Civil War Rages and Lincoln Appoints Benachi Greek Consul in N. Orleans

“He is the worst president ever! He tricked us into supporting a senseless war that has claimed the lives of thousands of our troops. He is a war criminal who should be impeached and convicted.”

These may sound like words hurled at George W. Bush during the height of the Iraq War, or toward Barack Obama for removing troops from there prematurely.

They’re not.

They are scathing assailments directed toward the president who, at one particular point in time, was the most hated ever in American history: Abraham Lincoln. Yes, Lincoln, who is now regarded as one of the top three presidents ever (usually in

the company of George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt) and most often scores at the very top.

But during the tumultuous American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln faced blistering opposition not only from Southerners who saw his Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery as unconstitutional overreach, but also from his fellow Northerners,

who did not understand why their young men should lose life and limb in a war designed to bring back into the Union eleven Southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America.

Among those eleven states was Louisiana, and in its city of New Orleans, where Lincoln appointed Nicholas Benachi as official Consul of Greece.

BATTLE OF MINE CREEK

October 25, 1864 was a particularly distressing one for Abraham Lincoln, who was trying to manage the War, with Election Day – and his bid for reelection – exactly two weeks away. Democrat George McClellan, a general in the Union Army replaced by

Ulysses S. Grant, ran against his commander-in-chief in the general election. In an unprecedented and never-since-replicated political maneuver, Lincoln, a Republican, replaced his fellow Republican Vice President Hannibal Hamlin on the ticket with

Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, in order to convey ideological balance.

In an effort to sabotage Lincoln’s chances for reelection and all the while bring Missouri into the Confederate fold, the South dispatched Major General Sterling Price to invade Missouri through Kansas. The Union soldiers resisted Sterling’s advances in the fields around Mine Creek in Central Kansas, and the mission was thwarted.

GREEK CONSUL IN NEW ORLEANS

While that was going on, Lincoln officially recognized Benachi as Consul of Greece for the Port of New Orleans – the Louisiana city that, although in a Confederate State, was a key stronghold in the Union’s possession, particularly vital because of its waterway.

“Satisfactory evidence having been exhibited to me,” the executive order read, “that Nicholas Benachi has been appointed Consul of Greece, for the Port of New Orleans, I do hereby recognize him as such, and declare him free to exercise and enjoy such

functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to Consuls by the Law of nations or by the laws of the United States, and existing Treaty stipulations between the Government of Greece and the United States.”

GREEK MILITIA REGIMENT

The Chios-born Benachi was a businessman in the cotton industry and, as was industry standard at the time, a slaveowner. He helped to establish the Greek Militia Regiment in 1861, which fought on the Confederate side. There was division among its ranks, as

some wanted the Regiment to be comprised exclusively of Greeks, while others were open to allowing virtually anyone to join the cause, regardless of nationality.

The short-lived Regiment was ultimately crushed as was the Confederate Army in the 1862 Battle of New Orleans, which saw the city return to Union control.

The following year (1863), Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Common misconception suggests that this “freed all of the slaves.” It didn’t. It was an

executive order that only applied to the territories under rebellion (i.e., under Confederate control). The states (and territories) und

er Union control could only have slavery abolished through an Act of Congress – ultimately what was the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865. Until then, New Orleans was unaffected by the Emancipation Proclamation, thereby allowing Benachi and other New Orleaners to continue to hold slaves.

FIRST GREEK CHURCH

Benachi’s most heralded distinction in Greek-American history was his establishment of the first Greek Orthodox Church in the United States. Concerned that the Greeks of New Orleans had no place to worship, he began as early as 1860 to pursue construction of a church. In 1864, he opened his own home for services and invited Greek Orthodox priests to liturgize there. That tradition continued, and the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral just celebrated its 150th anniversary last year. A full article

about the Church’s 2005 post-Katrina rebuilding initiative, headed by John Georges, appeared in last week’s edition (“How the Greeks Rebuilt New Orleans after Katrina,” Sept. 12).

The Civil War ended in 1965, the North had won, slavery was abolished throughout the land, and Lincoln had been overwhelmingly reelected the year before. In 1866, the New Orleans Greek Orthodox parish moved into a new building, specifically constructed to

be a church.

But Lincoln did not live to see it; felled by an assassin’s bullet, he died on April 14, 1865, Good Friday, celebrated that year on the same day by Western Christians and Greek Orthodox alike.