HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS: Rapid Concentration of Troops at the National Capital; EXCITING REPORTS FROM BALTIMORE; Troops Coming Forward from All Points (4/22/1861)

New York Times archives – Times Machine ^ | 4/22/1861

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
The American Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts

First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.

Posting history, in reverse order

https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:homerjsimpson/index?tab=articles

To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.

Link to previous New York Times thread

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3952501/posts

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Highly Important News: Rapid Concentration of Troops at the National Capital – 2
Fort Monroe and Norfolk Harbor – 2
Latest from Baltimore and Washington – 2-3
Highly Important from Philadelphia – 3
Important News from Maryland – 3
Exciting News from Baltimore – 3
The Shelling of Baltimore Partially Concerned – 3
The Latest from Harper’s Ferry – 3
The Seizure of the Star of the West – 3
The “Seventh” at Annapolis – 3
A Letter from the Seventh – 3
The Position of Senator Breckinridge – 3
Old Massachusetts: What She Contributes to the Cause – 3-4
A Massachusetts Regiment Holding the Road from Annapolis to Washington – 4
Massachusetts Men in Fort Monroe – 4
Massachusetts Men in Baltimore – 4
Meeting of Californians: A California Regiment to be Formed – 4
Movements of Maj.-Gen. Wool– 5
Military Alliance between Western Cities – 5
The Arkansas State Convention – 5
Police Operations in Philadelphia – 5
Moving of the Masses: The Grand Rally for the Defence of the Union – 5
Local Military Movements – 5-6
Mortality of New-York-Quarterly Summary – 6-7
Political Intelligence: The Post-Office at Pensacola – 7
From Fort Pickens – 7
Miscellaneous Items: Jeff. Davis’ Proclamation – 7
Our First-Class Steam Frigates – 7
Editorial: Latest of the Rebellion – 7-8
Editorial: No More Partisanship – 8
Editorial: Argument for the Hour – 8-9
Editorial: Work at Home – 9-10
Editorial: The Opening of the War – 10
Editorial: Work for the Ladies – 10
Editorial: Southern Chivalry – 10
Steamer on Fire – 10

[Jonty30]

I didn’t pay enough attention to the headline. I thought this was current events.

[Da Coyote]

“I didn’t pay enough attention to the headline. I thought this was current events.”

Just wait.

They will be.

[cdcdawg]

“Highly Important News”

For some reason, that cracks me up in a good way. It’s not wrong at all.

[albie]

I thought the same thing. Current. And I agree with another that said “just wait”.

[glimmerman70]

Man I am pissed. I thought this was happening now. Thinking this is it. They are arresting people.

[Sir Bangaz Cracka]

“I didn’t pay enough attention to the headline. I thought this was current events.”

************************************************************

Ditto...hmmmm

[NonValueAdded]

Ditto

[joesbucks]

My first thought? I thought what nutty source was this coming from. And the I saw the link. So knew it wasn’t current events, true or not.

[_Jim]

Flashback - or, Flash-forward??

[Rebelbase]

Snopes will debunk this headline.

[sauropod]

Thanks for posting!

I find it instructive to read contemporaneous history. Always something to learn.

[Pollard]

I still wish you’d put the 1861 date at the beginning of the title so you’d quit wasting people’s time.

[BroJoeK]

"Highly Important News: Rapid Concentration of Troops at the National Capital – 2"

"...the general belief in that city in the best informed circles, was that JEFFERSON DAVIS was on his way North--at the head of a considerable force, which he was augmenting on the way. "

For weeks newspapers reported Confederates intended to attack and take Washington, DC, driving out the Union government.
Preventing such events was a major focus of Lincoln's efforts.

[BroJoeK]

"Editorial: Southern Chivalry – 10"

Here none other than Maj. Anderson, himself a Southerner, disputes claims of "Southern chivalry" during the Battle of Fort Sumter.

[BroJoeK]

"Editorial: Argument for the Hour – 8-9"

"...If the levies of South Carolina and other other seceding States count up the untold myriads they are represented to do -- if every one of these sons of chivalry is, as we are told, a fellow of such terrific aspect and iron pluck as to make a regiment of Northerners quail and flee before him -- and if every soul of them will perish in the last ditch rather than submit to the Constitution and the laws -- if cash flows into the Montgomery Treasury as freely as water, and if the most approved weapons of war are everywhere plentier even than heroes to wield them -- if the negro slavery, for the universal propagation of whose name and glory these serried hosts do battle, is the highest embodiment of all moral, philosophical, scientific and Christian verities, and if those whom they denounce as "long-hated foes," are the poor, sniveling, dastardly, and altogether and in every way contemptible poltroons which they represent them to be, then the conflict of arms can neither last long nor can its issue be for a moment doubtful.

"The chivalry have not, it is true, exhibited in any very remarkable degree, the God-like attributes and powers which they superciliously claim that they only of all mankind possess, in any of the warlike achievements of the campaign thus far -- certainly not in what they call the "unparalleled victories" of South Carolina, in the cowardly assault on the Star of the West, or in the brutal and cowardly bombardment of the three-score half-starved soldiers in Charleston bay.
Neither has it been common with conquering peoples of the world to boast quite so bombastically of their unapproachable prowess as these Bombadils** do.
Your invincible Macedonian -- your iron-sinewed Roman -- your Hun, Hungarian or Highlander, spends but little of his breath in bombast; his spirit is in his sword rather than in his epiglottis, and the annals of the field rather than of fustian** attest his qualities.

But still it is folly to underrate the real strength of even these bragging fellows.
Though in their vanity they magnify their greatness to the point of the ridiculous, the peaceable man must not regard it altogether with the contempt which bluster is apt to breed.
The Southern heart is now thoroughly fired by ambition, by passion, by whisky, and by what they call victory.
The aristocracy and the demagogues, on the one hand, are inflamed by the uncontrollable lust of power; they have visions of conquered peoples on their North, and to their South, dreams of territorial aggrandizement, of countless hosts of slaves and of a continent subject to their arms and tributary to their wealth.
The poorer whites, and the numerous desperadoes who congregate in the Gulf States, on the other hand, have been stimulated to sedition by promises of the reopening of the African Slave-trade, when negroes could be bought at ten dollars a head, and everyman should have a horde of them -- while latterly there was been held out to recruits the glittering prospects of plunder in Northern cities, and even now they talk hopefully of the sack of Cincinnati, New York and Boston.
The leaders have told them that a triumph over the debauched North would be easy, and that they could then revel in an endless carnival of lust and booty..."

While our editors here mock alleged Southern braggadocio, they may in time learn respect for the courage & tenacity of Confederate soldiers, along with the canniness of their leaders.

And we might notice that while claiming only the highest of motives for our own side, we name only the basest motives for our opponents -- a rhetorical feature Lost Causers will reverse with gusto ever after.

** the references here to "Bombadils" & "fustian" brought to mind our own jeffersondem's attraction to... ah... quixotic words.
In what publications today might you find them?

[jmacusa]

“Battles are won by he who gets there firstust with the mostest!’’. General Jubal Early, CSA.

Another Confederate loser with a penchant for the quixotic.

[central_va]

So why do military academies all over the world study the tactics of Lee, Jackson and Forest?