How The Civil War Was Almost Lost In Massachusetts

BOSTON, MA — A now-boarded up slab of rock adorned with a Confederate seal at Fort Warren reads the following:

"During the war between the states, 1861-1865 more than a thousand confederates were imprisoned here of whom thirteen died."

The memorial then lists the 13.

"This marker placed in their memory by the Boston Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy at Civil War Centennial ceremony, May 24, 1963."

That slab of rock, on George's Island in the Boston Harbor, is the only Confederate Memorial in Massachusetts. Gov. Charlie Baker thinks it has no place anywhere in the state. The Department of Conservation and Recreation has asked the Massachusetts Historical Society how it could be removed. Patch reached out to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, located in Virginia, but nobody answered their phone.

In the wake of the Charlottesville violence, officials around America are rushing to figure what they should - and can - do regarding monuments remembering darkest, bloodiest time in American history.

The problem is that this particular memorial, erected in 1963 by the now-defunct Boston chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy, sits on a National Historical Landmark. Fort Warren is more than 150 years old and served as a prison for Confederate officers and officials during the Civil War - it even housed Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. The National Park Service has called it the most important Civil War site in New England.

There were no Civil War battles fought in Massachusetts. Nearly 14,000 soldiers from Massachusetts died in the war, according to the Massachusetts Civil War Research Center, but none on a battlefield anywhere near Boston. More than 100 generals that came from Massachusetts, but none shouted orders in their home state.

The Bay State was heavily anti-slave in the early part of the 19th century. Massachusetts at that time was, of course, dominated by Republicans.

But the most impactful thing to come out of Massachusetts during the Civil War is likely what didn't happen.

The year was 1861. The war was but six months old. The RMS Trent, carrying Confederate diplomats, was making its way to Britain. The members of the Confederacy would make their way to British-controlled islands, board a British vessel, and use it to go to across the ocean and seek recognition and support from Britain and France.

The Union wouldn't dare stop a British ship. It would be like Russian spy planes flying over American territories today - while not an explicit act of war, an act of unnecessary provocation.

You can see how well those rules work out.

"Britain was stopping American ships in 1812 and taking Americans," Larry Campbell, a volunteer at the Grand Army of the Republic Museum in Lynn, said. "But we do it and it's all right. Hm, eh?"

The Grand Army of the Republic Museum in Lynn was something of a VFW for Union soldiers. It stands as a fountain of Civil War history. So when Campbell talks about the USS San Jacinto capturing the British ship and kicking off the Trent Affair as the Union captured two Confederate diplomats, you listen.

"It went on for three months and Lincoln had to do all kinds of apologies to Britain," he said. "That was 1861. Lincoln was still worried that was the end. It could have started a whole new extension of the war."

The capture became a rallying point for the Union, not so far removed from countless battles against Britain.

"It became a huge huge thing and the American captain (Charles Wilkes) who captured them became a nationwide hero because they took the Confederates off the ship," Campbell said. "Britain was going to go to war against the North and Lincoln got all nervous."

Britain never entered the war, of course. Lincoln eventually released the diplomats and formally apologized.

Other than an attempted escape - a couple of prisoners "only got as far as Gloucester," Campbell says - what didn't happen at Fort Warren is more well known than what did.

Photo by Ron Cogswell via Flickr