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‘The ballot or the bullet.’

It is August 26, 1863.

Left: Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in September 1862. Right: Confederate dead lay on the George Rose farm near Gettysburg, the scene of heavy fighting on the second day of battle, July 2, 1863. Most of the men who were lost at the Rose farm were from Georgia and South Carolina.

Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia have been driven from the battlefield in Gettysburg and have retreated south across the Potomac.

Confederate forces will never again cross into Union territory.

Vicksburg.

Vicksburg has fallen to the relentless General Grant.

The Mississippi River, the Confederate supply lifeline, is now under Union control.

Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln’ law office, where he worked after returning from his single term in Congress, was on the third floor of a brick building on the corner of Sixth and Adams Streets, as indicated with the “X.”

In Washington, Lincoln has received an invitation from his longtime Springfield friend, James Conkling.

He asks Lincoln to return to Springfield to address a large meeting of Democrats opposed to the Civil War.

These men, a faction of the Democratic Party known as the Copperheads, advocate an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates.

Lincoln wishes to rebut the Copperheads’ ‘peace now’ advocacy but he rarely leaves Washington.

The demands of his office are too great.

So, Lincoln declines the speaking invitation but sends a lengthy letter, which he asks to be read to the Copperheads.

Lincoln followed war developments in minute detail by telegraph. Above, the Military Telegraphic Corps, Army of the Potomac, Berlin, Maryland, October 1862. Alexander Gardner photo.

In it, Lincoln refutes the idea that peace can be made with the Confederate states given the aggression of their army.¹

‘Contrary to rumor, no peace offers have come from them,’ he said.

Lincoln then offers a robust defense of the Emancipation Proclamation and the participation of Black combat troops in the Union Army.

And he offers a warning to future insurrectionists.

From Lincoln’s letter:

“You say you will not fight to free negroes.

“Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union.

“I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union.

Lincoln’s letter.

“Negroes, like other people, act upon motives.

“Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them?

“If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive---even the promise of freedom.

“And the promise being made, must be kept.

By the end of the Civil War, 179,000 Black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the US Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy.

“Whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union.

“[T]he use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion; and that, at least one of those important successes, could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers.”

“On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white.

“The job was a great national one; and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it.

“Peace does not appear so distant as it did.

“I hope it will come soon, and come to stay;

“and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.

Veterans gathered on the old Gettysburg battlefield in 1913, on the 50th anniversary of the battle. They camped there for several days in harmony and with a spirit of reconciliation.

”It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

January 6, 2021. As of August 5, 2024, 1,488 defendants have been charged with criminal offenses relating to the breach of the Capitol. Of these, 163 have been charged with assault using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. Left photo by Tyler Merbler. Right photo from DOJ shows Oathkeepers marching in formation up Capitol steps.

“And that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.”

Words to live by…

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

1. These letter excerpts have been edited for brevity.