Oregon Boys in the Civil War - Gethsemane at Gettysburg
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| Gettysburg: Oregon Boys take the brunt of Picket's Charge at 'the Angle' |
It would be a platitude to say that the issue of slavery (click here) divided this community as it divided most communities in the United States 150 years ago (click here). As Southern scholars long ago pointed out, slavery is more than it appears, and seriously cripples the slaver, as well as the slave. Slavery is a view of the world that gives one permission to do anything to another, even to take his or her life, for one's personal comfort (click here) and satisfaction.
| "Old Aim" ( I never knew her other name ), was a slave in the MULKEY family. She was an old woman when my mother first remembered her. She was very ugly, having a crooked back, and could be very ferocious and cross, or appearing so at least. She belonged to grandfather MULKEY'S mother and at the time of great grandmother's death was the nurse of Aledin, grandfather's youngest brother, who was an invalid of about fifteen. Before her death great grandmother arranged for Aledin to live with grandfather and Old Aim was to care for him, and at Aledin's death was to become the slave of grandfather. Aledin contracted pneumonia and lived only a few months after his mother's death. This gave Aim to grandfather sooner than had been expected and some of the brothers and sisters were dissatisfied. It was finally arranged that Aim would stay a while with the different families. Aim did not like this and she always acted in such a way that they were always glad to have her go back to "Miss Susan", as Aim always called grandmother. As this arrangement was not satisfactory at all it was decided to sell her. Here again she had her own way. Aim acted so mean and showed her deformity at its worst. She would not open her mouth and acted so like a fiend that no one would bid on her. Finally, to stop the wrangle, grandfather gave the estate something for her and she remained with him. "When he decided to move to Oregon, in 1847, the question of slavery was already being discussed, and some of the states were free; so it was thought best to leave Aim in Missouri, at least until it was known whether Oregon was to be a free or slave state. When the start was made, Aim was not to be found. Nor had she bade them goodby. It was supposed that she was so sad or overcome with emotion that she could not watch them leave. Not so, she had already started to Oregon on foot. At the fourth camp, much to the delight of grandmother and the children, Aim appeared at the campfire, and was helping with supper when grandfather came to eat. There was nothing to do at this late hour but take her along. Her faithfulness to grandmother and the children was wonderful. She had left her own children to follow Miss Susan and the babies. "She used to whip her own children until grandfather would be compelled to interfere, but she never struck one of grandmothers, and seldom told on them. However, she did boss them around and made them behave. She would bake bread in the Dutch oven in the fireplace, and if the children could get hold of it they would peel all the crust off the bread and eat it before the bread had time to cool. To keep them from ruining the bread, Aim would hide it from them and sit and laugh while they hunted for it. Sometimes she had piled sacks of wool around the oven in which the bread was cooling and then sat on the sacks. "One could write many amusing stories of Old Aim. She had a sense of humor and also of ridicule. She amused herself by ridiculing those she disliked, who were many. When the family, or grandmother and the older girls returned from shopping, Aim was always on hand with the other stay-at-homes to inspect the purchases. One time grandmother had bought a lot of crocks from a pottery in Oregon city, mostly milk crocks. One was crooked. Aim said it like Chris' bonnet, meaning a Miss TRAPP'S new bonnet that had attracted some attention and much comment. The crock was often spoken of afterward as the Chris bonnet crock. If anyone asked which was the milk for dinner they were told that it was in Chris's bonnet. "One time, when a new baby arrived in the WITHAM home - there were fifteen children there in all - Aim was sent over to wash and help with the work. Mrs. WITHAM sent word, "Don't send that nigger here, she scared my young'uns." Aim did not want to go in the first place and laughed when grandmother scolded her. "After the family moved to town she used to go out and wash sometimes, and would give grandmother or Aunt Fannie the money to buy her a handkerchief for her head, or tobacco, or something she wanted. She never entered a store in her life. She would sit by the fire and card wool in the evenings. If there was a knock at the door, unless it was a very close friend, Aim had disappeared from the room