Ben Wood's 'Fort Lafayette': A Source for Studying the Peace Democrats

BEN WOODS FORT LAFAYETTE': A Source for Studying the Peace Democrats Jerome Mushkat Historians have studied the Peace Democrats through sources such as their voting records, the letters they wrote, the newspapers and pamphlets they circulated, and the political speeches and manifestoes they issued. A unique source historians have neglected, however, is the novel Fort Lafayette: or Love and Secession written by New York Congressman Ben Wood in 1862. The surprising thing about this obscure novel is that it not only raises interesting and complex issues concerning the Peace Democrats, but it emphasizes the vital question of their opposition to the legitimacy of any war.1 A man of many talents and occupations, some rather unethical, Ben Wood settled on a newspaper career by accident when, in 1860, Mayor Fernando Wood bought the struggling New York Daily News to advance his abortive candidacy for the Vice-Presidency, and installed his brother as its editor. It was a happy choice. As a journalist, Ben Wood emerged as a talented observer of the nation's political life and as an eloquent articulator of many ideas attractive to the city's immigrants, workingmen, and tenement dwellers. From that base he expanded into active politics; in addition to being a power in Tammany Hall, he served two terms in Congress during the Civil War and once in the 1880's, and also served two separate terms in the state senate. When he died in 1900, the New York Times noted the passing of a man who was not only a "bon vivant," but an innovative and effective newspaperman as well as a "notable" politician. In 1865, few New Yorkers would have predicted such respectability for young Ben Wood. For it was during the Civil War that he engraved his name on the American conscience as one of the Union's most notorious and vituperative Peace Democrats or "Copperheads" as the pro-Lincoln people sometimes derisively labeled them.3 Benjamin Wood, Fort Lafayette; or Love and Secession (New York, 1862). 2 New York Journal of Commerce, Jan. 5, 1860; New York Herald, Feb. 24, Apr. 14, 1860; New York Times, Feb. 22, 1900. Ben Wood had two remarkable brothers. Henry was a New York theatrical promoter and partner of George Christy in the blackface ministrelsy business, while Fernando was mayor of the city, an opponent of Tammany Hall, a Peace Democrat, and several times a congressman. For a sampling of anti-Ben Wood attitudes see: New York Leader, Aug. 10, 1861, Mar. 14, 1863, Jan. 7, June 10, 1865; New York Tribune, Jan. 27, 1864. 160 In many ways, Ben Wood earned his reputation. During the 1850's, he had championed the cause of slavery, favored its extension, and become a forceful apologist for the southern way of life. In the presidential campaign of 1860, he supported John C. Breckenridge, called for a national slave code, denounced Lincoln as an abolitionist, harshly berated Stephen A. Douglas, and warned northern businessmen that they faced bankruptcy in the event of a Republican victory.4 The secessionist crisis made Wood slightly more cautious, but it did not cool his admiration for the South. To the "fire-eaters" he urged moderation; but to the North he denied that the government had any power to "coerce" the emerging Confederacy. The "Black Republicans ," he argued, had fomented the rupture for political gains and he demanded that the city's business community bypass President James Buchanan and save the Union by accepting most Confederate demands. Wood's denunciation of the Republicans did not abate when war began. He warned Lincoln not to "invoke the sacred names of Union and the Constitution" to delude "fools" into the "support of an unholy war." The only way to peace was through compromise and conciliation. As for the Administration, he termed it weak and ineffectual; he announced that northern workers, who comprised the Union's "bone, sinew and intelligence," would never support "Mr. Lincoln and all his works."5 As the war intensified, Wood did not surrender to the wave of nationalism that made patriotism almost compulsory. The war, he wrote, allowed the Republicans to expand their power at the expense of the people. When the...