CHAPTER IV

PERSONAL RECONSTRUCTION. 1864-1872

As

S Burrows relates in the last chapter, he had taken part in six actual engagements, -South Mountain, Maryland, September 14, 1862; Antietam, Maryland, September 17, 1862; Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 13, 1862; the siege of Vicksburg, June 17 to July 4, 1863; Jackson, Mississippi, July 11, 1863; and Blue Springs, Tennessee, October 10, 1863. Besides this, he took part in the East Tennessee Campaign from August 16 to October 19, 1863, the date of his honorable discharge on resignation.

The return home meant a complete readjustment. During the period of his service in the army the country itself had undergone a drastic reorganization, and the conditions in Kalamazoo were to be learned anew. Friends and comrades were dead or still at the front, the results of the terrible strain upon the people were everywhere apparent, his duties to his family, his associates, and himself were complicated and uncertain, yet he plunged into the work as he saw it to

be done. In helping to solve the problem of the community he succeeded in solving his own.

The return home served to change his attitude toward the President from that of merely partisan support to an understanding appreciation of the obstacles against which Lincoln had contended and the difficulties he still had to surmount. The viewpoint of the citizen at home was far different from that of the soldier at the front. To have misjudged any man meant to Burrows immediate acknowledgment and restitution; to have misjudged Lincoln meant a life's devotion when the scales once fell from his eyes. Into the Presidential canvass Burrows threw his whole soul, and his expressions were so sincere and heartfelt that they could not fail to be effective.

The political situation during the early days of Lincoln's second campaign was full of anxiety and contained many unestimable factors. Grant's desperate fighting in Virginia kept the North depressed and apprehensive, for his movement upon Petersburg had as yet produced no decisive results.1 Sherman's campaign in Georgia at that time gave no promise that its outcome was to be so brilliant, and the raids

1 "Grant ordered a general attack on Petersburg this morning at daybreak. Everything was behind. Did not begin till an hour after daylight. Hancock did not get over till after daylight, and the cavalry not at all. Burnside exploded his mine under the enemy's works, and

made by the Rebels into Maryland and Pennsylvania gave weight to the contention of the Democrats that the war was a failure.

McClellan was nominated by the Democrats at Chicago on August 29, 1864, only a little more than two months before the election. Vallandigham wrote into the platform the plank upon which the Peace advocates based their hopes: "After four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which . . . the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part," public welfare demands "that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities." Chase had resigned his portfolio in Lincoln's Cabinet, and a certain disintegration appeared to be in progress even among the Administration forces. "It seems as if there were appearing in the Republican Party the elements of disorganization which destroyed the Whigs," wrote John Hay on August 25, 1864, to his friend Nicolay. "If the dumb cattle are not worthy of another term of Lincoln, then let the will of God be done, and the murrain of McClellan fall on them."

As the campaign progressed, Fate took a hand in the canvass, and Lincoln's chances of reëlection were our men marched up to the crest without opposition, and then halted. What in the name of halting and delays they are doing now I do not know. I am disgusted!" [Unpublished letter from General B. F. Butler to Mrs. Butler, 30 July, 1864.]

vastly improved. Farragut won the victory of Mobile Bay, Sherman forced Hood to evacuate Atlanta, and the success of the Union arms began to seem assured. "Every shell from Sheridan's guns knocks a plank from the Chicago platform,” cried Burrows in one of his impassioned campaign speeches. "Go to the gallant Farragut, who, lashed to the mast amid a storm of leaden hail, went on to victory, and ask him if the war is a failure; go to Sherman, who steadily advanced the old flag until he planted it on the principal stronghold in Georgia, and ask him if the war is a failure; go to Grant, who is cutting every artery of the Rebellion, and ask if the war is a failure; go to the gallant Sheridan, whose gleaming bayonets sent the Rebel hordes like a whirlwind up the Valley, and ask him if the war is a failure. Go ask your ‘deluded brother' Early, whose army was driven in squads to the mountains, if the war is a failure. The great battle of the Republic is to be fought at the ballot-box. It is for us to say whether the war is to go on, or whether we shall bring back that gallant army with their cheeks mantled with the blush of shame. Let us send to the army a victory that it can carry to the enemy on the point of the bayonet."

An interesting pen-picture of the youthful orator in this campaign is given us by the Very Reverend Father O'Brien of Kalamazoo:

"We had heard much of young Burrows as a public speaker," he relates, “and had followed his achievements in the army during the Civil War; but our first' meeting was in Monroe, my old home, in the Fall of 1864. It was during President Lincoln's second campaign that he was announced as the leading speaker at one of the old-fashioned mass meetings. Monroe County had always been Democratic. Burrows' fame as a vote-maker preceded him, and the Democratic Party, in order to offset the affair, determined to have the greatest meeting of the year on the same day. Having control of the county, they managed to secure the public square adjoining the courthouse, where all such meetings were held. There came near being a clash. The Republicans had come from every quarter of the county. They assembled in the square adjoining the old Episcopal church, where the hotel now stands, which is diagonally across from the court-house square. attempted to drown the speakers alternately.

Bands

"Word came that Burrows' train was delayed. The Democrats apparently seemed to have won the day, and a lot of disheartened members of the new Party awaited the arrival of the train. About half

1 Father O'Brien followed Burrows' career from this point for many years with deep personal interest and friendship, and did much to win Catholic support for him in his political campaigns.