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The Civil War and the West: Conflict had lasting impact on this region, too

Northwest figures had pivotal roles

By Tom Vogt, Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: April 17, 2011, 12:00am
3 Photos
Gen. Phil Sheridan, in front of the flag, with his staff in 1864. Gen.
Gen. Phil Sheridan, in front of the flag, with his staff in 1864. Gen. James Wilson, far left, spent nearly a year at Fort Vancouver before the war; he commanded the troops who captured Jefferson Davis. Photo Gallery

One hundred and fifty years ago, the United States of America and the breakaway states of the Confederacy were at war. The April 12, 1861, attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., would be followed by almost four years of conflict.

While the biggest battles took place thousands of miles away, the political and social impacts of the Civil War left their mark on this region.

Army officers who were here 150 years ago, or who’d been stationed at Fort Vancouver earlier, would serve prominently during the Civil War — some wearing blue, some wearing gray.

However, the soldiers stationed here on April 17, 1861, didn’t know about the war yet. It would be a dozen days before they learned the shooting had started.

o The Western Union telegraph line to Sacramento, Calif., was completed on Oct. 24, 1861. According to a history of Oregon written by Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1888, the first war news transmitted across the continent entirely by telegraph was a report on the Battle of Ball's Bluff, Va., which had been fought on Oct. 21, 1861.

o Demands by Portland and Salem newspapers for fresh Civil War news encouraged the spread of a reliable telegraph system. It took about six days for a stagecoach to deliver the news from Yreka, Calif., to Portland. For a time, The Oregonian newspaper used couriers on horseback to bring the news north, according to http://www.salemhistory.net/. It took about 36 hours to ride from Yreka to Salem, where there was a telegraph link to Portland. Telegraph service came to Vancouver on Aug. 16, 1864.

o o o

More than five years after he arrived at Fort Vancouver, Lt. Phil Sheridan was summoned to fight in what he called the War of the Rebellion.

But Sheridan wouldn’t leave the Northwest.

It’s not that the frontier cavalryman was disinterested in events back east. In his memoirs, Sheridan wrote that “the news of the firing on Fort Sumter brought us an excitement which overshadowed all else.”

That news was published here on April 29, 1861 — 17 days after the attack — when a steamship from San Francisco delivered the latest headlines from back east.

o The Western Union telegraph line to Sacramento, Calif., was completed on Oct. 24, 1861. According to a history of Oregon written by Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1888, the first war news transmitted across the continent entirely by telegraph was a report on the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Va., which had been fought on Oct. 21, 1861.

o Demands by Portland and Salem newspapers for fresh Civil War news encouraged the spread of a reliable telegraph system. It took about six days for a stagecoach to deliver the news from Yreka, Calif., to Portland. For a time, The Oregonian newspaper used couriers on horseback to bring the news north, according to http://www.salemhistory.net/. It took about 36 hours to ride from Yreka to Salem, where there was a telegraph link to Portland. Telegraph service came to Vancouver on Aug. 16, 1864.

And his war record would prove that Sheridan, later one of the North’s best generals, wasn’t afraid of a fight.

The issue for Sheridan, who was commanding Fort Yamhill in April 1861, was the officer tabbed to replace him. Sheridan was supposed to hand off the Oregon outpost to Capt. James J. Archer — but Sheridan didn’t trust him.

Sheridan wrote that Archer “intended to go South” and “I would not turn over the command to him for fear he might commit some rebellious act.”

After Archer resigned his commission to join the Confederate army, Sheridan finally was able to turn the fort over to a loyal Union officer.

The notable soldiers who left Fort Vancouver for Civil War duty reflected the size of the U.S. Army and the significance of its base near the Columbia River.

“The Army was very small at the time,” said Greg Shine, chief ranger and historian at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

In 1861, more than 10,000 soldiers — about 75 percent of the U.S. Army’s troops — were stationed west of the Mississippi River, he said.

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Fort Vancouver, which gained its present name of Vancouver Barracks in 1879, “was the primary post in the Pacific Northwest. Much like the Hudson’s Bay Company used Fort Vancouver as a hub for other posts in the Pacific Northwest, it was the Army’s major supply depot, arsenal and departmental headquarters for the entire area.”

There also was an ongoing debate about the border between U.S. and British territory, sparked by the so-called “Pig War” on San Juan Island.

“It was important to maintain an Army presence in the Pacific Northwest,” said Mike Vouri, a ranger and historian at Washington’s San Juan Island National Historical Park.

About 500 soldiers were stationed at Fort Vancouver in May 1860. A year later, after most troops were transferred to combat duty, the Fort Vancouver garrison was down to 66 men.

Many soldiers who passed through the outpost known as Camp Columbia, Columbia Barracks and then Fort Vancouver were already well-acquainted. Ulysses S. Grant and Rufus Ingalls, who served together here in the early 1850s, went to West Point with George Pickett. The future Confederate general came here in 1856, prior to the international ruckus involving a Hudson’s Bay Company pig that rooted up an American settler’s potato patch. (The pig was the only fatality).

“Ingalls was one of Pickett’s best friends,” Vouri said. “Pickett named his dog Rufus.”

By 1865, Grant was poised to end the war as commander of the Union Army, and the paths of some familiar names converged.

