day they could join the Calvary and go off to war. They recreated those scenes in the trees, on the rocks, in the creeks and while running through the plush green meadows...the gallant lads of war, these sons of Irish immigrants who fought their way from the Green Isle in search of freedom and found it in the Happy Hunting Grounds of Kentucky. That plush bountiful place where all the Indian tribes came to wash away the winter in crystal clear lakes; streams and rivers, taking from it fish to fill and beaver to warm hearts that would always remember the canvas paintable by the master...never to be reproduced.

But soldiering had not gone well for Russell, the Minnie’ ball fired by an ambushing Cheyenne Indian took his leg at the knee stripping away the romanticism of war, exaggerated by the imaginations of boys running through a Kentucky meadow brought to the reality by men who anguished over lives and political decisions of infamy as those made by the generals like Fremont’s western campaign and later, Grant, Lee and Abe Lincoln.

Searching for the right choices to ease the gnawing hunger for peace and prosperity as the nation expanded and the end of fear in once proud cities besieged and bombarded by weapons spewing neglect of morale duty and leadership failing to enforce the laws against man’s inhumanity to man.

That great Civil War among families who had come to this country...some willingly seeking freedom in life choices and the opportunity to honest labor to raise families... casting an ironic shadow on a country that practiced the institution of bondage for others, cutting deep, and increasingly bitter divisions between the Slave and the Free States. A country seemingly destined to perpetual conflict from within and without, on vital issues affecting them from the birth of a nation, born to struggle for freedom, born to die for it.

Men and women for and against slavery, states’ rights and the question of secession were the issues driving a growing and restless new country causing them to put forth their best, and often least prepared to settle the matters of conscious and pride or those of greed and power. Twenty three percent (23%) of southern families according to the census of 1860 owned 1,500,000 slave families. The statisticians in 1860 did not bother to point out that there were 3,200,000 slaves in the country, which meant that another 1,700,000 slaves were owned, by those in other parts of the country. But, that 23% would be labeled, throughout history, as being responsible for the 620,000 deaths attributed to the war.

The war itself was filled with incongruities; at the siege of Vicksburg... Missouri supplied the Union with 22 units and the South with 17, in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee pro-Union men held firm throughout the war, a Calvary company of all white men from Alabama rode with Union General Sherman in his march to the sea. Virginia’s western counties which had long waged old grudges on the iniquities of slavery and the economic advantages held by the pseudo-aristocratic Tidewater Planters, seceded from the rest of the state, and in 1863 joined the Union as a part of West Virginia.

Several of Abraham Lincoln’s family served with the south. Lincoln himself was known to have developed his attitude against slavery at the heel of his father. A nare do well tenant farmer whose failure was attributed, by Lincoln, to the disadvantages of growing field crops without the so-called free hands of the slaves. Robert E. Lee, the south’s magnificent fighting leader, thought slavery was evil and secession unjustified. The north’s indomitable Ulysses S. Grant owned a slave before the war; hard up for money he reportedly sold William Jones for 1,000 but before the transaction took place, Grant had a reversal of heart and set Jones free. It seems that Grant had discovered what most Northerners had known since before the Revolution...slavery wasn’t profitable, at least not in the north.

And last but certainly not least, the famous Little Giant, Senator Steven A. Douglas. A physically short, dapper, political powerhouse from Illinois who more than any other person may have been responsible for the political state and divisions which developed from legislation which Douglas carved from The Dred Scott to the Compromise of 1850. Then, he blatantly forces the Kansas-Nebraska Act to insure the extension of the railroads for which Douglas served in the conflicting role, as a member of the railroads Board of Directors and as a Senator regulating the industry.

Slavery failed to flourish in the north due to a variety of reasons: the climate, one man farms, growing industrialism, urbanization, immigration, the small number of resident Negroes, competition and conscious all militated against it. Legal measures, statutes, constitutions, court decisions- provided for gradual emancipation and abolition. In 1775 Rhode Island, the cradle of liberalism gave freedom to any child born of a slave mother. Vermont took action in 1777. In 1787 the Northwest Ordinance barred slavery from the lands north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. New York provided for gradual abolition in 1799; in 1817 she passed a law to end all slavery within her borders by July 4, 1827. The federal government had forbidden importation of Negroes after January 1, 1808.

