CHICOPEE - In September 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee, in an effort to gain foreign recognition for the Confederate States of America, headed north into the state of Maryland.
Lee had an army of 50,000 battle-tested southerners. He split his forces, sending Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
Union Gen. George McClellan had 90,000 men in the field, but he waited until Jackson returned to reinforce Lee's army at Sharpsburg. What followed was the bloodiest day in the American Civil War.
There would be 11,500 Union soldiers dead or wounded and 9,000 Confederates killed or wounded in the stalemate near Antietam Creek.
At a crucial moment, Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill arrived to save the day, allowing Lee to retreat into Virginia. McClellan's failure to follow up the Union victory was the final straw, and President Abraham Lincoln sacked his outspoken general.
Southern historian Shelby Foote, in his best selling trilogy of the war, never mentions the role Lee's army played in rounding up free and runaway slaves in Maryland. Following the Battle of Antietam, the Union Army stood by as thousands of blacks were returned to slavery. Foote did have a great deal to say about President Lincoln's decision to announce a preliminary emancipation proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862.
The southern historian wrote that the president was placing British prime minister Samuel Gladstone's government on notice in that any decision to aid the confederacy would be seen as an effort to save the institution of slavery. The U.S. ambassador to England was Massachusetts abolitionist Charles Francis Adams.
Adams had already angered the British government by making speeches and public statements alerting the country's working classes to their government's support of slave owners.
Tonight at the annual Christmas party of the Chicopee Historical Society, I plan to describe Market Square in Chicopee as it existed 150 years ago during that pivotal second winter of the Civil War. I will be speaking in the oldest remaining structure in Market Square, the Munich Haus restaurant.
The Universalist Society was founded in 1835. A year later, the fledging organization would convince the Mechanic's Association to build the first church on the south side of the Chicopee River.
The association was made up of mill owners and supervisors who funded, built and rented properties. The white church structure was leased by the Universalist Society for the next 50 years. Church services were in the spacious, cathedral-like second floor. The Mechanic's Association rented out the commercial space on the first floor.
The Universalists purchased the building at 13 Market Square when the Mechanic's Association disbanded in the 1860s. A grocery store occupied the first-floor space during the Civil War.
Following the war, two young men, Joseph Carter and Justin Spalding, formed a partnership. Carter and Spalding built a highly successful wholesale food business in the rented building.
Today, Justin Spalding's magnificent home on Springfield Street serves as the admissions building for the Elms College.
Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" has been made into a movie. Steven Spielberg's new film, "Lincoln," is based on Goodwin's best seller. I have seen every film made about the Civil War, beginning with the silent classic "Birth of a Nation." In my U.S. history classes, I showed clips from the good ones and the bad ones.
Hollywood has always played fast and loose with the facts. Spielberg's multi-million dollar epic is a spectacular civics lesson, capturing the political realities facing a president whose primary purpose was to hold the Union together.
One hundred fifty years ago, Lincoln was engaged in directing a military effort to defeat the rebels, save the Union and abolish slavery. In December 1862, the war was now intruding into the everyday lives of most Americans.
Even in solidly Republican Massachusetts, the decision to end slavery only in the states of the Confederacy was viewed as a half-measure by local abolitionists.
The Union Army was still an all-volunteer force; conscription and the draft were more than a year into the future.
Following the Battle of Antietam, the Union's efficient rail system returned thousands of wounded soldiers to northern care facilities. On their return trips, the world's most advanced rail network would supply several armies in a full scale invasion of the Confederacy.
Western Massachusetts was a major player in an unprecedented wartime buildup, which, in a short time, created a military and industrial complex geared to support the world's most advanced war machine.
One hundred fifty years ago, housing in Market Square was at a premium. The little mill town was at war. Army units from the Federal Arsenal were on 24-hour guard duty at the foot of Springfield Street. The Ames Co. was working three shifts at "Lincoln's Arsenal" with more than 1,000 skilled operatives proving vital to the war effort.
Across the street, 1,400 textile workers kept the looms at full capacity. When cotton supplies dwindled, the Dwight Co. received special shipments courtesy of Gen. U.S. Grant and the Army of the Cumberland.
In the Kendall Block, the Cabotville Institute's Committee on Public Instruction provided a forum for a scholarly assessment of the president's proclamation. The tap rooms of Chicopee Center's four hotels, the Cabot House on Front Street, the Eagle Hotel on Exchange Street, the Connecticut River House and the Junction Hotel at the rail depot, were always crowded as locals gleaned the latest war news from weary travelers.
Unfortunately, the story was the same at all sites - the survival of the republic was still precariously hanging in the balance.
Stephen R. Jendrysik, a retired history teacher, is Chicopee city historian, a member of the Chicopee Historical Society's board of directors and president of the Edward Bellamy Memorial Association.