By 10:30 a.m. on 19 April 1861—the day that marked a turning point in the life of Captain Franklin Buchanan, U. S. Navy— rioters were gathering at the President Street Station in Baltimore. Infuriated citizens and both southern and northern radicals had learned that a troop train of 35 cars from the North would soon pass through the city on its way to the defense of the nation’s capital.
Fort Sumter had fallen and President Lincoln had called for 75,000 volunteers; Virginia had seceded. Now, the first troops to answer the President’s call were arriving in pro-Southern Baltimore.
Railroad officials and Police Marshal George P. Kane had received a scant hour’s notice confirming the imminent arrival of some 1,700 troops. Eleven armed and uniformed companies of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment had been joined in or near Philadelphia by an unarmed Pennsylvania Regiment, composed of six companies of the First and four companies of the Second Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, and about half of the “Washington Brigade” of Philadelphia. The troops were .to change trains at stations located more than a mile apart in the heart of the city of Baltimore.
By 12:45 p.m., the last of the exhausted troops were aboard, but four of the Massachusetts Regiment had been killed and 36 soldiers wounded; 12 citizens were left dead in the streets, with many more injured. With brickbats, knives, and finally, guns, the rioters had attacked the engineless, horse-drawn train cars as they passed through the streets.
Anchors from the nearby wharf and paving stones from streets under repair had been piled on the tracks, and the last few cars were not able to proceed. The troops had been forced to dismount and march—then run—to the Camden Street Station. The Mayor had marched along at the head of the column and pleaded with the rioters to cease, and for a time the police could not handle the mob. When the rioters fired, some of the troops had fired back and thus the first killing of the Civil War took place.
That same spring day, Captain Franklin Buchanan was proceeding with his duties at the Washington Navy Yard, where he was in command. Since the first of the year his responsibilities had weighed increasingly heavy. Rumors had spread that a mob would seize the Navy Yard in order to secure its arms and ammunition, thus preventing the inauguration of President-elect Abraham Lincoln.
Buchanan had ordered Commander John A. Dahlgren, in command of the Ordnance Department of the Yard, to prepare all the available howitzers for the defense of the Yard.
In giving his orders, he said: “This yard shall not be surrendered to any person or persons except by an order of the honorable Secretary of the Navy, and in the event of an attack I shall require all the officers and others under my command to defend it to the last extremity; and if we be overpowered by numbers, the armory and magazine must be blown up.” On the first of February Captain Buchanan issued a General Order covering full details for its defense.
The fact that the attack had not occurred and that the President was safely inaugurated did not lighten the burden which Buchanan carried. He was a southerner, Baltimore born. His permanent home, “The Rest,” was on the nearby but isolated Eastern Shore of Maryland, where the plantation system and slave labor still flourished and life went on much the same as in Colonial times.
Like many people in other states, Eastern Shoremen and Southern Marylanders believed that states had equal rights with the federal government. Many even thought the Union was secondary.
Buchanan had found it difficult to write an order against his friends and relatives. But his loyalty was first to his country and to the U. S. Navy in which he had served for almost half a century. It seemed a long time ago, indeed, that he had entered the Navy as a midshipman, at the age of 14.
Now, on this day, the Border states were trembling in the balance. Would Maryland follow in Virginia’s footsteps? He remembered the words of Governor Hicks, stated back in November, in answer to prominent state officials who had “prayed him to exercise his powers and discharge his duty” by calling an extra session of the Legislature: “ . . . When she (Maryland) moves in the matter, I wish to be side by side with Virginia—our nearest neighbor—Kentucky and Tennessee.”
Buchanan had thought Maryland very probably would secede. When he received word of the Baltimore riot, he felt certain of it.
Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks of Maryland was a man walking a tight rope. Pressure was being used to force him to call a session of the legislature, but he knew that if one was called, the Assembly would vote for secession. Somehow, he must stave one off for as long as he could.
The Governor, a Union man, thought he understood his people. Maryland was Southern in sympathy—only 2,294 votes had been cast for Lincoln. The same issues which were dividing the nation—slavery, secession, states’ rights, and tariff—also were splitting the Free State.