Former President John Tyler, A Virginian, won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives...and the anomalies ran on and on for a conflict with so many names. For the south it was the War Between the States, the U.S. official record called it the War of the Rebellion, there was the War Against Northern Aggression, the War For States Rights, the War For Constitutional Liberty, the War For the Preservation of the Union, the Brothers’ War, Mr. Lincoln’s War but most Southerners preferred to speak of it as the Second War of Independence

Gabe Russell referred to it bitterly as the war I was born to fight... with a stub leg!

Lenahan had watched the growing divide in the nation from a special vantage of Missouri border conflicts and a blood bath in Kansas over the ability of one man to own another... that few in the north could imagine. Although he worked daily among northern members of his unit, after rather intense sessions in bouts with boredom, he often found them disingenuous; insensitive with a misplaced sense of superiority as they spoke of liberty for all but pushed the Indians further and further into restrictive camps and reservation with limited travel privilege. Spaces, despite treaties hammered out in blood, which clearly defined the rights of the tribes over those passing through their land on their way to take possession of land belonging to other tribes and the Mexicans in California.

What was it about the northern willingness to ignore the atrocities to the Native Americans, taking the blood of the Native Americans while delivering a willingness to shed their own for the African? Lenahan had listened carefully to all sides of the issue in this melting pot at Fort Laramie and was deeply confused by the seemingly constricting northern viewpoint. Perhaps it was because the Indians owned black slaves themselves.

Personally, he felt slavery was innately wrong from the moment he had seen it. Though there were few slaves in his community, his father knew a wealthy Planter, Oscar Matterly who had more than one hundred slaves, which he owned. Pap was very much opposed to it. Although he was a Planter as well, except for tobacco, most of what Joseph Lenahan grew was utilized by the family, either consumed, put on their backs, burned to stay warm or used to run the farm. Though Pap felt it was evil, he was unable to satisfy the curiosity of his young son on the issue, and Leck’s seemingly greater concern for the Native American. Leck never felt his father was a man given to deep philosophical convictions...he had a good heart but he was a man of the earth...slow to grow...slow to nurture and willing to watch as it happened.

Ma, on the other hand, was of a more fiery nature. She was quick to anger, strident to maintain a viewpoint...vigilant to win at any game, even if it meant to take an edge. Ask Ma a question and you got an answer, direct and to the point. She would not gloss over the issue, color the facts or be unwilling to admit that she could be wrong. She was basic, honest, hardworking and most definitely the lioness of the Lenahan family.

Perhaps the most salient answer to Leck’s consternation on the issue of slavery versus the north’s seeming tolerance of the brutality of the native Americans and its centuries old lifestyle came in a remark from his earnest while friend and neighbor, Gabe Russell who very often waxed eloquently on issues of morale character. It was Gabe’s theory that the Northerners were more consolatory toward the position of the African for two basic reasons: first and foremost, the northerner had accepted the widely discussed concept that the white man had evolved from the monkey as a genetic malfunction, the mutating offspring manifesting itself over millions of years as an African.

In short, Leck. Russell intoned in the most scholarly manner possible, The European believes that he is a descendant of the ape through the African.

Does that mean that the Indian is a descendant of the African? Leck asked Or is the African a descendant of the Indian who got hold of that monkey and used it to relief? Leck laughed.

Or, testing the God theory...we must all be descended from the Jew...because they are the chosen people...so a Jew got hold of the monkey and performed the old dirty bogey, who begat the Indian, the African, the Chinese, the European and every mother’s son and daughter! Gabe laughed and punched at Leck.

Come on Gabe...where were you when Sister Mary Iona explained that God created all the creatures of the earth...and then he created man in his own image? Leck asked.

Your brain is dead Leck if you believe that bit of hogwash...just as you still believe that it is a mortal sin to wiggle yourself or look up the petticoat of Sally Rodgers...it’s ok to accept the goodness of religion but this whole thing of one God in being with the spirit is nauseous. Russell had said.

I don’t have to look up the petticoat of Sally Rodgers...you know it all, I see my sisters bathing every Saturday...and that reminds me, the knothole you have used to watch has been discovered and repaired. Leck laughed.

I believe the second reason that the north favors the African is the fact that the northern families came to this country, seeking freedom from oppression in their homeland. They were willing to provide the major source of men, money and equipment to defeat King George and win the independence for the Colonials. The victory over the world’s greatest power at the time has contributed to the belief that they in effect won the rights to all the marbles...including the land occupied by the Indians for hunting, fishing or erection...of Tepees. Russell said.

