Civil War gold hoax

Last updated

The Civil War Gold Hoax, also known as the Bogus Proclamation of 1864 was an 1864 unsuccessful financial hoax perpetrated during the American Civil War by American journalists Joseph Howard Jr. and Francis Mallison of the Brooklyn Eagle . Howard and Mallson hoped to exploit uncertainty about the ongoing war and trigger a sudden financial panic and profit from it. The conspirators bought gold on margin and then attempted to circulate a false proclamation from President Abraham Lincoln among New York newspapers, that called for a national day of prayer and the conscription of 400,000 additional men into the Union army. Howard and Mallison hoped that this proclamation would lead investors to believe that the Lincoln administration thought the war was going poorly, and cause them to abandon the Union greenback currency and instead buy gold, driving up its price. With the price of gold artificially inflated, the conspirators could sell high and make a considerable amount of money, before anyone realized the proclamation was a forgery.

Contents

Misunderstanding the hoax as an intelligence leak Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered two newspapers to be closed, and numerous reporters and telegraph personnel arrested. Military authorities in New York City quickly discovered the fraudulent nature of the proclamation and arrested both fraudsters within days of the attempted hoax. The reporters and telegraph personnel were soon released while Howard remained in jail until August, and Mallison until September. While they were imprisoned Lincoln released a similar proclamation to Howard and Mallison's fraudulent one, which called for 500,000 new volunteers for the Union army. [1]

Hoax

During the evening of May 17 a young accomplice of Howard and Mallsion delivered forged Associated Press dispatches announcing the proclamation to several New York City newspapers. The purpose of the late-night drop off was to get the proclamation printed as a breaking story that night editors would be eager to insert into the next day's paper, but would have little time to check its validity. The delivery boy failed to drop off the notice at the offices of the New York Tribune however, and when employees at the New York Times and New York Daily News discovered this they became suspicious and opted not to publish it. The New York Herald published it at first, but when the editor there realized that neither of the other two major papers, the Times and Tribune, had published it, they became suspicious and pulled the proclamation from its pages, destroying thousands of copies which carried the fake document. As a result, only two newspapers, the Journal of Commerce and the New York World printed the proclamation in their morning editions on May 18, 1864. [2]

When editors at the Journal and World realized on the morning of May 18 that no other papers had published the announcement from the president they realized they had been fooled and began to recall their papers. The financial nature of the hoax was soon uncovered by General John Dix, and Secretary of State William Seward issued an announcement that afternoon denouncing the proclamation as a fake. Howard and Mallison were eventually arrested on May 21. Howard remained imprisoned until August 23, when Lincoln ordered he be released at the behest of Howard's family friend Henry Ward Beecher. Mallison remained in jail another month, until Lincoln ordered him released on September 20 after Mallison wrote him an appeal expressing "sincere regret at my folly." [3]

In the immediate wake of the publication of the proclamation on May 18, the Lincoln administration reacted with uncharacteristically harsh measures. The president ordered General Dix to arrest Manton Marble and William Prime, editors of the World and Journal respectively, and to occupy their newspaper offices with federal troops. Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton went on to order the arrest of the New York staff of the Independent Telegraph Company, and closed the company offices in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. The Washington company offices were also closed and searched, and the superintendent was interrogated and imprisoned. The next day Edwin Stanton also had several journalists in Washington arrested; Henry Villard, Adams Sherman Hill, and Horace White. Marble and Prime were released on May 21, and their papers resumed publishing on May 23. The telegraph closings were also rescinded after several days, and the telegraph staff, along with the unfortunate Washington reporters were released. [4]

The cause of the harsh measures the Lincoln administration took in the wake of the hoax appears to be that Lincoln and Stanton believed that the proclamation was the result of a major security breach. By complete coincidence, at the same time Howard and Mallison were concocting a false proclamation calling for 400,000 new soldiers, Lincoln was drafting a genuine proclamation that would also call for hundreds of thousands of new soldiers. Upon hearing of the fake proclamation Lincoln and some of his cabinet thought it suspiciously similar to the unannounced proclamation they were considering and concluded someone had leaked it to the opposition press (the World and Journal were notorious critics of Lincoln). The widespread arrests among journalists, telegraph operators, and newspaper publishers were therefore an attempt to catch whoever had leaked the President's announcement, and were released once Lincoln and his cabinet were satisfied there had been no such leak. [5] Lincoln eventually released his genuine proclamation calling for 500,000 new volunteers for the army on July 18. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Lincoln</span> President of the United States from 1861 to 1865

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the insurgent Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Civil War</span> 1861–1865 conflict in the United States

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emancipation Proclamation</span> 1862 executive order by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln freeing slaves in the South

The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States". The Emancipation Proclamation played a significant part in the end of slavery in the United States.