before the guests had entered. She lived to be a very old woman, and died in Corvallis shortly before my mother's marriage in 1874, or shortly after. She was one of the three slaves in Benton County in the free state of Oregon. "Aim worked in the garden a great deal, especially with the tomatoes. She always had tomatoes, planting the seed in the house and then transplanting when great big plants. Nothing made her more irritable than to disregard her tomato patch. When my mother was a good sized girl she had a pet lamb, sometimes more than one, that would always get her into trouble. They would get into the tomato patch and always be found out. When Aim scolded it could not be denied, as they smelled of the tomatoes and had green from the vines on their wool. |
| Maude (Mulkey) Keady, Corvallis; Note: in the 1860 census, along side Aim, is a native American named John who, like Aim, was assigned the Mulkey surname. Local tribes bought and sold slaves (click here). Slavers were, a priori, neitther generous nor protective of the poor (especially the'Colored' poor, as the law defined them. It's likely Jim was also held in slavery by Johnson Mulkey. In fact, Mulkey's unwillingness to part with a dollar was responsible for his death: |
| "After the discovery of gold in Idaho (Click here) supplies had to be freighted in from the Willamette Valley. Mulkey employed men and ox teams to do this work. He would take in flour, meat, apples, anything he could produce or buy, and of course he made a good profit. The pay was in gold dust, and this caused Mulkey's death....In the fall or winter of 1861-62 Mulkey, Jefferys, and others started from The Dalles for the Willamette Valley through the snow. The snow was deep and efferys, left his belt of gold dust behind. He urged Mulkey to do the same but Mulkey refused. All his fortune, or so he thought, was contained in that belt. Finally Mulkey became exhausted and was left behind, covered up in the snow for warmth. When a rescue party reached him he was alive but his feet were frozen and he was so badly frozen about the waist where the heavy belt weighted him down and the metal chilled him that he did not recover." |
| - Dick Ballard |
The impact of slavery is crippling not only for the slave but for the slaver as well. Slavery breeds predators whose social ties are those of an urban gang, limited to self-enrichment and self-protection. Slavers are, by definition, sociopaths:
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| - Motion by Oregon Legislator George Lawson of Yamhill County 1864 |
Slavery relies upon violence toward, and abuse of, others (click here) rather than talent and self-initiative, for one's own well being. It is the cradle not only of murder and rapine but also of sloth, corruption and thievery (click here).
Corvallis was founded by an unrepentant slaver, Joseph Avery (click here). As might be expected of a man with such values, he, In the course of his career, helped swindle the children of this community of the financial resources which would have funded their educations in perpetuity (click here and here). He had himself appointed to select the land for the university then cheated it of a generation of income (click here) so he and his 2 associates might benefit therefrom. Together they robbed the poorest Oregonians (click here) and stole the savings of many in the region in a gigantic railroad Ponzi scheme. Avery was a major participant in the genocide of native Americans (click here). He made no apologies for any of his crimes; he openly trumpeted them. He regarded them, and expected others to regard them, as virtues.
In Corvallis, however, as elsewhere, there was an increasingly restive segment of the people who regarded slavery as a moral evil that ought not be permitted to see the light of another day. The Hinkle family, who championed and partnered with the former slave, Ruben Shipley (click here). A.G. Hovey, the Benton County legislator who eventually was able to shuttle racist legislative proposals to the Subcommittee on Insane Asylums - where he believed they belonged, The Reverend T.J. Connor and the United Brotherhood who founded the town of Philomath, the Milton Starr family spread between Monroe (formerly Starr's Point) and Corvallis, the Jesse Applegate family, spread between Dallas and Jacksonville, and - as elsewhere in the country - the German immigrants, were bitter and formidable opponents of slavery.
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"There
were warm times here in the Civil War days. Many of the people from
Missouri were southern in sympathy and a few of them were inclined to be
lawless. Among the well known southern Democrats were Joseph C. AVERY, the
MULKEYS, the BROWNS, and the SMITHS. Circles were organized by these
people and meetings held [Ed.
Note: the reference is to the Knights of the Golden Circle, precursor of
the Ku Klux Klan].