As the story goes the Colonials came here landing at Plymouth...they had very little...they knew nothing...were dismal failures at farming and had it not been for the Indian teaching them how to plant, grow and harvest they would have perished. In gratitude...they see to the needless killing of millions of buffalo essential to the lifestyle of the Indian family, they change the natural habitat of various other species from which they feed their families in the winter and they send their war machines against rocks killing several hundred thousand men, women and children all over this country." Leck said in a tone that was approaching anger.

Leck, that is the nature of man since the beginning of time...they have always been warring and to the victor goes the spoils...like it or not. Russell said.

"Maybe so...but I don’t want to hear any pious and contrite breast pounding about the abuse of the African by the Southerners. Leck injected.

Well, let’s not leave them out of the picture...who do you think the Southerner stepped on to carve out those plantations and holdings of five thousand acres...in our neighborhood Leck? Russell said.

It is true...but the Southerner lets you know up front they are coming for you, not some coy backstabbing double talk. Leck said.

But even as Leck pondered these issues with his family in Kentucky, his best friend Gabe Russell and his Calvary comrades, no one knew the twist of fate, which had placed the young Kentuckian in the eye of conflict and history as it was happening.

After Russell’s ill-fated wound and release from the military, Lenahan continued his tour of duty serving in the west at Fort Laramie at the junction of the Laramie and the North Platte Rivers under the commands of General Stephen Kearney and special assignment to General John C. Fremont, a candidate for President in the elections of 1856. Fremont was handsome... with an aristocratic air, demanding a personal guard and escort of thirty Kentuckians no less than six feet tall or older than twenty.

This guard was specifically trained in the more gentile methods by lesser European nobility surrounding the General with the pomp of a king or president, befitting Fremont, born in 1818 at Savannah, Georgia...educated and refined... considered himself a gentleman of destination and certain to assume the Presidency of the Union or other fanciful post in the future. He wanted no one with access to him to be less desirable. Lenahan was selected because of his size, youth and because the Generals special secretary knew of Lenahan does Kentucky heritage...know as well, that he would be trainable in the mode of Fremont’s choice.

Lenahan excelled and became a close confident of Fremont’s western campaign and under the tutelage of the Fremont operatives, Lenahan was groomed for special service involving inside covert activities providing communication expertise to keep the military informed of political and social discord of any kind from sources he knew to be unimpeachable.

Picture of John Brown

In 1856, an incident occurred which Fremont regretted, in-as-much-as, it occurred in eastern Kansas while under his command and protection. Just before midnight of May 24 the James Doyle family received surprise visitors at their remote farm. The knock on the door was loud and persistent...Doyle rushed to answer the door while rousing his family. He opened the visual trap door and saw his neighbor from Osawatomie on horseback. He made the judgmental error to open the door.

James Doyle...I am John Brown... the Angle of the Lord...come for penance and retribution for your sinful degradation against fellow human beings. Brown shouted while sitting erect in his saddle and pointing his long arm and willowy yellow stained finger with equally long fingernails at Doyle.

Five other horsemen backed up Brown, two of them with flaming torches, tried to soothe their mounts, pranced and nickered at the fire and the frenzy. The flames cast a strange glow across the countenance of John Brown, wiry, stiff short gray hair which stood about the head as unreasonable as was the root of its existence, bony faced and gaunt frame. His voice had a deep and religious tone that went to the very marrow of Doyle, who was stricken with fear by Brown’s very sight, frozen so that Doyle could not be pulled into the house by his son’s who labored to extricate him from the evil that lurked in the darkness, now illuminated by torches waved by horsemen outside the door.

Hell hath no fury or even a space for a slaver of your disgusting reputation Mr. Doyle...you have been previously warned to amend your despicable mistreatment of human kind. Brown continued to rant in an almost demonic cadence. But you have refused to recant or to cease the demonic occupation of the body, the heart and spirit of the slaves you oppress.

Vengeance is mine seethe the Lord...his messenger has arrived for your sins and the brutal canning of one of his precious children whose name I leave for you to remember and pray over the spirit of Charles Sumner, his servant, will surely be in heaven one day. Brown swore loudly.

No sooner than he had completed the chastising, Brown rode up on the porch and slashed out at Doyle with a saber slashing his neck and head as his two sons, continued their effort, to pull their father into the safety of the house.

Doyle could not speak but finally screamed the name of his wife... Mahala!

His wife hearing him... screamed out in a woeful and chilling manner.