<i>Ex parte Merryman</i> United States legal case

Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (No. 9487), was a controversial U.S. federal court case that arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause, when Congress was in recess and therefore unavailable to do so itself. More generally, the case raised questions about the ability of the executive branch to decline to enforce judicial decisions when the executive believes them to be erroneous and harmful to its own legal powers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Stanton</span> American lawyer and politician (1814–1869)

Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton's management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. However, he was criticized by many Union generals, who perceived him as overcautious and micromanagerial. He also organized the manhunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Lincoln and slavery</span>

Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery in the United States is one of the most discussed aspects of his life. Lincoln frequently expressed his moral opposition to slavery in public and private. "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," he stated. "I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." However, the question of what to do about it and how to end it, given that it was so firmly embedded in the nation's constitutional framework and in the economy of much of the country, even though concentrated in only the Southern United States, was complex and politically challenging. In addition, there was the unanswered question, which Lincoln had to deal with, of what would become of the four million slaves if liberated: how they would earn a living in a society that had almost always rejected them or looked down on their very presence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bixby letter</span> Letter written by Abraham Lincoln

The Bixby letter is a brief, consoling message sent by President Abraham Lincoln in November 1864 to Lydia Parker Bixby, a widow living in Boston, Massachusetts, who was thought to have lost five sons in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Along with the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address, the letter has been praised as one of Lincoln's finest written works and is often reproduced in memorials, media, and print.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Lafayette</span>

Fort Lafayette was an island coastal fortification in the Narrows of New York Harbor, built offshore from Fort Hamilton at the southern tip of what is now Bay Ridge in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The fort was built on a natural island known as Hendrick's Reef. Construction on the fort began during the War of 1812 and was completed in 1822. The fort, originally named Fort Diamond after its shape, was renamed in 1823 to celebrate the Marquis de La Fayette, a hero of the American Revolution who would soon commence a grand tour of the United States. During the American Civil War, the island fort became a prison, mostly for civilians viewed as disloyal to the Union; the fort became known as an "American Bastille." The fort was demolished in 1960 to make room for the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge; the Brooklyn-side bridge tower now occupies the fort's former foundation site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Abraham Lincoln</span> 1865 murder in Washington, D.C., US

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Abraham Lincoln</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1861 to 1865

The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States, and ended upon his assassination on April 14, 1865 and death the next morning, 42 days into his second term. Lincoln was the first member of the recently established Republican Party elected to the presidency. Lincoln successfully presided over the Union victory in the American Civil War, which dominated his presidency and resulted in the end of slavery. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

The Baltimore Plot were alleged conspiracies in February 1861 to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln during a whistle-stop tour en route to his inauguration. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, played a key role in managing Lincoln's security throughout the journey. Though scholars debate whether or not the threat was real, Lincoln and his advisors clearly believed that there was a threat and took actions to ensure his safe passage through Baltimore, Maryland. He ultimately arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., on February 23, 1861.

Manton Marble (1835–1917) was a New York journalist. He was the proprietor and editor of the New York World from 1862 to 1876.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Holzer</span> American academic (born 1949)

Harold Holzer is a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era. He serves as director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-three years as senior vice president for external affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before retiring in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Howard Jr.</span> American journalist and newspaperman

Joseph Howard Jr. was an American journalist, war correspondent, publicist and newspaperman. He was one of the top reporters for The New York Times, city editor of the Brooklyn Eagle and longtime president of the New York Press Club. One of the most colorful reporters of the era, he was a popular lecturer and discussed journalism and his life from 1886 until shortly before his death.

Francis Avery Mallison was an American journalist, editor and public servant. A longtime reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle, known under his pen name Francis O'Pake, he and then city editor Joseph Howard, Jr. were responsible for publishing a forged document to manipulate the price of gold on the New York Stock Exchange resulting in the "Great Civil War Gold Hoax".