Some of them were very violent in their language. But some of them had
reason to dread an open outbreak. AVERY owned a large part of the townsite
of Corvallis. Green Berry SMITH'S brother, who was reputed to have made
his money by gambling in California, died and left his fortune to Green
Berry's son, Alexander. The father had invested this in land until he held
several square miles both above and below Corvallis. It is said that he
owned a strip a mile wide from Corvallis to his home eight miles south.
Because of their large holdings these men feared the results of a real
outbreak and used their influence to restrain their more inflammable
neighbors.
"Bert WOOD, a neighbor boy and a Southerner, told me this story in later years. Pete WITHERS, who was a member with me of Company A, was home from Vancouver Barracks on a furlough. While he was in uniform he met Bert WOOD and some others in a saloon in Corvallis. Bert made some slurring remark showing his sympathies with the Confederates cause. Quick as a wink Pete presented his revolver and dared Bert to repeat the remark on pain of death. Bert said in telling about it: 'I could just see the bullet in his gun, and I could see in his eye that he meant it. I had nothing more to say.' |
| Jerry Hinkle |
Avery was actually from Indiana, but his views definitely spoke of, and to, slave Democrats in Missouri, where the German community of St. Louis had forestalled the slavers' takeover of that state (click here).
Many Missourians came to Oregon when the Civil War broke out.In fact, Oregon was comically referred to as the Left Column of the Confederate General Sterling Price - the Column that Left.
| "My husband's people came from Missouri in 1862 to escape military service. They were sympathizers of the South, and were in danger of being drafted into the Federal army. There were restrictions on taking guns and powder out of the states and some times the trains were unable to smuggle enough for their own protection but my husband's folks were able to get away with some guns." |
| Eva Gibbs Coon |
The more influential local slavers, however, were not among these latecomers. Green Berry Smith, like Avery, predated the Civil War:
| "Grandfather
was a brother of Green Berry Smith who came to Benton County, I think,
before 1850. Green Berry Smith (the two names are distinct, but many
people today think his name was Greenberry) was at one time one of the
largest landowners in Benton County. He owned a strip a mile wide and
extending south from Corvallis to his original claim at Greenberry
station, a distance of eight miles. Then he owned land in other parts of
the county. He had more than nine thousand acres on Soap Creek in the
north end of the county. It was he who owned and vacated the site of
Tampico, the ghost town."
Note: Green Berry Smith platted the town of Tampico, as Avery had done with Corvallis, and sold the plots. When he discovered the citizens did not share his point of view, he cancelled the plat, which - theoretically - he was legally entitled to do, and all had to vacate] |
| Judd Smith 1938 |
- as did the Williams clan:
| "My parents came to Benton County in the fall of 1852. Father got a job tending the ferry at Albany, and lived on the Benton County side. There was still plenty of land to be claimed in the valley, but Father never took a claim. The early settlers were shy about taking claims in the level land near the river for two reasons. They were afraid of the damage from the more or less regular over flows, and they were afraid of the malaria on the flat land. Whenever a man from the foothills came down to the river to work for a few days he was almost sure to have a bout with the malaria." |
| Ed Williams |
As the nation moved closer to civil war, Avery and others organized a chapter of the Knights of the Golden Circle (click here), the precursor of the Ku Klux Klan. Jesse James and John Wilkes Booth were both members, as - curiously - were the slaveholders of the Cherokee nation (click here).
| "About 150 of us men formed what we called the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret organization. Oh, yes, we had guns and ammunition. |
| Haman Lewis [Note: Lewisburg is named for Haman] |
Slavery had always been illegal in Oregon, from the first days of territorial government. It was outlawed by a vote of the people, despite the gleeful predictions of Avery's newspaper, the Occidental Messenger (click here). It could have existed in Corvallis only with the protection of the powerful town founder. The opponents of slavery were in a difficult position, because there were free African Americans in town, which was also against the law.
