Rockport Fights Back Promised riot by the Copperheads never materializes

by Brian Swartz

When Copperheads threatened the riotous ruination of Rockport Village in August 1863, Rockland Unionists came spoiling for a fight. The ruckus was over the national draft, vehemently opposed by people sympathetic to the Confederacy or at least against the war. Many pro-Southerners lived in the loyal states, including Maine. Because they looked like their pro-Union neighbors, they were called “Copperheads,” after the forest-floor camouflaged poisonous snake.

Via congressional legislation, the Lincoln Administration had created two classes of draft-eligible men in summer ’63. The first class included all men ages 20 to 35 and unmarried men older than 35 and younger than 45. These men could be drafted at any time. The second class included married men aged 36 and older. These guys would not be drafted until the first class was all called up.

Congress excluded men in particular jobs, such as governors, from being drafted, but required each loyal state to register all other men for the draft. Maine officials poked into every nook, cranny, and cove to find and enroll its draftees.

Then names were drawn in July, and every man picked became a draft- ee, technically under military law. If a Mainer “skedaddled” (fled) or hid to avoid the draft, he technically became a deserter.

A draftee could hire a substitute to take his place. The price was initially negotiable; the draft law also let a man pay a $300 commutation fee to avoid being drafted, so $300 became the going rate for a substitute.

Copperheads in some Maine towns concocted a scheme to help men avoid being drafted. For example, in summer 1863 “the town of Camden … voted to give its drafted men $300 each, to be used as they saw fit, and town orders were prepared,” a local newspaper re- ported. With $300, a Camden draftee could hire a substitute or pay the communication fee, all courtesy of Camden taxpayers.

In that era Camden and Rockport were one and the same, merged officially as “Camden.” Not until February 1891 did Rockport split from Camden. But “these [1863] orders the selectmen refused to sign, on the ground that they were illegal, which exasperated the ‘copperheads’ to such extent that it is reported … they had plotted to burn the buildings of the selectmen and other loyal citizens,” the newspaper noted.

“There were loud threats and anticipations of trouble” on Saturday, August 22 and Sunday, August 23.

The noise seemingly came loudest from Rockport Village. On Monday evening, August 24, “two citizens” of that place arrived in Rockland, found Mayor Wiggin, and claimed that Rockport Village “had been threatened with fire and riot by ‘copperheads’ and some of the drafted men.”

Could “the government schooner now lying here” go to Rockport Harbor and protect the village? the men asked Wiggin.

He contacted the schooner’s skipper, a “Capt. Edwards,” who “immediately took on board a crew of about thirty volunteers and soon ran his vessel up to the port, with a fair wind” and while entering Rockport Harbor “fired a gun,” the newspaper reported. Edwards then “moored his schooner close to the village with her [the ship’s] guns shotted, lanterns burning, and muskets stacked in readiness for immediate use.

“The presence of this effectual persuasive to law and order doubtless had a strong ‘moral’ influence on the disaffected persons, as no riotous demonstration was attempted, nor has the public peace been disturbed since,” the newspaper editorialized.

The tale made for exciting reading and rippled through Camden and Rock- land. In Rockport Village, “Messrs. Carleton, Norwood & Co.” owned ships and ran a two-story grist mill set about 100 feet from the Camden Harbor shore.

The company’s proprietors took issue with the story, however, and signed and sent “a communication” to the paper. The letter claimed “the statements which have been made about an apprehended riot in that [Rockport] village to be ‘false and slanderous.’”

The businessmen wrote that while “the two citizens” of Rockport Village “were sent” to Rockland for help on August 24, “‘there was not, nor had there been, the least appearance of a riot [original italics].’”Ninety percent of village “citizens … without regard to party, will sustain the assertion.”

But — and this was a big but — the businessmen acknowledged that the selectmen’s decision “produced a feeling of anger and hatred against them, and that ‘some of the conscripts or their rel(cont. on page 46)

(cont. from page 45) atives may have made some wrong and unguarded expressions.’”

Both Democrats and Republicans voiced such opinions, Messrs. Carleton, Norwood claimed without providing evidence. The entire riot story “is false and absurd,” the businessmen stated. When the government schooner anchored offshore, “no ‘Knots of Copperheads’ [were] standing around the streets,” which “were as silent and deserted that night as usual.”

The ship, cannons, “‘battle-lanterns,’” and “‘glittering muskets’” was “lost on the ‘Copperheads,’ who were all ‘sleeping quietly in their beds,’” according to Messrs. Carleton, Norwood. The “loyal men in Rockport” were “foolish and absurd” in their “statements of the unsafety” of the village.

So, the August 24 show of force either did or did not quell riotous inclinations among certain Rockport Village residents, and peace reigned.