The Other Side of Lincoln. Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.
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Introduction
In the summer of 1855, Electus Dominus “Leck” Lenahan took blanket, a squirrel gun, a canteen, a mess kit and a few vitals packed by his maw and set out on a journey in the making of a man. He stood six four and weighed a hundred eighty-five pounds, but he was a tough kid, as the baby in a family of fourteen. Nothing would prevent him from joining the federals, and becoming a member of the US Calvary. On that day he rode out of Kentucky and into history.
Leck Lenahan loved his family, but, when you are fifteen too much of a good thing is often misunderstood...and Leck knew the family would not let him grow-up. His neighbor since birth, Gabe Russell, left the same day to ride along with his buddy. They had thought of nothing more than to be on their own, a part of a professional Calvary outfit, which allowed them to ride horses and shoot savages.
They rode west to St. Louis and joined the federals and participated in their first action in Missouri. Sent out to quell the locals, in a show of force to put down a disturbance when a band of settlers moved through headed west, with three slaves in tow. It was the boy’s first exposure to the issue of slavery; it was an ugly sight Leck Lenahan remembered for years to come.
The west had split loyalties in the early days of the coming divide and the great Civil War. There were those who believed that no man should be a slave to another. There were those who believed that a man who could not make his own way and was beholden to a master was indeed... his slave. There were those who believed that a slave had the right to wages for the work he performed; less the cost of his keep, and they argued, he should be afforded the opportunity to buy his chattel from the master.
There were southern Planters, who believed the slaves they owned, were their business and none of anyone else’s. There were northern agitators who saw slavery as competition for goods and services, but were smart enough to disguise the real truth of their missions, with grand statements and proclamations on behalf of Negroes.
There was particular resentment in the north against the Union Conscription Act, which provided a loop-hole for the wealthy to avoid serving in the army, by paying for the services of someone else in their stead. Additionally, since 1792, blacks had been barred from serving in the army, and many whites, most especially... recent immigrants did not feel that they had “a dog in the fight.” Turns out they were the dog, 360,000 of them, would sacrifice their lives for the Emancipation Proclamation which was published in northern newspapers by Lincoln on September 22, 1862.
By itself, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves, but it did change the character and course of the war. Lincoln’s contemporary critics and some modern historians point to the fact that Lincoln freed only the slaves of the Confederacy, not those in the border states or the seven territories retaken by Union forces; as one newspaper of the day comments, “The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the Union.”
Lincoln’s position is that under the war powers he can legally free only those slaves in rebel-held territory; it is up to Congress, or the states, to address the question of universal emancipation. Interestingly, and to date unexplainable...is that the abolitionist voices heard the loudest such as The Honorable Frederick R. Douglas and the Honorable William Lloyd Garrison, welcome and subscribe to Lincoln’s decision...not a word is heard as to when the congress will free the slaves.
So try to understand the frustration of certain of those who had been on the fence, but remained loyal to the Union, such as, General Fremont and Electus Dominus Lenahan. On April 12 1861, after the loss of Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, a Declaration of War existed to be fought ostensibly to free the blacks. 620,000 lives at a estimated cost of nine million dollars later...black slaves remained shackled in the north but in the south they were free...because according to the President of the United States of America who had the power: let this lowly author repeat the brutal statistic he has read and reread a hundred times to his consternation...620,000 men in the north and south were sent to their deaths but the President of the United States of America and the voices for emancipation in the north did not have the power to free the slaves in the north...give me a break when you ask, “what was the war fought over?”...if you are still unable to answer this question you are either “brain dead” or excused because you are “intellectually challenged.”
There were small farmers, hand to mouth operations...tenant farmers who despised slavery because of the unfair advantage it gave to the Planters. Into this category fell Abraham Lincoln’s father and under the philosophy of his father, Abe Lincoln grew to believe and express his opposition to slavery as an economic reality. The lines were being drawn... are you free or are you slave? And the federals were being drawn daily into the fracas, as more and more settlers began to move farther west to avoid the coming blood bath over the issue of slavery.
Truth was, slavery came with the founding of America, and the very first slaves were the red man...not the black man. Certainly the red man did not have to make the journey from Africa, but the journey of a broken spirit begins when the first step is taken in shackles. Somehow little was made over the plight of the red man, lost perhaps in the struggle for freedom was the inherent guilt of the American take-over of their precious land, the hunting and fishing grounds, the vast herds of the Buffalo, which the red man depended upon to feed, clothe and shelter his family.
The government made one treaty after another with the red man...and when those treaties became impediments to the western movement, the red man was pushed to other less productive reservations, out of the way, out of sight. Fortunate for the red man, they had a pride, and an innate ability to hunt and forage for a living and they never became dependent upon the life style of the American in the city or on the farm. Therefore, the vast majority remained on the reservations maintaining a meager but independent lifestyle. But, even as they remained, in what was then called the Indian Territory, whites pushed further west and brought with them, the corruption of civilization and its criminal nature, which once again pitted the white man against the Indian.
Into this mix came the lawless, the fearsome men who rode as guerilla warriors in outlaw gangs...swooping down on banks, trains and stages to seize booty and terrorize the communities. During the Civil War they fought in Confederate guerrilla bands whose hit-and-run tactics on Union troops, confused and scattered the troops giving advantage to the smaller Confederate units, while sowing fear along the Kansas-Missouri border zone. Infamous among these many gangs was: William C. Quantrill’s Raiders, the James brothers (Frank and Jesse) and the fearsome abolitionist led by John Brown, the diabolical killer funded by wealthy individuals and churches in the north.
Henry Starr who operated a gang in the Indian Territory evoked the appeal of the bandit life this way: “Life in the open, the rides at night, the spice of danger, the mastery over men, the pride of being able to hold a mob at bay...it tingles in my veins. I love it...it is wild adventure.”
Lenahan and Russell loved it as well...but they loved it within the law, even if it meant, at times, being a party to the lawless... sworn to uphold the law and fight for the right of every man, woman and child
to be free to associate, to work, to love, to pray, to live out the American dream for which the war of 1776 was fought.
On August 10, 1861...Union forces lead by General Fremont was soundly defeated at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri. General Fremont withdraws, surrendering much of Missouri, a border state that had not joined the Confederacy. To reverse his military losses, Fremont declares martial law and announces that the slaves of secessionists are free, (once again if you have remained loyal and have not seceded from the holy Union, you may keep your slaves).
Sounds like the correct and reasonable thing to do. But, in the face of defeat, one has to ask the question...what right did ‘Fremont, the Pathfinder’ as the vanquished, have to make any orders at all...he had surrendered! But wait...along comes the fearless leader of the Union, the President (advocate of the slaves) and demands that the order be withdrawn. Now for the first time... and a full year before the publication of the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves, Lincoln rescinds an order by his commander, which freed the slaves in Missouri. Go figure.
Fremont refuses the demand, stating that the request by the President “is a