WASHINGTON TERRITORIAL CIVIL WAR READ-IN SEEKS VOLUNTEERS

Family history has a funny way of coming full circle, even after 150 years. In April of 1861, a presidential proclamation called for 75,000 men to serve in "The War of the Rebellion" for three months. A certain nineteen-year-old in Wisconsin—who would later become my great-great-grandfather—volunteered, joining the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. Now I have volunteered to help reveal a small part of the big story of a war that changed the life of my ancestor and for lasted years, not months. I've volunteered to help examine the Civil War experience in Washington Territory through the Washington Territorial Civil War Read-In. 

 



Property of Candace J. Brown

“Washington Territory? The Civil War didn’t happen here, did it?” people ask.

That was my reaction too, when I first heard of the project. Among the pioneers, except for immigrants who had recently arrived in North America, many must have had relatives involved in the bloody conflict, so of course it mattered to them. But with communication slow and difficult, and since no battles took place here, it is easy to imagine that the war seemed remote from the lives of those in the distant Northwest. I could not have been more mistaken.

Even though residents of Washington Territory could not vote in the presidential election of 1860, when it came to strong convictions and politically-based actions they were as involved as anyone back in the States, United or Confederate. In recent years, the Washington State Historical Society has discovered in their records a wealth of material related to the territory’s experience of the Civil War. These records exist in the form of letters, newspaper clippings, books, and other items, more material than the usual researchers have time to read. That’s why they developed a research project called the Washington Territorial Civil War Read-In, running from January through August 2012. And the WSHS needs our help.

Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society, and quoting from their information,

"Democratic appointee James Tilton arrived in Olympia, Washington Territory in 1855, accompanied by his family and a young black slave, named Charles Mitchell. Mitchell fled to the Crown Colony of Victoria in September 1860, a fugitive on a tiny Puget Sound underground railroad.  Here, the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, October 18, 1860, reprinted an article on the flight from a Washington Territory newspaper."

In anticipation of a major exhibition titled “Civil War Pathways,” scheduled for February 2014 at the Washington State History Museum—and in order to build a searchable online database—WSHS is looking for volunteers to read and review various materials that tell the story of the antebellum,wartime, and early Reconstruction periods as experienced in Washington Territory. The volunteers will help to create a database of citations and scanned documents by uploading their findings to an online form, thereby documenting what they’ve read. Training session held in various cities around the state will teach these researchers everything they need to know. Each assignment will require about a month to complete in a person's spare time and should prove fascinating for those of us who love history.

Lorraine McConaghy is a professional public historian who works at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, teaches at the University of Washington, and is the author of three books. Active in many history-related organizations, she lectures and shares her enthusiasm far and wide, and is also managing the Read-In, with help from Darby Langdon, the project coordinator.

McConaghy told me in an email, "This audacious project will harness the work of hundreds of readers in our state to create a unique database, and it is also a wonderful opportunity to really understand Washington Territory's Civil War, from scratch—from the very newspapers, correspondence and public records of the time!"

 

photo portrait James Tilton, ca. 1865      courtesty of the Washington State Historical Society

Take a look at this excerpt from the F.A.Q. document the project provides to volunteers, stating facts about the impact of the Civil War in the Territory of Washington that will surprise and amaze most people:

Convictions about race and slavery, treason and secession, military preparedness, international relations and wartime suppression of civil liberties divided settlers in Washington Territory as they divided Americans in the Confederate States of America from those in the United States.  Washington’s governor resigned to “go South,” and so did many officers of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy who had been stationed in Washington. 

Not every settler partial to the Confederacy or opposed to the Lincoln administration left the Territory.  Those who stayed behind ranged across a spectrum from Peace Democrats to the secret, paramilitary society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, extremists who drilled for the assassination of Lincoln’s political appointees and advocated the secession of the Pacific Republic.  There was one celebrated fugitive slave case on Puget Sound, and at least one other African-American slave in the Territory.  Settler attitudes toward race were enormously complicated in Washington Territory, where the racial hierarchy included Asians from the “Sandwich Islands,” Native and mixed world people, blacks from Africa, and African-Americans, slave and free. 

