book:263.thomas_hart
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- | Thomas | + | [[262.thomas_s|(< |
- | * He served | + | ====== 263. Gov. Thomas Hart Seymour ====== |
+ | |||
+ | //Note: See also: [[wp> | ||
+ | |||
+ | 263. Gov. THOMAS HART< | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | 1807, died there 3 Sept. 1868, unmarried. | ||
+ | Seymour, but his name appears in most reference works as Thomas Hart Seymour, | ||
+ | and he may have changed his middle name. A discussion of this question will be | ||
+ | found in Appendix X. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was educated in the public schools of Hartford, and in 1829 was graduated | ||
+ | from Capt. Alden Partridge’s Military Institute, Middletown, Conn. He became | ||
+ | editor of a Democratic paper, //The Jeffersonian//, | ||
+ | the same time studying law, and was admitted to the Bar about 1833. He was also | ||
+ | active in military affairs and was chosen Captain of the Hartford Light Guard. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His attractive personality, | ||
+ | his popular manners and address, soon threw him into politics, and he was | ||
+ | elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress (4 Mar. 1843 to 3 Mar. | ||
+ | 1845). He declined renomination. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was commissioned Major of Conn. Infantry, 16 Mar. 1847, and of the 9th U.S. | ||
+ | Infantry, 9 Apr. 1847. The latter was the New England regiment of volunteers | ||
+ | raised for service in the Mexican War, with Col. Truman Bishop Ransom of Vermont | ||
+ | as its commander. On 13 Oct. 1847, Col. Ransom fell in the assault on | ||
+ | Chapultepec. This was a fortress, the key to the City of Mexico, built upon a | ||
+ | rock 150 feet high, impregnable on the north, and nearly so on the eastern and | ||
+ | most of the southern face. Only the western and portions of the southern sides | ||
+ | could be scaled. At a council of the commanders, two picked American regiments | ||
+ | were selected to perform this task. One of them was " | ||
+ | pushed up the rugged steeps in the face of a withering fire. The walls at the | ||
+ | base of this castle fortress had to be mounted by ladders. When Col. Ransom fell | ||
+ | early in the assault, Seymour led the troops, scaled the heights and, with his | ||
+ | command, was the first to enter the supposedly impregnable fortress. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Seymour, who had been promoted to Lieut.-Colonel, | ||
+ | command of the regiment, brevet Colonel "for gallant and meritorious conduct in | ||
+ | the battle of Chapultepec," | ||
+ | honorably mustered out, 25 July 1848. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His popularity enhanced by his conduct in the Mexican War, the "Hero of | ||
+ | Chapultepec" | ||
+ | gaining largely over the Democratic vote the preceding year, was not elected. In | ||
+ | 1850 he was again a candidate and was elected by a handsome majority; and he was | ||
+ | re-elected in 1851, 1852, and 1853. In 1852 he was Presidential Elector on the | ||
+ | Pierce | ||
+ | Minister to Russia. Resigning the governorship, | ||
+ | it for four years. He formed a warm personal friendship for both the Czar | ||
+ | Nicholas and his son, and received | ||
+ | including a handsome malachite table, which the author recalls viewing with awe | ||
+ | when it was in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society. A pair of small, | ||
+ | delicate, silver spurs, worn by " | ||
+ | many souvenirs of the Hale Family at the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | While Minister | ||
+ | obtained the following anecdotes in 1905. Mr. White was greatly attached to Gov. | ||
+ | Seymour, whose rare charm of manner, warmth of heart, and eagerness to serve | ||
+ | others, had made a deep impression on him. He told of one occasion when an | ||
+ | American gentleman and his wife, to whom Gov. Seymour was under no obligation, | ||
+ | found themselves stranded in St. Petersburg. Gov. Seymour took them into his | ||
+ | house, and on the lady’s account surrendered to them his own apartment, moving | ||
+ | himself into a small, uncomfortable room in the back of the house, and not | ||
+ | permitting any of his staff to give up their rooms. At one time, it was proposed | ||
+ | that Mr. White should be initiated into some of the degrees of Masonry, Seymour | ||
+ | and the rest of the company present being Masons. Gov. Seymour fell in with this | ||
+ | proposal until he remembered that Masonry was forbidden in Russia, whereupon he | ||
+ | took a firm stand and declined to participate, | ||
+ | laws of Russia even though the house of the U.S. Minister enjoyed diplomatic | ||
+ | immunity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After nearly a year of foreign travel, Seymour returned to the United States in | ||
+ | 1858. When the Civil War began, he opposed military measures against the South, | ||
+ | and throughout the War was > the leader of the Connecticut Peace Democrats. He | ||
+ | declined an invitation to act as vice-president of a war meeting held in | ||
+ | Hartford 10 July 1862, and his remarks in his letter of refusal were used to | ||
+ | injure him politically. He declined because the meeting "is one which ignores | ||
+ | peaceful remedies of any sort as a means of restoring the Union, and calls | ||
+ | loudly for men and means to aid in the subjugation and consequent degradation | ||
+ | and overthrow of the South." | ||
+ | and in 1862 Orville H. Platt, then a member of the Lower House, climbed a step- | ||
+ | ladder and turned his portrait in the Senate Chamber to the wall. It so remained | ||
+ | turned to the wall until after the end of the war. Platt by this act acquired | ||
+ | the name of " | ||
+ | the U.S. Senators from Connecticut. This identical portrait, illustrated | ||
+ | herein, now hangs in the Memorial Hall in the State Library in Hartford, in its | ||
+ | appropriate place in the line of Governors of Connecticut. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Seymour ran as Democratic candidate for Governor in 1863, and one opposition | ||
+ | newspaper went so far as to print in parallel columns passages from Arnold’s | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | from a speech of Seymour’s, | ||
+ | Seymour are alike in expression of their desire for peace." | ||
+ | ended in his defeat by the Republican candidate, William A. Buckingham. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mr. Seymour did not again enter the political arena. Although the popularity of | ||
+ | the "Hero of Chapultepec" | ||
+ | result of his attitude of conciliation with the South during the Civil War, many | ||
+ | devoted friends remained loyal to him. He was firm and sincere in his | ||
+ | convictions, | ||
+ | whether or not his was the wider vision? Or whether a spirit of compromise and | ||
+ | conciliation on both sides might not have restored a united country, without the | ||
+ | scars left by the defeat of the South? History can tell only what occurred, not | ||
+ | what might have been. Perchance it took more courage for " | ||
+ | against the tide of popular passion during the Civil War than was required to | ||
+ | first scale the heights of Chapultepec. | ||
+ | |||
+ | \\ [[262.thomas_s|(< | ||
- | Source: http:// |
book/263.thomas_hart.txt · Last modified: 2014/11/01 15:00 by 127.0.0.1