When the rebellion broke out in 1861, I was too old to go to the field, but I supplied four substitutes, and contributed liberally from my means for the cause of the Union. After the defeat at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, “peace meetings” began to be held in different parts of the Northern States, and especially in Fairfield and Litchfield Counties, in Connecticut. It was usual in these assemblages to display a white flag, bearing the word “Peace” above the National flag, and to make and listen to harangues denunciatory of the war. One of these meetings was advertised to be held, August 24th, at Stepney, ten miles north of Bridgeport. On the morning of that day, I met Elias Howe, Jr., who proposed to me that we should drive up to Stepney, attend the Peace meeting, and hear for ourselves whether the addresses were disloyal or not. We agreed to meet at the post-office, at twelve o’clock at noon, and I went home for my carriage. On the way I met several gentlemen to whom I communicated my intention, asking them to go also; and as Mr. Howe invited several of his friends to accompany us, when we met at noon, at least twenty gentlemen were at the place of rendezvous with their carriages, ready to start for Stepney. I am quite confident that not one of us had any other intention in going to this meeting, than to quietly listen to the harangues, and if they were found to be in opposition to the government, and calculated to create disturbance or disaffection in the community, and deter enlistments, it would be best to represent the matter to the government at Washington, and ask that measures might be taken to suppress such gatherings.
As we turned into Main Street, we discovered two large omnibuses filled with soldiers, who were at home on furlough, and who were going to Stepney. Our lighter carriages outran them, and so arrived at Stepney in time to see the white peace flag run up over the stars and stripes, when we quietly stood in the crowd while the meeting was organized. It was a very large gathering, and some fifty ladies were on the seats in front of the platform, on which were the officers and speakers of the meeting. A “preacher,”—Mr. Charles Smith,—was invited to open the proceedings with prayer, and “The Military and Civil History of Connecticut, during the War of 1861-65,” by W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris, thus continues the record of this extraordinary gathering:
“He (Smith) had not, however, progressed far in his supplication, when he slightly opened his eyes, and beheld, to his horror, the Bridgeport omnibuses coming over the hill, garnished with Union banners, and vocal with loyal cheers. This was the signal for a panic; Bull Run, on a small scale was re-enacted. The devout Smith, and the undelivered orators, it is alleged, took refuge in a field of corn. The procession drove straight to the pole unresisted, the hostile crowd parting to let them pass; and a tall man,—John Platt,—amid some mutterings, climbed the pole, reached the halliards, and the mongrel banners were on the ground. Some of the peace-men, rallying, drew weapons on ‘the invaders,’ and a musket and a revolver were taken from them by soldiers at the very instant of firing. Another of the defenders fired a revolver, and was chased into the fields. Still others, waxing belligerent, were disarmed, and a number of loaded muskets found stored in an adjacent shed were seized. The stars and stripes were hoisted upon the pole, and wildly cheered. P. T. Barnum was then taken on the shoulders of the boys in blue, and put on the platform, where he made a speech full of patriotism, spiced with the humor of the occasion. Captain James E. Dunham also said a few words to the point.... ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was then sung in chorus, and a series of resolutions passed, declaring that ‘loyal men are the rightful custodians of the peace of Connecticut.’ Elias Howe, Jr., chairman, made his speech, when the crowd threatened to shoot the speakers: ‘If they fire a gun, boys, burn the whole town, and I’ll pay for it!’ After giving the citizens wholesome advice concerning the substituted flag, and their duty to the government, the procession returned to Bridgeport, with the white flag trailing in the mud behind an omnibus.... They were received at Bridgeport by approving crowds, and were greeted with continuous cheers as they passed along.”
On our way back to Bridgeport, the soldiers threatened a descent upon the Farmer office, but I strongly appealed to them to refrain from such a riotous proceeding, telling them that as law-abiding citizens they should refrain from acts of violence and especially should make no appeal to the passions of a mob. So confident was I that the day’s proceedings had ended with the reception of the soldiers on their return from Stepney, that in telegraphing a full account of the facts to the New York papers, I added that there was no danger of an attack upon the Farmer office, since leading loyal citizens were opposed to such action as unnecessary and unwise. But the enthusiasm with which the soldiers had been received, and the excitement of the day, prompted them to break through their resolutions, and, half an hour after my telegram had been sent to New York, they rushed into the Farmer office, tumbled the type into the street, and broke the presses. I did not approve of this summary suppression of the paper, and offered the proprietors a handsome subscription to assist in enabling them to renew the publication of the Farmer. One of the editors of this paper went South, and connected himself with a journal in Augusta, Georgia; the remaining proprietor shortly afterwards re-issued the Farmer, but the peace meetings which had been advertised for different towns were never held; the gathering at Stepney was the last of the kind.
Elias Howe, Jr., although he was a man of wealth and well advanced in years, enlisted as a private in the Seventeenth regiment of Connecticut volunteers and served in the Army of the Potomac. Once when his fellow-soldiers, not having been paid off, were in need of money, he advanced $13,000 due them, and when his regiment was disbanded and discharged from service, he chartered, at his own expense, a special train to bring them from New Haven to Bridgeport, where they had a public reception.
Mr. Howe, like all men of his reputed wealth and liberality, was constantly besieged by solicitors for all sorts of charities, nor was he free from such applications when he was serving as a common soldier in Virginia. On one occasion a worthy priest came to him and asked for a subscription to a church which was then building. “Who is it,” exclaimed Howe, “that talks of building churches in this time of war?” The priest ventured to say that he was trying to build in his parish a church which was to be known as St. Peter’s.
“St. Peter’s is it?” asked Howe; “well, St. Peter was, in his way, a fighting man; he drew a sword once and cut off a man’s ear; on the whole, I think,” he added, as he gave a handsome sum of money to the priest, “I must do something for St. Peter, though about these days I am devoting my attention and money mainly to saltpetre.”
After the draft riots in New York and in other cities, in July, 1863, myself and other members of the “Prudential Committee” which had been formed in Bridgeport were frequently threatened with personal violence, and rumors were especially rife that Lindencroft would some night be mobbed and destroyed. On several occasions, soldiers volunteered as a guard and came and stayed at my house, sometimes for several nights in succession, and I was also provided with rockets, so that in case of an attempted attack I could signal to my friends in the city and especially to the night watchman at the arsenal, who would see my rockets at Lindencroft and give the alarm. Happily these signals were never needed, but the rockets came in play, long afterwards, in another way.
My house was provided with a magnetic burglar-alarm and one night the faithful bell sounded. I was instantly on my feet and summoning my servants, one ran and rung the large bell on the lawn which served in the day time to call my coachman from the stable, another turned on the gas, while I fired a gun out of the window and I then went to the top of the house and set off several rockets. The whole region round about was instantly aroused; dogs barked, neighbors half-dressed, but armed, flocked over to my grounds, every time a rocket went up, and I was by no means sparing of my supply; the whole place was as light as day, and in the general glare and confusion we caught sight of two retreating burglars, one running one way, the other another way, and both as fast as their legs could carry them; nor do I believe that the panic-stricken would-be plunderers stopped running till they reached New York.
It always seemed to me that a man who “takes no interest in politics” is unfit to live in a land where the government rests in the hands of the people. Consequently, whether I expressed them or not, I always had pronounced opinions upon all the leading political questions of the day, and no frivolous reason ever kept me from the polls. Indeed, on one occasion, I even hastened my return from Europe, so that I could take part in a presidential election. I was a party man, but not a partisan, nor a wire-puller, and I had never sought or desired office, though it had often been tendered to me. This was notoriously true, among all who knew me, up to the year 1865, when I accepted