While some Republicans were abolitionists, few at any point on the political spectrum were advocates of black social, economic or political equality.  In other words, one could oppose slavery but not favor free blacks.  As far as we know at present, no anti-war, anti-Lincoln newspaper in Washington Territory was shut down by military authority; the northernmost newspaper to be closed was the Portland Advertiser in the new state of Oregon.  Territorial residents had subscribed by mail to the Advertiser as well as a number of other Oregon antiwar newspapers; Republican appointees delivered the mail in Washington Territory and were partly responsible for the suppression of those newspapers, seen as treasonous.  And, as far as we know right now, there were no territorial instances of the suspension of habeas corpus.  The Crown Colony of Victoria was the destination for at least one fugitive slave from Washington Territory, fleeing to a substantial black community; however, Victoria was also the haven for pro-Confederate sympathizers and Confederate agents, seeking to purchase and equip a war steamer to harass coastwise shipping. 

Training dates, times, and locations for the Washington Territorial Civil War Read-in are shown below.

NOTE: I just received an update from Lorraine McConaghy about an additional training session in Seattle. She said, "The demand has been incredible, and the first two trainings are completely full. So we're working to find a site for a training in the Seattle area, 10-4, April 27. If folks will let us know that they're interested, we'll add them to the list and let them know when we do and where the training will be."

Even though Seattle seems to have plenty of volunteers, many more are needed in other parts of the state, so please share this blog post with anyone anywhere in Washington who might be interested.

Please note that the Walla Walla training is on a Sunday, whereas most others are on Saturdays.

Saturday, February 9, 10-4 Seattle  FULL

Wednesday, February 13, 10-4 Seattle  FULL

Saturday, February 16, 10-4 Vancouver

Saturday, February 23, 10-4 Olympia

Saturday, March 2, 10-4 Tacoma

Sunday, March 10, 12-6 Walla Walla

Saturday, March 23, Yakima

Saturday, April 13, 10-4 Cheney

         Saturday, April 20, 10-4 La Conner

 

           

NEW! Seattle April 27, 2013 Location TBD (See note above)

 

 

Would you like to be involved? It’s easy. Just contact Darby Langdon dlangdon@seanet.com or Lorraine McConaghy  lmcconaghy@wshs.wa.gov for more information. They will welcome your inquiry and answer all your questions.

But don’t wait too long. If enough people hear about this you could miss the opportunity to help create this lasting legacy. And when it’s all finished the volunteers will be invited to a celebration where they can meet each other. Like the information document says, “The Read-In is a community, not just a project.” Please join us!

 

 



Republican Versus Democrat—Civil War Memories Warn Us To Close The Great Divide

William L. Livesley       Company A Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry

Three days after the election, we're back in the fight, brother against brother, sister against sister. This morning I read with dismay, this news story about President Obama's, apparently voter-sanctioned approach to taxation and the so-called "fiscal cliff," versus the stance of Republicans, who still point a finger at "entitlement programs" and firmly resist raising taxes on the rich. It's more harping on the same points of disagreement. Both sides have their points and both feel they are right. The president is trying to bring the two sides, and the nation, together to solve problems that no amount of partisan bickering will ever solve. I wish him luck, for all our sakes. Yes, this is democracy in action, but we might hope it could be a more civil democracy.

This situation, especially in conjunction with Veterans' Day, makes me think about another time in this nation's history when divisions between its citizens reached a critical point and became the Civil War. As the great-great-granddaughter of a Civil War veteran, I consider his perspective. I am republishing an updated version of a blog post I wrote in 2008, when Obama was first elected, because I believe it makes points we need to remember. ~



On my desk sits an original copy of a book called The Sauk County Riflemen- Company A 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, over a century old, published in 1909. The cover is still a rich blue and the paper high quality, but fragile. I turn the pages with great care. Without my respectful handling it could someday just fall apart.

My great-great-grandfather, William Lamb Livesley, was one of the original members of Company A, one of the young men who signed up to fight for his country during the recruitment drive in what was still considered "the West" during the Civil War. The 6th Wisconsin was part of what would later be known first as "The Black Hat Bridgade"—because of their black, western style hats—and then as the famous Iron Brigade. He treasured this book, inscribed to him by the officer who wrote it, Philip Cheek. It is drawn from diaries and eyewitness accounts of the daily experiences they both endured. He is mentioned by name, and some of the more harrowing passages are underlined in pencil, by him. I cannot even imagine the pictures those words brought to his mind.

