Alfred Dart took the lead as Carbondale, Pennsylvania marched to war in 1861.
A lawyer, judge, and committed abolitionist, Dart had spent years building a legal career in Carbondale after arriving from Connecticut as a young man in 1829 and eventually settling in the city in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region in 1845.
When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, the 51-year-old raised the first company of volunteers to leave Carbondale for the front. In one of the obituaries written upon his death two decades later, the author also noted that Dart put a musket into the hands of his African American servant, Henry Brown. This bears some similarities to the story of Nicholas Biddle in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in the same timeframe.
From the Wilkes-Barre Daily Union Leader, August 1883:
“In the early days of the rebellion [Dart] placed a musket in the hands of his colored servant, one Henry Brown, who is now a resident of this city, telling him that, in case any one questioned his authority to carry arms, to refer such person to the Colonel. Many old soldiers remember Brown as the first colored man they ever saw with a musket.”
There was indeed a Henry Brown mustered into Company K, 25th Pennsylvania Infantry. He was an 18-year-old mustered in as a “musician” in the regiment’s band.
Dart’s company was attached to the 25th Pennsylvania Volunteers – the regiment known as the First Defenders, commanded by Colonel Henry Cake – and by June 1861, they were stationed just outside Washington, DC.
Readers of the Carbondale Advance had already encountered one account of Alexandria in June 1861, published in our last “Letters from War: 1861” post.
“R.H.W.” of the 71st New York had written just days earlier of being quartered overnight in the Marshall House, the hotel where Colonel Elmer Ellsworth was shot dead on May 24 while hauling down a Confederate flag visible from the windows of the White House. That letter described soldiers standing in mournful groups over Ellsworth’s bloodstained floor, pocketing pieces of oilcloth as keepsakes, and vowing revenge.
Dart’s letter, written from regimental headquarters on June 9 covers some of the same ground as R.H.W.’s – and then goes considerably further.
Where R.H.W. wrote about the souvenir-taking with a certain solemnity, Dart described it with the unvarnished candor of a man who participated enthusiastically in the looting and had no regrets.
He pried a piece of the flagstaff from the building, pulled a section of door casing from the room where the hotel keeper James Jackson had kept his rifle, and helped others strip what they could from the place before military police cried out for them to stop – by which point, Dart noted with evident satisfaction, they had already taken everything they wanted.
From the Marshall House, he made his way to the offices of the Alexandria Gazette, a secessionist newspaper abandoned so suddenly that the type was still set and half of the following week’s edition already laid out. Dart and his companions helped themselves to fifty copies of the final edition, but only one of which they were able to keep and share with the readers of his hometown newspaper.
From the Carbondale Advance, June 15, 1861
WAR CORRESPONDENCE.
HEADQUARTERS 25TH REG’T, PA. VoL., Washington, D. C., June 9,1861.
Mr. EDITOR – Dear Sir:
Enclosed please find a paper published at Alexandria, Friday, 24th May last. This being the last paper struck from that secession press prior to its sudden exit on the advance of the two thousand troops on that place on the morning of that day, will, no doubt, make it an interesting document to you, as it is so held here, – while all my soldiers and under officers have been in Alexandria every day since it was taken, and as we claim by us too to some extent.
As it is necessary that there should be a commissioned officer at the quarters at all times, I have consented to stay as much as possible. Accompanied by Col. Cake, who is, by the by, a brother chip of yours, we started for the town this morning, after just as little drill as would answer the law, and placed ourselves aboard a very pleasant boat and started, a distance from our quarters of about four miles.
As a matter of course we were soon upon the spot. The first object of our curiosity was, of course, the “Marshall” House, where Col. Ellsworth met his end. I soon procured a piece of the staff that once supported the secession flag that was struck by Ellsworth, and then began to look around for a stair or a piece [of one] where he was shot from, but they had been all removed, so that it made it very dangerous to descend, but which I did not notice in ascending to the top of the house, but I soon succeeded in getting down, and took from the room he brought his rifle out of, a piece of a door casing.
After assisting others to procure pieces I took my exit, amid a thousand as curious, though not as fortunate as myself, for the marshal hearing of the desecration by our vandal hands, cried out “hold on,” and so we did, but not until we ruined all we wished.
I then clambered down this old four story brick, built no doubt about a hundred years since, although very much after the present model of buildings as to height of stories, but not as to the material in building in some respects, for I observed the lath were all rived and the nails were all wrought.
I repaired to the greatest object of my curiosity, the printing press of the Alexandria Gazette, that was so suddenly evacuated on the taking possession of Alexandria by our troops. The office was situated in the second story of the building and were a perfect businesslike appearance.
The bands were upon the fly-wheels, and nothing done to show an abandonment any more than a common stopping of the engine for dinner.The papers were as they were taken from the press, unfolded, and one half of the next week’s paper set up. Everything seemed to be in a flourishing condition, all but the typos – they were not there.
We allowed everything to remain in status quo, except the paper – the issue of the 24th of May. There we again raised our vandal-like grasp and ruined about fifty copies of it, which to the establishment would be worthless, if they were to return, and, if ever, will be a long day hence.
As soon as it was known what a prize we had taken on our arriving on the street, we could with difficulty keep a single copy, such was the eagerness of the crowd to get them. We had give a total refusal in order to keep any.
I then embarked for the headquarters of our army to learn the war news, which was not much. The outposts were neither driven in or killed last night, but the tables were a little turned. One of our outposts being a little in advance of the rest, the secession guard rode up to him and presented two pistols at his breast, demanded a surrender, declaring him their prisoner. At the same instant another Secessionist rode up, and our man for a moment supposed to surrender were his fate, but at the same instant almost, other three men rode up with cutlasses drawn, demanded a surrender of the secessionists; and as we then had four to their two they yielded.
Thus you see our soldiers secessionist dropped in an instant from the height of ecstasy to the depth of despondency. They were brought in about two o’clock this morning. In their dress and appearance I saw no difference from our own soldiers. I expected to see a difference in dress, certain, but could mark no difference. They had a blouse such as the whole army wear. Their pants were the same as the regular army of the United States. One of them looked very much cast down; the other looked upon the matter with a total indifference.
When I commenced writing you I had no idea of writing a letter to this length, and I have been watching for a spot to cut it off, but I have gone so far I will go a little farther and give you a very brief description of matters here.
Our country has passed through and won bloodless, though it is, or nearly is, one of the greatest victories and achievements the world ever knew. I shudder when I think of the condition our country has been in for the last three months. We have been saved by the game of [unitelligble] and false appearances.
The regiment to which we are attached was the first regiment that entered Washington. This was the identical night set by the secessionists to attack the town, but there was only five companies (as we and others have been attached since) and not once five hundred men, all told, it was heralded in large band-bills to be 5,000. This caused them to falter and postpone a day or two.
Then comes on the Massachusetts regiment and some others, who had to fight their way through Baltimore. Leslie’s Pictorial and other papers reported Scott as having possession of the long bridge from Washington into Virginia, when at the same time the secessionists had their sentinels on it all the time and it was under their complete control.
The outposts of my company were within musket shot of the outposts of the enemy for nearly two weeks after we came here, and were so up to the 24th of May. Five hundred men at any time up to the time we came here, could have burnt the town, and two thousand could have have taken it and held it.
Then they, as to all appearances abroad, would have been the government de jure, which would justified them in taking letters of marque and reprisal, and ruined us forever.
But now all is safe.
ALFRED DART.
P S.- -10th, morning. All is commotion in quarters. 12th regiment are on the march for battle.
DART.
Read the previous letter from the Letters from War: 1861 series.
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