The day of the riot, he called out the militia. At 3 p.m. a mass meeting was held at Monument Square in Baltimore, and there was wild acclaim for his emotional words: “ . . . I am a Marylander and would sooner have my right arm cut off than raise it against a sister Southern State.”
A committee had rushed to Washington, by special train, to request the President not to send more troops through Baltimore. Earlier, a dispatch to the same effect had been sent Mr. Lincoln, signed by the Governor and Mayor George William Brown.
But that night, not having heard from the President, the Mayor and police commissioners with the Governor’s approval, acted to prevent the passing of future troops. They ordered a squad of policemen and a detachment of the Maryland Guard to burn the railroad bridges leading into the city.
In Washington, Captain Buchanan heard the details of the riot. Three days later, he ended hours of indecision and wrote a letter which he handed to the Secretary of the Navy. The letter was brief:
Navy Yard,
Washington
April 22d, ’61
His Excellency
The President,
Sir,
I respectfully resign my commission as Captain in the U. States Navy.
Respectfully Sir
Yr. Obt. Servt.
Frankn Buchanan
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was a troubled man. During the few weeks he had held office, the work of the new Cabinet was to win back the South. They had lost.
Welles had not wanted to provision Fort Sumter and had written a memorandum to the President to that effect. He feared such an act would result in war for which the Navy was, in his opinion, totally unprepared.
A new England newspaperman, Welles had been influential through his editorials in promoting Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. His appointment to the Cabinet, therefore, was not totally unexpected, but the Navy portfolio was. In order to secure his knowledge of naval matters, he had been working long hours overtime.
When Welles took the oath of office on 5 March 1861, the day following Lincoln’s inauguration, the Navy consisted of 90 vessels, of which, only 42 were in commission; 21 of these were unserviceable and 27 were out of commission. Now, some of the best of these ships had been sunk off Norfolk. There were no modern ironclads, such as those which were being developed by England and France after the Crimean War.
The week before, Welles had ordered Commodore Charles S. McCauley to take steps to prevent the seizure of the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard and to insure the safety of all ships. The steam frigate Merrimack had been repaired and armed and was ready to go to sea, but she never left the wharf. The aging McCauley had panicked and ordered the destruction of the warships and Yard. Nine ships—all but Cumberland—had been scuttled and immense stores of ammunition set ablaze. Now the Yard was in the hands of the Confederates.
Conditions were becoming more critical with each passing hour. Yesterday he had issued an order to Captain Buchanan to have the steamers Baltimore, Mount Vernon, Philadelphia, and Powhatan, equipped for immediate war service.
Now he was worried over the number of resignations pouring in. Between 7 and 23 March, 40 southern naval officers had resigned. Most of the midshipmen from the South had left the Naval Academy. Every ship returning to northern ports, every new day brought more resignations. He was uncertain just whom he could trust. Reliable friends had put him on guard against Barron, Buchanan, Maury, Porter and Magruder . . . each had been “courted and caressed” by the Secessionists who wanted to win them to their cause.
It was on this troubled day that Franklin Buchanan called to explain his reasons for resigning his commission, and to hand Welles his letter of resignation from the Navy.
That same day, Welles sent Buchanan this reply: “You are hereby detached from the command of the Navy Yard at Washington, and will transfer it to Commander J. A. Dahlgren who has been ordered there on temporary duty. Your resignation is yet under consideration.”
Buchanan’s final communication as an officer in the U. S. Navy was addressed to Dahlgren: “Sir, as I have this day resigned my commission as a Captain in the Navy, and consider myself only temporarily in command here, you will carry out all the instructions you have received in preparing the steamers for war service, as directed by my order to you this morning, and superintend the defense of the Yard when necessary. I shall not take any part in the defense of this Yard from this date.”
Then Buchanan bid Godspeed to the employees of the Yard. “During the delivery of this address,” stated the Washington National Intelligencer, “tears coursed freely down the bronzed cheeks of the patriotic workmen, and at its close three hearty cheers were given for the retiring commander ...” Then he left for the Eastern Shore.