After the recent presidential election, I look at the book and ponder those defining few years in my ancestor’s life, and in the life of our nation, and how it all relates to me living here in Tacoma and writing a blog called Good Life Northwest. I have existed only about half as long as this book, but that’s long enough to have seen a number of elections. What I’ve never before seen is so much division in our country. I wonder what my great-great-grandfather would think about it. I think it would fill him with deep concern.

William Livesley didn't believe in bickering. He believed in hard work and positive action. His can do spirit helped him survived the Civil War, traveled with him to the prairies of Nebraska where he homesteaded in a sod house, and during his travels west to Washington Territory, in a covered wagon. That will to survive kept him going when he walked from Eastern to Western Washington over the Cascade mountain range and fell ill, carving his name and the date into a tree trunk so his body could be identified if he didn't recover. His toughness carried him through pioneer days in Tacoma and on Vashon Island, where he brought his family in 1880 to be counted among the island's first settlers. His legacy is one of eternal optimism. We must call on that kind of spirit now.

Just a minute ago, I read again the Gettysburg Address, picturing my great-great-grandfather reading it back when it was the news of the day. Most of us (I hope) know the first sentence about our nation having been “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. It goes on …“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” The differences of opinion in the Untied States today cannot be compared to a civil war, but when I see our citizens so polarized I worry that this country I love, where I can live in peace and write my blog about living a good life might become as fragile as the pages of my book.

The book’s dedication reads “To our comrades, living and dead, this volume is lovingly dedicated.” and in the preface it is described as “a record of the private soldier-the man that placed the 'Stars' on the shoulders of the generals, the men that performed the hard work and suffered the most privation; the man that made it possible to preserve this Nation.” I have the greatest respect for the generations of soldiers who have fought and continued to fight, even in unpopular wars. To all those soldiers and to ALL my fellow Americans, in "red" or "blue" states, I lovingly dedicate this blog post. We are all soldiers in the cause of a brighter future.

No matter how you voted, let us now unite for the sake of our common concerns and goals. Partisan bickering must end. Like the members of Company A 6th Wisconsin, we are in the midst of a time that will define our nation’s history. Let us now, regardless of party affiliations, be grateful we live in a democracy—thanks to the brave soldiers of every generation. Let’s join together to ensure that a government “of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. Just like my book, without careful handling it could someday fall apart.

Here is how Cheek ended his book:

"No man liveth to himself alone. Not for themselves, but for their children, for those who may never hear of them in their nameless graves, have they yielded life ... Blessed be their memory forever."

Copyright 2012 Candace J. Brown

Now you can "like" Good Life Northwest on Facebook.

Veterans' Day - words from a Civil War Veteran

In 1909 a Union Army officer named Philip Cheek published a history of the Sauk County Riflemen, another name for Company A of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, in which both he and my great-great-grandfather served. It was part of the famous "Iron Brigade." His words still deliver an impact.

My ancestor joined in 1861, at the age of 20, during the early and passionate recruitment campaigns that swept over even the rural areas of Wisconsin with their tidal wave of patriotism. Now a century has passed since he was wounded in the leg at Gainesville on the evening before the 2nd Battle of Bull Run. The account of that time, as his officer and fellow soldier Philip Cheek wrote it, haunt us yet, 100 years later.

"The regiment advanced in line of battle across a field. Soon we heard a rip-rip, but did not fully realize the situation until the boys began to fall. Philip Hoefer was the first one hit in our company. We finally reached the assignment. "Halt! Right dress! Ready! Aim! Fire!" and the old 6th gave a volley that awoke a cheer from the other three regiments and a corresponding yell from the other side. And that yell. There is nothing like it this side of the infernal region and the peculiar corkscrew sensation that it sends down your backbone under these circumstances can never be told. You have to feel it, and if you say you did not feel it and hear the yell you have never been there."

Most of us have never been there. We may hear of, but cannot truly know the particular horrors of war. The weapons and technology may have changed in the past century, but mankind has not. When we see the flag waving in Tacoma and elsewhere on this Veterans Day, remember all those brave Americans who have fought for our country and still are fighting today. A great many of them have experienced these sensations, and worse. May all those of us who "have never been there," remember to offer our heartfelt respect and gratitude to all the veterans being honored today, as well as the active-duty soldiers still risking their lives. We know they will not all come home.

Here is how Cheek ended his book:

"No man liveth to himself alone. Not for themselves, but for their children, for those who may never hear of them in their nameless graves, have they yielded life ...

Blessed be their memory forever."