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Volume CXXXIII, Number 11 |
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F & H: Thomas Hyde clerks for the Lincoln Campaign
KID WONGSRICHANALAI
CONTRIBUTOR
From Bowdoin College in the last few years before the Civil
War, Thomas Worchester Hyde of the Class of 1861 wrote, "There is
scarcely anything to write from this stupid place!" Perhaps that's
why Hyde decided to join the University of Chicago in 1860 as a member
of its first graduating class. By the latter half of that year, as storm
clouds were threatening to break apart the nation that the Founding Fathers
had forged, "many signs and omens of a coming dissolution of the
Union were visible," Hyde remembered, "but boys of eighteen
and nineteen were not much impressed by them."
Hyde, however, was paying close attention to what was going
on. He remembered that there was talk of nominating a fellow Bowdoin man,
Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden, for the presidency.
This was an idea that the good senator, from the Class of
1823, quickly shrugged off. To a friend the Portland resident wrote that,
"no one can do me so much injury in any way as by mentioning my name."
Indeed, Fessenden was a well-known name in the Senate by that time. For
years he had fought against Southern sympathizers and had lived up to
the ideals of the newly formed Republican Party. The fact that Fessenden
did not want the job was, however, understandable. He was in constant
poor health and he was also getting along in his years.
As Pitt Fessenden rested in Maine and tried to regain his
health for the fight that was surely to come, should the Republicans prevail,
Thomas Hyde was clerking for Abraham Lincoln in Illinois. He remembered
living in the Scammon house which Lincoln frequented during the campaign.
Consequently this was also the same home where Lincoln would first meet
his Vice-President to be, Maine Senator Hannibal Hamlin. Hyde's job was
to help open letters for Lincoln. He recalls, "Many packages would
come with letters, some containing negro doll babies, some dead rattlesnakes,
and various tokens of that description from Southerners. Whenever a box
looked particularly suspicious, we used to soak it in water, fearing some
infernal machine."
Invited to join Lincoln's escort to Washington DC after
his election in November 1860 Hyde declined and instead joined the Chicago
Zouaves as a private. He saw no action but his experience with this early
regiment would serve him well in the future.
In Washington D.C., there was hell to pay. As promised by the Southern states, the parade of secessionists began within a few weeks of Lincoln's victory. Pitt Fessenden watched his Southern colleagues go without objection.
He was opposed to any compromise with the slave states,
writing:
My opinion is that much of the noise is got up for effect in the hope
that the North will be frightened and the Republicans induced to falter
and thus lose the confidence of the people in their firmness and capacity.
Of this there is little danger. I, for one, am resolved to stand just
where I am, come what may. As to peaceable secession, there is no such
thing, and if war comes, it remains to be seen if we have a government
and where the strength lies…. Ruin is staring them in the face. Whatever
may happen to the people of the free States, there is nothing before the
South but destruction…We shall not yield. It is a question which
has but one side, for the cause of Freedom is sacred. We cannot sacrifice
it to menace and clamor and would not if we could…We are made of
sterner stuff than the old Whigs and will not yield an inch under menace,
come what will. I am not sure but that the trouble thus brought upon the
country may paralyze us, but we consider this as the final struggle to
reestablish correct principles of government, and we shall stand by our
platform, disunion or no disunion, to the bitter end…I will not yield
an iota of our principles to avoid this catastrophe, for it is a question
for all time. New England by herself has all the elements of happiness
and power, and I would rather belong to a small and free State than be
subject to an oligarchy so overbearing and tyrannical as the slave power.
I will watch, therefore, the course of events, averting all the evil I
can, but resolved not to do evil in order to avert suffering.
Fessenden was ready for a fight. And it was a good thing
that he was, for soon enough the firing on Fort Sumter inaugurated the
Civil War.
In Illinois, Thomas Hyde voiced his opinion that the rebellion
would take more than the seventy-five thousand men, the amount Lincoln
had called for, to put down. He was ignored. Soon, however, Hyde journeyed
home to Maine where his friends were all joining the army. Hyde remembered
returning to Bowdoin to teach the Zouave maneuvers he had picked up in
Chicago. He "directed as skirmishers many future generals and colonels
down Main Street to capture the Topsham bridge."
Depressed that he would be too late to join in the action
before the War was won, Hyde eagerly digested the news of the Union defeat
at Bull Run. The War would go on. Along with William Pitt Fessenden's
son, Sam, Thomas Worchester Hyde volunteered his services to the Union
cause.
Next Week: Organizing for War and preparing for the Peninsula
Some editing (by the Orient staff) may have occurred before this piece was published. To view a full version of the entire series (including source citations) please visit my website. (This site includes the Chamberlain and Howard Series and is updated weekly during the school year) at:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~kwongsri
Also, please send comments and ideas to: kwongsri@bowdoin.edu