“While our friends at home were … watching for the demise of 1862 and asking God’s blessing upon the soldiers in the field, we held our watch meeting in a large cotton field reddened with the blood of our comrades and countryman, and 1862 expired amid the groans of the dying and shrieks of the wounded.”

— Lt. Stephen D. Carpenter, Springfield

One hundred fifty years ago, newspapers did not identify reporters with bylines. So aside from his description of himself as “your humble scribbler,” we know the Springfield Evening News’ Washington correspondent only by his initials, A.M.

He was part of the “vast crowd” in the capital Jan. 1. 1863, many there to celebrate the historic signing of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

And with the city “literally packed with visitors from all parts of the land,” A.M. noticed among them a “class of visitors … somewhat different from that usually here.”

Rather than foreign dignitaries, office holders or office seekers, these were “the honest yeomanry of the land,” he wrote, its true “sovereigns.”

He said most were there for the grim purpose of “looking up the whereabouts of their sons, who have been either killed or wounded in the last sad battle (at) Fredericksburg.”

“Whilst others are rejoicing and enjoying all the festivities of this delightful day,” he wrote, their “bitter experience … has caused their sunburnt cheeks to be wet by many a tear and their hearts of affection to be furrowed by … ‘war’s desolation.’”

Two days before A.M.’s account arrived, the city’s Evening News had yet again thrown its full support behind Lincoln’s plan to rededicate that war for the dual purpose of restoring the Union and ending slavery, the paper carefully hedging on whether Emancipation would win the war.

“Whatever may be the practical effects of President Lincoln’s proclamation (and we hope they will be favorable),” the editors wrote, “it is theoretically correct.”

“The rebel strength consists to a great degree in Negroes. Negroes raise their crops … dig their ditches and construct their entrenchments. And it is now established beyond dispute that a portion of the rebel pickets at Fredericksburg were armed Negroes!”

It also embraced Lincoln’s “house divided” position from his unsuccessful 1858 U.S. Senate campaign.

Wrote the paper, “We believe that we shall never have a permanent peace until the institution of slavery is either done away with or a plan is organized for its gradual abolishment.”

For the time being, it also seemed willing, even eager, to continue the sacrifice to achieve that higher objective.

“It is probable that the blood and treasure expended in this war will be productive of one of the grandest results known in history — the permanent re-uniting of a grand Republic upon purely Republican principles and abolition, forever, and in all portions of the country, of the system of human bondage.”

Added the paper, “We believe that the hand of God is in this war, that he has a great, Divine purpose to accomplish, and that for all we lose through it he will give us compensating benefits.”

A week later, Springfielders were given an intimate look at the sacrifice required, when the newspaper published a letter from Lt. Stephen D. Carpenter, of the 3rd Ohio Infantry, from the Battle of Stone’s River, Tenn.

Their involvement began with a rush when, on the morning of Dec. 31, his unit came to the aid of an Army Corps that had been surprised while at breakfast.

“We double-quicked it for more than a mile, when we came in contact with the rebel hordes, charging furiously through our ranks, and pouring into us their deadly shower of iron hail.”

From “a cedar thicket on our right,” the enemy “sent volley after volley of grape, canister, solid shot and musket balls into our bleeding ranks, till the cotton field in which we were (fighting) was carpeted with our dying and dead,” he wrote.

In response, “our artillery … advanced in line of battle and, in an instant, 60 cannon vomited forth their death-dealing contents into the ranks of the advancing foe … the ground trembled as with the shock of an earthquake, and the huge forest trees bowed beneath the terrible fire.”

The enemy troops then tried to advance out of the trees.

“We lay upon the summit of a gently sloping hill and … waited till the whites of their eyes were visible … then as one man rose up and poured in a volley of deadly messengers, which made them stagger and again seek shelter behind the wood.”

The report, like so many from the war, seemed Biblical in tone and proportion.

The next day, A.M. provided an account from the war’s political front, the White House, where the president welcomed the men and women whose boys who had faced the enemy’s fire. After entertaining foreign dignitaries, Army and Navy officers, in the morning, Mr. Lincoln at noon opened the executive mansion’s doors to those yeoman “sovereigns” of the land.

“The rich carpets were covered with linen cloth, to preserve them from the effects of mud, nails, etc.,” A.M. wrote. ” Long before the hour of 12, every position near the White House was occupied. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, flocked together to see Father Abraham.

“The president received each, as he approached with a shake of the hand and a hearty ‘How do you do, Sir?’ His son stood by his side, young, fresh and vigorous, looking much like the ‘heir apparent to the throne.’”

But to A.M., Lincoln brought to mind a line from the president’s favorite playwright, Shakespeare: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“The president looks dejected and careworn, tall and pale … the personification of care,” Springfielders were told. “I have no doubt he sadly feels the responsibilities of his position, and realizes, too, that no earthly assistance is his.”

The president might have hoped that that New Year’s Day would be the war’s last. But two more New Year’s Days would pass before the groans of the dying and shrieks of the wounded would end.