Boston Civil War Walking Tour

On Saturday I attended a Boston Civil War walking tour of sites along the Freedom Trail that played a significant role in the War of American Independence, the Abolitionist Movement, and in the Civil War. The central theme of the Boston Civil War Walking Tour is the recognition of the Civil War as an ideological continuation of the War of Independence in the struggle for freedom through the abolition of slavery.

The tour group met at the Visitors Center on Tremont Street and walked across the Boston Common to the first stop of the tour, the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill. The State House has been the center of government for Massachusetts since 1798.



Displayed in the courtyard of the State House are statues of prominent figures in Massachusetts history, including Daniel Webster, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts from 1845 through 1850. Webster’s support of the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Law which enforced federal capture and return of runaway slaves, triggered the enmity of the abolitionists in Massachusetts and resulted in his resignation from the Senate.



During the Civil War volunteer regiments marched past the State House as they departed from Boston for war. The first African-American regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, paraded past the State House before departing for war on May 28, 1863. A magnificent bronze memorial depicting the parade of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw faces the State House on the opposite side of Beacon Street. The memorial was the creation of noted sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1897.



Our walk continued along Park Street to the Union Club, founded in 1863 to support President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. Many of Boston's intellectual and political elite were members of this private men's dining club, whose conditions for membership included unwavering support of the Constitution of the United States and of the government to suppress the Confederate rebellion. In 2013 the Union Club celebrates its sesquicentennial anniversary.



We next stopped at the Park Street Church, a Congregational Church founded in 1809, which hosted the first anti-slavery speech of abolitionist publisher William Lloyd Garrison on July 4, 1829.



We advanced along Tremont Street to the Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where noted abolitionist figures, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Thomas Higginson awaited news by telegraph of President Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.



Crossing Tremont Street and proceeding along School Street we stopped in the courtyard of the Old City Hall, constructed in 1862 on the site of the first public school in America.



Directly opposite the Old City Hall is the Parker House Hotel, a purveyor of dining and accommodations to significant players in American and Civil War history. The “Secret Six,” also known as the Secret Organization of Six, was a group of six prominent Bostonians who secretly funded John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. The “Secret Six” included physician Samuel Gridley Howe, ministers Thomas Higginson and Theodore Parker, schoolmaster Franklin Sanborn, philanthropist Gerrit Smith, and industrialist merchant George Luther Stearns.¹ In 1859 Stearns, a chief contributor of funds and arms for John Brown, met Brown at the Parker House to discuss and fund the Harper's Ferry raid in October of that year. In April 1865 John Wilkes Booth stayed at the hotel the week before his assassination of President Lincoln and practiced at a nearby shooting gallery.



Continuing along School Street we arrived at the site of the Old Corner Book Store at the intersection of School and Washington Streets. Formerly known as "Publishers Row," this was the site of Ticknor and Fields, the publisher of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. This location is also significant in American history as the site of the home of Anne Hutchinson, a martyr to women's rights in Puritan society.



Directly opposite the site of the Old Corner Book Store is the Irish Famine Memorial, dedicated in 1998 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ireland and the emigration of millions from Ireland to America. Irish immigrants played a significant role in the Civil War, enlisting in military service for both the Union and the Confederacy.



Our tour continued along Washington Street to the Old State House, where abolitionist publisher William Lloyd Garrison sought refuge from an angry mob on October 21, 1835.



Proceeding along State Street we stopped at Court Square, the site of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courthouse, which rendered decisions on fugitive slave cases in the 1850s. In 1851 Shadrach Minkins was arrested and held in the courthouse awaiting trial. He was rescued by a mob of black abolitionisits. Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns were also held here when they were sentenced to return to their Southern owners. Ironically Sims and Burns were led along State Street past the site where Crispus Attucks, an African-American, was killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770, a harbinger of the War of Independence.

