Monday, May 6, 2013

May 6, 1863

May 6, 1863

—Gen. Hooker, seeing that there is nothing more he can do in the Wilderness, continues to draw his troops back across the Rappahannock. The Chancellorsville Campaign is a dead loss to the Union: they fought three battles in the space of six days, and lost them all.

—Pres. Lincoln, after trying all day to get news of the battles in Virginia, gets evasive answers via telegraph from Hooker or his Chief of Staff, Gen. Butterfield. Finally, Sen. Charles Sumner comes by the White House with definitive news that Hooker has lost the battle. By 4:00 PM, Lincoln and General Henry W. Halleck, the commander of the armies, leave Washington for The army’s camps near Falmouth.

—Clement Vallandigham, arrested for disloyalty and interfering with the Draft, now a prisoner in a Federal prison, sends a letter out to be published:
MILITARY PRISON, CINCINNATI, O.,
May 5, 1862. [sic]

To the Democracy of Ohio:

I am here in a military bastile for no other offense than my political opinions, and the defence of them, and of the rights of the people, and of your constitutional liberties. Speeches made in the hearing of thousands of you in denunciation of the usurpations of power, infraction of the Constitution and laws, and of military despotism, were the sole cause of my arrest and imprisonment. I am a Democrat – for Constitution, for law, for the Union, for liberty – this is my only "crime." For no disobedience to the Constitution: for no violation of law; for no word, sigh, or gesture of sympathy with the men of the South who are for disunion and southern independence, but in obedience to their demand, as well as the demand of northern abolition disunionists and traitors, I am here in bonds to-day; but

"Time, at last, sets all things even!"

Meanwhile, Democrats of Ohio, of the North west, of the United States, be firm, be true to your principles, to the Constitution, to the Union, and all will yet be well. As for myself, I adhere to every principle, and will make good, through imprisonment and life itself, every pledge and declaration which I have ever made, uttered, or maintained from the beginning. To you, to the whole people, to TIME, I again appeal. Stand firm! Falter not an instant!

C.L. VALLANDIGHAM

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