| PROCLAMATION DECLARING THE RESULT OF THE ELECTION FOR AND AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION. a Dec. 14, 1851 ..WHEREAS, It was provided further by said convention of delegates, that the result of said election should be announced by executive proclamation: : Therefore, to that end it is hereby declared and made known that at the said election, held on the ninth day of November, A. D. 1857, there were seven thousand one hundred and ninety-five votes given for the adoption of the said constitution, and thousand one hundred and ninety-five votes against its adoption. There were two thousand six hundred and forty-five votes given in favor of slavery, and seven thousand seven hundred and twenty seven votes against slavery; and there were given one thousand and eighty-one votes in favor of permitting the residence of free negroes, and eight thousand six hundred and forty votes against the same. In TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my official signature, and caused the Attestation. seal of the territory to be affixed, at Salem, this fourteenth day of December, A. D. 1857. GEORGE L CURRY. By the governor B.F. HARDING, secretcary. December 9th, 1857. |
| Governor Curry's Proclamation of Election Results. Note: The exclusion of African Americans was actually an improvement upon the lash law which preced it, and called for evrey African American to receive 39 lashes across the bare back every 6 months. |
In addition to Aim and the Shipleys (click here) with their family, there was 7 year old Mary Harris, listed as 'Mulatto' living with the McConnells (McConnell was the U.S. Marshall, but that was not synonymous with virtue in the days when slavers ran the government and occupied the Presidency. After all, Joe Meek, who hated slavery and was loveable but was a rascal (his reply when caught embezzling by a fellow thief who wanted a share of the looted funds, became a standard punchline in Oreogn:"why, there waren't hardly enough for one"), had also been Marshall. African American children in a household was not always a symptom of goodness - click here), and 5 year old William Harris, was living with the Gages. 32 year old Richard Souter was living with the family of lawyer John Burnet as a cook. Burnet also employed Euro American 24 year old Charles Thuringer as a cook, 35 year old,and John Roberts as a gardener William Nesbit as a butcher and John Roberts as a gardener. It's unlikely that Richard was a slave, especialy since he declared $200 of personal property, a relative rarity among laborers. He may have been saving to buy his family from slavery.
52 year old Neanora Gorman a 'wash woman', held $1200 in real estate, and her apparent roomate was Eliza, a seamstress. All of these could have been forced to appear in court with proof that they had resided in Oregon before the adoption of the constitution. Further, their property could have been confiscated since any work was liable to be construed as a contract, and homes and farms certainly qualified as real estate.
| No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state, or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein. |
| Oregon Constitution |
Any escaped slaves would have been returned, the remaining African American members of the community expelled, their homes confiscated and split among Avery, the Mulkeys, the Smiths and the WIlliams. This "little squad of cackling secessionists and escaped Negro stealers" as the Oregonian referred to them (Oregonian May 11, 1861 - the reference was to the trans-Atlantic slave trade which had been declared illegal and suppressed by the all-powerful British Navy with the resigned acquiescence of the rest of the world), had few moral qualms when it came to enriching themselves at others' expense (click here).
The Dred Scott decision by a Supreme Court handpicked by slavers in the Presidency represented a dire threat to every one except the slavers. It declared slavery legal in every state and compelled every American citizen to assist in hunting fugitive slaves.
| "We went to bed thinking that we had ended slavery in Missouri and awoke to slavery in Illinois" |
| - A. Lincoln |
At a stroke, the slavers had made abolitionism legally untenable, and in fact a crime. The savage beating of Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Congressman Brooks (click here), John Brown's uprising, and a host of other events brought out town, like others, to the brink of war over the issue of slavery, and of the right to speak and vote for its extinction. Throughout the country, mass meetings were held, and in Oregon the biggest was in Albany, with strong representation from Corvallis.
Local organizations began to sunder. The Methodist congregation split when the slavers' Southern Methodist missionaries, Fisher and Kolbe (the latter from Texas, the former a convert from California), speaking primarily to Masons. 40 Corvallis citizens joined ( Oregon Historical Quarterly, Spring 1991). The orthodox church, pastored by Milton Starr, was strongly antislavery, as were the United Brotherhood Churches. The local Congregationalists in 1859 voted not invite into their pulpits "persons known to own slaves or persons sympathetic to slaveholding".