Faneuil Hall has always been the platform for inspirational calls for liberty and freedom throughout American history. Before and during the Civil War the Hall hosted abolitionist orators Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Following the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces on April 13, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to defend Washington, D. C. At Faneuil Hall on April 16, 1861, Massachusetts governor John Andrew commissioned four Massachusetts Regiments, the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiments, as the “Minutemen of 1861” to answer President Lincoln’s call. The 3rd and the 6th Massachusetts departed from Boston on April 17, and the 4th and the 8th departed on April 18, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride.

Boston Civil War Tours also runs the Beacon Hill Civil War Walking Tour, which focuses on the homes of noted Boston abolitionists and significant antislavery locales on Beacon Hill. Please visit my blog post, Beacon Hill Walking Tour, for a pictorial overview of the Beacon Hill tour. I highly recommend these excellent tours to anyone with an interest in Boston Civil War history. For more information about Boston Civil War Tours please visit http://www.bostoncivilwartours.com.

References:
¹“The Trial of John Brown: The Secret Six,” The Secret Six: Influential Supporters of John Brown (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/johnbrown/secretsixdetails.html: 23 August 2013).

Boston in the Civil War Walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery

On Saturday I attended a Civil War theme walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery entitled Boston in the Civil War. The walk focused on notable Boston area figures who participated in political or civilian service on the home front and in military service in the Civil War. The walk began at the monument to the First Corps of Cadets, a military organization dating from 1741 which provided officers and recruits for several Massachusetts regiments, most notably the 2nd, 20th and 24th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments.

¹

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, was killed at the Battle of Fort Wagner in South Carolina on July 18, 1863. His body was interred with his men in a mass grave outside the fort. Colonel Shaw’s family memorialized him by inscribing his name on the Shaw family monument as a cenotaph in his honor.

²

George Luther Stearns, a wealthy Medford merchant, and Samuel Gridley Howe, a noted Boston physician, were prominent Boston abolitionists and members of the Secret Organization of Six, also known as the “Secret Six,” who funded John Brown’s ill-fated raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, on October 16, 1859. After the raid both men temporarily fled to Canada to avoid prosecution. Stearns later returned to Medford for inquiry.

³

Samuel Greeley Howe rests near his wife, Julia Ward Howe, best known as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the enduring war anthem for the Union cause. After the war Julia became active in the suffrage movement and worked tirelessly for the rights of women.

⁴

Eliza Henderson Bordman Otis, daughter of William and Eliza Bordman and wife of Harrison Gray Otis Jr., was the author of the book The Barclays of Boston. She also gave generously of her time in home front efforts to organize and distribute supplies and food for soldiers.

⁵

Charles Sumner, one of the most prominent politicians of the Civil War era, was an unceasing advocate for the abolitionist movement. His efforts almost resulted in his death when he was caned by Preston Brooks on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

⁶

Brothers Edward and Paul Revere served in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and gave the full measure of their devotion to the Union with their lives. Edward was an assistant surgeon for the 20th Massachusetts Regimentand was killed at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 while tending the wounded on the battlefield.

⁷

Paul was Colonel of the 20th Massachusetts Regiment during the Gettysburg Campaign and was mortally wounded on the battlefield on July 2, 1863.

⁸

The brothers rest in the Revere family plot with their father, Joseph Warren Revere, son of the famous midnight rider Paul Revere, who spread the alarm of the impending approach of the British Regulars through Lexington on the evening of April 18, 1775.

⁹

Colonel Thomas Cass, an Irish immigrant, served as commander of the 9th Massachusetts Regiment, a regiment of Irish recruits. Colonel Cass was mortally wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862, the final of the Seven Days Battles of the Peninsula Campaign.

¹⁰

Fireside poet James Russell Lowell delivered the commencement ode at Harvard University on July 21, 1865. His wife Maria White Lowell worked with other Boston women to promote immediate emancipation of slavery.

¹¹

Three of their nephews were killed in the Civil War: brothers James Jackson Lowell and Charles Lowell and their cousin William Lowell Putnam. James Jackson Lowell and William Lowell Putnam served as Lieutenants in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. William Lowell Putnam was mortally wounded at Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, the first military action of the 20th Massachusetts Regiment, on October 21, 1861.