Frank Key Howard was an American newspaper editor and journalist. The grandson of Francis Scott Key and Revolutionary War colonel John Eager Howard, Howard was the editor of the Daily Exchange, a Baltimore newspaper sympathetic to the Confederacy. Just after midnight on September 13, 1861, he was arrested without a warrant at his home by U.S. Major General Nathaniel Prentice Banks on the direct orders of General George B. McClellan enforcing the policy of President Abraham Lincoln. The basis for his arrest was the writing of an editorial printed in his newspaper that was critical of Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, of the declaration by the Lincoln administration of martial law in Baltimore, and of the imprisonment without charge of Baltimore mayor George William Brown, sitting U.S. Congressman Henry May, all the police commissioners of Baltimore, and the entire city council. Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in Maryland had already been declared unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney in Ex parte Merryman, but Lincoln had ignored the federal court ruling. Howard was initially confined to Fort McHenry, the same fort his grandfather Francis Scott Key saw withstand a British bombardment during the War of 1812, which inspired him to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which would become the national anthem of the United States of America. He was then transferred first to Fort Lafayette in Lower New York Bay off the coast of Brooklyn, then Fort Warren in Boston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Habeas Corpus Suspension Act (1863)</span> American Law during the Civil War

The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, 12 Stat. 755 (1863), entitled An Act relating to Habeas Corpus, and regulating Judicial Proceedings in Certain Cases, was an Act of Congress that authorized the president of the United States to suspend the right of habeas corpus in response to the American Civil War and provided for the release of political prisoners. It began in the House of Representatives as an indemnity bill, introduced on December 5, 1862, releasing the president and his subordinates from any liability for having suspended habeas corpus without congressional approval. The Senate amended the House's bill, and the compromise reported out of the conference committee altered it to qualify the indemnity and to suspend habeas corpus on Congress's own authority. Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3, 1863, and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. The suspension was partially lifted with the issuance of Proclamation 148 by Andrew Johnson, and the Act became inoperative with the end of the Civil War. The exceptions to Johnson's Proclamation 148 were the States of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the District of Columbia, and the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona.

<i>First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln</i> 1864 painting

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln is an 1864 oil-on-canvas painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. In the painting, Carpenter depicts Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and his Cabinet members reading over the Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states in rebellion against the Union in the American Civil War on January 1, 1863. Lincoln presented the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet on July 22, 1862 and issued it on September 22, 1862. The final Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863.

<i>Miscegenation</i> hoax 1863 American political hoax pamphlet

The Miscegenation hoax, taking the form of a pamphlet subtitled The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, was published by New York World staff in December 1863 as part of an anti-Lincoln Copperhead campaign leading up to the 1864 presidential election. The 72-page piece coined the term miscegenation and was put together by World managing editor David Goodman Croly and reporter George Wakeman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Gobright</span> American journalist (1816–1879)

Lawrence Augustus Gobright or Lawrence A. Gobright (1816–1879) was an American journalist. He is noted for his work as a Washington correspondent for the Associated Press. Aside from his work as a reporter for other newspapers, he was also a part-owner and editor of the Washington Evening Star. Gobright had also published several books, including Recollections of Men and Things, Jack and Jill, and For Old and Young.

References

  1. ↑ Holzer, Harold (2014). Lincoln and the power of the press: the war for public opinion. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 487–497. ISBN   978-1-4391-9271-9. OCLC   881875908.
  2. ↑ Holzer, Harold (2014). Lincoln and the power of the press: the war for public opinion. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 489–490. ISBN   978-1-4391-9271-9. OCLC   881875908.
  3. ↑ Holzer, Harold (2014). Lincoln and the power of the press: the war for public opinion. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 490, 494–495. ISBN   978-1-4391-9271-9. OCLC   881875908.
  4. ↑ Holzer, Harold (2014). Lincoln and the power of the press: the war for public opinion. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 491, 495–496. ISBN   978-1-4391-9271-9. OCLC   881875908.
  5. ↑ Blondheim, Menahem. ""Public Sentiment is Everything": The Union's Public Communication Strategy and the Bogus Proclamation of 1864". Journal of American History. 89: 893–899.
  6. ↑ "Proclamation 116—Calling for 500,000 Volunteers". University of California-Santa Barbara American Presidency Project. Archived from the original on 2021-05-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.