The only newspaper in Oregon which was abolitionist was the Argus, still published in Hillsboro. Locally, both Avery's Occidental Messenger and the Albany Democrat were violently proslavery Democrats and would in time be suppressed as seditious by overreaching Union soldiers. The Salem Statesman was the organ of Douglas Democrats while the Portland Oregonian was a Whig organ. These papers fought one another bitterly as the nation drifted toward the election of 1860 and civil war.
The Democratic Party imploded, with the proslavery wing nominating John Breckinridge and the execrable little Oregonian, Joe Lane. Lane had been appointed military governor by Polk - himself an unapologetic slaver. Polk and Lane Counties are named after these two scoundrels.
Despite the presence of an Oregonian on Breckenridge's proslavery, ticket, they managed to poll only a third of the vote in the state. The rest went to Douglas Democrats who would join with the 'Black Republicans' of Abraham Lincoln, who won the state. Lincoln's friend, fellow Republican Edmund Baker - for whom Baker County was named - was elected Senator from Oregon.
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| Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin campaign poster of 1860 | |
| John Bell; Constitutional Union | 212 |
| John C. Breckenridge; Democrat | 5,074 |
| Stephen Douglas; Douglas Democrat | 4,131 |
| Abraham Lincoln; Republican | 5,344 |
Immediately, the slave states began seceding (click here). Military officers from slave regions, like George Pickett (click here) and John Bell Hood (click here) deserted.
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| Above: George Picket and James, an Oregon artist - Pickett's son from his marriage to a Haida woman on the Columbia. He later married another woman in the East (click here), apparently without mentioning his previous marriage. After the Civil War he fled to Canada to avoid trial for war crimes committed in the Carolinas. Picket had been appointed to West Point by Congressman Abe Lincoln. Right: John Bell Hood had a 'hound dog look' which was often referred to. The resemblance is indeed uncanny. | |||
Phil Sheridan (click here) refused to leave his post at nearby Fort Hoskins for the East until reliable officers had arrived. Like Picket, Sheridan had a native American mate in Oregon.
| My mother's name was Ashna NORTON, daughter of Lucius NORTON and Hopestill KING. In 1864 she was married to my father while he was still a soldier at Ft. Hoskins. Detachments of the men were frequently stationed at the Siletz Reservation to restrain the Indians there. My parents were stationed at the Reservation about six months. They had to pack their belongings back and forth of pack mules. While there the Indians plotted to wipe out the detachment. They were going to seize the guns while the men were at dinner.The brother of Frances HARNEY, Phil SHERIDAN's Indian housekeeper, warned the soldiers in time and the uprising was quickly quelled. Frances HARNEY, who is sometimes called Sheridans Sweethart, was a handsome Rogue River Indian about thirty years old. Mother would not talk much about her relations with Sheridan. Her moral ideals were offended by the matter. In later years I knew the woman well. We lived on the trail by which the Indians came from Siletz to the Willamette Valley for hop picking and the like, and Frances and her folks would always stop to see mother. I visited the old woman about two weeks before she died in 1934, at the age of 105 or 106. |
| - Bertha Thompson, Corvallis. |
He had heard the 2 other officers at the fort were 'Going South', a term synonymous with desertion, and planned to steal what they could lay hands upon. U.S. Grant, who had served in Oregon (click here) was called to arms in the Midwest, as were 2 other West Coast soldiers, Joe Hooker and Willam Tecumseh Sherman (click here).
The 1st Oregon regiment was organized to keep a watchful eye on the Golden Circles as the federal troops were called east.
