“I’m a carpenter. The work has gotten slow in Boston with the Confederates running the show. Mr. Lincoln’s government says there’s to be no business with the Confederate-occupied territories. The Confederates have been feeding us from their military stores, but I don’t want to live off their charity. I imagine there’s plenty of work here for carpenters.”
The man’s wife jostled him. “We’re Free State citizens, Beriah. We could never live under the rule of those Confederate slave masters, even if you had all the work you could handle in Boston. We’d rather be here with our people than aliens in an occupied country. Isn’t that so?”
“I reckon she’s right about that,” replied Beriah. “The Free States are our country.”
Burnside tipped his hat. “Thank you good folks for coming to join us in making a free country here. I know it wasn’t easy leaving your homes. We will live free here, among our own people, until we grow strong enough to run the Confederates out of Boston. And the more people we have like you, the sooner we will run them out and return to our homes.”
Sherman and Burnside moved on.
“The new arrivals are assigned living quarters and work,” explained Sherman. “Most of the healthy young men are volunteering for the army. We’ve got more than we can arm at the moment. We’re putting the mechanics to work building our new armaments foundries. The fellow you talked to is free to engage in civilian trade if he wants to. We do need some of that. People have to have carpenters to make their furniture. They can’t sit on the floors, not even in time of war.”
“Trade is flourishing,” observed Burnside. “Much more so than I would have expected. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of merchandise in the stores.” He saw that many Boston merchants had reestablished themselves in the crudely constructed storefronts that sold everything from saddles to canned goods.
“The first arrivals had time to bring household furnishing and even the inventories of their shops and warehouses here before the Confederates closed their ring around the city,” Sherman explained. “It’s become impossible for us to obtain any thing else from inside the Confederate lines now. Anything we need here from now on we’ll have to make here. Prices might go sky high, but markets have a way of adjusting themselves to that. The government has solved part of that problem by issuing a national currency.”
“The people here don’t seem to have any difficulty conducting their business in Free State notes,” said Burnside.
“They’ve made a virtue of necessity,” replied Sherman. “It’s in people’s nature to do business. Since they don’t have enough gold or silver to settle their accounts, they’ve decided that they must conduct their business with greenbacks. Our government was wise to take the gamble of printing the notes in the expectation that people would accept them at par with gold.”
“The notes have been indispensable to my business,” confirmed Burnside. “Our government has contracted to purchase the entire production of the Burnside Rifle Company. They pay me with their notes. I pay my employees and suppliers with the notes I receive from the government. They use them to buy what they need from the merchants. So long as everyone agrees that they are ‘good as gold’ then they are good as gold. The government is creating real wealth with this paper, as much wealth as if it owned a real gold mine.”
“I suppose paper currency is a store of real wealth so long as the government declares it to be legal tender and the people agree to accept it as such,” reasoned Cump. “We were going to have to learn to do business with paper currency in any event. The way our economy was growing before the war, we could not have dug enough gold and silver to mint into specie to settle our trade in all the new manufactured goods we were producing. The war is forcing us to rethink a lot of things we were doing. Wars have a way of doing that.”
Burnside glanced around again in amazement at the many buildings that were being built. “How many Boston refugees have you settled here?”
“Thirty thousand so far,” answered Sherman with pride evident in his voice. “Thirty thousand more in Northampton. And twenty thousand in Hartford. I’ve sent more than twenty thousand back to Troy, Albany, and Ilion where there’s war work in spades. If the refugees keep coming in at the rate they’ve been entering my lines in recent days then I may have to send them back as far as Cleveland and even Chicago. But I’d prefer to keep them here if I possibly can. I want this department to be self-sufficient in manpower and in all varieties of productions. I am building an unconquerable eastern frontier for the United States of Free America here. I need all the people here to defend it until we grow strong enough to kick the Confederates into the sea.”
“You’re making magnificent progress in that direction, judging by the number of men you have in uniform,” observed Burnside. Men in uniform were everywhere, though the uniforms were by no means uniform. They consisted of pants of various shades of blue ranging from light to dark topped with shirts ranging in color from brown to gold.
They entered Cump’s office in the textile owner’s guesthouse. Cump offered Burnside a coffee with a shot of rum.
“Your work here has been complete,” commented Burnside. “You’ve not only built fortifications to halt the enemy, but also new cities to house the people who choose not to live under the Confederates. Giving our people a refuge in which to shelter while they learn to fight the Confederates is the essential part of your defense. But still you say you have more refugees than you can settle here. May I request that you send some of them to Providence to help me fight the enemy there?”
Sherman sighed. “Burns, this is difficult for me to say, but I don’t believe that Providence will be defensible with the Confederates holding Boston and Worcester and blockading the coast with their navy.” Cump traced those points on the map on his desk. “McClellan is nothing if not methodical. He’ll capture Providence with an overland attack, like he used to take Portland after our forts defeated his naval expedition. I expect him to make converging attacks from Boston and Worcester. He’ll use his navy to make landings west of Providence to cut the Shoreline Railroad, isolating you from reinforcement and resupply. That’s the way the ‘book’ says to operate, and McClellan goes by the book. It’s what I’d do if I were in his place.”
“Can Providence not be saved?” implored Burnside. “I don’t know if our cause will stand its loss after all the other towns we’ve had to evacuate.”
Sherman shook his head. “I don’t underestimate the value of Providence both as a practical point and a symbolic one, but if we fortify it with an army, we’ll lose the city and the army. I’d rather save the people of Providence by bringing them here before the city falls. And I need the machinery from your arms manufactory relocated here as well.”
“Is there nothing we can do to get the enemy out of Worcester and reopen direct communications with Providence?”
“I’d hoped there might be,” answered Sherman grimly. “It was the first thing I looked at when I came out here. But after observing their lines I don’t think it can be accomplished, not at an acceptable cost, and not with the men we have available. I’m afraid McClellan understands Worcester’s value as a rail center as well as we do. He’s ringed it with fortifications and put an army corps commanded by Hooker in there to defend it. The railroad going back into Boston is garrisoned too heavily to break. Taking Worcester by direct assault or forcing the enemy to evacuate by attacking his lines of communications is beyond our means.”
“What about the people in Providence?” Burnside asked. “It will crush their spirit to be moved here before the Confederates approach the city. I can tell you that they’d rather fight for Providence than surrender it. And you’re having trouble handling the refugees just from Boston. Providence will give you fifty thousand more.”