The Hannas Visit Lincoln

  The headline in the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette of Aug 19, 1864 was dramatic, but these were dramatic times: 

     “Rebel Emissaries Among Us! Fort Wayne To Be Destroyed By A Mob! Headed By the Traitor of the Times! The Government Defied and the Laws To Be Resisted” 

     

     On a hot afternoon on August 13th, Lambdin P. Milligan of Huntington, an Indiana state legislator, rose on a balcony of a Fort Wayne hotel to address a crowd of thousands below him. To say he was a Southern sympathizer in the Civil War was putting it mildly. Milligan was a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle which advocated the creation of a new pro-slavery country consisting of all the states south of the Mason-Dixon line, Mexico, a swath of Central America and Cuba. This evolved into the group “Sons of Liberty” which plotted armed rebellion against Abraham Lincoln. Milligan was in on the group’s plans to sabotage, release and arm Confederate prisoners in Indianapolis and overthrow state governments.

     In his speech that day he called on citizens to resist a recently-passed draft and essentially said, “by any means necessary.” He demanded an immediate end to the war by recognizing the Confederate government and said the south was completely within its rights to secede. Just three days later the “Sons of Liberty” planned an armed attack to free thousands of Confederate prisoners at Camp Morton, the Union prisoner-of-war in Indianapolis.

     With the limited history education too many of us received, many are not aware that the conflict during the Civil War was not a matter left solely between the northern and southern states. In Indiana, as in other states, after the war began and thousands enlisted for the Union, there were huge internal conflicts, and many who believed as Milligan did. As Fort Wayne historian Bert Griswold wrote,“Frequent fistic encounters occurred in public places and the entire war period was marked by regrettable episodes which were characteristic of the times in many portions of the north.” 

     To many Hoosiers, there was evidence all around them of Lincoln’s tyranny, despotism, and usurpation through higher taxes, roving squads of troops who arrested deserters and those who harbored them, trials of civilians by military tribunals, and so on. Lincoln had not won in Allen County in the 1860 presidential election, after all.(1) In 1862 with rising dissatisfaction over the war, Indiana Democrats won 7 of 11 congressional seats and large majorities of both chambers of the general assembly. In 1863, there was violent resistance to the draft enrollment. 

     The Times the headline above referred to was Dawson’s Daily Times, the Democratic competitor of the Gazette. The Times regularly excoriated the “wicked, imbecile, tyrannical abolition administration at Washington,” and wrote admiringly of Milligan. The Times covered a meeting at the mayor’s office to discuss how to approach the draft. The idea was for the county to offer a bounty for men to volunteer so a draft would not be necessary to meet the quota.

     At that meeting, Samuel Hanna, the most prominent man in town, was described as “greatly patriotic and desired the rebellious Southerners crushed and the government restored. He was severe – as far as he dared – on Democrats who thought oppression already too great to bear, and warned all against resistance to the draft.” As for his own sons, that was a different matter. Samuel had six sons of age for the Civil War – yet none of them enlisted. He was a father of twelve sons. Burying six sons already - three in infancy and three as adults - ensured a desire that none of the remaining six signed up to fight.(2) 

     Like probably any prominent businessman, he had friends, relatives and business associates on both sides of the Civil War divide. His cousin Bayless W. Hanna, for example, who was elected to the Indiana state legislature in 1862, was a member of Knights of the Golden Circle, according to historians. On the other hand, Samuel was good friends with Hugh McCulloch, who came to Fort Wayne as a young attorney, and led the Fort Wayne National Bank and Indiana State Bank. In the spring of 1863 McCulloch left Fort Wayne to serve as Comptroller of the Currency in Washington D.C. In 1865 he became Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury. Indeed, Samuel declared himself loyal to the union shortly after Lincoln’s election in 1860, at a meeting at Colerick’s Hall. He was named to a committee of six Republicans and six Democrats who all declared their loyalty.

     In spite of the scary headline that August day in 1864, Fort Wayne was not destroyed by a “Copperhead” mob. The hot summer passed. Sherman captured Atlanta, and Lincoln was reelected. 

A Marriage and a Meeting

     Early in January, Samuel Hanna’s fifth son Samuel Telford Hanna married Martha “Mattie” Brandriff, 21. Sam was 30, quite a bit older than his brothers were when they married; the oldest two married when they were only 20. Mattie was the daughter of Alfred D. Brandriff, who was probably a friend of Samuel’s. He owned the largest wholesale stove and hardware business in northern Indiana, served as director of First National Bank and was active at First Presbyterian, the Hanna’s church. Mattie’s bridesmaids were Samuel Hanna’s only daughter, Eliza Hanna, and Carrie Nuttman. Carrie was linked to the Hanna family through friendship but also would be later by the marriage of her younger sister Mary Ella.(3) Carrie’s father was a wealthy manufacturer and the current president of First National Bank at that time.