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"My father, Henry GERBER, was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1828. I do not know when he came to the United States, but he had learned the baker's trade and was working in a bakeshop in Philadelphia when gold was discovered in California. He came west with the gold seekers. He was about as successful as the great mass of gold hunters and in 1861 he enlisted from Placer County in Company B, Second California Volunteer Infantry. The Volunteer Infantry was organized to protect the new country from the Indians and so release the regulars stationed in the West for service in the War." "Soon after they were mustered into service Company B, came to Fort Cady in Washington and then to Fort Hoskins, in this county. In 1862 they were ordered south again to California and spent some time chasing Indians in Humboldt and in Klamath Counties. Father was mustered out at the expiration of his term of enlistment, October 8, 1864, and about two months later he reenlisted in Co. A, First Oregon Volunteer Infantry. This company was recruited in Benton County and was commanded by Captain LaFOLLETT. He was finally mustered out at the close of the War, at Fort Yamhill, in 1866." |
| -Henry Gerber |
Avery and other slavers expanded their organization, and their opponents also organized militias, and rumors of impending violence spread.
| "Linn County, in contrast to Benton County, was strongly Democratic at the time of the Civil War. Around Sweet Home there were many Republicans and a company of Home Guards were organized there. They got to feeling their importance and said they were coming into our part of the county to chastise the rebels. " |
| - Hiram Parker, Corvallis |
| "There was another family of WILLIAMS in Polk County who were Democrats. On one occasion the two sons drove a team through Corvallis, shouting "Hurrah for Jeff DAVIS" while the mother sat on the rear seat with a loaded revolver in each hand covering both sides of the street. The woman was reputed to be a good marksman and no one interfered. |
| -Josephine Wells Note: Adair was formerly known as Wells, after the Wells' family |
| Mr. Emery ALLEN, a northerner, was teacher. Most of the children were from southern families such as the JOHNSONS, HORNINGS, and MULKEYS. The WITHAMS were northerners. I do not know about the DIXONS OR TRAPPS, or if any of them were attending school at that time, when feelings ran high between northerner and southerner. Mr. ALLEN forbid them to yell for Jeff DAVIS on the school ground, but allowed the children to yell all they liked for Abe LINCOLN. One day enthusiasm ran high for Abe LINCOLN. There had been lots of cheering, so mother did not wait until she was off the school grounds before she began yelling for Jeff DAVIS. One of the younger HORNING boys followed her lead. The next day Mr. ALLEN called them up and threatened to whip them, but finally let them go without whipping. However, the school board, who consisted of Uncle Charlie JOHNSON, Mr. HORNING, and someone else, discharged Mr. ALLEN and paid him off in Greenbacks, which were at a considerablediscount at that time. Mr. ALLEN was right in his contention of not allowing the children to yell for Mr. DAVIS, though perhaps he should not have gone so far in his punishment as he at first contemplated. Abraham LINCOLN was the president of the United States, and should have been so recognized. |
| - Maude Mulkey-Keady |
After federal troops were fired upon at Fort Sumter, the issue turned deadly serious. Oregonians like Senator Edmund Baker were anxious to serve in the east rather than doing garrison duty in Oregon. Baker organized a regiment of volunteers from the West Coast. Hoping that California would sponsor the troop, providing the uniforms and weaponry necessary, he gave it the name of the California regiment. Similarly, a cavalry troop was organized and named the California Hundreds. When California declined to sponsor the troops, Pennsylvania offered to equip the infantry, and counted them as among the number that state was expected to mobilize. Massachusetts did the same for the cavalry (the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, which served with Phil Sheridan click here). In time, Pennsylvania renamed the infantry the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and the cavalry was called the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry.
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| Left, the flag of the 2nd Massachusetts cavalry; right, of the 71st Pennsylvania infantry, at the end of the War | |
Baker was himself killed at the Battle of Ball's Bluff (see left). Many of the soldiers were captured and sent to prison, some to Andersonville (click here) but the regiment went on to fight at Manasses, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Petersburg and Appomattox, contributing greatly to the crushing of "the Slave Power". A diary from a Lewiston Idaho boy in the 71st exists (click here), as do the letters home of Francis Donaldson (click here).
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| Among the West Coasters who enlisted (click here) were a number of Chinese-American immigrants. Like the East Coast immigrants after the 1848 Revolutions in Europe, many of the Chinese immigrants on the West Coast had been involved in the Taipeng Rebellion (click here) and had very sophisticated political backgrounds which committed them to antislavery positions. |
Fort Yamhill (The Blockhouse is preserved in Dayton, OR)
List of OR military forts, encampments
Other Union units at Fort Hoskins: