The Courier
Volume 29, No. 2 (2005)
General Oliver Otis Howard Speaks at
Bethel
by Stanley R. Howe
Oliver
Otis Howard (1830-1909), ca. 1865
Courtesy of the Maine Historic
Preservation Commission
Civil War General Oliver Otis Howard spoke at Bethel on the afternoon
of 15 July 1862 at the Bethel House and later at a pro-Union rally in
Pattee’s Hall (razed in 1979) on Spring Street. During that day,
elections for officers of three Bethel militia companies under the
direction of Major Frye of Lewiston were held. General Howard
addressed these companies from the piazza of the Bethel House, which
stood on a very visible location overlooking the Bethel Hill
Common. During the evening, at a gathering in Pattee’s Hall, the
General was greeted with “a storm of applause.” Injured early in
June 1862 at the Battle of Fair Oaks, Howard's right arm had to be
amputated. He spent the next eighty days recovering and touring
his native Maine in support of the Union war effort. In the
account of the event recorded in the Oxford
Democrat, published at Paris, Maine, on 25 July 1862, it was
noted that it was obvious he was suffering considerable pain from his
wound, but he managed to keep the audience “spellbound as he portrayed
the condition of the army and wants of our country.” This report
continued, “He was constantly interrupted with applause from the
audience and succeeded in inspiring in all a greater love of country.”
Howard was followed by Major Frye of Lewiston, who made an eloquent
speech during which two large American flags were brought into the
room. It was reported that the effect of this action was
“electric.” According to the account in the Democrat, it seemed “as though
everyone was ready to fight for it [the flag] and under it and the
Major made a most happy impression upon all.” At the close of his
remarks, a committee of seven was selected to assist the local Sanitary
Commission chaired by David F. Brown (1812-1883) in supplying the
troops. It was also announced that subscriptions would be raised
to give $50 to everyone who enlisted under the present call of the
President, in addition to that furnished by the State.
The column continued, “Gen. Howard spoke in the highest terms of the
discipline of the Bethel soldiers on the Potomac, and of the
faithfulness of Captain [Clark] Edwards in the discharge of his
duty. Cheers were then given for the speaker, for the Union, for
the President, for General McClellen, when the meeting adjourned.” “It
was,” concluded the Democrat
columnist, perhaps with some measure of hyperbole, “the most
enthusiastic meeting ever in Bethel.”
Oliver Otis Howard was a Maine man, born in Leeds in 1830. A
graduate of Bowdoin College (1850) and the U.S. Military Academy
(1854), he served in the Seminole War before becoming a mathematics
instructor at West Point. He resigned this position in 1861 to
become a colonel in the Maine Volunteer Regiment, where he participated
in many battles of the war, including Antietam, Chancellorsville, and
Gettysburg. During the Peninsular Campaign of 1862 at Fair Oaks,
he was wounded and lost an arm. He later served in Tennessee and
with Sherman in his March to the Sea and the Carolina Campaign.
In 1865, Howard was selected by President Andrew Johnson as
Commissioner of what became known as the Freedman’s Bureau to provide
for black southerners freed during the War. Also instrumental in
establishing schools and colleges for former slaves, he was active in
the founding of Howard University in 1867, which was named in his honor
and where he served as president from 1869-1873. He later was
involved in peace negotiations with the Apache Indians and two years
later led military campaigns against several tribes of Pacific
Northwest Indians. Following this engagement, he served briefly
as superintendent of West Point and held commands in several parts of
the nation, retiring with the rank of Major General. He lived the
rest of his life in Burlington, Vermont, where he was a popular
lecturer and author before his death and burial there in 1909.
For more information about Howard, see his Autobiography (1907), John A.
Carpenter's Sword and Olive Branch:
Oliver Otis Howard (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999),
and William S. McFeely's Yankee
Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedman (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