“Ingalls was quartermaster general for the Army of the Potomac, and was instrumental in U.S. Grant’s drive south,” said Vouri, who has written extensively on Northwest military figures.

In a pivotal battle in April 1865, Sheridan’s cavalry attacked Pickett’s Confederate force at Five Forks, Va. The “Union victory here was the breaking point for Lee’s army,” says a park service website.

Lee abandoned the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Va. and surrendered to Grant a week later at Appomattox Court House. Ingalls and Sheridan were present at the surrender.

But battlefield leaders aren’t the only way to evaluate the Civil War from this corner of the country.

“We have looked at the war’s impact much too narrowly,” said historian Richard Etulain. “It was a military subject, but it was much more.”

Events on the other side of the continent helped shape the Northwest. Some of that could be linked directly with secession. When the rebellious states seceded to form the Confederacy, years of paralyzing debate in Congress ended.

“There had been a quagmire politically for more than a decade,” Shine said. “A lot of the bigger initiatives were bogged down. The lines were drawn primarily on slave issues, radiating outwards to influence issues of the time.

“The transcontinental railroad was a huge issue: How would it cross the nation? Folks from the southern delegation wanted a southern route. Others wanted central or northern routes. Would states brought into the union by the railroad be free or slave?”

There’d been similar debate over homesteading.

When Southern Congressmen abandoned the debate, President Abraham Lincoln had a clear path, Etulain said: “The big four initiatives all passed in May and June 1862.”

They included the transcontinental railroad.

“There were big rumors California and Oregon might separate from the Union and become a Pacific Republic,” Etulain said. “They thought they were getting the short end of things.”

In addition to economic reasons, the railroad would tie the West Coast to the rest of the states. Lincoln gave the go-ahead in 1864 for another rail route, the Northern Pacific, which eventually linked Washington with the Midwest.

WSU’s roots

In May 1862, Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which encouraged westward migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land.

“Lincoln didn’t like farming; he ran away from home because he didn’t like farming,” Etulain said. “But up to 90 percent of the people made their living farming, and he needed to bind them to his party.

“He put through the land-grant legislation that led to what now are Washington State University, Oregon State University and the University of Idaho,” Etulain said. “He wanted farmers to get up-to-date technical, agricultural and mining educations, as well as military training.

“And, he set up a Department of Agriculture,” said Etulain, a Portland-area resident and retired professor of history at the University of New Mexico. “All four had a tremendous impact on the Pacific Northwest.”

Political issues that brought the nation to war were reflected in our local communities, although the debates never erupted into armed conflict.

“The Northwest was rent with disagreement,” Etulain said. As war approached, “There had been clashing opinions about what ought to be done.

“It’s a generalization, but the Pacific Northwest in many ways was not primarily Northern or primarily Southern. It was a lot like the border states, Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland,” Etulain said.

There was a gradual transition to pro-Union, despite powerful pro-South voices, Etulain said. They included Oregon Sen. Joseph Lane, who had run for vice president in 1860 on the Southern ticket of a split Democratic Party.

A Eugene, Ore., newspaper was shut down for being too pro-South, Etulain said.

“There was the formation of pro-South secret organizations. There was a group in Portland, and two or three along the Willamette Valley,” Etulain said.

One of the groups, the Knights of the Golden Circle, reportedly “had plans for seizing the Vancouver arsenal,” said Shine, the Fort Vancouver historian and chief ranger.

Fort Vancouver continued as an Army post during the Civil War, manned by volunteers who replaced the units transferred to combat operations.

Sleepy garrison

Vancouver seemed to be something of a backwater in that period, according to the Vancouver Chronicle newspaper. A story published on June 13, 1861 welcomed troops under the command of Capt. H.M. Black: “They are a fine looking set of men, and their presence will tend to somewhat enliven our streets, which have looked quite deserted since the great exodus to the mines and the previous withdrawal of troops.”

While the regular Army was fighting history-making battles, the troops stationed here built roads, bridges and forts that helped open Washington’s interior to a growing population.

“You see immigration continue throughout the Civil War era,” Shine said. “It was possible people were getting away from the war. There were gold rushes in the Northwest, bringing in more people — at great cost to the Indian inhabitants.”

The shape of Washington also changed during the war. When Oregon became a state in 1859, the Washington Territory consisted of what is now Washington and Idaho, plus parts of Montana and Wyoming. In 1861, a small piece of that Wyoming segment was transferred from Washington to the Nebraska Territory. Washington took its present shape in 1863, when the Idaho Territory was created.

Grant’s victory at Appomattox was not the Civil War finale for the officers who’d started their careers at Fort Vancouver, by the way. After Lee surrendered his Army of Virginia, James Wilson led the Union forces to victory in the April 16 battle of Columbus, Ga. — generally regarded as the last major battle of the war. Wilson had a couple of other claims to fame. In 1863, the 28-year-old Wilson became the youngest general in the Union Army. And in May 1865, Wilson was in charge of the troops who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Vouri, the San Juan Island historian, enjoys telling a story about old friends — a Yankee general and a Rebel general — who put the conflict behind them.

“After the war, Pickett was going to be charged with war crimes,” Vouri said. “He was living in Richmond at the time, and Ingalls told him, ‘You better get out of here.’ Pickett fled to Montreal.”

Tom Vogt: 360-735-4558; tom.vogt@columbian.com.

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter