"Bright lovely morning. Town full of people. All excitement. Lincoln elected. Republicans in extacies. Oh how sad I feel. Went up Town hoping to hear some good news, but alas, there is none for us." - from the diary of Sarah Withers, November 7, 1860
Allen Withers (1807-1864)
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Sarah Withers (1815-1897)
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Copperheads: Lincoln's Opposition in the North
"This day our nation is to be disgraced by the inauguration of Abe Lincoln as President. How humiliating." - From the diary of Sarah Withers, March 4, 1861
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Sarah's Brother - Effigy in Bloomington
“Rainy, muddy, mirky Sabbath…My Brothers Effigy is hanging in the streets of this city. For what. Giving corn to his friends. Oh ye righteous blackhearted Abolitionists. How cowardly.” - Sara Rice Withers, February 10, 1861
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Sarah Wither's brother, James Rice, and sister-in-law, Martha, came to Bloomington following their relatives. James became a successful farmer but when the Civil War seemed an "irrepressible conflict" and eventually broke out in 1861, his sympathies remained with the South, from where he originated. He sold McLean County corn economically to Louisiana (after the state had seceded in late January 1861). News of the sale made it back to Bloomington where it was seen as an outrage.
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“How do you like the picture, citizens of Old McLean? Here is one of your neighbors, as he claims to be, who has availed himself of the benefit of your liberal institutions, now most magnanimously offers to divide his crop with the armed mob of rebels who have planted cannon on the banks of the Mississippi, and have closed the free navigation of the waters that flow from your own fields to the Gulf of Mexico? |
...How do you like the picture friends? Would not those same Louisiana braves make a splendid show, their stomachs filled with gratuitous Illinois corn (solid and liquid) and marching under a rattlesnake banner to strike down the Flag of our Union..." - “Another Liberal Offer to Governor Moore,” Daily Pantagraph, Jan 31,1861
Isaac Funk's Copperhead Speech
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“I denounce these men and their aiders and abettors as rank traitors and secessionists,” declared Isaac Funk on the floor of the Illinois Senate. “Hell itself could not spew out a more traitorous crew than some of the men who disgrace this legislature, this state and this country … I will denounce them as long as God gives me breath, and I am ready to meet the traitors themselves here or anywhere, and fight them to the death.” - Isaac Funk, February 1863 |