    After the wedding, Sam and Mattie left for their honeymoon to points east including Washington D.C., accompanied by Eliza and Carrie. Mattie later wrote an account of highlights of this trip. In Washington, Hugh and Susan McCulloch and their son Fred took the wedding party sightseeing. They attended a reception at the White House, met the president and chatted with him a bit. Then they circulated about, danced a bit, and returned to the reception room. Mattie wrote this:

     “We passed into the reception room again when Lincoln, towering above those around him, spying us, and beckoning, called out loud enough for all to hear, “Come here, you Fort Wayne people! I want to shake hands with you again. You truly loyal people from that Copperhead place!”  We went again and shook hands, Mr. Hanna saying, “Well, we furnish you with a comptroller anyway!” We had a little talk with Lincoln, which I shall always treasure in my heart. 

     Of course just three months later the president was killed. Back in Fort Wayne life went on. In October Samuel Hanna entered apples in the state fair and didn’t win a prize for them but cleaned up in industrial entrees. He won a five dollar premium for “best field roller,” and one of his firms, Bass & Hanna, won a bronze medal and $30 for a stationary engine. Olds, Hanna & Co. won for a set of buggy wheels. French, Hanna & Co. won prizes for ten yards of satinette, best stocking yarn and ten yards of flannel. 

     Sam and Mattie had their first child, Mary, nine months after their honeymoon. In May 1866 Sam joined the newly-founded Grand Rapid and Indiana Railroad, of which his father was originally president, and was elected secretary. Samuel Hanna died in June and had a huge funeral in which some of the businesses in town were closed and courts in adjoining counties were adjourned. Sam continued on the successful business path his father had placed him on until he lost his entire fortune in bad investments. Around the same time he nearly died of typhoid fever.  

     Lambdin Milligan was arrested in October 1864 on charges of treason and conspiracy in the plot to release Confederate prisoners of war.(4) He was tried by a military commission, found guilty and sentenced to death. Indiana Republicans petitioned authorities in Washington D.C. to commute his sentence. President Andrew Johnson granted this request and Milligan was given a life sentence at an Ohio penitentiary. His friends filed a writ of habeas corpus and eventually his case was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Ex parte Milligan the court determined that civilians should not be tried by military tribunals when civil courts are open. Milligan resumed his law practice in Huntington, Indiana and died in 1899. 

      

Notes:

1. Allen County cast 3,224 votes for Douglas and 2,552 votes for Lincoln. When Douglas came to Fort Wayne for a rally an estimated 60,000 people came out to hear him speak, many regarding him as the “savior of the country from impending civil war,” according to Griswold. There was a parade that took two hours to pass down the streets of town, with four brass bands. Once war was declared, however, Allen County men responded and over 4,000 served.  

2. Hugh McCulloch forbade his two sons from joining the war effort, according to Susan McCulloch’s memoirs, though their son Fred ended up serving. 

3. Mary Ella Nuttman married Oliver Samuel Hanna, Samuel and Eliza Hanna’s oldest child, James Bayless Hanna.

4. The Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, quoting from the Cincinnati Commercial in a 29 Oct 1864 article described Milligan as the “Guy Fawkes of the conspiracy.” Physically, the reporter said, he was “a tall, gaunt, angular man, with sharply cut cadaverous features, sunken eyes, snakelike in their brilliancy….the cruel lines about the mouth indicate a virulence of temper and a capacity for fierce and ungovernable hatred, which would stop at nothing.”

Family Connection: Samuel Hanna was married to Eliza Taylor. She was the sister of my fourth great-grandmother, Laura Taylor Suttenfield. Samuel Telford Hanna and my third great-grandmother, Jane Suttenfield, were first cousins. 

Sources:

     “Rebel Emissaries Among Us! Fort Wayne To Be Destroyed By  A Mob! Headed By the Traitor of the Times!” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 19 Aug 1864, p. 2.

     “He Was a Pioneer Merchant - Alfred D. Brandriff Passes from Earth,” Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel, 18 June 1900. 

     “Mrs. Eliza Hanna Hayden and Mrs. Martha Brandriff Hanna Met President Lincoln,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 12 Feb 1911, p. 1.

Other:

     Biographical Sketch, Hanna Family Collection 1880-1920s, Indiana Historical Society, 2019, https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/hanna-family-collection.pdf

     Castaldi, Tom. “Saving a Son of Liberty,” Fort Wayne Magazine, 27 Nov 2015, https://www.fortwayne.com/alongtheheritagetrail/saving-a-son-of-liberty/

     Griswold, Bert. A Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Chicago: Robert O. Law Co., 1917.

     Hawfield, Michael and Tom Castaldi. “Canawlers At Rest: Samuel Hanna,” The Hoosier Packet,

https://indcanal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hanna-Sam.pdf

     Mccullough, Susan Mann. “Memories - Recollections of Susan Mann McCullough 1818-1898,” https://www.occ.treas.gov/about/who-we-are/history/hugh-mcculloch-first-comptroller/recollections-of-susan-man-mcculloch.pdf

     Reece, Raymond J. “Hugh McCulloch Moves West,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 32, No. 2 (June 1936), pp. 95-105.

     Towne, Stephen E. “The Persistent Nullifier: The Life of Lambdin P. Mulligan,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 109 (December 2013), pp. 303-356. 

     Woodworth, Lura Case, Caroline Fairbank and Martha Brandriff Hanna. Reminiscences of Old Fort Wayne, 1906. 

Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024