Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,710
By This is the grave of Alonzo Draper.
Born in 1835 in Brattleboro, Vermont, Draper moved to Lynn, Massachusetts as a young man. There, he got involved in the social movements of the day. This was a shoe town and Draper became involved in organizing there, working on temperance and labor causes and reading for the law. In 1859, Lynn workers organized the first union of the shoemakers, though there had been some organizing as far back as the 1830s. The Mechanics Association elected the 24-year old law student Alonzo Draper to be its leader.
Workers had enough of their terrible conditions by 1860. In early February, they issued a circular that they had the interests of all workers at heart. It read, in part, “inasmuch as the wealth of the masses improves the value of real estate, increases the demand for manufactured goods, and promotes the moral and intellectual growth of society.’” They demanded to meet with employers and moved toward more organized action. Of course, the employers refused to meet.
Finally, they decided to strike. Moreover, wrapping themselves in the flag, they chose to start their strike on George Washington’s birthday. The strike spread rapidly. They split into committees and decided to publicly post the names of all scabs. Immediately, the strike spread to the town of Natick and from there, around the region. Draper traveled around the area, giving speeches, raising money, and encouraging other workers to walk out. Within a week, 25 towns had workers on strike, as far north as Maine and as far west as New York. Soon, 20,000 workers were on strike. Tens of thousands of other workers engaged in parades and other actions to support the strikers.
The strikers got national attention. In fact, they actually managed to influence one Abraham Lincoln, preparing his run for the presidency. Lincoln stated, in support of the strikers, “I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England Under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to labor whether you pay them or not. I like a system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere.” Now, this is overstated without context to suggest Lincoln would have been different than other Republican presidents on labor issues, when this probably would not have been the case, but it was a strong statement. The workers got a decent win and Alonzo Draper became a major Lincoln supporter.
Immediately upon southern treason, Draper started organizing volunteers to fight. He became captain of the 14th Massachusetts Volunteers and was sent to defend Washington from invasion from Confederates in both Virginia and Maryland, a very real worry in the early months of the war. For the most part, Draper didn’t see a lot of combat in the first couple years of the war. He was a good enough soldier that he was promoted to major in 1863. That year the war changed. That was the organization of Black regiments. Draper badly wanted more action and he really wanted to lead these troops, who unfortunately were not allowed to have Black officers. Draper lobbied his friends back in Massachusetts for a good position with the new Colored Regiments and in August became a colonel in the 2nd North Carolina Colored Volunteers. He worked hard to convinced ex-slaves to join his unit, which wasn’t that hard since they wanted to fight, but he was a good recruiter, being so passionate about abolitionism and an experienced organizer back home. A lot of what Draper did here was engage in raids just outside Union controlled areas in Virginia and North Carolina to both disperse Confederate guerillas and convince slaves to run away with him and fight.
Draper was quite good at this was especially was noted for raising hell in southeastern Virginia, around Virginia Beach. But here he ran up against the issue that plagued the North through the war–he thought southern whites were a true enemy and most of his superior officers did not. So he would burn Confederate property and not be nice to whites and some of his superiors didn’t like that. He’d even execute guerillas. Then, some Confederates captured some of his men and were going to return them to slavery. So he grabbed a locally prominent white women and held her hostage in exchange. That worked, but that really ran up against the norms of the day. Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Wead brought charges against Draper for engaging in such unmanly conduct. Luckily, Benjamin Butler was above both of them and as weird as that man was politically, the Beast was a win at all costs guy. He had Wead kicked out of the South.
But Draper got busted to commanding a POW camp for awhile too. Lobbying a sympathetic Butler, he managed to get him and his 36th United States Colored Troops, as his regiment was now called, transferred to combat duty, where they were with the Army of the James and were part of the Petersburg and Appomattox campaigns. Draper was also commended for gallant service at the Battle of Fair Oaks & Darbytown Road. He continued fighting with other officers, including bringing charges up against General Edward Wild, who had slandered Draper by saying he was mean to fellow officers. Draper won that case too and Wild was demoted.
After Appomattox, Draper went to Texas for cleanup operations against Confederates in that hold out state. While there, he was training soldiers in target practice when someone really screwed up and shot him on accident. He died a few days later, at the age of 29.
Alonzo Draper is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery, Lynn, Massachusetts.
If you would like this series to visit other Civil War officers who repressed slavery, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. William Tecumseh Sherman is in St. Louis and Daniel Sickles in in Arlington. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.