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The troops, having arrived earlier that day, April 25, were the first to reach the capital in days and a sign that the threat of an attack on Washington was finally lifting. Lincoln was the “happiest looking man in town as the regiment was marching by him” remarked an Illinois gent.
The volunteers that eased the president’s mind belonged to no ordinary regiment. They served in the elite Seventh New York, regarded by some as the finest national guardsmen in America, and its membership included some of the most fashionable young men of means from the city’s establishment.
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Collection of the author Alfred Cutler Barnes; carte de visite by unidentified photographer, circa 1860-1861. CLICK TO ENLARGEAmong them was Pvt. Alfred Cutler Barnes. He was the oldest son and namesake of Alfred Smith Barnes, a driven man who worked his way from a bookstore clerk in Hartford, Conn., to the founder of major a publishing house, A.S. Barnes & Company.
The elder Barnes groomed his son to enter the family business. Young Alfred studied under tutors at home in Brooklyn and in private schools. He planned to attend Yale in the autumn of 1858. But during the summer before he left for college, he became a clerk in the mailroom of his father’s company; he discovered a passion for business and elected to continue his education on the job.
Barnes joined in the Seventh at the age of 18 in 1860 and donned the traditional gray uniform of the Guard. He took his place in the ranks of dandies who dazzled audiences of handkerchief-waving young ladies with its martial magnificence at parades and other ceremonial functions. Observing the guardsmen, then-President James Buchanan observed “that in the day and hour of battle you would not be mere parade soldiers, but that you would be in its very front.”
His words were prophetic. The Seventh numbered among the first responders after President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion. On April 19, Private Barnes and his comrades marched along Broadway to cheering crowds. Some joyful citizens thumped the volunteers on their knapsacks and thrust cigars, snacks and trinkets into their hands.
The same day in Baltimore, pro-secessionist mobs rioted against Union troops as they passed through town. Deadly gunfire erupted. The action effectively shut the city down and cut Washington off from the North.
Washington received word that the Seventh was on its way before communications ceased. Minutes seemed like hours as the city anxiously awaited its arrival; days passed while the regiment traveled a roundabout route to avoid Baltimore.
Finally, about noon on April 25, alert Washingtonians heard the familiar chug and whistle of a locomotive. A crowd gathered at a station about a block from the Capitol and watched as a long train of cars packed with soldiers approached the platform. They recognized the gray uniforms and cheered. At the same time, infantrymen from the Sixth Massachusetts quartered in the Capitol spotted the newcomers, erupted in a mighty shout and sprinted to the station to greet the New Yorkers. One regular army officer exclaimed, “What a thrill of delight pervaded our loyal population! In every direction you could hear, ‘The Seventh has come!’”
Library of CongressMembers of the Seventh New York shortly after they arrived in Washington, D.C.Barnes and his comrades exited the train and wiped six days of dust, dirt and soot from their faces, uniforms and equipment. They formed ranks by company and set out for a two-mile-long march to report for duty. They passed the Stars and Stripes that floated above the unfinished Capitol dome and wheeled on to Pennsylvania Avenue in perfect step to the sound of the regimental band.
Throngs of citizens cheered. “No body of men could ever meet a more enthusiastic or hearty greeting,” noted a Washington correspondent for the New York Tribune. “The whole city danced with delight. A greater change never passed over a town, than that wrought in the space of half an hour by the coming of the long-looked-for Seventh.”
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Lincoln’s secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, added that the Seventh “seemed to sweep all thought of danger and all taint of treason not only out of that great national thoroughfare, but out of every human heart in the Federal city. The presence of this single regiment seemed to turn the scales of fate.” The Seventh arrived at the White House and greeted the president. Mary Todd Lincoln presented the regiment with a bouquet of flowers.
After the march ended, some of the men went in search of baths, food and sleep. Others went sightseeing or wrote letters home. President Lincoln cornered the commander of the Seventh and grilled him about his experiences on the march. The next day the Seventh mustered into the federal army for a month-long term. More regiments poured into the capital as the North met President Lincoln’s call for volunteers.
In the seceded states, newspapers condemned the Seventh for invading the South. According to one report, a South Carolina colonel offered to raise a regiment of handpicked mounted riflemen for the express purpose of fighting the New Yorkers.
In the broader context of the war, Lincoln secretary Nicolay observed, “This march of the ‘Seventh’ was the merest regimental picnic; but it has become historic because it marked a turning-point in the national destiny, and signified the will of the people that the capital of the Union should remain where George Washington planted it.”
The Seventh returned home after its service expired. Many of the officers and men later returned to the army with new volunteer regiments and served in bloody battles and campaigns over the next four years.
From Seventy-Five Years of Book Publishing, 1838-1913, by John Barnes Pratt A post-war view of Alfred Cutler Barnes.Private Barnes remained in the National Guard. In 1862, he transferred to the 23rd Infantry and became a sergeant. His only other federal military service during the war years occurred in the summer of 1863. The regiment mobilized for duty after Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia launched an invasion of the North that ended in defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg.
He continued in the Guard and retired as a brigadier general in 1903. By this time Barnes had inherited the family business, expanded it and reorganized the schoolbook division as the American Book Company. Active in numerous philanthropic organizations, he served as a trustee for the new Brooklyn Bridge. He died in 1904 of pneumonia at age 62.
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Sources: Charles J. Ross, “Chronicle of the Rebellion of 1861” ; Sullivan H. Weston, “The March of the Seventh Reg’t.: A Sermon on the Providence of God”; William J. Roehrenbeck, “The Regiment That Saved the Capital”; Allan Nevins, “The War for the Union: The Improvised War 1861-1862”; William Swinton, “History of the Seventh Regiment, National Guard, State of New York, During the War of the Rebellion”; Walter S. Wilson, “America’s Crack Regiments,” The American Magazine, October 1888; Theodore Winthrop, “Our March to Washington,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1861; John G. Nicolay and John Hay, “Abraham Lincoln, A History: The National Uprising,” The Century Magazine, April 1888; William Henry Seward and Frederick William Seward, “Autobiography of William H. Seward”; New York Tribune, April 25, 1861; New York Times, Nov. 29, 1904; Alfred C. Barnes military service record, National Archives and Records Service; John G. Nicolay, “The Outbreak of Rebellion”; Alfred C. Barnes, “The New York and Brooklyn Bridge.”
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His forthcoming book profiles the lives of men of color who participated in the Civil War. He writes “Faces of War,” a column in the Civil War News.
