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150 years ago this day...

BadLeroyDawg

Pillar of the DawgVent
Oct 28, 2008
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Monday, 1 May 1865

Union President Andrew Johnson appoints nine army officers to a military commission to try the eight people accused of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and then-Vice President Johnson. It had been ruled by Federal authorities that they were subject to trial before a military delegation instead of in civil court. Those accused and held in prison were David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, Samuel Arnold, Lewis Paine, Michael O’Laughlin, Edman "Ned" Spangler, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd.

Johnson formed the commission based on Attorney General James Speed’s controversial opinion that the president had power to try the accused by a military tribunal and not in a constitutionally guaranteed civil court. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton supervised the appointments, all of which were Republicans. The commission could form its own rules on how to conduct the trial and to convict by a two-thirds majority rather than a unanimous decision.

The following are appointed Union Brigadier Generals:James Sanks Brisbin, Thomas Odgen Osborn, Joseph Haydn Potter.

Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren is ordered to relieve Major General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana in the command of the Department of Mississippi. Dana was in overall command of the area where the steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee on 27 April. The paddle-wheeler had been contracted by the U.S. Government to return home recently released Union prisoners of war, and when it docked in Vicksburg for repairs to leaky boilers it became grossly overcrowded with soldiers wanting to get home. An April 27, 2007, article in the Washington Times explained what Dana had been told about the ship before it departed Vicksburg:

Capts. Frederick Speed and George A. Williams were responsible for the proper boarding of soldiers. Speed advised Maj. Gen. Napoleon J.T. Dana that the number would not exceed 1,400 men. Speed and Williams both assured Dana that the load was not too large for the boat and that the men appeared comfortable and not overcrowded

Federal soldiers scout against Indians from Ojo de Anaya, in the New Mexico Territory.

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase begins a tour the South with journalists on a political mission for the Radical Republicans. By this time, Union Leagues in New York and Philadelphia had already begun organizing blacks into a group clamoring for the right to vote. Chase will go to the South not as the chief justice, but as a politician aspiring to the presidency in 1868. At Charleston, he delivers a speech assuring blacks they would be granted suffrage. Many northerners will not be pleased. The New York Herald, which had charged Chase with going on an electioneering tour, denounces the speech as "incendiary talk" and finds "the whole tenor of the speech that of a firebrand thrown into a complicated and difficult situation." The New York World also objects, but Chase continues.

President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train arrives at Michigan City, Indiana, for a 35-minute stop while waiting for 100 important men of Chicago to arrive to escort the fallen president into the city. Meanwhile, the citizens of Michigan City hold an impromptu funeral and 16 young women are allowed to enter the funeral car to place flowers on the casket. The train arrives in Chicago at 11 a.m. and stays the entire day. A procession of some 50,000 people walk with former President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin to Chicago’s Cook County courthouse. The funeral hearse was attended by pallbearers, an honor guard, and 36 schoolgirls in white representing the 36 states. A sign over the courthouse read, "Illinois Clasps to Her Bosom Her Slain, but Glorified Son."

Confederate President Jefferson Davis continues moving southwest with his remaining fleeing cabinet and cavalry escort in what was becoming a more and more desperate flight. The travelers spend the night at Cokesbury, South Carolina, while ultimately heading for the Florida coast.

At the Missouri constitutional convention, delegates vote 43 to 5 to replace all significant state government officials with appointees of Governor Thomas Fletcher until the next election. Some 800 government workers will lose their jobs, including all state supreme court justices.
 
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Monday, 1 May 1865

Union President Andrew Johnson appoints nine army officers to a military commission to try the eight people accused of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and then-Vice President Johnson. It had been ruled by Federal authorities that they were subject to trial before a military delegation instead of in civil court. Those accused and held in prison were David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, Samuel Arnold, Lewis Paine, Michael O’Laughlin, Edman "Ned" Spangler, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd.

Johnson formed the commission based on Attorney General James Speed’s controversial opinion that the president had power to try the accused by a military tribunal and not in a constitutionally guaranteed civil court. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton supervised the appointments, all of which were Republicans. The commission could form its own rules on how to conduct the trial and to convict by a two-thirds majority rather than a unanimous decision.

The following are appointed Union Brigadier Generals:James Sanks Brisbin, Thomas Odgen Osborn, Joseph Haydn Potter.

Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren is ordered to relieve Major General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana in the command of the Department of Mississippi. Dana was in overall command of the area where the steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee on 27 April. The paddle-wheeler had been contracted by the U.S. Government to return home recently released Union prisoners of war, and when it docked in Vicksburg for repairs to leaky boilers it became grossly overcrowded with soldiers wanting to get home. An April 27, 2007, article in the Washington Times explained what Dana had been told about the ship before it departed Vicksburg:

Capts. Frederick Speed and George A. Williams were responsible for the proper boarding of soldiers. Speed advised Maj. Gen. Napoleon J.T. Dana that the number would not exceed 1,400 men. Speed and Williams both assured Dana that the load was not too large for the boat and that the men appeared comfortable and not overcrowded

Federal soldiers scout against Indians from Ojo de Anaya, in the New Mexico Territory.

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase begins a tour the South with journalists on a political mission for the Radical Republicans. By this time, Union Leagues in New York and Philadelphia had already begun organizing blacks into a group clamoring for the right to vote. Chase will go to the South not as the chief justice, but as a politician aspiring to the presidency in 1868. At Charleston, he delivers a speech assuring blacks they would be granted suffrage. Many northerners will not be pleased. The New York Herald, which had charged Chase with going on an electioneering tour, denounces the speech as "incendiary talk" and finds "the whole tenor of the speech that of a firebrand thrown into a complicated and difficult situation." The New York World also objects, but Chase continues.

President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train arrives at Michigan City, Indiana, for a 35-minute stop while waiting for 100 important men of Chicago to arrive to escort the fallen president into the city. Meanwhile, the citizens of Michigan City hold an impromptu funeral and 16 young women are allowed to enter the funeral car to place flowers on the casket. The train arrives in Chicago at 11 a.m. and stays the entire day. A procession of some 50,000 people walk with former President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin to Chicago’s Cook County courthouse. The funeral hearse was attended by pallbearers, an honor guard, and 36 schoolgirls in white representing the 36 states. A sign over the courthouse read, "Illinois Clasps to Her Bosom Her Slain, but Glorified Son."

Confederate President Jefferson Davis continues moving southwest with his remaining fleeing cabinet and cavalry escort in what was becoming a more and more desperate flight. The travelers spend the night at Cokesbury, South Carolina, while ultimately heading for the Florida coast.

At the Missouri constitutional convention, delegates vote 43 to 5 to replace all significant state government officials with appointees of Governor Thomas Fletcher until the next election. Some 800 government workers will lose their jobs, including all state supreme court justices.

Thank you sir for the good read!
 
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A procession of some 50,000 people walk with former President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin to Chicago’s Cook County courthouse. The funeral hearse was attended by pallbearers, an honor guard, and 36 schoolgirls in white representing the 36 states. A sign over the courthouse read, "Illinois Clasps to Her Bosom Her Slain, but Glorified Son."
wow
 
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