Meanwhile, at Annapolis, Captain George S. Blake, Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Academy, had notified the Navy Department of the great danger of an attack by Maryland secessionists due to the proximity of the city to Washington.
The Academy grounds were readied for defense. There were rumors that Constitution, aground off Annapolis, would be the first ship to carry the rebel flag. Secretary Welles notified Blake to “Defend the ship at all hazards. If it cannot be done, destroy her.”
On 21 April, Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler and the Eighth Massachusetts Regiment arrived in the ferryboat Maryland and hauled Old Ironsides into deep water. Butler’s specific orders, as commander of the newly formed Military Department of Annapolis, were to protect the roads to Washington. A few days later, the Eighth Massachusetts was joined by the Seventh New York Regiment, and together they occupied the Academy buildings. The officers as well as the midshipmen gave up their rooms to the troops.
The first resignation at the Academy had taken place in December 1860, when the honor man of the first class had resigned. All members of the first class marched to the gate with the departing man from Mobile, Alabama, and sang a song in farewell.
By 10 May, the upper classmen had been ordered to active duty even though many had received little actual naval training. In this way, over 100 officers were added to the Federal Fleet.
With the occupying of the buildings by federal troops, Blake directed the transfer of the remaining midshipmen to Constitution. The midshipmen met one last time and “smoked a pipe of peace and pledged themselves to care for one another however much they might become enemies.”
On 24 April came the order to embark. The Southern boys made their own way homeward, and those in the Union sailed for Newport, Rhode Island, where they continued their training at the Army’s Old Fort Adams. The majority of officers and professors attached to the Naval Academy stayed in the Union, but Lieutenant William Harwar Parker, instructor in seamanship, resigned and later organized the Naval Academy of the Confederate States.
In Washington, President Lincoln answered the request of the Baltimore committee, in a letter dated 20 April to Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown: “ . . . I tender you both my sincere thanks for your efforts to keep the peace in the trying situation in which you are placed. For the future troops must be brought here, but I make no point of bringing them through Baltimore.
“Without any military knowledge myself, of course I must leave details to General Scott. He hastily said this morning . . . ‘March them around Baltimore, not through it.’
“I sincerely hope the General, on fuller reflection, will consider this practical and proper, and that you will not object to it ... ”
On 26 April, Governor Hicks called for a special session of the General Assembly at Frederick, since the capital at Annapolis was occupied by the troops. On the following day, the Senate, by a unanimous vote, stated in an address to the people of Maryland that it had “no constitutional authority to take action leading to secession.” Two days later, the House of Delegates, by a vote of 53 to 12, made a similar announcement. Early in May, the General Assembly, by an overwhelming majority, took the same position in the matter.
By then, Franklin Buchanan knew that Maryland would not secede. The long, intentional delay by the Governor and the holding of key positions by Federal troops had accomplished the impossible. Buchanan had acted in good faith, for the protection of Maryland. Now, he regretted his impulsive action. Since he had not heard that his resignation had been accepted, he again wrote to Secretary Welles requesting its withdrawal.
“ . . . The circumstances which induced me, very reluctantly, to tender my resignation, no longer exist,” he said, “and I cannot voluntarily withdraw from a service in which I have passed nearly 47years of my life, in the faithful performance of duty—as the records of the Navy Department will prove. I am ready for service.”
The records in the Navy Department did indeed prove Buchanan’s efficiency. In 1845 when Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft searched the records in order to select the most qualified man to appoint as Superintendent of the new Naval School at Annapolis, he chose Commander Franklin Buchanan who had by then served 30 years in the Navy.
Secretary Bancroft knew much about Buchanan the man, a gentleman and disciplinarian, as well as his competency as a naval officer. He knew that Buchanan had been born on 17 September 1800, and had moved to Philadelphia at the age of eight, after his father died. Buchanan was a grandson of Thomas' McKean of Pennsylvania, who had been one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
On 28 January 1815, Buchanan received his midshipman’s warrant and went to sea in Java, commanded by Captain Oliver Hazard Perry. He served in Prometheus, which surveyed the Atlantic Coast, then spent several years fighting pirates in the Caribbean in the squadron which was commanded by Commodore David Porter.
