Lincoln’s Mercenaries

By mid-1862 General Halleck informed Lincoln that volunteers for the army had virtually dried up. Lincoln then emulated the British use of Hessian mercenaries with covert recruiting in Germany, plus Ireland and England; Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation simply duplicated the British proclamations in 1775 and 1814 to foment race war in the South and thus defeat the Americans fighting for independence.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
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Lincoln’s Mercenaries Actuated by Neither Patriotism or Honor

“On June 30, 1775, Gov. Josiah Martin, of North Carolina, writing to the Earl of Dartmouth, said: “A most infamous report had been propagated among the people, that I had formed a design of arming the negroes, and proclaiming freedom to all such as should resort to the King’s standard.”

In 1863 – 88 years afterwards – Abraham Lincoln began the work of “proclaiming freedom” to the slaves and arming them; and exhibited his feelings toward their owners by preferring negro troops to guard them in his prisons. Narrating events just before the battle of Trenton, Irving says of Washington:

“He calculated upon the eager support of his troops, who were burning to avenge the outrages on their homes and families, committed by these foreign mercenaries. They considered the Hessians mere hirelings; slaves to a petty despot, fighting for sordid pay, and actuated by no sentiment of patriotism or honor.”

In 1862 – 86 years afterwards – Abraham Lincoln began to invite “foreign mercenaries,” “actuated by no sentiment of patriotism or honor,” to come over an assist him in the work of devastating the States of the Confederacy; and altogether he succeeded in hiring nearly 500,000 of them.

While in the ranks of the armies of the Confederacy there were college professors, physicians, merchants, lawyers, farmers, and business men of every calling, there seems to have been a general desire on the part of such persons in the North to avoid service in “preserving the life of the nation.” Refusing to volunteer at any one of Mr. Lincoln’s ten calls, and having the privilege when drafted to be excused on the payment of $300, commutation money, 86,724 of these gentlemen purchased the privilege of staying home; while other thousands, not reported, hired substitutes, as the campaign song of Mr. [James G.] Blaine did “ven he hear dem rebels shoot.”

In addition too, to this vast army of exempts, other thousands secured the privilege of avoiding service by inducing their State legislatures or their city councils or their township officials to offer bounties to foreigners, to Confederate starving prisoners, to Southern renegades and to Southern Negroes; and to hire agents as recruiting officers.”

(The South’s Burden, The Curse of Sectionalism in the United States, B.F. Grady, Nash Bros., 1906, pp. 113-115)
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Lincoln’s Mercenaries