A Stanton Family Combat Death 158 Years Past

   

Remembering today the loss of a military hero and gallant American Civil War Veteran, our distant cousin Private Jay Cady Stanton. Jay was born March 23, 1828, in Middleburgh, Schoharie County, New York, the third son of eleven children to the prominent Middleburgh farm family of Mr. Freeman and Mrs. Maria (Lawyer) Stanton. Jay apparently never found the right lady to marry.

On October 15, 1861, Jay was moved to answer President Lincoln's call for Civil War federal military volunteers to help suppress the expanding southern state's rebellion. The aged 31 Jay Stanton enlisted in the U.S. Army, with Captain A.L. Swan's Company H, 76th Infantry Regiment of the New York State Volunteers. The 76^th New York is also remembered as the Otsego County Regiment, the Cherry Valley Regiment, or the Cortland Regiment, and was officially mustered into federal service on January 16, 1862. The regiment was first commanded by Colonel Nelson W. Green of Cortland, New York.

As a union combat infantryman, Private Jay Stanton was mortally-wounded-in-action (MWIA) on August 28, 1862, when his unit engaged rebel forces during the Battle of Gainsville, Virginia. The 76^th New York Regiment was then assigned to the 2^nd Brigade, 1^st Division, 1^st Corps, Army of the Potomac. The Gainsville fighting is the leading-edge action of the poor union generalship (General Pope's Campaign) and significant rebel victory during the larger Second Battle of Bull Run fiasco.

Jay died shortly after that August 28^th day in a Union field hospital. It was not uncommon for MWIA or KIA Civil War soldiers to be buried in shallow graves near locations where they fell. Dealing with deceased soldiers after one of these Civil War battles had to be tragically overwhelming -- and national cemeteries were only an afterthought early in that war. But Jay's remains were brought home by his loving family and interred in September 1862 at his hometown Middleburgh Cemetery, Middleburgh, New York, USA.

Rest In Peace Private Jay Cady Stanton,

New York State Volunteers.

When Did The Civil War End?

 

In April 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was Commanding General, Army of Northern Virginia and General-In-Chief of the Armies. General Lee was not supreme military officer of The Confederate States of America, a position equivalent today being Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. President Jefferson Davis was Commander-In-Chief of ALL Confederate military forces, a supreme military command position Davis never relinquished. More simply put, on April 9, 1865, when Rebel General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, that tragic and costly American Civil War was not ended.  The fighting continued.

 

The Confederacy had other armies with other general officer commanders. And periodic battles and skirmishes continued between Yankees and Rebels. For example, take a quick look at the engagement in Texas at the Battle of Palmito Ranch, May 12-13, 1865, where more than 125 United States citizens became causalities. See reference:  Battle of Palmito Ranch

 

This date might better express the end of the American Civil War. On June 2, 1865 Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, Commander of Confederate Forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender agreement offered by Federal negotiators. General Smith’s surrender marks disestablishment of the last recognized Confederate army, thus bringing a formal end to the historical most bloody and destructive four+ years in United States history.  Now the enlisted cannon fodder can finally go home.  But even then, some minor skirmishes continue where men and animals became casualties of this divided conflict of unspeakable horror. If the American Civil War was ended April 9, 1865 with General Lee's surrender, then why was it necessary in early June 1865 for another surrender agreement by Confederate General Smith?

 

But Would They Fight Now?

Recent personal study of several New York State Volunteer U.S. Army Regiments during the Rebellion has caused some among us to rethink the fundamental validity of that "War to save the Union." Two separate and equal countries––perhaps not a bad idea that arrives 150 years too late. Two countries in what is now called the USA, call them the United Confederation of American States (holding strong state's rights in a pro-business conservative land); and the other––an imperial federal government United Federal Socialist States of America (a strong federalism nanny state and liberal leftist “progressive” land). And slavery would have turned to dust under its own weight––been gone for many decades in both of these two new republics. The abomination of slavery would have soon failed without fighting that terrible War of the Rebellion that may have cost over 800,000 American lives and unknowable American treasure.