Ropes were thrown over the sons of James Doyle and they were drug into the barnyard and butchered by the marauding abolitionist. Two innocent young men, no more or less guilty as any slave...punished for the sins of the father over whom they had no recourse. Born in the wrong era, to the wrong parents...cut down before they could carve out a philosophy or pass on the genetic make-up predisposed to carry on the rage, the hatred from generation to generation.

The law was unable to apprehend Brown or to stop the clandestine assassinations of those flowing into the Kansas prairie who were vociferous in their support of slavery, certain to form a majority in Kansas as a Slave State under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to the chagrin of the Abolitionist who knew they could not kill all the Proslavers...that would take an army, of the size which only the federals could and would muster in 1861.

Fremont did not condone the use of slavery. He was adamantly opposed to its spread throughout the west seeing what it had done in the south. But at the same time he was a man who believed in the rule of law and the orderly procedures for addressing issues framed on either side. He was contrite over the loss of life experienced by the Doyle family, by Charles Sumner and hundreds of slaves whose names and faces went unnoticed as history played out their dilemma and Fremont’s role in it.

He swore to get John Brown and bring him to justice and Electus Dominus Lenahan would be the man who would deliver the information necessary to bring him down.

This would be no easy matter. Communication was difficult, though improving and there were several trails, which had been recently forged making it plausible for an inventive man like John Brown to elude and evade justice, difficult but nonetheless, passable by men on the move, regardless of motivation or intention.

The army had its handful with the Indians, even though certain treaties had been negotiated for the safe passage of settlers and prospectors. They were often angered by settlers moving through stopping to hunt, fish and rest...and a growing number... putting down roots on hallowed grounds, with centuries old hunting, fishing and other natural resources which the nomadic Sioux, Apache, Cherokee, Ute, Comanche’s, Pawnees, Kiowa and the Arapahos depended upon.

The discovery of Gold in California in 1848 had brought a crush of wealth seekers over one of the major trails. The Oregon Trail north of Larimer County, ran westward through Wyoming to Oregon, California and Utah.

A Mormon battalion on its way to Salt Lake City enters the mountains west of La Porte bringing with them an unorthodox religious belief of the polygamist (one man with several wives) causing problems for the army which could not have been imagined on the Western Plains, requiring manpower continuing to diminish the small army’s strength.

Another route was forged by the Cherokee Indians in conjunction with an Anglo-American named William Russell, blazed a trail which started in Pueblo went to Fort S. Vrain on the South Platte, crossed the South Platte at the mouth of the Cache La Poudre and subsequently entered the mountains and headed for the Laramie Plains and westward to California, became known as The Cherokee Trail.

William Russell was a miner and geologist by trade. He had left his family in Pittsburgh consisting of a wife and two small children, while he attempted to quench the wanderlust and Gold fever. He had successfully organized a trip to California utilizing a pact with the Cherokee as guides across the Rockies, through the plains and into California, but returned empty handed. While attempting to organize a second expedition to California he began prospecting along The Cherokee Trail at Ralston Creek. Whereupon he made his first strike causing him to rethink his need to go to California. The news of this strike was leaked bringing forth an influx of gold-panning prospectors, many of whom had been to California and come home empty handed as well.

By then Russell had moved on making similar finds in what became known as Russell Gulch and Clear Creek. Russell was beside himself with the fever and the realization of his dream. After mining for several months he was persuaded by conscience to pack up and return to Pittsburgh for visits with his wife and two growing daughters, Marianna and Rebecca...nieces of Ima Longing Russell.

Although Mrs. Russell was from a wealthy Pittsburgh family in the printing and publishing business, and the family wanted him to learn the trade, Russell would have none of it. He was a miner and geologist; he had told her of his quest prior to marriage... his business was in Colorado. She deferred to his plans for the future of their family.

They finally agreed to let the girls remain in school in Pittsburgh while living with the maternal grandmother. The Russell’s would make the

return trip to Colorado and the two girls would come west for the summer. An event neither of the children could imagine nor anticipate the changes, which would occur in their young lives.

Historical Review

Contrary to the avowed promise of his Secretary of War, William Seward...President Lincoln sent notice to the commander of Fort Sumter and to the governor of South Carolina that he would re-supply the fort at the request of its commander Major Robert Anderson.

Anderson was under siege, surrounded by the Confederates under the command of his former student at West Point, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, second in his class where he studied artillery now had the cannons directed at his teacher and was intent on demonstrating that he had learned his lesson well.