¹²

James Jackson Lowell was mortally wounded at Glendale on June 30, 1862, the sixth day of the Seven Days Battles of the Peninsula Campaign. He was interred under a tree near the Glendale battlefield.

¹³

His devoted sister Anna Lowell Woodbury, a Civil War nurse, was determined to find his burial site. She located the site on the third anniversary of his wounding and brought his body home for burial in the Lowell family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

¹⁴

James and Anna's brother Charles Lowell was mortally wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864. Charles was married to Josephine Shaw, the sister of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts.

¹⁵

Rosemarie Smurzynski, a Mount Auburn docent, was an excellent guide for this poignant history walk. Civil War walks are an ongoing series of events at Mount Auburn Cemetery to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. For additional information about Civil War walks at Mount Auburn please visit http://www.mountauburn.org/2013/the-civil-war. For other events at Mount Auburn please visit their calendar of events at http://www.mountauburn.org/category/events.

For additional information about Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, please visit my blog posts Remembering the Civil War at Mount Auburn, Splendors of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Remembering the 54th Massachusetts - 150 years later.

For additional information about the Beacon Hill home of Samuel Greeley Howe and wife Julia Howe an the Beacon Hill birthplace of Charles Sumner, please visit my Beacon Hill Civil War walk post Beacon Hill Civil War Walking Tour.

For information about monuments to Colonel Thomas Cass and Charles Sumner and to the gravestone of Paul Revere, please visit my blog post Boston in the Civil War Walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Continued.

For additional information about the Revere brothers, please visit my blog post Remembering the Civil War at Mount Auburn and my Civil War blog Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment 150 Anniversary.

For additional information about James Jackson Lowell and cousin William Lowell Putnam and their service with the 20th Massachusetts Regiment, please visit my Civil War blog Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment 150 Anniversary.

References:
¹ Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston in the Civil War, brochure (Cambridge, MA: Mount Auburn Cemetery, 2013), inside brochure section. Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts), First Corps of Cadets Monument, Lawn Avenue, Lot 3215, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
²Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts), Robert Gould Shaw family monument, Pine Avenue, Lot 1286, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
³Mount Auburn Cemetery, George Luther Stearns marker, Sedge Path, Lot 1454, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013. “The Trial of John Brown: The Secret Six,” The Secret Six: Influential Supporters of John Brown (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/johnbrown/secretsixdetails.html: 23 August 2013).
⁴Mount Auburn Cemetery, Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe markers, Spruce Avenue, Lot 4987, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
⁵Mount Auburn Cemetery, Bordman family monument, Tulip Path, Lot 2158, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013. Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston in the Civil War, inside brochure section.
⁶Mount Auburn Cemetery, Charles Sumner monument, Arethusa Path, Lot 2447, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
⁷Mount Auburn Cemetery, Edward H. Revere marker, Walnut Avenue, Lot 286, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
⁸Mount Auburn Cemetery, Paul J. Revere marker, Walnut Avenue, Lot 286, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
⁹Mount Auburn Cemetery, Joseph Warren Revere marker, Walnut Avenue, Lot 286, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
¹⁰Mount Auburn Cemetery, Thomas Cass marker, Chestnut Avenue, Lot 1049, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
¹¹Mount Auburn Cemetery, James Russell Lowell and Maria White Lowell marker, Fountain Avenue, Lot 323, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013. Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston in the Civil War, inside brochure section.
¹²Mount Auburn Cemetery, William Lowell Putnam marker, Fountain Avenue, Lot 1443, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
¹³Mount Auburn Cemetery, James Jackson Lowell marker, Fountain Avenue, Lot 323, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.
¹⁴Mount Auburn Cemetery, Anna Lowell Woodbury marker, Fountain Avenue, Lot 323, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Sever and Francis, 1866), 1: 406-7.
¹⁵Mount Auburn Cemetery, Charles Russell Lowell and Josephine Shaw Lowell marker, Fountain Avenue, Lot 323, photographed by Carol Swaine-Kuzel, 17 August 2013.