A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [9]
On April 13, 1861, Fort Sumter came under fire by rebel forces, triggering the Civil War. In Buffalo, a huge crowd gathered outside the Metropolitan Theatre. That day Democrats and Republicans spoke with one voice. Millard Fillmore rose and said the country faced an emergency in which no man, however low in rank, had a right to stand neutral.
“Civil War has been inaugurated, and we must meet it. Our government calls for aid, and we must give it.”
By April 18, hundreds of Buffalo’s men had come forward to sign up for two years of military duty. Fillmore was elected captain of a company of volunteers. On May 11, the entire city, with cheers and tears, turned out to bid the regiment Godspeed as they marched off to war.
The four Cleveland boys took different paths. In New York City, Grover’s brother Lewis Frederick Cleveland, who was known as Fred, heard the call to arms and fought for two honorable years, mustering out a first lieutenant. Cecil Cleveland, living in Indiana when war broke out, served with Generals Fremont and Grant in the Western Theater, and rose to the rank of second lieutenant. William Cleveland, now an ordained Presbyterian minister in Southampton, Long Island, had just gotten married and made the choice that in his situation, family came before country. To complicate matters, William’s wife was from Georgia, and he was “lukewarm” to the notion of doing battle against the South. Grover Cleveland also made up his mind to sit this one out.
Grover would later try to explain himself, saying his priority was supporting his widowed mother and sisters, who were now solely dependent on him for financial assistance. Of his two eldest sisters, Anna Cleveland Hastings was a missionary in faraway Ceylon, and Mary Cleveland Hoyt was raising a family. But Susan was eighteen and entering college, and Grover had promised to pay her tuition; Rose, the baby of the family, was fifteen and living with their mother in Holland Patent, but she was a bright student and also aspired to attend college. It was a daunting financial burden for a young man like Grover, who was just starting out. That, at least, was the story Grover later put out for public consumption. Apologists for Grover Cleveland added assertions that Mrs. Cleveland was “filled with anxiety for the fate of her two boys” who had gone to war, and that Grover remained his mother’s “greatest earthly comfort” in those troubled times. It was also said that the four Cleveland brothers drew straws from the family Bible to determine by lot who would stay home and who would go to war—but even Grover Cleveland said that was a myth.
The war dragged on, and the Union Army faced hard fighting. In Buffalo, a steady line of soldiers strode out of Fort Porter behind drum and bugle and marched down Delaware Street to the railroad depot on their way to the front lines. News of an important battle down South sent civilians surging to the offices of the Buffalo Daily Courier, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, and the other newspapers where casualty lists were posted. Hundreds of families in Western New York were in grief over the loss of loved ones. As casualties mounted, enthusiasm for enlisting waned, which was only natural. Both sides were suffering appalling losses. Union and Confederate killed or wounded at the Battle of Shiloh came to 23,000 in just two days of fighting. Gettysburg was even worse—50,000 men killed, wounded, or captured.
Facing a profound shortage of volunteers, in 1863, Congress passed the first conscription