President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 militia for three months service to suppress the rebellion of the southern states was issued Monday 15 April 1861, with an appeal to the citizens of the United States to sustain the Union. The Tribune issued a call for a mass meeting to express support for the Union. Monday afternoon "solid men of Wall Street" met at No.30 Pine Street and appointed a committee to draft resolutions calling for the meeting. A Committee of Ten was appointed chaired by Mr. Charles H. Marshall to organize the program for the meeting.
First Response to Aid the Volunteers
Wednesday the seventeenth, two hundred merchants and others gathered to hear the proposals for the meeting proposed for Friday evening. A committee from the Stock Exchange representing the men who had taken the lead for the Tribune's call for a meeting appeared. Mr. Simeon Chittenden, Secretary of the original committee, proposed changing the meeting to Saturday afternoon at three o'clock and that be in Union Square around Washington's monument. This suggestion was unanimously adopted. The call appeared Tuesday signed by seventy-three leading men of the city. The Chamber of Commerce called a meeting for Tuesday afternoon at the Commerce offices. The room was packed; patriotic resolutions were adopted and a committee presided over by Mr. William E. Dodge, appointed to raise funds to aid the volunteers and their families. Twenty-one thousand dollars were raised on the spot. This group was precursor of the Union Defense Committee. A committee of "influential capitalists" was also created to secure support for buying the nine million dollars of a Government loan. The last resolution adopted called for a blockade of the southern ports.
Mass Meeting in Union Square
Saturday, the twentieth, the news of the attack on the Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore, reached the city causing alarm over the city's Seventh Regiment on its way to Baltimore. As the time for the meeting crept closer, merchants closed their shops to maximize attendance at the meeting. Union Square was thronged with 100,000-200,000 citizens wearing symbols of the national flag. Buildings and houses flew the national ensign and red, white, blue bunting hung from windows. They were five speaker stands and the crowd cheered the appearance of Major Robert Anderson, Captains Abner Doubleday, J.G. Foster, Lieutenant Hall and Surgeon Samuel W. Crawford and the garrison of Fort Sumter, who had arrived on the steamer Baltic on Thursday from Charleston, South Carolina. A Committee of Twenty-one was appointed at the meeting to raise funds for the support of the volunteers and their families.
The Union Defense Committee
The Committee of Twenty-one held its first meeting Monday, the twenty-second at the Chamber of Commerce. The committee voted to add the Mayor Fernando Woody, the Comptroller, President of the Board of Aldermen and the President of the Board of Councilmen of the city to the council. The Select Committee organized by the Chamber of Commerce announced it would merge with the Committee of Twenty-six. The Select Committee had raised $115, 853.00 for the volunteer regiments organizing in the state; the committee had disbursed $92,884.00; the remaining $22,969.00 was transferred to the Committee of Twenty-six.
The City Aldermen and Council authorized 1.5 million dollars for equipping the troops and aid for families. The minutes of the Aldermen specified that the "Union Defense Committee" was to distribute the money. This became the first known use of the term and was adopted by the Committee of Twenty-six
Defense Committee Acts
The committee undertook the task of fitting out the volunteers raised under the first call for troops. The Defense Committee aided the recruiting, organizing, and equipping the growing numbers volunteering for service. Eleven Regiments were recruited and equipped under the auspices of the committee.
The Committee rented ships for the transport of troops and supplies; they chartered and armed several steamers to protect the convoys from rumored Confederate privateers. The Quaker City captured several ships between 14 May to 10 July 1861. The committee let contracts for uniforms for the volunteers. The committee also provided arms to the Union men of Kentucky and West Virginia.
The regiment directly organized the 39th New York, Garibalci, 40th New York Mozart, 41st New York DeKalb, and 42nd New York, Tammany Regiments.
Summary
The Union Defense Committee largely concluded its purpose by the fall of 1861. The years 1862-1865 the committee worked to assist the Sanitary Commission, Ladies Relief Association, hospitals, Soldiers Home and assisted in the recruiting for the regiments fielded by the committee to replace casualties. They urged that the national government issue paper bills to be used as legal tender and it members, heavily supported the war by purchasing government war bonds.
Sources
John Austin Stevens,Union Defense Committee of City of New York Minutes, Reports and Correspondence, with Historical Introduction (N.Y. Union Defence Committee, 1885)
Thomas Harrold, Governor Edwin Denison Morgan and the Recruitment of the Union Army in New York State (Albany, N.Y., 3/27/2009)
New York Times April-June 1861
Frederick Phisterer, New York in the War of the Rebellion 1861 to 1865 (2nd ed. Albany, N.Y. Weed, Parsons & Co. 1890)
