Biography
James A. McMaster edited the New York Freeman's Appeal. A State Department order dated September 14, 1861 directed his arrest and confinement at Fort Lafayette for alleged disloyalty and editing a disloyal newspaper. The order date does not alone establish his physical arrest day; his wife's September 29 letter on the following page dates the arrest to September 16. The case summary records actual release October 23, 1861 after an allegiance oath, following an October 21 order. The cited account records administrative wartime detention and supplies no criminal conviction. Source: Official Records, series II, volume II, section 1, printed page 802, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n817/mode/2up. His name also appears among the October 8, 1861 prisoner remonstrance signers reproduced in American Bastile (1869), printed pages 666-667, https://archive.org/details/americanbastile00marsgoog/page/n683/mode/2up.
The Fort Lafayette return records admission on September 16, 1861; this is a prison admission, not a separately verified physical arrest day. It records actual discharge on October 23, 1861. Source: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, printed page 229, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n244/mode/1up. The institution-specific admission recorded here does not establish the start of all custody in this case; a complete imprisonment total is therefore left unspecified.
His wife Gertrude G. McMaster’s September 29, 1861 letter dates physical arrest to September 16 and describes two dependent young children, suspension of the newspaper and threatened loss of subscribers, advertising and employment. She proposed a bona fide purchase and publication in her own name and sought restored mail privileges; the letters do not establish that the proposed transaction or permission occurred. Burke’s October 23 execution report and signed oath confirm actual release. McMaster formally attached a written protest that he was already bound by the oath’s obligations as a citizen and disputed the legal justification for requiring it. Sources: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, printed pages 803–804, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n818/mode/1up.