While on furlough, he commanded the 64- gun Baltimore and delivered her to the Emperor of Brazil. He served in the famed Constellation and in Delaware and Constitution. In January 1825, he received the rank of lieutenant at SI,500 a year.
On 16 November 1842, Buchanan took command of Vincennes, which was awarded to him over others of senior rank. Ever the disciplinarian, he was stern, but just, with all hands. On 8 December 1843, he wrote to Secretary of the Navy David Henshaw concerning the suspension of the gunner of the ship who violated orders by remaining out of the ship all night without permission and coming on board intoxicated.
“This last offense is one I never overlook in an officer or sailor,” he stated, “The crime of drunkenness in the Navy causes all the insubordination and consequent punishment to officers and men. Experience has convinced me of this fact, and hence my determination never to overlook such an offense when committed under my command.”
On 23 July 1845, Buchanan was ordered to Washington for special duty in regard to the new Naval School; on 14 August he was appointed superintendent “and to it at the proper time.” On 10 October he opened the Naval School in the old Army post, Fort Severn, where sound policies and regulations were formulated that first trying year. He was a member of several examining boards of the midshipmen and was a member of the board which, on 1 July 1850, voted to change the name of the School to the United States Naval Academy.
Upon the outbreak of the War with Mexico, Buchanan asked for sea duty. On 2 February 1847, he commanded Germantown in Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry’s squadron, which fought at Vera Cruz.
The climax of his career came in 1852 when he commanded the frigate Susquehanna, flagship of Commodore Perry’s East India Squadron which opened the door to Japan.
On 14 September 1855, he was promoted to the rank of captain, but it did not become official until 1 August 1856, due to his having been a member of the highly criticized “Efficiency Board” which had failed to promote a large number of officers. He was appointed Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard on 26 May 1859.
A few days after Buchanan wrote to Secretary Welles, recalling his resignation, he received this reply:
May 14, 1861
Sir:
Your letter of 22nd ultimo, tendering your resignation as a captain in the United States Navy has been received. By direction of the President your name has been stricken from the rolls of the Navy from that date.
Gideon Welles
Later, after his hurt and disappointment had somewhat abated, Buchanan unburdened himself in a letter to U. S. Senator James Alfred Pearce of Maryland:
“The Rest” near
Easton, Md.
June 26th ’61
Dear Sir,
Previous to your leaving Washington this spring you requested me to remind you to send me the papers you have in your possession belonging to me. I now do so but regret to cause you the trouble, those papers I now value more than ever as I am out of that Navy which I faithfully served for upwards of 45 years, and left so reluctantly. But the deed is done.
I resigned in good faith to my native state, Maryland, fully under the impression she was out of the Union, and I could not raise my arm against her.
For some days, all, throughout the state nearly, believed her virtually withdrawn from the Union, during that unfortunate affair of April last. At that period I resigned and offered my services to Gov. Hicks “to assist in repelling any invasion of her soil by our Northern enemies,” such was the light in which every person I met viewed it. It was not considered the act of a mob until some days after the occurance, then the change to Union was as sudden as from Secession to Union.
I was devotedly fond of my profession and had hoped to die in the Navy, but fate has decreed otherwise. I never was an advocate for Secession, I am a strong Union man under the Constitution and the Laws, and I am not blind to the faults of either North or South. My feelings are all in favor of the South and I cannot war against her; when I found the State was still in the Union, as it is termed.
I asked to recall my resignation with the hope of getting service abroad where I could not come in collision with the South. This was not granted. I was “dropped from the rolls of the Navy.” I have had a horror of fighting against the “stars & stripes,” that flag I have served under faithfully & fought under. My native state has honored me with her thanks for my services in Mexico under that flag, but the flag which I served under is no longer the flag of the present Union. It is only a portion of it. The rest is with the South, her portion will never be disgraced or dishonored. Events have occured within the last three months which reflect no credit upon those “stars & stripes” which now fly over us.
