Governor Andrew G. Curtin Inaugurated War Governor January 15, 1861

Andrew Gregg Curtin, of Bellefonte, was inaugurated Governor of Pennsylvania January 15, 1861, and assumed the office at a time when the gravest problems ever presented to American statesmanship were to be solved. The mutterings of the coming storm were approaching nearer and nearer, and the year opened up gloomily.

In his inaugural he took occasion “to declare that Pennsylvania would, under any circumstances, render a full and determined support of the free institutions of the Union,” and pledged himself to stand between the Constitution and all encroachments instigated by hatred, ambition, fanaticism and folly.

He spoke with words of deliberation, decision and wisdom, and made a record of statesmanship that stood the severe test of years of bloody and lasting war. The conflict obliterated old and sacred landmarks in political teaching.

On February 17, the House adopted resolutions pledging to Maryland the fellowship and support of Pennsylvania. On January 24, the House had adopted resolutions taking high ground in favor of sustaining the Constitution of the Union.

Threatening as was the danger, while the Legislature was in session and meetings were being held in Philadelphia and throughout the State, no one anticipated that the strife would actually break forth so suddenly, nor that it would grow to such fearful proportions at the very beginning.

It is true, that the soldiers of the South, who had long secretly been preparing to dissolve the Union unmasked their design when the guns of Fort Moultrie were trained on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, April 12, 1861. No State in the Union was less prepared, so far as munitions of war were concerned, to take its part in the conflict than Pennsylvania. Her volunteer soldiery system had fallen in decay.

There were fewer volunteer companies of militia in Pennsylvania at that moment than ever before on the rolls of the Adjutant General’s office. But when the first overt act was committed, and the news was flashed over the Northland, it created no fiercer feeling of resentment anywhere than it did throughout the Keystone State.

On the morning of April 12, 1861, a message was handed to Governor Curtin in Harrisburg which read as follows:

“The war is commenced. The batteries began firing at 4 o’clock this morning. Major Anderson replied, and a brisk cannonading commenced. 40This is reliable and has just come by Associated Press. The vessels were not in sight.”

Later in the day, in response to the Governor’s suggestion, the Legislature passed an act reorganizing the military department of the State and appropriated $500,000 for the purpose.

President Lincoln issued a proclamation, April 15, calling out 75,000 militia from the different States to serve for three months. A requisition was at once made on Pennsylvania for fourteen regiments. The alacrity with which these regiments were furnished demonstrated not so much the military ardor as it did the patriotic spirit of the people. Sufficient men were rushed to Harrisburg not only to fill up the State quota of fourteen regiments, but enough to organize twenty-five.

There were two distinguished patriotic Pennsylvanians who comprehended the seriousness of the situation from the outset. General Simon Cameron, who had resigned his seat in the United States Senate to become the Secretary of War in President Lincoln’s Cabinet, advised the organization of the most powerful army the North could raise, so that at one blow armed rebellion might be effectually crushed. Governor Curtin took advantage of the excess men offering their services and began at once, after the complement of the three months’ men had been furnished to the Federal Government, to organize the famous Reserve Corps.

He discovered the approaching tornado in the distance, and thus commenced to prepare for its fury, the Reserves being the only troops well organized and disciplined in the North ready for the services of the Union at the moment of the disaster of the first battle of Bull Run.

During the second year of the Civil War, Governor Curtin broke down his health through overwork and anxiety, and was compelled to give himself, for weeks at a time, to the exclusive care of eminent physicians.

President Lincoln, appreciating Curtin’s faithful services, and recognizing the necessity for a change of climate and employment, formally tendered him a first-class Foreign Mission, which the Governor signified his willingness to accept when his term should expire. But in the meantime he was nominated for re-election, and again entered upon the canvass, and was elected by more than 15,000 majority.

As is well known, the early part of the war went against the Union forces. All through the North there were many persons, the “peace at any price” men, who thought war was wrong, or a failure, and tried to have it end. Governor Curtin, in order to check this feeling, issued an invitation to the Northern Governors to hold a meeting, for the purpose of considering how the Government might be more strongly supported and how the loyalty of the people might be increased.

In September, 1862, just after the battle of Antietam, which stopped Lee’s invasion of the north, eleven Governors met at Altoona. 41They adopted an address to President Lincoln, warmly commending his Emancipation Proclamation. The Governors then went to Washington, presented the address, and asked Lincoln to keep on hand in the various states a reserve army of 100,000, and pledged “Loyal and cordial support, hereafter as heretofore.” It gave Lincoln renewed courage for his heavy task.

In 1866, his health was such that his life was despaired of and in November his physicians ordered him to Cuba to recuperate. President Johnson offered him a foreign post but he again declined to leave his executive duties in the state and completed his term.

In 1867 he was a strong candidate for the United States Senate and a year later received a large vote for vice president in the Republican Convention which nominated General Grant for President. Soon after Grant became President, he nominated former Governor Curtin for Minister to Russia, and he was promptly confirmed by the Senate.

Before embarking for his new post of duty Governor Curtin was the recipient of a marked evidence of devotion. The Councils of Philadelphia unanimously invited him to a public reception in Independence Hall and in addition, the leading citizens, without distinction of party, united in giving him a banquet at the Academy of Music, that has seldom been equalled for elegance and every manifestation of popular affection and applause.

He sailed June, 1869, and in the discharge of his diplomatic duties proved himself one of the most popular representatives ever sent abroad by our nation. He was again supported for the vice presidential nomination in 1872.

Governor Curtin died October 7, 1894, in fullness of years, and Bellefonte mourned as it had never done before, and there was given to the great War Governor the biggest soldier’s funeral that the Bald Eagle Valley ever saw.