Major Anderson had previously abandoned, with the tacit neglect of any direction from President Buchanan, two other United States military installations in Charlestown harbor...Fort’s Moultrie and Castle Pinckney. Beauregard delivered his ultimatum to abandon Fort Sumter, through an emissary, Colonel James Chestnut, Jr., a former U.S. Senator.

Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort down around us, we shall all be starved in a few days. Anderson responded.

State the date by which you will abandon the fort under truce? Colonel Chestnut demanded.

Baring other instructions or the arrival of additional supplies, I shall abandon on April 15th. Anderson said.

Regrettably sir, we are unable to permit you to wait for supplies, munitions and additional men...you must abandon now. Chestnut is reported to have said to Anderson, and he continued.

If we never meet in this world again Major...I hope that we may meet in the next.

At 4:30 A.M. on April 12-three days before the Anderson request to abandon, a single mortar was discharged...it was the signal, by Captain George S. James for the forty-three Confederate guns around Fort Sumter to fire four thousand shells...the first of which coming from Edmund Ruffin.

During the next day’s evacuation, Anderson ordered a cannon salute to the flag. One gun exploded; killing Private’s Daniel Hough and Edward Galloway...the first causalities of the Civil War were by accident.

Over the last several decades, many historians have held that Lincoln’s refusal to see his old friend Alexander Stephens who had come secretly on the orders of Jefferson Davis to meet with the Secretary of War Seward at the White House to try to work out a peaceful compromise and Lincoln’s refusal to accept Seward’s word on the issue of Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s decision to re-supply the fort upon notice to the Governor, constituted a breach of good faith in the negotiating process and the deliberate attempt by Lincoln to provoke the Confederates into firing the first shots in order to garner world opinion, especially the English, on the side of the Union.

By his act and the acts of omission by his predecessor, Lincoln not only forced the hand of the Confederacy but his call for volunteers prompted the secession of four more southern states: Arkansas; North Carolina; Tennessee and Virginia.

Head of the Union forces at that time, seventy-five year old General Winfield Scott immediately upon notice that his commander-in-chief had taken this event to the Congress as a declaration of insurrection, put forth his strategic military plan...even-though his counsel to the President on the evacuation of Fort Sumter had been viewed by many of Lincoln’s Republican friends as a reason to question this old Virginian’s loyalty. His plan later derisively called The Anaconda Plan, was sent to Lincoln’s friend General George McClellan. It called for a blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports and in connection with the blockade a military movement down the Mississippi River to the ocean. This methodology so designed to cordon the seaboard, envelope the insurgent states through the cessation of commerce resulting in surrender of the Confederacy with a minimal bloodshed.

George McClellan was a conniving man, he leaked the plan to the press as he had taken credit for at least one battle in which he had minimal participation (The Battle of Rich Mountain). McClellan was thirty-five years old and thought the plan and the old man were out of step. He wanted something more grand and Napoleonic. But despite the undermining, Scott’s plan by any other name, the blockade of the southern ports and the control of the Mississippi by U.S. Grant who was to replace George McClellan who was a detractor of Grant at West Point, provided the ultimate basis for the economic and military defeat of the Confederacy.

Of course McClellan also knew ostensively through either his friend Allen Pinkerton or directly from the President that General Scott had recommended fellow Virginian Robert E. Lee to lead the armies of the north. On April 18, 1861, Lee met with powerbroker, Frank Blair, Sr. who unofficially offered Lee the command.

Born on January 19, 1807, in Stratford Hall, a plantation on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia, Robert E. Lee descended from the line of Virginia Lees that had been among the countries most influential families. It was clear that he had the credentials and bloodlines to lead the nation’s military. One of his ancestors, Richard Henry Lee, issued the motion calling for independence at the Continental Congress in 1776. Another, Francis Lightfoot Lee, had signed the Declaration of Independence. Robert E. Lee’s father, Major General Henry Lighthorse Harry Lee had been one of General George Washington’s most accomplished cavalry officers and trusted aide. The man eulogized Washington as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. He also served as Virginia’s governor and U. S. Congressman. A great soldier and apt politician, Henry Lee was like Grant and Lincoln...terrible businessmen but he was loyal to his friends in need and while helping a friend defend his printing presses against an angry mob, he was stabbed and left for dead. Broke, disfigured and crippled, Henry Lee was sent to Barbados by President James Monroe.

Forced from the family home, Robert E. Lee lived with his mother’s family until he went to West Point, emerging second in his class. He later married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, a granddaughter