I have not sought a situation in the Southern Confederacy, but I have reed, letters informing me that I could get a high position. I have never made a reply. I cannot think this unholy, fratricidal war can continue much longer, tis folly for the North to suppose she can subjugate the South. The Northern papers daily give evidence of a change of sentiment in that particular, and if hostilities cease I may remain quietly on my farm. If they continue, and the war is to be continued, North against the South, my course is easily decided. I have taken the liberty of writing thus freely to you, as one who I have always considered a friend who felt an interest in me, and I wished you to understand my motive in giving up my commission, and my wishing afterward to be restored.
No officer of the Army or Navy has resigned (except the Maryland officers) before their states withdrew from the Union. The Maryland officers did so, too hastily, but with the best intentions towards the state. In a conversation with Mr. Welles, the Secy, of the Navy, I told him that officers were peculiarly situated, that notwithstanding they might differ from and disapprove of, the views of their states, still they could not avoid following their fortunes, they could not war against their states, particularly if their families & relatives resided there, and their property was there; if they did, they never could return, they would be ostracized.
I sincerely hope you may be able to make some satisfactory arrangement during the approaching session to stop this unnatural war.
Respectfully sir
Yr. friend & obt. servt.
Frankn. Buchanan
Public criticism was aimed at Buchanan for his attempt to recall his resignation. In answer to an article headed a “Strange Record” in the Richmond Examiner, Buchanan was goaded into writing a letter to the editor which was published 18 May 1862. He stated that he did not deny the authorship of the letters which the paper published, and that he was willing that all his acts, private and official, relating to his withdrawing from the Navy, be known to his countrymen. Then he wrote his true feelings:
“ . . . Those who have never served in the Army or Navy of the United States for forty years and upwards, and have never fought under her flag or witnessed the respect paid to it throughout the world wherever displayed cannot know or appreciate the feelings of those who, from principle, were obliged to war against it, until it became the emblem of tyranny and a military despotism.
I do not deny that I felt great regret that circumstances made it necessary that I should leave that Navy; in this regret I am not alone, for there are thousands, aye, millions, who regretted to see such a government as the United States once was, broken up.
Never for one moment have I ever regretted my course I have taken in this revolution, except to suffer myself to be led into the popular error, for a short time, that a reconciliation could be arranged between the North and the South.
My acts in the Confederacy speak for themselves. The revolutionary principles of my grandfather Thomas McKean run through my veins, and I trust that such principles, with a clear conscience of having performed my duty, will govern me through life. My enemies may exert themselves to injure me, but they never shall have it in their power to say that I shrink from professional responsibilities or duties.”
By September, Buchanan found his new way of life intolerable. He had kept busy with everyday affairs of the farm and scrutinized each day’s events, but it was not enough. By then, southern ports were blockaded and Union troops had imprisoned Marshal Kane and the Baltimore police commissioners, and Mayor Brown. None received a trial.
At the age of 61, an age when many men retire from active work, the white-haired, vigorous southerner, whose physical strength belied his age by 20 years, left his home and went to Richmond. On 5 September, he joined the Confederate States Navy, with the rank of captain. His first post was Chief of the Office of Orders and Detail.
Buchanan’s distinguished career in the Confederate Navy, which included chief command at Hampton Roads and at Mobile, gave him fame but no comfort. For his early success in commanding Merrimac {Virginia), the first ironclad in a naval battle, he received a Resolution of Thanks from the Congress of the Confederate States of America for “unsurpassed gallantry.” He also was promoted in rank which made him the first admiral in the Confederate States Navy.
In the fall of 1863, Admiral Buchanan took command of the naval defenses of Mobile, the most important port on the Gulf since the capture of New Orleans by Admiral Farragut. By now, the industrial North was showing its strength in the slow strangulation of the agricultural South. Buchanan tried to hasten the construction of warships and pleaded for the quick completion of five ironclads at the Selma, Alabama, shipyard. But there was constant delay in getting the iron for armor— some so thin that seamen called the ships “tinclads.”
Not until 16 February 1862 was the ponderous Tennessee commissioned, the ram which was Buchanan’s flagship in his squadron of four ships at Mobile Bay. In that one-sided battle of 5 August, when the ram fought three of Farragut’s ironclads and all his 14 steamers, Buchanan was wounded.
