Maine-born Oliver Otis Howard lived in a tight spot, a realm bounded by his commitment to evangelistic Christian faith, military duty and humanitarianism. The tensions of this triad served both well and poorly throughout his life.
A spiritual epiphany bent Howard toward the seminary just a few years out of West Point. Being an abolitionist, the war against slavery curved him back to soldiering. Although quickly promoted to brigadier general, he rarely won a battle. The 1862 Battle of Seven Pines cost him his right arm. Thirty years later, he received the Medal of Honor for that fight.
After the war, President Andrew Johnson assigned Howard to head the Freedmen’s Bureau, the nation’s first extensive governmental humanitarian effort. He was to turn 4 million former slaves into citizens. The bureau collapsed under the stench of corruption and Southern politics that turned Reconstruction intentions topsy-turvy.
Unsullied by the perversion of Reconstruction’s failure, Howard turned his energy to teaching at West Point. In 1867, an African American college, Howard University, was named after him.
Howard was court-martialed for misuse of Freedmen’s Bureau funds but acquitted of most counts, likely because Gen. William T. Sherman stacked the tribunal with officers friendly to Howard. The Army sent Howard, untainted by the charges against him, to the Southwest to serve with Gen. George Crook and negotiate peace with the Apache leader, Cochise, in 1872. Meeting Cochise in southern Arizona’s Dragon Mountains, Howard convinced him to sign a treaty ending a decade of war in the Southwest.
When Howard revealed to Crook that he believed the creator had intended him to be “Moses to the Negro,” and next to the Native Americans, the general thought him daft. Crook felt differently after the Christian general brokered peace with Cochise in 1872.
Howard arrived in 1877 at the Columbia Barracks headquarters in Portland. The War Department ordered all Army personnel to move to the nearest post the following year. With no housing for the general, he and his wife and nine children lived four years in the quartermaster’s residence until the Howard House could be built. Lt. C.E.S. Wood, his aide-de-camp, and servants also lived in the house.
Howard worked well with his friend Gen. Sherman, under whom he had won a few Civil War skirmishes. Although he sympathized with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, he followed Sherman’s orders to annihilate the tribe. Howard doggedly pursued Joseph for five months, who either fought off Howard’s 900 soldiers or eluded them. Only a severe winter made the Nez Perce chief surrender. In words taken down by Lt. Wood, Joseph declared he would “fight no more forever.”
The pursuit of the Nez Perce embarrassed Howard personally and professionally. He eventually gained the rank of a two-star general before he retired. When the Spanish-American War broke out, the “Christian general” returned to evangelistic efforts to keep troops out of bars and brothels. Perhaps, it was his own bid for redemption.
Martin Middlewood is editor of the Clark County Historical Society Annual. Reach him at ClarkCoHist@gmail.com.