Many, perhaps most, union military recruits in 1861 and 1862 did not sign-up to free the slaves––or even to save the union. These Private Soldier Volunteers were mainly farm boys––boys who essentially became mere cannon fodder in the view of so many incompetent union colonels and generals. They went to this fight largely because they were told it was the manly thing to do... coupled with very strong feelings of military rage spewing from pulpits and political stages. And this Rebellion was certain to be a very short anyway. Volunteer recruits received an enlistment "bounty" of perhaps $100-$300, an enlistment bonus supported in Upstate New York by the various townships. The bounty given to some late war recruits was even higher at $500 for enlistments as short as one year. In 2012 dollars, that cash enlistment bounty is in the $2500-$7000 range. And tax-free dollars too! I suspect this tidy sum was very attractive to most of those relatively poor Upstate New York farm boys.

AMENDMENT X to the United States Constitution (part of the Bill Of Rights) should be more prominently cited in a new United Confederation of American States Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  This God given right, and the other nine vital God given rights specified by the Bill of Rights, shall not be infringed. And there would be no such necessary provision set forth in the new national supreme United Federal Socialist States of America Constitution. The corrupt United States liberal federal judiciaries today seem committed to increased Federalism and largely ignore the clear and expressly written Bill of Rights Amendment X. Liberal left progressiveness can take full control with this socialist form of activist judiciary.  And we conservatives will sharply disallow such unelectable judicial activism. 

So my basic thought today is really a couple of simple questions. With complete knowledge of the present state of the union, who among us truly thinks that massive number of farm boys a century and a half ago would volunteer to fight this “War To Save The Union?” If those volunteers could entirely understand and grasp the full impact of how this country has morphed into the liberal socialist society in those future 21st Century days––would they choose to fight and die to preserve this union of increasing liberal progressivism? Perhaps likely not.

Winds Of The Rebellion At Sumter

No formal Declaration of War initiated the American Civil War. The Confederate States of America (CSA) was not recognized internationally. And of course, The United States of America (USA) never recognized the legitimacy of the CSA government. The two belligerents were clearly involved in a nationalistic civil dispute, and a formal Declaration of War was not necessary under international law. The CSA was officially established in mid-February 1861, by the seven seceded Rebel States mentioned by name in Lincoln’s “Call for 75,000 Volunteers.” The Rebel military bombardment and surrender of the federal Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, April 12-13, 1861, became the officially recognized start of military rebellion between the USA and CSA. However, the Confederate States had already seized most of the federal property including U. S. Post Offices, forts, a U. S. Mint, and other U. S. properties located within rebel state borders. Lincoln’s predecessor President James Buchanan sent supply ships to Fort Sumter in January 1861, but those Union cargo ships were turned aside by Confederate Shore Battery Forces and did not resupply Fort Sumter. Winds of the Rebellion had reached gale force as they swirled from the newsrooms and pulpits of this nation.

President Abraham Lincoln’s April 15, 1861 Executive Order, “A Call For 75,000 Volunteers” is summarized as follows---and from the southern prospective was the last aggressive straw that broke the camel’s back.

“WHEREAS the laws of the United States have been, for some time past, and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law:

Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. … I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country. And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date. …”

Several southern states sat on the secession fence up to mid-April 1861, but when presented with Lincoln’s “Call For Volunteers”, the south’s richly populated Virginia quickly seceded on April 17, 1861. Virginia is followed in secession within the next few weeks by Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The eleven states Confederacy was now set and in place…and both sides felt strongly that they would prevail in this short rebellion. After all, both the United States and Confederate States knew that God was on their side.

Click here to read a short well written article on Fort Sumter published in "American Profile" on April 10, 2011. Publisher: Publishing Group of America, Franklin, TN.