Upon his surrender, he was carried up from the lower deck and laid upon the top of the pilot house. There he was visited by Fleet Surgeon J. C. Palmer, U. S. Navy, who had been ordered to help the Confederate surgeon in caring for the wounded and who brought a message from Admiral Farragut, offering Buchanan the use of any of his vessels “to convey him to the point he might designate.”
Although in great pain from his shattered leg, Buchanan tartly replied: “Tell Admiral Farragut I am a prisoner of war in his hands, and expect nothing from him beyond what is usually extended to prisoners of war by civilized nations.”
That evening, Buchanan was transferred to a small dispatch boat then, accompanied by Fleet Surgeon Daniel B. Conrad, C. S. Navy, he was taken in Metacomet to the naval hospital at Pensacola, where it was thought that his leg must be amputated. There he spent three months while his leg slowly improved.
Buchanan was then imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York, where members of his family were permitted to visit him. Among them was his brother, McKean Buchanan, who had stayed in the Union and had been paymaster in Congress which the admiral destroyed at Hampton Roads.
On 18 February 1865, a long-awaited order for his exchange came through and in early March he returned to Richmond.
Once more Buchanan was ordered to Mobile. Federal forces entered the beleaguered city on 12 April, and two days later he surrendered. Once again he was taken prisoner. On 17 May he gave his “solemn parole of honor” that he would never again serve in the Navy of the Confederate States or in any military capacity whatever against the United States of America.
By then, the war was over and Buchanan returned to the Eastern Shore. He kept busy on the farm and supervised the building of a new home since “The Rest” had burned down during his absence.
In the fall of 1868, the 68-year old Buchanan was appointed President of the Maryland Agricultural College (his father Dr. George Buchanan was one of the founders of the institution’s Medical Department). During the war and directly afterwards, the college had, in his words, “run down to zero” and the farm had gone to weeds.
But sleeping dogs were not permitted to lie, and northern criticism concerning the appointment was expressed in various newspapers. Such criticism the Mobile Tribune felt called upon to answer:
“Democratic Maryland at last showed her appreciation of her old hero, by appointing him to the Presidency of the State Agricultural College, and she has the satisfaction of already reaping the rewards of her good deed, in the great impetus given to the progress of the college, which heretofore had been in rather a disorganized condition. Already the number of students had increased to 55 and more are on the way.
The institution has become popular, and the wholesome “man of war discipline” exercised by the gallant old admiral will cause it to continue so, for young people are always happier when they are governed with firmness and consistency.
There is only one thing to regret in the action of Maryland towards Admiral Buchanan her failure to consult the wishes of Horace Greeley in the matter. That rancorous old blackguard comments on the appointment as follows, through the column of his hyena spirited newspaper:
“Com. Franklin Buchanan abandoned our Navy at the outbreak of the war, and became prominent in that of the rebels. He brought the Merrimac (alias Virginia) out of Norfolk and destroyed several good vessels of the Union Navy at Fortress Monroe, but the Monitor at length drove him off.
He fought us again in the ram Tennessee, which did us great harm in Mobile Bay, where he had his leg broken; but Farragut at length captured her, with most of her associates. He has just been provided with a good office by the Maryland “Conservatives.” We haven’t heard of their giving any to a one-legged Union soldier or a sailor, but we hope they will all get along somehow. It is well that they don’t depend for a living on the generosity or the loyalty of Maryland.”
The college flourished under Buchanan’s administration, when, in one year, he reorganized it and managed to pay off its indebtedness out of its own revenues. The number of students rose from six to 80. Then he disagreed with the Board of Trustees in regard to the conduct of one of the professors, whose dismissal he considered to be for the good of the school. When his order of dismissal was rejected, he resigned.
He then accepted a position with a life insurance company in Mobile, where he stayed for over a year. But his home drew him back and there he remained until his death of pneumonia on 11 May 1874.
Franklin Buchanan, Captain, United States Navy and Admiral, Confederate States Navy, was a man who placed his career, his fortune, and his life on the line to defend a cause that he believed was right. His soul-tormenting decision was at once individual and typical of those made by all professional officers who were southern by sympathy or birth.